Neptune's Revenge

by cliff.west

What happens when the Battlestar Galactica from BSG 2003 finds another group of lost humans but these humans are from Rifts Earth? My first attempt at writing so buyer beware

4. Chapter 4

I do not own Battlestar Galatica or have any connection, other than I have seen the show, a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game, but I do own copies of some of the books and used them for this story.

Under the sea a few hours ago

Tha-kathi, was a senior Kittani. He had been on this planet for over 60 of its turns, around the little yellow star at this systems center. He was one of the few of his kind that loved being underwater, even if he hated the planet he was currently on. He had been that way all of his mature life. He had come up through the ranks, to finally take command of this War Shark six rotations before coming to this Rift rich planet. He and most of his crew had been brought to this planet on short notice. His people had come after the takeover of the landmass, which had at one time belonged to their most hated enemy. The world had been over flowing with energy and life, all things that could be used by his kind. The leaders of Atlantis set up a huge slave marked on that newly concurred land, and it always needed filling of new wares to sell or trade. So Tha-Hathi, his ship, and his crew had been brought to this planet, to help supply the constant need for new slaves. He had thought, at least for the first few years that his 4000 ton warship was overkill for this world. Now he knew that these humans could be a threat, after his first raid against a more prepared target. Now his beloved War Shark, had been repaired half a dozen times over the years. All because of these small beings that called this world home, and they were only getting stronger and smarter every year. At least that was the way it seemed to him and a growing number of his breed.

When word had been passed of a huge (for this world) water based convoy, which was carrying thousands of thinking beings to a new location. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up for his superiors. This decision would have been the same, even before the Demon and Deevil had returned to try to take this planet over for their own use. Now the High Lords needed this influx of meat from their many and varied needs. Humans were used both for food and they could be turn into weapons, to help the High Lords. So under direct orders from the highest levels, this attack force had been gathered and then sent out to do the High Lords bidding. Tha-kathi had been primarily charged to keep the fleet of human surface ships from making any safe port. Since he had been already out to sea, his was the perfect ship for that job.

Everything had been working out about as well as Tha-kathi could expect, for a very short notice combat mission. The other forces had some issues at first, but they were on the way. The other ships would soon be in position to attack the human surface water ships. Being the leader of a crew with ten other officers and 60 other crew was an art form, and took a lot of his time to do properly. That was why it took some time, well call it hours, to notice that the little group of ships had increased their speed. Unlike the humans they were stocking, he knew where the rest of the attack force was because his magic uses that were on his ship could tell him to within a foot. The target should have no idea what was coming for them. This mission had been operating under a very controlled environment, just so that surprise could be maintained. But yet they were now moving at over half the top speed of his craft, for no reason that he could make out. Why would they be doing that? When Tha-kathi reported up the chain of command about the change, before he did anything that might be later pointed to as jeopardizing the mission. The High Lords also wanted to know what was going on, and he still had been grilled about spooking the prey. He was ordered by them to close on the target, and find out what was going on. Then after working that out, he was to report back to him. Cargo ships did not like to burn the fuel, it took to move ships that large that fast. It just cost too much to replace the liquid fuels they used for a high speed run without a very good reason.

So Tha-kathi had increased the speed of his craft, and closed to see what was going on. He launched eight dolphin living drones to move out in front of his ship. To help him scout for any dangers that might be trying to sneak up on his ship. He had just finished putting on the body armor, which he was just doing in case something went wrong. Then things went wrong, while he was still closing up the armor in his large personnel cabin. It seemed like the world came down around his ears holes. The massive over 4,000 ton ship, shook like small sheep in a hungry dragon's mouth. Tha-kathi had a very hard time making his way to the command position on his ship, as his ship was hit again and again by massive hammer blows. Finally after making to the CIC, he demanded to know what was going on. His crew had no more idea of what happened than he did. They were being attacked but there systems were only picking up the incoming torpedoes and not who was launching them. It was like they were being attacked by ghost, very well armed, with modern weapons ghosts. He was thinking that this could not be right. Or could it? He would never know that one of his junior officers fired off a volley of torpedoes at the last sound he was able to pick up.

Above the large alien warship, the human crewed warships were on the shark looking warship like pack of wolves on a house cat. The I Cee U had been able to track and had accurately plotted the course of the enemy underwater warship. And they were able to get the information to escort commander without the enemy know about it. Kelly was then able to get the two Tritons, each with a towed XS 30 attack submarine set in a good attack position. It was set up so that the War Shark went right between the two groups with only a bit under 900 feet distance between all of them, and the target submarine. All of the warships had been powered down and playing like a hole in the water, not making a sound. The War Shark had been tracking the convoy by the sounds of their engines and wakes not by radar or visual. Without that data the alien sub had lost the escorts in the surface clutter. If the War Shark had enough time, and the I Cee U had not been around. It might have been able to use other systems or magic to find the convoy escorts. They just did not have the time and the humans were not inclined to give it to them anymore. On command from the Revenge, everyone else fired everything they had on the metal shark looking submarine. The two surface escorts each fired four torpedoes and six massive depth charges right on top of the War Shark. The surprise attack went through without interception, and even without guidance the depth charges found there mark.

The D-Bee warship was not the only one surprise by the attacking weapons. One of the small escorting warships had a surprise on board, which even the escort commander did not know about. The seven plasma warheads went off and a dozen similar armed charges went off only 15 second from start to finish. That was surprisingly good shooting, but the big surprise was a very small nuclear warhead that went off when it struck the alien craft. The seven other torpedoes did more damage total than that one weapons did. But it was still massive amount damage dealt out with only one hit. The main hull of the sub surface warship lost half of its armored strength in less than a minute. Along with that, the under mount laser cannon turret and one of the mini missile holding side fins were blasted off the animal shaped vessel. The quick reflexes or by accident, the gunner station on the War Shark punched off torpedoes from each of the chin or gill mounted tubes. The only target they had, was the one surface ship that had launched the nuclear weapon at them. The delay in the launching of the nuclear warhead equipped torpedo had given the enemy vessel time to look in the right direction when it was launched. The sound of the launching attracted the weapons operator. Maybe it was blind luck or karma but the small escort warship was blasted into finger sized parts. While the shock wave from the nuclear detonation was still shaking the water, and ringing sonar operator's ears on other ships in the human convoy. One human ship was already dead.

The dozen torpedoes launched from the barely submerged XS-30s, went in next. They struck less than a minute after the surface ships launched weapons. They spread their damage over the length and breadth of the large underwater warship, as one by one they found there mark. It blasted armor and sent more shockwaves through the vessel, but they did not do any telling damage. Every little bit helped, and this damage did set up for the enemy vessel for the hammer blows coming in from the escort commander's vessel. The War Shark crew had not yet been able to make to most of the weapons station to defend their ship. Every weapons strike would shake the ship. This was cause them to be delayed a little more as they fought to keep their footing. It was just as Captain Kelly had been hoping they would, when he planned this attack.

