The Lost Fleet: Into the Darkness by Raymond L. Weil

Author:Raymond L. Weil [Weil, Raymond L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Raymond L. Weil Publications LLC
Published: 2015-08-13T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Jeremy let out a deep breath of frustration. It would take another two months for all the damage to the Distant Horizon to be repaired. It would also require the use of two of their four fleet repair ships for the entire time period. The exploration dreadnought had suffered much more damage than originally believed. Looking at one of the main viewscreens on the front wall of the Command Center, Jeremy could see the ship in orbit above Gaia. It was currently docked to the Clan Protector. Two fleet repair ships hovered nearby and he could see the bright flashes of welding arcs and torches as the damaged parts of the hull were cut away. New hull plates were being built in the shipyard since the battle armor on the exploration dreadnought was thicker than that of the other warships.

“Clarissa says there was a brief moment when they all expected to die,” Ariel said from Jeremy’s side.

The AI was in her standard dark blue uniform without insignia. Her trim, lithe figure was that of a woman in her early twenties. Ariel considered making her appearance that of an older, more mature woman, but she was hesitant to make any changes to her appearance.

Jeremy reached forward on his command console and the view on the screen was magnified until the Distant Horizon filled the screen. On the hull of the battered ship, dozens of spider robots were busy at work repairing minor hull breaches and scorched areas where the hull had been exposed to high temperatures from the Simulins’ energy weapons and antimatter missiles.

“There’s a lot of interior damage to the bow,” Ariel continued as she examined the full damage report. Any lesser ship would have been destroyed from the destruction ravaged upon the vessel by the Simulins. “All of her bow weapons are going to have to be repaired or rebuilt. There was an energy beam hit to the stern in the area of the sublight engines. The engines weren’t damaged but many of the control linkages and power couplings were either smashed or burned away.”

“Eighty-seven dead with another ninety-four injured,” Jeremy said.

He didn’t know what he would have done if either Kelsey or Katie had been hurt. They’d been back for several weeks now and it still pained him to think about how close they had come to losing the ship.

“They’re going to try to put an ion cannon on the bow of the ship,” Ariel added as she studied the weapons that were going to be installed. She knew Jeremy felt horrible about the danger he’d put the exploration dreadnought in.

“Some of the Alton scientists and technicians believe they can make it work after studying the blueprints Andram turned over to them,” Jeremy said. “They just don’t have what we need to create a miniaturized version like the defense globes the Distant Horizon originally had. I would love to have several hundred of those in the defense grid around Gaia.”

“Those defense globes allowed the exploration dreadnought to

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