Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1 Page 6

  "Thank you lieutenant." I reach for the transmit button on my collar. "Mr. Ayala, sound free fall stations. We won't be using the engines for a while." I don't listen for his reply. The horns are enough.

  "Emily, all your efforts into fixing 2 and 4, not at the expense of sleep or food. Something out there got Bainbridge and Richard, something we know nothing about. Maybe a smart captain would spend some time thinking, instead of rushing blindly in after them."

  I push off the ground toward the hatch, Shel behind me. I get back to the bridge and float at my station. Then I open the ship-wide speaker.

  "This is the captain. We have 72 hours before reaching Beta station, and as we sit here we know nothing about what happened to Bainbridge and Richard. That is unacceptable. This ship collects huge amounts of data, intentionally through RISTA systems and unintentionally through our nav and communications systems. We have the best RISTA team in existence, and they have been able to get through less than one percent of those data, working around the clock. I am making every bit of data available to all crew from this moment. Find me something folks. Two days leave for each lead. Pass everything to Ensign McAdams. Krieger out."

  Shelby is wondering if its time to open the reg book for the section on crazy captains. I leave her space to do it. "Commander, you have the con."

  Hit the treadmill for an hour and 15, then shower and float in my rack, a fitful on and off sleep is all I can manage. We spend the morning doing every weapons drill I can think of, blast two of our four practice drones to bits. Doesn't make me feel any better. I do like the 24's though. Ayacucho, like all destroyers, had 18 inch lasers, the 24's have nearly 80 percent more power. They don't have the fire rate, and they aren't quite as flexible in their mountings, but I like what happens when they hit a drone square on.

  That afternoon, Lt. Palmer appears looking rather sheepish, which is difficult for a man with arms bigger than my legs and no neck to speak of. Standing next to him is another Marine, both very large black men dressed in green space casual suits, the new arrival trying to hide behind his boss and look like a Marine at the same time. Not possible.

  Palmer identifies him as possibly soon to be demoted Private First Class Louis Armstrong, who, during our casual introductive questioning, claims to be not at all musical. Five minutes later, he wins the first two day pass.

  "Private Armstrong here," Palmer explains, "has an interesting hobby. He's support crew on the assault ship, with too much spare time on his hands. Apparently, he has a side business that requires him to illegally use the nav telescopes on the ZR to take glossy photos of unphotographed solar systems, which he sells to map makers when he gets home. He thought he saw something in one of them which you might find interesting."

  We take it over to the RISTA station where a fascinated McAdams asks him for details, and then has him download his whole photo collection. Meanwhile, she quickly computer enhances the first few.

  There's decidedly something in them, or not in them actually: missing stars. Not always missing, missing in the way that stars go missing when large metal objects pass between them and an observer. Missing in one frame, back in the next, as another star further away goes missing. It's a photo sequence of the asteroid field not far from Beta. What's in it is big, hard to tell exactly how big without a reference point, but there is definitely another ship out there, not spherical, and moving toward the mining station as the photos were taken.

  There's another photo sequence, this with a smallish sphere we know was Richard headed toward its destruction. My ensign won't even take a guess, but my brain knows the unknown ship is at least cruiser size, and it managed to hide from an extremely competent Lt. Springer until it was too late. Doesn't mean it's necessarily an equal to Yorktown, or even a danger. The commercial ship traveling with Bainbridge was 30 times our size, but with a hull so thin and so unprotected that our 24's would rip it apart in seconds. That's if it can't hide from us.

  Still, word spreads, and the laser drills get even more serious.

  Then at 2200, we give away our second two day pass.

  Petty Officer Quisha Wallace, co-pilot on Ayala's shift, floats on to the bridge and over to Lt. Bass who is nearing the end of his shift. They talk and point at his screens for about 10 minutes before inviting me over.

  "What did you find, Petty Officer?" I don't know her well, but from how her dark blue uniform doesn't fit she might be the only one on the ship who understands my pain.

  "Sir, I've been going through the data we got on Gamma Omicron 1, and I think I found something."

  Bass fixes that last sentence. "She definitely found something, sir."

  We play on the computer for another few minutes. It turns out to be the cutest little magnetic anomaly, equatorial, long and narrow, the classic pattern of a crashed ship.

  I have Bass stay a little longer, just as Manuel shows up to relieve him, and let Wallace help him program a probe to go learn something useful. After this, my guess is half the crew will get no sleep for a while. I hit my rack, comfortable with the thought that others are not.

  First thing in the morning the ship's doctor wins a prize. I'd almost forgotten he was on board, he'd been so invisible. I float onto the bridge at 0800 to relieve Ayala, and there he is floating next to my couch, waiting.

  "Captain," Ayala has obviously been listening to him for a while, "Dr. Bonilovich here has something, it's a bit over my head, but worth a listen."

  "Thanks, Matt, go get breakfast." I turn to the doctor. "What do you have?"