The massive tail fin of the shark shaped ship, separated from the main body of the enemy ship. As the four heavy guided torpedoes launched from the Neptune's Revenge, came in to add their own warheads to the abused water. All four were able to strike at once, with the damage coming in so fast and so heavy. That the non-human crew slavers of the enemy warship could do nothing but take the abuse. The now torpedoist shaped submarine had its hull breached in a dozen different places. That was before the last of the four warhead exploded against the side of the War Shark. Even with armor still covering the crew of the ship, they were dead when the last warhead exploded. The ship was flooding and compressing the air until it burned, just like an old style Diesel engine. The forward half of the once great warmachine was soon fallowing its tail fin, to the muddy bottom of the ocean. It soon would be joining the thousands of other wrecks in the mud. That had made the same journey over the thousand or so years, which man had plied the waters of this area of the ocean. This area was once called "The Graveyard of the Atlantic Ocean" for a reason.

The battle was over so fast, that Kelly and his crew were about ready to launch another salvo when they stopped in mid motion. Over there built in comms systems of their helmets, the sounds of the enemy ship breaking up came to them. Then they heard it being crushed by the increasing waters depth, as it sank lower and lower in the water column. It came over the built in speakers loudly and very clearly, enough so as to cause some to become very uncomfortable hearing it. The experienced crew had no problem in identify the sound of a ships dying, as the unforgiving ocean claimed more lives. It was under the cover provided by the reverberating sound waves of exploding warheads, and the submarine breaking up. That the once living dolphins now turned drones slipped away. They were on their assigned mission to find the little fleet, and attack one of the largest ship they could find.

It was now time for a mad dash for a safe harbor, but the human convoy needed to stay as a group. Or they would die one at a time without any mutual support. The remaining escorts were placing themselves between the rest of the attackers and the almost defenseless cargo ships. It seem like they might make it, but that was only for about 20 minutes. Then things started to go the slavers way again.

"Sir, the I Cee U reports that the Strike ships have increased speed to 120 mph, and are closing on us FAST! They are also saying that the Sea Fins are now on the surface, and moving at between 50 and 60 mph. The range is opening between the two groups, but the Strikes will be within 40 miles of us in about an hour at this sea state." Stated the plotting tech as she updated the table, as she told the commander at the same time. Multi-tasking was a must on a modern ship of the seas.

Kelly dropped his head and looked at his ships shoes. He had been hoping, that by taking out the large submarine first, and by surprise. It would force the rest of the attackers to drop back a good distance from his convoy. He had hoped that maybe, they would take the time to come up with a new plan. It looked like luck, was just not with them today.

Kelly was quite for almost a full minute, then with a sigh he started to give orders. "Well that tears it. Send to all ships "Scatter, good luck and god speed. We are going with the plan GTH." He looked around the bridge and picked up the ship wide speaker phone. He used his middle finger and pushed a button to activate the system. "This is the Captain. We have 60,000 tons of warship and slavers heading our way. We will do what we have to, for as long as we can. We will make sure as many people, can get out of the way of those monsters. When we signed on to be an escort, we agreed to put our lives forward to protect others. Well boys and girls, looks like we will earn our pay today. No matter what happens. Those slavers will know, that they had been kissed, before we are done. May Neptune's trident strike deep and may the shield Aegis protect us!" He let go of the switch, and put the speaker phone back on to is locking cradle.

Captain Kelly looked around the group of crewmembers on the bridge. He know it would only take a few seconds more, before every soul in the whole fleet know what was about to happen. The little convoy was just starting to break up, when Captain Kelly looked up with a jerk. His eyes drawn to the sound and the flash of an explosion. His eyes were glued to raising large tall fountain of water, which was rising from the stern of the 650 foot long M/V Luck Find. Before the water had settled back down back down to sea level. Four round elongated cans fell from the aft deck of the large transport, and into the water. A few seconds later, the high tech depth charge detonated when they came into contact with something hard below the waters.

The Communications station operator's head came up, and yelled across the bridge before Kelly could turn from the armored glass. "Sir! The Find reports that someone attacked, and destroyed one of her props and rudders. They think they got two of the attackers but they are requesting help. They are dead in the water, until there engine management system reboots."

Kelly reacted quickly, like the highly trained professional he was. "Helm! Hard over to starboard, and bring us close on her leeward side. Then cut all power to pods."

Before he could say more. The old enlisted man, which was the link from the bridge to the deployed parasite craft, let his leather lungs sound off at full volume. "Sir! The attack subs are reporting contact with four Dolphin class combat drones under the Find, and are moving to attack them. Do I need to wave them off?" The four small craft would not want to be caught in a cross fire between the Lucky Find and the Neptune's Revenge, if they could help it.

Captain Kelly was looking at the plotting table, and did some quick math in his head. "They must have been on a Sled from the War Shark, and on the way towards. But before we blew her out of the water. I should have had thought of that. They had a picket out as a trip wire force, and we did not pick them up on passive sonar. That was sloppy. I should have known better, or at least looked around after we blew that slaver out of the water."

Kelly made a face before looking up from the table. "Contact each of the attack subs. Confirm to them. That they are take out those abominations right now! Don't worry about the bills, just put them down. If they can get any proof of their destruction great! If not, well the Whale Singers will know what we did any way, by the end of the day. If the attack submarines need any help let us know, and we will drop hammers for them." Kelly was pissed, he had been over confident, and it had come back to bit him, well bit another ship in the aft.

Joe looked over to Kelly, and pitched his voice a little low. So low, that it would not carry to the rest of the nearby bridge crew easily. "Yea, your right. They will like it, if we can free those tortured animals even it was by killing them." Dolphins had also changed with the coming of the Rifts to this world. They had always been smart, now they were proven smarter than a lot of people that Kelly and Joe could name. The slaves were not always after humans, and they would turn these peaceful animals into weapons of war. The Whale Singers were a new type of whale that looked after other animals of the deep. They even could carry battle armor and weapons to defend themselves and attack slavers. They were good allies to have in the hostile oceans. They would like it that Kelly and his ship had freed these tortured souls, even if did kill while they did it.

Kelly nodded once to the XO but in a low voice, so that it would not carry too far. "Joe, I want to have those four do a quick search of our local area after taking out those drones. While there doing that, we need find out how badly the drones hurt the Lucky Find. I don't want to have any more surprises, than we have to." He raised his voice so that it would carry to the different station around the Bridge this time. "Speaking of the Luck Find, Comms, please contact her head master. Try to find out how badly they think there damaged. Pass along that we need a detailed report as soon as they can get one together. We can use it, to see how we can help her."

It was almost half an hour later, the communication crewmember came up to the Captain, as he was looking at the plot glass. The enemy ships were close enough to be picked up on the Neptune's systems, without having to have the data first forwarded from the I Cee U. "Sir the Captain of the Find report that they have lost one shaft and prop, but they did not lose the rudder after all." The tech's hands were shaking as she read the rest of the message. "They report they can make 20 mph, but that is the top speed at the maximum power setting."

She leaned forward and pitched is voice as softly as possible. "Sir, we also have picked up the edge of a large Rift. It is about 40 miles to the east of current course, on north to south line. It was not there 10 minutes ago when we last ran a detailed active scan. I thought it was a system glitch or something, so I did not pass it over to the plotting glass, yet. Now we can pick it on passive optical systems as well."

Kelly took offered slip of paper, and read the information for himself. He looked back up to the tech, and made eye contact and then nodded his head up and down. He only needed to that once as a reward. He stern look told her that it was a border line reward. Please pass it to plotting table now, if you would."

