Jill Titan and the Ghost Fleet

Jill Titan and the Ghost Fleet

Book 1 of the Jill Titan Series

By Rob Summers

Copyright 2018 by Rob Summers

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

No actual persons are represented in this book.

To Noel

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Life Shell 2 Sustains Damage

Chapter 2: Jill’s Life Expectancy is Shortened

Chapter 3: Welcome to the Snake Eyes

Chapter 4: The Starshaker

Chapter 5: The Bot Shop

Chapter 6: Jill Makes a Shaky Plan

Chapter 7: Karsh the Dog

Chapter 8: Tricky Operations

Chapter 9: Jill Changes Ships

Chapter 10: Batteries Included

Chapter 11: A Small Admiral

Chapter 12: A New Captain

Chapter 13: A Defense Against Spies

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Chapter 1 Life Shell 2 Sustains Minimal Damage

The alarm siren was wailing, but Jill hardly noticed it because her attention was grabbed by the smoke pouring out of wall vents in the narrow passageway. Plainly, some part of the spaceship FMS Tortoise was either on fire or soon would be. Maintenance robots and crewmembers would be fighting it, though. Maybe the spaceship’s situation was not as serious as she had feared when she had run from her rest cubicle seconds before.

Crewmembers were passing her going the other direction, most of them towering over her in height, for at age 11, Jill was the youngest person on board. One of them was carrying under his arm an exotic pet, a Betropian jelly dog, a quivering boneless mass that was all black and had no head or tail. She had gotten to know Sergeant Hollitt because of her interest in this strange beast. With his free hand the big man caught her by her slender shoulder and shifted his grip to the top of her head, pressing down on her shoulder-length brown hair.

Wrong way, Jill, he said. Everyone who’s not fighting the fire or manning the bridge is to leg it to the hangar.

What would we go there for? Jill said loudly, for she found she had to shout over not just the noise of the alarm bell but also words of command now coming from the ship’s intercom system: Captain Berlak was indeed ordering them to the hangar in his hoarse, barking voice.

Hollitt began to pull her along with him, almost lifting her. In case we have to abandon ship, kid, he said without emotion.

No way! she replied with plenty of emotion. Now she understood why he had his pet with him in this crisis. He wanted to take Gummy with him if he had to leave the ship. Where’s Dad?

Professor Titan’s probably on the bridge with the captain. He’ll be helping him to figure out if the ship can be saved.

I can help with that!

This was not an empty boast, for Jer Titan had not brought Jill along on this convoy escort mission just for company. She was both precocious and well trained by him in his specialty of applied physics. Sergeant Hollitt and everyone else on board knew that she had already helped her father with a special project while the two had been on the Tortoise, though the nature of their work was secret to all but a few.

Hollitt looked at her with steady, gray eyes and was about to reply when the ship shuddered so hard that they and the other crewmembers barely kept their feet.

That could have been another Searcher torpedo, said a woman behind them who wore the green and yellow uniform of the Free Merchant States space military. It’s got to be the Red Ring Pirates again, she added. How did they find us out here beyond the edge of the galaxy? How’d they know the fleet would rendezvous here in the middle of nowhere?

The sergeant did not try to answer her but only commented that it was lucky that the ship’s artificial gravity was still working.

A moment later and they were in the hangar, one of the few large and open places in the ship. An officer wearing all of a spacesuit except the helmet was shouting orders to the two dozen or so of the crew now assembling.

"We’re preparing to abandon, but await captain’s orders! Ship’s boat will hold fifteen when we use the storage compartments. Hollitt, you get your men to emptying them. The shuttle will hold five. We have ten life shells. Where is Miss Titan? There you are! You are to get into a life shell now, captain’s orders."

No one waited for Jill to respond. The closest crewmember, Hollitt, put down Gummy and propelled her toward one of the round hatches low in the hangar walls. Another Marine opened the heavy, black door, and she was guided into the tube that was the life shell, almost thrown into it. She found herself lying face down on the long, white cushion that ran down the center. She had just time to look back past her own feet to several faces, male and female, of the crew, and then the door was closed behind her and the alarm bell’s noise was suddenly muted.