  "I play around with experimental physics when I'm off duty." Ok, he needs to get a life. "I ran a couple experiments on the signal we're getting from Gamma Omicron 1, and I can prove it's a ship's disaster beacon."

  "On my screen." I point, he plays with the mouse and keys.

  I listen, and am actually about to award him his two day pass when I hear McAdams' voice from three inches behind my left ear.

  "Damn that was good."

  "I agree Ensign, though next time you might want to give my ear a break when you want to jump into the conversation."

  "Sorry Skipper."

  "Why don't you take the doctor to your station, and double check everything."

  "Aye." They go to work.

  Find out later he even helped RISTA score a pass of their own early afternoon by finding electromagnetic and other evidence of a laser battle in orbit around Gamma Omicron 1, including a small debris field. We add some long distance programming to the probe, which at nine gees will be there in four hours.

  Laser drills, already at a fever pitch, go to unheard of levels. The Marines recheck their battle armor twice in one day. I'm happy with all of this, except no one says the one thing that we all should be worried about. Why can't we find a ship at least the size of a cruiser? And what happens if it finds us first?

  Finally, after dinner, I gather together the crews of the landing ship and the assault ship, eight total bodies, and with Mr. Armstrong keeping time, have them do a continuous visual search by taking photographs ahead of us and looking for missing stars.

  When I pull the hair out of the shower next morning (that's out of the shower, not out in the shower, big difference), we are 22 hours from Beta station, closing fast. We're 10 hours from braking start. And, we've got three hours of data upload from our probe.

  McAdams and her crew have doubtless been up since 0300 going through the feed, they look a tad raggedy on the bridge, then their aroma hits. My revised estimate is they have been sitting there since yesterday. Maybe the day before.

  She acknowledges me, says, "Photo on your pad, Skipper."

  I float in front of my screens, touch the key on my right, slide the pointing device, and open the message. I know instantly what the picture shows, Petty Officer Wallace's two day pass well earned. No question, it's the wreck of Trump, scattered across the rocks, shiny streaks of silver against the dark brown airless background, a small debris field in a line to the west. Looks like it went down largely
intact and disintegrated on landing, but I'll wait for RISTA to make that determination.

  "Mr. McAdams." She looks up.

  "Aye, sir."

  "For the next 20 hours or so, 100 percent of your activity, and your team's, directed at Beta, and making sure no unidentified space ship sneaks up on Yorktown. Understood?"

  "Aye, Skipper. Sorry."

  "Courtney, it was my choice to focus on the other evidence, now I'm bring you home. Let's get cleaned up, and get back to work."

  She smiles, floats toward the hatch, dragging her team with her. "Aye, aye."

  And just like that, I make a nasty odor disappear without the need for noxious chemicals or lots of scrubbing.

  The three of them are back within 20 minutes, each settles into a station, unquestionably dividing the sky around us and hunting for wolves, not by scent.

  I continue floating at my post, going through Garcia's proposed decel plan. She, obviously, has not been spending her time searching for stealth ships in grainy photos. A little extra hot at the beginning, cleared by Lt. Powell, brings us to a stop 50,000 clicks off the remains of the corvette, and a tad more than that off the station.

  By 1600, we're all in our couches, ready. Haven't felt this much anticipation on board since the three minutes leaving dry dock.

  "Mr. Garcia. Plan approved. Execute on your mark."

  "Flight plan go, on my mark." She sounds the five minute horns, cautious even though I am 150 percent sure 100 percent of the crew is strapped in and waiting.

  "Mr. Jordan. Go hot on even numbered lasers."

  "Aye, even numbers hot." He plays with his control panel for a minute, I watch on my screen as the outer doors open, the business ends of the guns extend, and the systems power up and stabilize. "All even cannons report ready."

  I don't bother Powell, her board is green and we had a little conversation a few minutes ago.

  "One minute." The last horns sound. Clearly a waste of time.

  Promptly at zero, both good engines fire, bringing us briefly up to three gees, holding it for 30 minutes, then lowering to two. A boring 12 hours later, sleeping on and off as best you can at two gees, our port broadside is locked onto Beta station. At this distance, less than half a second to turn it to gas.

  Chapter 4

  "Mr. Garcia, well done, engines to standby." I start with the things we need to make sure we can get home, then onto the other tasks.

  "Engines to standby, aye."

  "Mr. Jordan, all lasers hot."

  He doesn't give me the normal acknowledgment, but I can see it on my screen quickly enough.

  "RISTA?"

  "Board's clear Captain, nothing on infrared or visual, no electromagnetic signatures."

  "Go to active sensors."

  "Aye, active sensors." She pauses for 20 seconds. "Radar clear, full sweep." That's, of course, clear to 10 light seconds, which is about three million kilometers. In our battle space, not significant.

  "Very well, return to passive only. Locate Richard."