The comms tech waved to one of her co-workers on the other side of the metal room, then looked down at her small hands. She was not wanting to make eye contact with the ship's master, but she felt like she needed to explain her actions. "Sir, I know I should have passed it on before now. But I was worried that it might distract the crew, and if it had turned out to a glitch and not there for real. It would have caused problems with the crew for no reason."

Captain Kelly suspected that would have be the case, but he was watching the plot glass as the Rift was added to the information on the plotting table. Rifts were very scary events, and Kelly did not doubt that it would have been on everyone's mind that a Rift just happened to show up. He had seen reports, and heard stories about people who were supposed to be able to "call" Rifts. Why someone would do a crazy thing like that? He had no idea, but that had been in the reports he had read. The only thing Kelly now had left were a series of bad options. For the life of him he could not come up with anything like a "good" idea. He had to buy more time for the rest of the convoy to escape the slavers. Not only was it his job, but it was the right thing to do. He reached over to a phone like device mounted on the side of the plotting table, so that he could have a private conversation with the person on the other end. The comms tech that had made the report had already returned to her station, and was not in earshot of the ship's captain. He had only one idea that might work, if things went there way perfectly, it did have half a dozen variations. If they did not break that way? Well they were on borrowed time anyway. That was just a fact of life on Rifts Earth

"Patch the Captain of Luck Find to my private line, please." Kelly said to the radio tech in an as even tone as he could. Most of the people on the bridge would think that he was just checking on the repair times. Kelly then waited patiently on the line until the voice he was waiting on, answered on what Kelly was hoping also was a private line on his end.

It took a hand full of seconds for someone on the other end of his phone to pick up, and speak to him with the greeting of the day. Captain Kelly just jumped in with the reason for the contact. "Bob, they just gave me your updated damage report. I need to know two things. Is there any way to increase your speed, and how long would you need to complete repairs?" He was listing intently, then rolled his eyes to the ceiling of the metal bridge. It was as bad as he had feared. That just cut three of the ideas he had, right off at the knees. Then a brick came down, and landed right on his toe.

Kelly's eyes shot open and he almost staggered. "The whole prop was destroyed, and the prop hub with part of the shaft fell off?" Kelly's voice went louder than he had intended, when he repeated what the other ships commander had report to him. The Lucky Find did not use Azipods like the Revenge, but instead she used a pair of long metal shafts to turn the bronze fan like props. The power to turn those massive fan like blades was supplied from engines mounted deeper in her hull. The twin engines were mounted under the main aft mounted super structure of the Handymax design. Now that ship has lost half of hers mechanicals used to turn engine power into speed.

Kelly forced his voice lower but he did want to whisper. Whispering carried farther than most people realized. "Bob, I would bet that they know you're carrying over 2000 people in your hull. Even the Splugorth Sea Fins can make three times your top speed now." Kelly swallowed before dropping his suggestion to the other ships master. "I have an off the wall idea. It does not give us, and that includes you and your crew now. That much of a chance of living, but it is better than alternatives that we will get from the Slavers." He told the other man the first part of his plan. It went over about as well as you would expect.

Kelly waited, and let Bob go on with his ranting. And when the other Captain took a breath, to start up again. Kelly jumped in to stop him from blowing out his eardrums. "Look Bob. It will buy enough time for the rest of the ships to get under cover of some air support. We have confirmed GAW is flushing everything they can beg, borrow or steal to come our way. By the way, how is your Independent life-support system working?" Kelly went into so more detail of his plan. All the time making sure the rest of his bridge crew could not hear him.

He was listing to the person on the other line, who was a little calmer now. "Bob this is my plan. If you're not game, then put everyone you can in lifeboats and shoot them in head. That is because they will be as good as dead anyway." Over the next few minutes, Captain Kelly gave the other man a little better outline of his insane plan. It was a plan only a desperate person would make up, much less try to sell to another somewhat sane person. It also was the only plan that any of them could think of. That might give them a better than zero percent chance of them not becoming slaves or food for the D-Bees on their heels. It still sucked and they both knew it.

The two Horune Strike Ships looked like the back of a whale waving its fluke in the air above the sea, but with an inverted Y attacked at the end of its body in place of a flat and wide tailfin. They would have looked just like the animal, but for the size and the Y attachment. They were not of this Earth and this pair had not even been built on this planet. Instead they had been brought here by evil magic, and lots of it. The pair were closing in on the lightly armed cargo carrier at their highest speed that they could make. The second large human surface ship must have left this one alone, because it was no longer detachable by the two slavers commanders on the on rushing ships. That was what the Horune in charge of the two alien ships had talked itself into believing. This idea had the advantage that it match what it was seeing and what it wanted to see with its own biologic senses.

They would collect this one ship, and then work on tacking down the other large ships. That they had been told about, with such a valuable cargo of thinking meat with in there hulls. The Horune commander knew that his leadership would not be happy with him, no matter how much meat they brought back. The loss of the War Shark was shock, and blame must be placed for the loss of such a valuable asset. It had not doubt that it would be him, which was blamed for the loss of the animal shaped vessel. The ships still under his command were closing on their target, as fast as the odd shaped ship could go. Many among the mixed crews on both of those ships were excited. Where planning on what they would be doing with the prize money, and rewards they were about to receive after taking this vessel. No one had told them that human adage, about counting chickens before they hatched. They might have been just to alien, to understand what was meant by the saying. That would soon change, if they lived long enough to learn.

The two Horune ships were only about four miles from the massive cargo ship, and coming up fast onto one of its massive slab sides. They were about to the location, that the two slaver ships were about to fire a warning shot when the situation changed. The idea for the warning shots, was to scare the cargo/passenger ship into stopping. It would make boarding easier for the slavers. They also did not want to waist the ammunition, or wear and tear on their weapons. Second if they could scare the ship into giving up. They should be able to take more slaves, that otherwise might have died due to an exchange of weapons fire. They might have wanted to know about another old human saying. And that one was. "No plan survive contact with the enemy".

One second the slave ships were fallowing one ship. Then all of a sudden a second ship showed up from beside the other human cargo ship, with weapons blazing. The Neptune had been using the larger Luck Find as a radar and visual shield, until when the time was just right to attack the approaching enemy ships. Using a data linked feed from the other side of the cargo ships to the warship's bridge, Captain Kelly knew when it was time to act. He was manning the helm in person, because he had a finer touch on the controls with all of his years of experience working that position. He flipped the azipods 180 degrees, flared the massive blades to push the most water they could, and went to maximum power setting on the engines. This was done all in one fluid movement that was so fast, it was missed by most of the bridge crew nearby.

When the ship's bow had cleared the Lucky Find. Kelly swung his ship around with in her own length, with an over revving of the bow thrusters helping to move the warships bow along a little faster. Now facing the right direction, and clear of the larger cargo ship. Kelly charged the two enemy ships, using every bit of horsepower his ship could produce. To give at least a little bit of cover to the Neptune, the Luck Find had ordered its own twin missile launcher to go into rapid fire mode. They would be adding there damage potential of High Explosive and Plasma/Napalm warheads on the two slave looking ships This would be on top of what the Neptune's Revenge was going to the pair of alien crewed vessels.