Shellcom! she yelled as she rolled onto her back, finding her face very close to the top of the shell.

A female voice responded, coming from a speaker near her head. "Strap in! My name is Jentil. What do you wish?"

I want out of here!

Jill was not afraid of very small spaces, but she didn’t want to be separated from her father.

I am sorry but you are ordered to remain in the shell until an ‘all clear.’ Strap in immediately.

She knew that a computer’s artificial intelligence, or AI, such as Jentil could not be argued out of doing what the captain had ordered. So she was trapped. If the Tortoise could not escape from the attack that had begun without warning just minutes ago, then this life shell would be shot away from the ship at great speed in order to save her life. But her father was on the bridge, and there were no life shells there. What if the Tortoise were destroyed and he could not escape? What if she lived and he died?

Recheck that order with the captain! she demanded of Jentil. It’s a mistake, a misunderstanding.

As she spoke, straps descended on her chest, hips, and knees and clicked into place, Jentil doing for her what she had neglected to do for herself. Her hands were free but she was now unable to try to open the door.

Stay calm, said the voice. Captain Berlak is too busy to speak with me now. Wait for the all clear.

And Jill did calm herself, for she was a remarkable girl.

Just patch me through to my Dad, to Professor Titan, she said. I want to talk with him.

Of course, said Jentil.

Seconds later, Jer Titan’s voice came to Jill through the same speaker. Jilly, you comfortable in there?

Not too bad, she said with pretended cheerfulness. Don’t call me Jilly.

"Sorry. Look, I know you don’t want to be in a life shell, but because you’re a minor you’re in there by fleet regulations. Anyway, things are looking up. The Tortoise has sustained damage, but most systems are operational, we’ve started firing back, and it’s just one ship that attacked us. Captain Berlak thinks we’ll win yet, and no one will have to leave the ship. The convoy has moved on at space speed without us and they’ll probably make it safely to Bel 3."

He referred to the twenty-one huge merchant ships that the battleship Tortoise had been escorting and to their destination, the great spaceport at planet Bel 3 in the Danz system.

But why did the pirates attack us, Dad, instead of the merchant ships? It isn’t like them. They never take on a fighting ship at equal odds.

"I don’t know and neither does Captain Berlak. But keep in mind that we can’t be sure it’s the Red Ring Pirates attacking us. They aren’t answering our com messages. If it is the pirates, then maybe it’s a new strategy. They know that if they put the Tortoise out of action, then the merchant convoy will be helpless."

I don’t think that’s it, Dad. I think it’s because of…what we’ve been working on.

Yes, it could be. We’ll have to talk about that later. Neither wanted to discuss over the ship’s communication system the top-secret military project, so important to their government. I have to go now, Jilly. Don’t be impatient. We’ll have you out of there soon.

Don’t call me Jilly, she was saying when another impact shook the ship, this one seeming to be very near her. Dad, something’s happening. It’s suddenly really hot in here. I think a Searcher must have hit the hangar wall. Jentil, report!

Then everything happened at once. Her father asked in a frightened voice if she was injured. Jentil told her that a Searcher torpedo had indeed penetrated the ship hull just between life shells 2 and 3, and Jill, eyes wide, saw smoke seeping into the interior of the shell and smelled burning wires. A moment later she felt the shell pop loose from the hull and accelerate into space. Then it tumbled in the void so its engine or ‘core’ end was facing toward the Tortoise and blasted away at great speed.

Stay calm, Jentil purred. Life Shell 2 has executed an emergency exit from the ship, due to extreme heat from a torpedo. Life support systems are intact. You are in danger of enemy raygun fire, so we are entering star speed. This is routine and according to fleet regulations. You will soon be out of the enemy’s range.

Enough of that, Jill said, fighting to keep her voice down as she felt the change in the vibration of the shell, indicating the