Chapter 3 Part 5

Gary Noll watched his crew with satisfaction as they maneuvered their destroyer, the Raven, from position in the Asimov's battle group and engaged an intercept course. The twenty-five man crew of the quick and tough war craft had been longing for action for some time. It had been almost a year since their last war game exercise and their sister ship, Rhyme of the Mariner, had whipped them mercilessly. Since that time, the crew of the Raven had been anxious to prove themselves.

The Market's star fleet had commissioned twenty one destroyers in all but only eight had been built before support for the project had faltered. The destroyers had been designed to provide a rapid response of firepower for emergencies. The cruisers, were heavily armed, but cumbersome and slow. Their huge mass was difficult to accelerate. Likewise, the gigantic carriers, though possessing extremely quick interceptors and VRAD combat ships, were slow to move from one place to another. The VRADs had an impressive range to compensate, but they could not carry the raw firepower of a destroyer.

LieutenantCommander Noll noted that his orders were to intercept an unidentified object bound for the inner system and if he found it unpiloted, to destroy it. or alter its course sufficiently to insure that it would avoid any collisions.

The Destroyer, a one thousand metric ton needle shaped cylinder, heaved about and fired its primary engines. Colorless plasma leaped toward the Martian surface as the craft blasted its way out of orbit. Within moments, the planet's image began to shrink noticeably as the destroyer made use of the characteristic for which it was designed.

The ship's tracking system had a positive lock on their target, and the ranging data indicated that they would need to burn their reactor at ninety percent or better for seven hours to intercept the intruder. That was a serious thrust level, but still within their operating limits. The cruiser would not have been able to make the intercept. Its slow rate of acceleration would require over eleven hours of military rated thrust and that would deteriorate the reactor's magnetic bottle beyond safety limits

"Report on systems," Noll ordered.

"Engineering reports reactor at ninety-four percent and stable," one ensign responded.

Another ensign followed. "Sensors have a positive track and weapons show ready. All gunnery turrets are under manual control at this time."

"Communications are clean and steady," the third bridge crewman, an enlisted technician reported.

Lieutenant Bree, the first officer, completed the report. "Helm and navigation are clear and capable."

Noll fingered a monitor at his acceleration couch. It displayed a tactical plot of their course and the relevant isogravs that denoted levels of gravitational influence. The plot reminded him of a meteorological temperature display.

He mentally double checked the navigational system's computations and then deactivated the screen. He pushed the display terminal, suspended on a retractable arm anchored behind him, out of his way and surveyed his bridge.

To his left, his first officer was busy at the helm, while on the secondary deck directly below her, the weapons officer monitored the defensive and offensive systems in his usual way, snoozing. Noll almost remarked about that but decided against it. They had seven hours before those systems would be needed. There was no reason to have the ship's ten gunners and five defenders in battle mode the whole time.

To his right, the engineering officer, was worrying over the readouts of the thrust reactor. The other reactor, the one designated for ship power systems rarely had problems, but the main thrust reactor when pushed was a touchy thing.

Beneath the engineer, on the second deck, the communications crewman maintained a telemetry link with the Asimov and their group command.

Noll relaxed and gazed forward through the transparent nose of the Raven. It would be several hours before anything would happen, but when the time came, he wanted to make absolutely certain that they did their jobs to perfection.

"Okay people lets go over what we have to do."