The Lucky Finds weapons fire was not trying to sink the two enemy ships, but it was more to keep any power armor pinned down on the exposed decks busy. By busy, they wanted them to either duck for cover or try to shoot down the incoming weapons. Kelly did not want them flying off the ship, and attack the two ship left under his command. It they made it airborne they would dilute his firepower with too many individual targets. They did need to have done that this time, but the plan was based on personal experience of both sea captains. The Slavers believed that they were not going to have firefight. Until that is that, they boarded the large human ship with its few thousands lightly armed soon to be slaves. What power armor the slavers planned to use, was the lightest made for the slavers. That was supposed to help them move around the anticipated narrow corridors and hatches of the targeted human ship. What the Horune commander had on deck, had also been rigged and fitter out with low damage weapons. They were not meant to be used in a heavy stand up fight of any kind. It was hoped that these would make taking the humans alive both easier and quicker. Even there magic users were not ready for a firefight of any kind. The Horune own magic users, were below decks getting ready for the inflow of new slaves, that it would be there jobs to see to the need taming. But mostly they were thinking about the fun that would be having among the helpless human crews. That hey were about to have access to.

Captain Kelly was leaning forward on the edge of his command chair with both hands on the controls. "It was working, it was working." He thought to himself and unknown to him his statement, had slipped out for the rest of the bridge to hear over there built in receivers. He waved for the younger helm operator to take over driving the ship, now that the hard driving was over. Captain Kelly now had other things that needed to be commanded, now that the fine driving was done. The first missiles that had been launched from the Lucky Find were now impacting on the enemy ships. More were making it to contact the target, more than any of the humans in their right mind had a right to expect. The downside was that even medium sized warheads, were not powerful enough to really hurt the magic made ships. That is unless a truck load of them hit all at once. It started the job, but it was going to take a lot more firepower to kill the pair of slave catching ships. Or they would need a whole lot more luck, than they had been given over the last few weeks.

Kelly had his electronic field glasses out and study the situation unfolding off his ship's bow. "Helm thread the needle, at the run if you please. Forward missile launcher focus on the Port side ship first then the starboard one. Other turrets take the ship on their sides as we pass. Let the gun captains know, not to spare the ammo or power. The orders are "Take the gloves off, if you please." The weapons officers smiled and passed along the orders word for word. Some were going to love them, others were going to hate those words. The surprise for the land based passengers, would be that some of the haters were on his own gun and missile crews. The reason was that, someone had to carry the reloads for and to the rapidly firing human weapons. That was hot, heavy and dangerous work, even when other people were not trying to kill you at the same time. They would deal with it and get the jobs done, after all. It was not as if their lives depend on how fast or well that they could do their jobs, are anything like that.

The bow mounted long ranged missile launcher was a modified ML-12 design. It was firing four missiles at a time, each with a heavy proton warhead. It would then turn about a hundred degrees, and fire four more missiles at the other ship. Then it would shift again, to fire more missiles at the first target. This was about as fast as the weapons mount could fire at a target this close. They could have fired faster, but they would not have any hope of hitting said target. Long ranged missiles were very expensive and sometimes were very finicky about needing targeting data. With long range missiles there was a thing for being "to close" to your target.

Behind the ML-12 were a set of three anti-missile ion weapons, which were of no help right now, but would be helpful when the enemy missiles and battle armor started to fly. Behind them were the heavy twin barreled laser turrets that were built at the end of the Golden Century, one on each side of the ship. They were fired at maximum powered level of energy into the slavers ships, as fast the systems could cool and recharge. Each turret was getting off three aimed shots every 15 seconds, and missing a target that were the size of the Horune vessels and at this close of a range. That was just not going to happen, not with these well trained gun crews. Data and image recording feeds going into the Bridge and gun crews, started to show parts staring to fall off the slave collecting ship. More and more hits kept adding damage to the enemy ships. As the angled changed between the attacker and slave ships, more and more weapons were able to engage both enemy vessels.

The two salvaged long barreled 5 inch heavy cannons that were bored to 127mm in diameter were next in line. They were firing new plasma warheads into their targets as fast as they could. The gun crews were up to around 15 to 20 of the 75 pound rounds per minute coming from each gun barrel. It was a rain of metal and fire hitting the targeted enemy. These cannons were not firing Golden Century built ammunition, but items that had been built after the Rifts had brought humans so low. Iron Hold of the Coalition States, had first made these types of rounds for the 8 inch cannon mounted on the Sea King class cruiser. With the large number of Warships found by GWS, they had opened a second line to make the slightly less powerful 5 inch cannon shells for the growing market. They might have been less powerful than the larger cannon. Now they could cause more damage, than at any other time before the comings of the strange blue energy lines brought humans race low. It did not do much for the barrel liners life. They could put a world of hurt on whoever was on the receiving end of the steel rain until the liners wore out. Captain Kelly had two of those single gun turrets called MK 45 mod 5 in another time on his great ship.

The three forward mounted Ion anti-missile mounts manned by armor suited gunners were now taking out the few counter launched missiles coming from the slaving ships. The center weapon of the three gunners was the senior person. She was also the best gunner of the group. It was her job to swing her weapon to support whatever side might need her firepower, to intercept incoming enemy missiles. This also just happened to let her fire at each enemy ship, when she had time. Each hit was not even in the flea bite range of damage on the Horune crewed vessels. That is if she hit the targets that were out of her effective range, but it sure was fun. Besides the power was supplied by the ships main engine, as long as she kept the weapon in its mount. So she did not have to worry about little things like running our o juice.

It took over 90 seconds of battle for the first real, maybe aimed fire, to be sent back towards the charging human ship. By that time the crazy ship had went between the two slaver ships. In that time it had only been hit with one of the massive Plasma cannons, and one twin hit from a Plasma turret coming from the port side alien ship. And two twin Plasma turret hits from the starboard side slaver ship. Each hit rung the ship like an oversized bell and sent melted armor plate flying through the sea air. So far nothing had been hit that would adversely affect the ships ability to fight or float, yet. With the two enemy warships being so close, very few misses were made by the crack gun crews of the Neptune on their chosen slaving prey. The two Horune warships could not fire as freely, because any miss on the human ship could mean a hit on one of the other slaver ships. In fact the two enemy ships had hit each other six times. That was before the some of the Horune ship's officers were able to make it to the weapons crews. The officers had to explain that they needed to be more care full with their weapons fire control. Energy whips, do have a way of getting a gun crew to pay attention. It did however lowered their rate of fire. It also cut down on the amount of damage they could have caused the crazy human ship attacking them.

The same was not true for the human ship, and by the time it had passed between the enemy warships. The Port side ship was blown in half and parts were rapidly sinking towards the ocean bottom. The Starboard slave ship was listing heavily to one side and trying to open the distance between the two human ships. Captain Kelly turned his ship hard to one side. He was using one of the larger parts of the enemy 30, 000 ton hulks, as a shield against any weapons fire form the other slaver ship. Captain Kelly did not want to expose his ship to more damage just yet, if he did not have to. He knew that this was only the second part of this battle, and he was almost out of tricks that might work. If his luck held he had one more play.

