Strike Battleship Marines (Starships at War Book 3) by Shane Lochlann Black

Author:Shane Lochlann Black [Black, Shane Lochlann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Military Science Fiction
ISBN: 123456789X
Publisher: Palace in the Sky Productions LLC
Published: 2018-04-20T07:00:00+00:00

Strike Battleship Argent BBV 740

Wexford Jump Gate - Bayone System

CPT Jason Hunter Commanding

“Zony, are you absolutely sure that was Enright’s designator?”

“Aye, sir, but I couldn’t read the rest. Either they stopped transmitting or they were jammed.”

Jason thumped his fist on the conn armrest. They had a few hours to spare, if that.

“Bridge, this is Skywatch. Advise navigation officer we are tracking a wide SRS reflection wave bearing zero one five mark three on approach for the Bayone perimeter. Recommend ion storm protocols. Standing by.”

The cold shudder that swept the mighty battleship’s bridge told the story. For any personnel inexperienced in the ways of open space hazards, a wide short range scanner reflection meant only one thing: An ion storm. Argent had just emerged from the Wexford Jump Gate and was only minutes from entering the Bayone system itself.

Jason and Jayce both had agreed Argent’s squadron should use the same entry course as the balance of the Perseus fleet had taken after the Hades incident, but they hadn’t counted on this. The alternative was to take the Blackburn jump gate, but parking Argent right where her enemies were likeliest to look was vetoed by Jayce first and then again by her brother.

Certain officers held the edges of their consoles a little tighter. The sound of the instruments and the subsonic hum of the engines set a deceptively soothing tone for what was just about the worst news a starship captain could hear.

Lieutenant McInerney had just verified the preliminary readings gathered by the Skywatch observation station at the topmost point aboard Argent. She took a moment to patch the readings into the navigation console.

Each warship’s “nerve center,” so to speak, was crewed by scanner and sensor technicians and specialists and traditionally placed where the crow’s nest lookouts had resided aboard wet navy sailing ships. Naturally, space encounters rarely provided either adversary with naked-eye-range view of other nearby ships unless they were in some kind of review formation, so where the SRS and sensor crews were actually located was of only anecdotal concern. Still, the tradition of having the best trained lookouts stationed in a “Skywatch” control center had stuck. In fact, it only took a few years before the entire Core space fleet had adopted the imagery of guardians watching the stars. Within a decade, Skywatch vessel combat information centers and Skywatch sections were so well integrated that bridge personnel could concentrate more heavily on instruments for signal processing, targeting and weapons control and navigation.

“Opinion, pilot.” Hunter said in a clipped tone.

“If we take the long course, it will add at least three hours to our transit time, sir,” McInerney replied.

“We can’t afford it. If Monarch is being jammed, Bayone may not have three hours,” Hunter mused. “Tactical, ready a type four probe. Target the leading edge of the wave’s magnetic envelope and set for continuous broadcast at station keeping coordinates contact negative five hundred miles.”

“Aye, captain.” The tactical officer turned to the satellite operations console and called up the first probe in the rotation.

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