Chapter 13

BRIDGE

PIRATE E- 'THE KRUK'

The Captain strode in, impatience flowing from every stride. The last few days have been maddening. He could not believe that those Starfleet types could have planted so many devices in a short time. This Starship must have had geniuses concerning laying traps, the devices were behind and in everything, tripped by numerous methods. Curious thing is that they were not causing serious damage, more of an annoyance if anything. They also found a couple more transmitters.

Which led to the next decision. Now that warp drive was back online, they needed to get to base to get their ship repaired. But they needed to go back to base carefully. "Helm, set course for approach system Alpha. Best speed possible."

The helmsman pulled up the necessary coordinates and entered them in and started the ship off at warp 3. The very act of him activating the navigation computers activated a virus that McGee installed. The virus simply recognized that coordinates were programmed as a waypoint to steer to, and reported it via a subspace transmission. McGee also had a virus in the communications system to not show the transmission on the panels.

The Captain sat down in his new makeshift chair. The new chair squeaked when he swiveled. And of course, the squeak was at that particular frequency that is exceptionally annoying. He is going to make that human captain pay dearly.

USS WISCONSIN

CAPTAIN'S MESS

Today's candidate was Lt Theodore Calvin, callsign 'TC'. He was relatively short, but very stocky. He also had a great laugh that exposed a gap in the middle of his upper teeth that just made you laugh.

Leonaidas sat back while the Captain and TC exchanged flying stories. Pilots. They always love to talk flying. Funny thing is that TC is one of the new breed; autopilot junkies that has been recently converted. So far all TC's experience with 'stick and rudder' is only on the Raptors with the Wisconsin. He still had the stories. TC was in the middle of one now. "So, I'm flying with Outback, I mean, Mr. Carter."

Jacobs smiled, "No problem, I understand." And motioned for him to continue.

TC smiled as he finished off his drink. "He's sitting in the whizzo seat putting me through the paces. We're coming back from a mission over in the Aleutian Islands doing a ballistic reentry to the Academy field north of San Francisco. He's throwing different things at me, for instance I was in the bag…"

Leonaidas asked, "In the bag…?"

TC turned to him and motioned with his hands, "To simulate flying by instruments only, we put on blinders that keep us from seeing outside the windows. Old pilots call it having the bag on, as though you can't see outside."

Jacobs stepped in, "We're coming to that part of your training. It only applies to flying in the clouds on total manual. Carter felt that because we have a no-electrical mission on the Raptor, they should be able to fly with their instruments only. The mechanical instruments."

Leonaidas nodded, "But won't the instruments not work also?"

TC shook his head and smiled the big toothy grin. "The backups will. Evidently Carter found some genius somewhere that resurrected an old gyro system from some airplane scrapyard. They remanufactured it and were able to install it on the Raptors. It has attitude output for us."

Leonaidas didn't hear about this and looked to the Captain. "How good is it?"

Jacobs leaned back after finishing his dinner and was sipping his tropical juice, which he was partial to. "Actually, surprisingly accurate. It not only does attitude, but it also can keep track of your vector reasonably. We can fire the EMP on the Wisconsin, and you can launch from the hangar and start a reentry on the night side of a planet. It's actually pretty remarkable. Go on with your story, TC."

TC smiled another toothy grin and held his hand up showing his flightpath. "So, we're in the middle of the reentry, I'm looking at the instruments trying to nail the reentry profile, and think we're doing pretty well. Everything is lining up just perfect. Suddenly, San Francisco calls up and asks us if we are on course. Outback replies that we are, and they say we're shallowing out and are going to overshoot by a lot. I'm thinking my career is over, we're going to land down in Las Vegas or something and Sergeant Ulundi is going to come make me march back through the desert, all sorts of nightmarish things."

Jacobs started smiling, thinking of his past goofs. "What did Mr. Carter do?"

"He had the normal displays on, and realized that he had the wrong mode for attitude and flight director selected. He calmly replied 'We're a old Model-A Raptor on a training mission, forgive the inaccuracy of the flight, but we're at the limits of the instruments, thank you, and we'll adjust."

Jacobs laughed and Leonaidas had a quizzical look. Jacobs explained, "Raptors were never designated by Models. I'm guessing the Model-A made it sound even older?"

TC was laughing too, "They bought it, their reply was 'Roger that, we didn't realize they were still flying.' Mr. Carter said 'Watch this,' turned the instruments back on, and hit reverse on the thrusters. We slowed down in time to not overshoot."

Leonaidas shook his head. "Did you guys get into any trouble?"

TC pointed to his right, no place, just pointing in the distance. "The San Francisco Supervisor came out to see what a Model-A Raptor was a couple of days later. So, Mr. Carter took him on a demonstration flight."

Leonaidas saw where this was going. "Was the guy friendly?"

"Very, it started off as a romp around Northern California, and ended up with a full aerobatics demo out over the Pacific."

Leonaidas knew what pilots were capable of. "How many barf bags?"

TC was laughing so hard he could not breathe. He held up his hand and indicated three. The three men started laughing. TC had one of those laughs that was just infectious, a deep, barrel-chested laugh. According to Carter, TC was not only a good pilot, but a natural leader as well. People just liked him and were willing to follow him. Just then the com whistled and Jareau's voice came through. "Bridge to Captain"

Jacobs leaned back and pushed the com button. "Jacobs here, what's up."

Jareau's voice continued, "We just got telemetry. Pirate E is on the move."

All three men stood up. Jacobs turned to the intercom and said, "We're on our way." Turning to the others he said, "TC, great stories. I'm looking forward to more. Leo, let's go."

Leonaidas and Jacobs walked out and into the hallway. Leonaidas was the first to ask, "Telemetry?"

Jacobs smiled. "I think it's JJ's way of trying to keep from spilling the beans about the virus. We are trying to keep that info as tight as possible."

Leonaidas nodded as they stepped into the turbolift. "Makes sense. Everybody knows we planted so much junk in Pirate E that we probably doubled its mass. Are any of the bugs still working?"

The doors slid open revealing the bridge. Jacobs answered, "Let's find out." They stepped forward and Hotchner stepped up from the Captain's chair. Jacobs asked, "Report?"

Hotchner pointed to the Communications main screen. "Our virus has told us that Pirate 'E' have set coordinates and are going to system AGC-187. The data on that system is not good, it was surveyed about thirty years ago by subspace radiotelescope. All we know about it is that there is a star at the center of a debris field. There might be planets, lots of asteroids and dust are obscuring details inside the system."

Jacobs looked at the screen. "Does the virus tell when they are going to get there?"

Jareau pointed to some data, "They have set warp 3.5 currently. Time until they get there is fifty hours."

Jacobs turned to Hotchner, "Hotch, get us to that system at least eight hours ahead of them. Inform me of any changes. Also let me know if we pick up the augmented warp trail. I'll be on my rounds." Jacobs and Leo left in the turbolift.

Hotchner walked back and sat in the Captain's chair. "Mr. Hornblower, what is the minimum required warp to get us at those coordinates on time?"

Hornblower worked the navigation console. "Warp 5.9"

Hotchner looked at Alan Carter at the Helm. "Alan, set course and warp 6."

Carter smiled. "Aye aye, sir. Warp 6"