The one remaining Strike ship was falling back, towards the two on rushing Sea Fins. It would seem that it, did not want to get into another firefight. At least not with a ship that not only had done so much damage to him. Not to mention that same said warship had destroyed his commander's ship, in only a handful of minutes. He being whom the sole surviving ship's commander, could not remember when the last Strike ship had been destroyed so fast. The total battle had been only 15 minutes from the time the Revenge popped out from behind the cargo ship, and when Kelly took his ship behind one part of sinking slave catching ship. The Slaver Captain wanted the security of more fighting ships, before he tried to take on these two ships again. He had lost his nerve, and his other officers knew he would lose his head. When they returned to base, no matter what happed during the rest of the battle. Kelly was okay with letting the last enemy warship escape. He had been hoping against hope that the second enemy vessel would pull back from the battle site.

When the slave catching ship was over the horizon and could not see the humans any more, he activated his plans for the next part of the battle. The two human ships turned from chasing the monster crewed slave ship, and went East word. They would be going at the best speed they could get out of their battle damaged ships, but still remain together. The rest of the human fleet were still going varying degrees of West to North. They were leaving the pair of ships to die together. Many of those ship's crews had mixed feelings. They were happy that they might live, and also embarrassed that they were happy. They knew that someone else was going to die, just so that they might have a chance to live a little longer.

Trans dimensional Rifts in 110 PA Earth were a common thing, not as common or as powerful as they had been in Dec 2098. But they were still around, and they ranged from being only very dangerous to the very real 9th ring of Hell on a very, very bad day. If you crossed into one of these blue ribbons of energy that cress crossed the world? You will never knew were you might end up. On the Earth side of the Blue miles long ribbon, you could not "see" threw to the other side. You could find yourself on Earth a few thousands of miles away, or someplace back in time but on this Earth still, or in space, on another planet, or even in another dimension. These places could belong to or ruled by gods or one of the devils that were now known to be very real, and very much live. The bad part was that they were just as evil as written about. If you were crazy enough to cross into a Rift, willingly. You only did so, if you had scouted the other side very well. It was considered good practice, that you had better have scouted it very well before you did a mass jump through into whatever was waiting for you on the other side. That was if you had the time. And were not being chased by lots of bad guys with lots of guns, heavy body armor, large warship, and even magic weapons at the time you were near one of these blue energy drapes. In this case they had to choose between short but miserable lives as slaves or play things. Or they can take their chances, and go through the blue glowing line of a Rift that crossed the blue sea and cloudless sky in front of them. It was not a choice that most would have enjoyed making or even thinking about making.

It was figured out by man some time ago. When they were just starting to come out of the Dark Age caused by the coming of the Rift, that Ships had special issues with dimensional Rifts. It was that anything that moved on the water, had a higher chance of moving threw a Rift unnoticed than any other type of movement on the planet. This could be due to weather, or water depth, traveling at night or half a dozen other theories. No knew why, for sure, it just was a given fact of life. To combat this problem, some of the first modification done on any of the larger ships, were the addition of space rated Airlocks. The design had been copied from a lucky find of an almost intact space transport off the coast of Free Quebec. It had been found during the Dark Age, which had been maybe near the ground when the Rifts came to this planet. This find also showed engineers, how to make or modify the ship's hulls to be truly airtight and space rated. This did not turn surface ships into submarines or spacecraft. It did make so that if those ships were transported to a place where the air was hostile, or underwater but less than a mile deep they would survive for a short time. The ship writes tried to have as many bases covered as they could, but if a Rift dropped them some were in the sky more than 30 feet above something hard? Well, then they were in for a fall to the planet's surface. That is until someone could come with a way to make a 58,000 ton ship fly through the air without wings. So far there had not been any breakthroughs in a technology fix for that department. You could try keeping someone with very strong magic skills around. But that was still listed as an at best a "maybe, you would live through it".

To supply clean air for the passengers and crew with the right mix of gases and food. A high-tech hydroponics zone was designed each craft that was large enough to carry one. It was complete with robotic automatic pollinators installed, if the ship's owner had the money. It would be installed on a ship very quickly. This outfitting was called an Independent Life Support System or ILSS. A full functional one could keep a ship as a viable habitat for months, even if they were lost in deep space. Some very wealthy owners, who lived on their pride and joys full time. Were known to even try to mount rocket thrusters on outside of their ship's strong hulls. No one who had done this extensive modification to their ship had return to Earth, yet. So the practice was considered dubious at best, and a waste of money at worse still.

Meanwhile back on the Neptune's bridge. Captain Kelly was watching the blue energy barrier glow get closer and closer, as both ships limped towards it. In his mind's eye he was still weighing, "Is this plan going to be worth it or not?" He had a sudden flashback to one of the pirate ship he, and his crew had taken mostly intact a few years ago. He was thinking about how the slave behaved before, they realized that they were freed from the slavers. He had nightmares for a year afterwards, now he had other nightmares that had overrode the older scenes. Those slaves were reduced to be more like human shaped animals, instead of belonging to the race called man and born to his world. He would rather die than let that happen to him. He was hoping and betting that the crews, would agree with him even if this plan went wrong.

He was interrupted from deep in thought by one of his crew speaking to him. "Sir, we are one mile, and closing from the edge of the Rift. You asked to be notified." The crew woman was nervous. And it was only going to get worse, if Captain Kelly did not snap out of it himself. This was the time to be a leader, not a bump on in a chair.

"Helm! Full stop. Put me on the 1MC and also pipe me into the Find's system." Captain Kelly stood up from his chair and picked up the phone device with a false since of energy. "This is the Captain Kelly. I want everyone in Full Environmental Armor, if you have a set. That even goes, if you're behind an Airlock, strap on, seal it, and strap in. Make sure they have a full power charge and connected to ship's power, if you can. Rig all ships for a Rifts transfer, and activate the Independent life support systems. All departments report to your command when complete. We are on a time crunch people, so be quick about it people. My the gods you worship be watching over us and protect us. That is all"

It took ten minutes for all the expected reports to come in to Captain Kelly. As the last one came in from the Lucky Find. He as not exactly happy as he read it, and it was put into his ship's log book. That was because only about 1/3 of the civilian on that the Lucky Find was carrying in her hold, would have the extra protection. That would have been provided by having a secondary life-support system provided by the high tech armor. The rest were only going to be protected by the hull of the cargo ship, when they made transit threw the rift. Kelly knew that they had to have more of the ERA in the cargo holds some were. They had to be packed down somewhere, but he did not have the time to look for it right now. It also did not help that the two Sea Fins with the damaged Horune Strike ship were now formed together in one force or group, and they were starting to close on them fast. If they staid together he had a chance to escape.

Captain Kelly was strapped into his chair and bit his lip. He could not delay it any longer. It was time to crap or get off the pot. "Helm bring us to one quarter power, until were at 10 mph. Please pass on that order to the Lucky Find. Let them know that we will lead the way in, and we will see them on the other side. Communications, hit the high power transmitter, and let's tell the world what we did. Keep broadcasting as long as you can."

That was the last order he need to give to his crew or the Captain of the other ship. Now Kelly just had to hope that the pirates on his tail were not in line of sight to see this. And fallow the pair of ships threw the Rift. The massively over power radio went active with a pre-recorded message in the clear. The rest of the ships of the convoy would hear it, but that was the only being that would receive it. Those radio waves bounced through the atmosphere and were reported to have been picked up as far as Australia, and central Russia. Most had no idea what was going on, or in some cases what was being said. Most however, could work out a few stood against many, just like in the stories of NEME during the fall of the Golden Century. In the New Navy ships toast would be given, and story told over and over again about the brave crews and there sacrifice.