  "Passive sensors only, aye. Richard debris field center at 51,284 kilometers, course 145 mark 002 relative." I knew she would already have found it, probably never let it out of her sight the entire decel.

  Off our tail, almost exactly as we planned it.

  "Mr. Garcia, course to Richard as planned."

  "On your screen, Skipper."

  I look it over for three seconds, just to act captainly. She's been updating it continuously for the last 12 hours, I watched on the nav display.

  "Mr. Perez?"

  "Yorktown is go, Captain."

  "Thank you First, please get on the horn to Lt. Summerlin, and let him know the plan is a go."

  "Roger that, Skipper."

  "Mr. Jordan, deactivate cannons 17 and 18, Mr. Garcia, take us in on your mark."

  I get, "Cannons 17 and 18 deactivated" and "Engines on my mark" stepping on each other, but that's ok by me. Those two cannons are in the tail, no need to heat them up with our exhaust by leaving them exposed.

  One engine fires, very careful on our part. Takes us an hour and a half, and we're stopped (relatively speaking), 1,000 clicks out from the main debris cluster. Shelby confirms that Congress is covering us from a distance, and will join us at the station when we head back.

  "Mr. Garcia, engines to standby, 90 degrees starboard yaw, if you please."

  "Engines to standby, rotating." I want the broadside on the debris field.

  "RISTA?"

  "All clear on passive, Skipper."

  I flick the finger switch on my intercom.

  "Lt. Palmer, this is the captain, you and your boys and girls ready to get to work?"

  "Yes, sir!" They haven't had much to do this trip, now they get their chance to shine. When we started moving toward the debris, they boarded their assault craft. Not the easiest task in full battle armor on an accelerating ship. They could have done it before we started, but I think they wanted to show off.

  "ZR-1 is cleared to go, coordinate with the First."

  "Copy, see you out there, sir."

  "Roger that, Lieutenant."

  I work on getting out of my straps and turn the ship over to Shelby.

  "Mr. Perez, the ship is yours." Almost as I say that, we feel the light push that tells us Palmer and two squads of his troops are on their way. I remove the last strap and head for the boat deck.

  The captain's gig on Yorktown is identical to my old personal boat on Ayacucho. A two man craft, looks very much like a late 20th century fighter jet, though it's fully capable of landing on just about any planet and getting me back into orbit, with some loiter time. The deck crew help me get my space suit on, Marine battle armor with fewer weapons attachment points, but enhanced comm. I had it custom made a few years ago, suits me better than the standard bright colored Navy rigs. Marines are generally large human beings. I am a curvy human being with non-regulation hair. The curvy parts fit better in the equipment designed for the muscular than for the skinny. I also like the tougher armor and stronger bio-assist package. Helmet in place, we test it for seal and for comm.

  Master Sergeant Walter Yeager joined the Marines when I was learning to walk, and what he's still doing around here is beyond me, but he sat down next to me in a bar the day I arrived at Earth to start on Yorktown, and basically told me he I was going to make him my new personal pilot, which also means he's my bodyguard when I leave the ship. Not an offer I could refuse. My only concern with him is that a pilot should get the connection with his last name, but no joy. Must be a Marine thing for an Air Force guy.

  He's already sitting in the front seat, I hop into the rear, and let the crew strap me in. They clear out, the doors open, and we "fall" out of the ship into space. I let Yeager do the talking and flying, I get on the screens and find our Marines, then feed a course suggestion to the front.

  Half way in I make a status check.

  "Yorktown, Krieger, status check."

  "Yorktown nominal, sir," Shelby is back at me instantaneously, "First pictures from the ZR aren't pretty."

  "Copy that. Keep me informed. Out."

  Yeager parks us perfectly beside the Marines' boat, the jarheads already working the debris field. I help him set the gig to hold, then we open the canopy, detach our personal moorings, and follow. Marines are trained to investigate dead ships, and dead people on live ships, not something they probably specialized in 500 years ago, but when a smaller crew has a hugely beneficial effect on the cost of the ship, everybody in the modern world has to have lots of layers.

  In this environment your mic is always on unless you do something about it, so we've been listening in while parking. The Marines have identified three bodies, none in space suits, and have laid out a pattern for random debris collection. I stay out of their way and use the small thrusters on my suit to go find their boss, Yeager trailing.

  We find Palmer 10 meters in front of the ZR control room windows, supervising. I touch the controls on my left arm, setting my radio to
the command channel so only he and I will hear (actually Yeager too, but he'd never tell).

  "What do we have, lieutenant?" His people call him "L-T" after his rank, too familiar for the boss to use.

  "We're moving containers out for the bodies, all female. They died from the ship opening to space, not direct enemy fire. There are body parts scattered throughout, which we will collect and catalog as well. Metal fragments show definite signs of energy weapons, not missile fire."

  They know a lot for 15 minutes on site. Crew of seven on the escort corvette, four missing, but probably here in pieces. Twenty pounds of random debris will be enough to confirm the energy weapon theory.