The two great dark hulls started moving toward the tall blue line of energy, at a speed of a running human. One second both ships were floating on the rolling waves of water, and the next they were gone from this Earth. When the ships reappeared on the other side of the Blue energy curtain? They were not on the surface of any water on Earth, in fact they were underwater and at some depth. For less prepared ships, this would have been the end of them, right then and there. But the Lucky Find and Neptune's Revenge were ready for this little difficulty. On Earth ships, would have been found in the bottom of what are called "Dead Pools". This is where their bodies would have been picked over, and their weapons take by new owners. But by only those either brave enough, or crazy enough to check those so named Dead Pools. Instead when the ships showed up on this new world, they were surrounded by a thin bubble of air that wrapped around each of the ships. This air bubble soon broke apart in to smaller and smaller air bubbles, innumerable that then raced to the surface this new ocean over the heads of the ships crews.

The two huge and great ships had positive buoyancy provided by the air trapped within their hulls, and it started to act microseconds after coming to his new area. The ships started to rise soon after the bubbles started up. The two ships gained speed as they moved upward, like a wood cork held underwater after being released by a hand. The great grey sea barely notices the air bubble popping on the surface, when they broke the surface tension of the wave tossed ocean. The same would not be said of when almost 60,000 tons of high tech metal, plastic and ceramics, that were pushed a great bubble of water ahead of the twin rising leviathans. The bow waves caused by the upward moving ships caused a flatting of the wind and current made waves. Then in an eye blink, the flat gray water rose smoothly upwards. It was bubble of a type, but not air filled one like the first wave that broke the surface. This one was very different beast. In a second eye blink, the gray water bubble was pierced by metal as the tops of the ship rose about surrounding sea level.

The ships had gained quite a bit of upward momentum, before they broke the water's surface. All of that momentum stopped, the second they reached the top of the underworld. The effect was like a car hitting a brick wall at 15 mph. The people inside the hard shells of the ships were so disorientated, that they could not feel their bones break. They were lucky in that his only happened to those few who were not properly restrained. It was only a little more blood to mix with the vomit, which was already well representative on the wall, floors and ceilings of both ships. It was only a few seconds that they were on the surface not moving, before the crews stated to come back to themselves. This was the first Rift transfer 99.999 percent of them had done before. Captain Kelly, was the first on his ship, to be able to turn his thoughts into words. He was soon giving those thoughts to voice at volume that would surprise anyone who did not know him.

"Potting, give me a depth sounding, Damage Control where are my Damage reports? I want to know where that Rift is, people." He was only speaking in a normal voice level, but it rang off the metal walls of the bridge from the built in speaker, and also in each of the armor clad crew-members ears and showed up on their heads up displays in bright white texted.

Most of crew-members did not have the iron stomach, that a lifetime at sea gave there Captain. So it was not immediate, that they moved to respond to his command. More than one Chipwell or Northern Gun made face plate flipped up and open first. To relieve the warier of the stink the owners had put in their own helmets. After the short delay, they were back to their jobs to comply with their commanders orders.

"Sir, we have a leak in the forward missile launcher and the port-side torpedo turret. Turret crews and damage control are working to located them. Other than that, all cabins report that they are airtight and stable." Sang out one person from about in the middle of the command center. "We have 4,462 feet of water under the hull. We are clear on all passive detection systems." Came a second report as soon as the first one had ended. "Sir, I have a reading on the Rift. It is 200 feet off the stern and 600 feet below us." This came from a third person, with an older and stronger voice. More information was being add to the different displays around the bridge of the ship without being spoken aloud.

Kelly was taking it all in, and had an inside smile as his crew went about their jobs. Then his face went pale as the information settled into his abused brain. "Drop a marker buoy. Now! Tell me when it's deployed. If it fails, drop a second one, and don't wait for the command to do it!" He started looking closer at two different displays mounted near his command chair.

The crew-woman by the panel that would do what the Captain asked, flipped up a metal cage protected switch. She then activated it with a hard push of the now exposed round green push button. On the slab sided aft section of the old ship a clamp opened with a snap, and then a thud. As three pairs of clamps struck the side of the ship. A white and yellow painted object, which was 12 foot wide and 36 feet long oval shaped metal case made by Northern Gun. It dropped into the gray water below the holding clamps. It was one of ten devices mounted in that area of the ship painted to match and blend into the rest of the hull to be as invisible as possible.

The massive device broke into two parts deep below the water, a two full minutes after water entry. The heavily armored bottom third of the device separated from the lighter top end, and started to fall faster down the water column. When the heavy bottom was fifteen feet or so way from the top part. The top part of a long pin like protrusion, which would have been seen coming out of the top part was attached to the heavy bottom. The other end had been connected to a high tech mix of plastics and metals that would never rust, but formed a cable of flexible fibers. That cable was only as thick as the average man's fist, but it was almost strong enough to lift both of the two nearby ships out of the water with a single length. The cable used the speed of the falling anchor to snap the packing material rubber bands, and let it play out of the top part of the buoy. As the lighter part of the buoy got even lighter, it sped faster to the gray water surface. It broke the gray waves before the heavy anchor had reached the rocky bottom on the ocean floor.

When an internal sensor detected that the main part of the buoy was on the surface, and not raising any more. It stated more gears and electric motors turning inside of the free floating device. Soon solar panels deployed to power the systems, that would detected and monitor the nearby Rift. Even if this planet had more than dozen hours of night, or its sun did not provide enough UV, IR or visible light to convert to electricity. The probe had an energy supply as a backup system. That was in the form of a Northern Gun made Soil Oxide battery that could power the systems all by itself for six months. That was even if the solar cells provided no support at all. If the solar cells did provide some power, then the buoy could remain active for up to a few decades. The systems had just been activated long enough to calibrate and stabilize all of its systems. Before the object of their study disappeared off the planet, and its recording systems. The systems built into the device just recorded all the data, like it was supposed to. It did not care that its sole job had just went away, and stranded the pair of human crewed ships wherever the Rift had left them.

These events were being watched by a being that one group of humans, would have called a Lord of Kobol. It was nice of the Rifts, with a little push from him, to supply him with a set of humans that might be able to help his pet project out long term. His pet program humans were going to have a cylon problem again, and maybe a few other longer term issues. If he had not pushed a little in that other realm, with so much magical power seeping out of it. He might have had to expend a lot of very visible energy to save his pet project.

The Lord smiled, and with a twist of a ring, the Dimensional Rift closed behind the two human crewed water bound ships. He made a mental note to check on them soonish. He want to see if they worked out, as well as they should be able to. Now he had other things to do, which required his attention. The invisible being shifted to another Dimension, fading away from this plain of reality. He only had so much free time to play with this hobby, he was a god after all. And gods had gods level of work they wanted to/needed to get done.

What the crew of those two human ships did not know, was that something had happened after they left Earth. That was that the two Sea Fin ships had went to full power, and charged into the Rift following the objects they saw as only more prey. There commander was familiar with Rifts, his people had used them to travel between planets for a thousand years, but this one was different. His race built huge stone pyramids on Rifts to bend them to their will. The type of Rift his ships were be lining for, was called a wild rift. That type of Rift had some dangers associated with them, but they could not let the slaves on those ships escape. These soon to be slaves, had cost his leaders a huge price already. And if it failed to take those humans, his life would be added to the cost of this operation along with the commander of the surviving Horume vessel. The commander of those two ships was attached to his life, so he order both ships to full power. In they went, after the two human crew's water ships. They were only a few minutes behind the two human ships had left their home world.

The Splugorth built Sea Fins had very advanced sensors that could "read" the statues of the Rift, and more importantly what was beyond it with ease. The Splugort were on over 100 different planets and dimensions, which were known to the general population. The section commander reviewed the data those systems were telling the ship's crew. What was he supposed to do when it matched his century of experience? He ordered both of his ships to press the pursuit of the targeted prey. The two 57,000 ton warships, now moving at 60 mph and climbing, charged forward toward the blue ribbon of energy. The shields of the both ships were at full power, all the weapons turrets were manned, and all of the combat troops were primed and ready for large and heavy scale combat. He would not be over confident like the Horume commander had been, before he had died at the hands of the weak humans. Both Splugorth and Horume did not have words or ideas that matched the human ones of "over confidence". That was too bad, for those Sean Fin's crews.

What the ship board systems keeping an eye on the Rift could not tell them, was when a higher power was soon going to step in. Just as the two ships bow mounted weapons turret disappeared into the Rift and the second weapons turret was only half way into the rift, it happened. The Rift's blue energy ribbon just went away in the blink of an eye or the space between two heart beats. The aft half and mid-section just forward of the twin odd shaped hats that made up the bridge of the two ships, was cut clean in two from the bow. It was like a hot knife through butter, a clean cut, laser like. The section left in the Atlantic Ocean went down by the bow. As the opened space filled with cold sea water, now that a sharp bow was not cutting and moving the water out of way. Both ships might have survived the bow amputation. But without the magic force fields, and the engines driving the warships at maximum power, it was not going to happen. The pair of ships and crew were as doomed as all the slaves they had caught over the years. The front of the ships were driven hard into the cold grey wave tossed water. The internal hatches were not as strong as the outer hull, and they gave way exposing more compartments to the cold and unforgiving ocean. The alien ships could not handle that much water, in so short of a time. In less than a minute the two alien built craft, were making their way to the cold mud at the bottom of that area of the Atlantic Ocean. What was left of the crews on those ships were going to die slowly, alone and cold. The souls of all of those taken and put into slavery, would be happy to know that there had been some vengeance given. The area would be searched over in the fallowing years, to try to pull up items that might be useful from the two hulks. The pair of half hulks would turn into a high tech gold mine in all but name, for years to come.

The forward part of the ships with their weapon turret, missile tubes and it crew just went away when it made contact with the blue energy that made up the visible part of the Rift. It was like a razor or huge invisible energy guillotine had come down on the ships. There component metal and biologics were stripped all the way down to the sub atomic level in a blink of an eye. Then they were spread thin across space, time, and any other place they might have fallen into. They died so quick, that they did not even notice something was wrong or that they might die. This incident would be the subject of studies by both Humans and Splugorth. The theories were more numerous, than there were stars in the night sky. Even years later, it would come down to a simple statement. That they just did not know what would happen to something half in, and half out a Rift. When it went were ever it was that a Rift went, when they disappeared off of Earth. Limited data was recovered from data cores brought up from the pair of wrecks, but they just proved something happened. Not one byte of data was about what had happened when the ships were destroyed.

Back on the surface on an ocean that was very far away from where the Rift had been. Shock was hitting a both surface ship crews. A frantic crewman was pushing every button, and was working his system. But it could not be happened, but it did. "Sir, the Rifts… Sir it's just gone!" The frantic cry went out to loud for the metal room. "One minute it was there! Now it's closed. It's completely off our scanners. Like it never was there!" Heads were turning from all around the bridge, to look at who had called out with the disturbing news.

Captain Kelly was out of his chair in a flash. He was double checking the screen at the offending station. Then he reached over, and turned a few nobs, but the data did not change, but it was true. The Rift had closed behind them, and there was no sign of the enemy ships that had been behind them. This was the only the Second time that Kelly had gone through a Rift, but it was the first time that he had heard of a Rift just going away like that. Kelly had to look around real quick. He noticed the confusion and fear on every face in the room. He acted fast in trying to stop it from spreading like a wind driven grass fire. In as calm of voice as he could muster he addressed the young man. "Don't worry son, if a Rift was here once it will come back. Looks like we made it threw just in time to get away from those slavers." I hope, was left unsaid by the ship's master. He walked over the plotting board in deep thought. "If the rift did not come back, then we will have to find another way home." His mind went back to a few books band by the CS government on the "adventures", that had been written by those who had made it back to Earth. "I don't like the odds of that happening." Kelly thought to himself and turned slightly away from the bridge crew, so that nothing would show on his face.

With his face back under control, Captain Kelly had to get his people working again. "Okay people. We need to find out where we are? Let's see if we can pop our lids, and get some fresh air into these hulls. Someone contact Lucky Find, and see how they are doing over there." That should give them something to else to think about for a while, thought Kelly. He just hoped it gave him enough time, for him to come up with an idea about what had happened and what to do next.

One of the bridge staff walked up beside the Captain, on soft feet some time later. She waited till eye contact was made with the Captain, before she did anything else. When he was ready, he waved her up to his chair. He went back to looking down at the display with all of the information, they had so far. What she had to say, she did not want the whole crew to know about just yet. If the Captain wanted them to know, he would make an announcement later. That was not her call, and she was very thankful for that right now. So with a low voice she stated to address her commandeering officers. "Sir, I don't think were on Earth anymore."

The commander looked up from the plotting table, and had that look of "I'm waiting" with a raised eyebrow. She picked up on the look and she continued after a few seconds. "The Atmospheric pressure is 14.9 lbs. that is a little higher than we are used to at sea level. Even if we were under the biggest high pressure weather system ever recorded. It might be that high for an hour or so, but it would start to fall quickly. The other Atmospheric gasses match up close to Earth normal, but are all just a little off from historic data we have on file. They all are in the safe range, but they are just a bit off. Oh and the gravity is reading it at a solid 0.9 of Earths. I don't have a complete database, but I can't think of a time in Earth's history that meets the change in gravity."

Captain Kelly pitched his voice down just a little bit, and picked his words carefully. "That is some good news at least. We will have enough air to live on, but make sure it's run through the filters before you pump into the ship. We will pop the hatches as soon as the bio tests are done, and they come back clean. I think the crew would like to get out of their armor, and back on deck to stretch their legs and eyes. Post the reports as soon as the as the bio test come back clean."

The reports came in one at time and not as fast as Kelly wanted, but they came in. Those reports held little in the way of bad news, besides being lost. No one had been killed by the ships coming through the Rift, more than a few had broken bones or concussions. So far nothing that was life threatening and needing medical attention had been reported. It was cold outside on the ship's deck, but as soon as it was cleared and declared safe. Anyone that could walk on the open decks safely, did. While that was going on, the bridge crew were laying out a search grid of the local area. The Captain of the 58,000 ton Lucky Find reported that they were also running on standby power. Now both ships did not even had their props turning. They only had been drifting in the strange cold ocean, trying to be as small as possible to the locals that might be around.

They had to find land at some time, and it was no like they had charts of a strange planet on hand. Just sitting on a back shelf somewhere in the Captain's cabin. The two ships could have flushed all two dozen serviceable flying units, but that would have been nightmare to control. Only a dozen were launched with the rest kept as a backup. If something went wrong while they were scouting around. Captain Kelly did not want to waste any fuel, this plan would let them meet multiple issues with the least amount of fuel used. This was not a problem for the nuclear fueled Neptune, but the massive Luck Find ran on liquid petroleum fuel. This normally would not be a problem, when you near the oil wells of Louisiana. She had a big enough fuel tanks to make up to two complete round trips to the colony site, and back to her home port back on Earth. As luck would have it. She had topped off all of her fuel tanks, before starting this current trip. They had no idea how long it would before they will be able to fill them up again on this planet. They would have to be careful with what she left had in her tanks. Until something else could be worked out or they died, then it would not matter anymore to them. So they sat in place, and waited to find out what direction they would need to go with the massive floating ships. They just had to wait until the time finally came and they had information to act on.

It was a few hours later, that that the first sign of adapting to the new world came into the bridge of the Revenge. "Sir, the Luck Find reports they have set up, and deployed a pair of sea anchors over both of her sides. Their Captain also reports, that they have set some heavy long fishing lines to see what might be out there. Sir, they are advising us to do the same if we can, and remind us not to eat them, no matter how well cooked they are. They are reporting that there passive sonar is picking up schools of something below then. They have a few people, which say they will be able to find out if there eatable are not. That is if they catch and land anything or not."

Keely nodded his head in agreement. "Well it looks like now all we have to do is now wait, and view the data feeds from our fly boys. XO, why don't you see if anyone on the crew list know how to do that type of deep sea fishing. If they don't want to try wetting hooks, don't push them." Captain Kelly shifted his weight to the large padded back, and got more comfortable in his chair. Meanwhile Joe went to see if anyone, that was not doing anything important. Wanted to try their luck at some test fishing in a strange ocean. He was wishing he was off shift right about then, but he knew that he could not take the time off from being the XO to do some fishing.

The flying machines went to all points of the compass with the pair of mother ships at their center, and moved out in a pattern to find any landmasses. For all they knew this planet might not have continents, or any other land masses of any worthwhile size. They wanted to find any land first, then work up to what this new world might look like later. When Captain Kelly noticed the shadows starting to get longer on the deck, he ordered all the flying units back to their ships for the night. He did not want his people flying round at night, on this strange world. At least not yet, if he could avoid it. After the Bob (Big Orange Blob) set, there was little doubt that they were on an alien planet. The night sky did not have the easy to recognized constellation, or even bright stars over there head of the people in the dark running ships. They were truly alien stars over their heads, and the eye could not draw out common points. Unlike most people from the 20th and 21st century, the people born after the coming of the Rift knew the night sky. They could see the stars almost every night and recognize some with ease. The sky also had a slight glow that got brighter and brighter as the star sat on the water horizon. It did not take long for this news to spread through both ships. This was the final nail in the coffin of most doubters.

Captain Kelly used this opportunity to contact the other ship. Now that most of his crew were working on tasks, he could have a more private conversation. He was also starting to spend time looking forward in time, instead of just in the now. He went to this day cabin, so that the next conversation would be a fully private as he could make it. "Bob, Some night sky don't you think." Kelly stopped talking and let the other man reply. With the small talk done he wanted to get to meat of what he needed to know. "I don't think we will be able to use stellar navigation like we used to. What do you think?"

The Captain of the Lucky looked at the phone like it was a snake. Was this guy crazy from the Rifts transport? "I had not even thought about navigating yet. It would seem that there are two strong magnetic poles, because our compass is working. Is that why you wanted to talk, Kelly?"

Keely smiled, but no one could see it. "No, what I need you to do, is try to get a print out of the complete cargo manifest for both of our ships. I need to know what we have to work with, and I would rather not have to unload and re-inventory each and every container on our ships. Rule one of a survival situation is identify what resources you have on hand. Also do you have an idea of the skills your colonist might have, that can be of any use in this current situation?"

The man on the other end of the radio linked, smiled to himself. Kelly was a good man and thought he might be a good leader for this mess. "It's funny that you brought up that Kelly. Step one in my survivor guide is also "identify all your resources". I will see what I can do. I can tell you right now that as it turns out, I have at least three rogue scientists in the group below decks. They stopped by my bridge just after sunset, and asked to use my machine shop to make something called a Galileo Telescope. Before you ask, I have no idea it was till I asked them. It's some kind of easy to make, hand held Telescope that would let you see the larger moons of Jupiter back home. They were also the ones who set out the fishing lines. They were able to reach their EX-5 Behemoth Explorer, after some extreme climbing in my main cargo hold. They say that they will be able to run the tests on anything we catch, to see if we can eat it or not." Bob stopped talking for a second, so that the other man might be able to get a word in edge wise. It just was good radio practice.

Kelly was smiling even bigger now. This was very good news, and it had come a whole lot quicker than he would have hoped it would. "Having something like an EX-5 is great. Its better having people around that know how to use it, and are willing to help out. The last bit is a whole lot better, in my book."

Bob smiled again a little bigger this time, and nodded at the phone even knowing that the other man would not see it. "Kelly picked up on that one quick," thought the head master of the huge cargo ship. "I know that they loaded two of those things, and at least one EX-9 Behemoth Super-Explorer before we left port. I have some of my crew digging around, but we have not found them yet. We are still looking for them. It's not like we have much else going on right now. I also will have my best cyber guy working on the disk that was in the bottom of my safe. I hope to have more news in the morning. What are you thinking is going to be our next step, Kelly?"

Kelly was listening and taking some notes on his hand held computer. He should have known that Bob would have had already thought of that. "Okay Bob, go ahead tell me, not to tell you how to suck eggs. How about you come over for breakfast tomorrow around 9 o'clock ships time, and we can compare notes on what to do next?" He could hear the other man give belly laugh on the other end of the line. It was the first laugh, Kelly had heard in what seemed like days.

"Well you have the live chickens, so if you're planning on having fresh eggs cooked over easy? Then I think I can be there at 9." Bob was liking this man more and more. He just might be able to work with him, if things were going to be as bad as he thought might turn out to be. At least for now, or the short term. Long term would have to wait until they had more information to work with.

For the rest of the night armed guards walked the deck of both ships. Only passive systems were used by the walking guards, and bridge to keep watch on the area around the two ships. Radar system can be seen farther than they can themselves see. And being on a strange world, did not mean that there were not pirates on these same waters. The night went quickly and quietly, the only action was on the fishing lines, which had been dropped over the sides of both ships into the cold water. They pulled over a half a dozen different fish types to the ships decks. That was until something broke all of the high tech fishing lines. Those same lines that was designed to catch 16ft sharks, back on their home planet. That ended the fishing for the night, it was mandated that anything they caught that night would not be eaten or even stored near food. What was caught, was then killed and carried down the narrow metal stairs and into an EX-5 Behemoth Explorer robot. A crew of sailors had worked hard and it had been partially exposed, from the surrounding cargo in the massive dark hull of the transport ship. The items that were pulled up on the Revenge deck had to be handled a little differently. They were photographed and put in sealed plastic containers on the open steel decks. They would be sent over to the other ship n a few hours after dawn, so that it could be also tested.