Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1 (11 page)

We're back in our couches living in the world of two gees shortly thereafter, but only for a day, then it's a freefall and a chance to go through all the samples and data we've added to our toy box.
The hull pieces are the most interesting to me. We left all the big pieces, and flew away with a container full of pieces no more than two foot square. The coating is less than a half inch thick, highly reflective, and strong. We don't have the equipment on board to really test it, except that Dr. I'm An Amateur Physicist thinks he can tell us something using his medical gear. We'll see.
Otherwise, we learn nothing from the data files that we didn't already know, course, speed, other ship data, all of which we saw from our end. No internal sensors, no video, no audio other than the dead cat, no communications records, nothing. What were they worried about us seeing? Maybe ex-military and we'd ID them through facial recognition? Don't know.
Second day out and
Congress
catches up to us,
Packard
safely jumped back to Earth. Just because we're bored, I get the command crew together to watch the video of the enemy craft in my ready room.
The double pointy craft comes sailing in, making dozens of minor thruster fires and rotations on its pods, and then jumps out to wherever they are going. There's no way we know to follow or track a jumped ship, there are an infinite number of possible vectors. But there's something wrong. I've seen hundreds, maybe thousands of jumps in my life, and something is bothering me about this one.
Then it hits me. It must have hit McAdams too, because she starts.
"Skipper...."
"I see it too Courtney, can we call up the nav data on that ship."
"Already on my pad, sir."
Everyone is staring at us, they should see it, especially Garcia, but maybe we're wrong. I'd actually be happier if we were wrong.
"Put it on the screen, Ensign, when you can." It flashes up immediately, course and speed of the ship, power consumption from the drive, all the data we have.
"Frak. Speculation RISTA? Why?"
"Don't know, Skipper, really unexpected."
Everybody else is looking at us, too polite to interrupt until Shelby can't take it any more.
"
Yorktown
to Captain Krieger, your crew is lost."
"Sorry, don't you see it?" I pause. "Double sorry, didn't mean for that to come out that way, it's just so bizarre."
Garcia breaks the ice by doing her best impression of jumping up in zero gee, she almost starts to spin and Ayala grabs her to keep it from happening while she yells at the screen.
"It's a T jump! Good Lord, it's a T jump!" So we're up to three of us. By her second exclamation, all the other light bulbs are on too.
Summerlin says what we are all thinking. "Why would someone use a technology that was out of date 200 years ago? A Tereshkova Jump. That's like finding a living dinosaur."
The other side of my brain clicks into gear. "It does do one thing for us though, doesn't it. They jumped 40 light years or less. Mr. Garcia, you and Mr. McAdams make me a list of every star system within jump range."
Garcia doesn't blink. "Only two sir, Gamma Theta, and Gamma Rho. There aren't a lot of stars in this neighborhood. I'd bet on Theta sir, since that's where the ship came from in the first place. Rho has no planetary bodies of any size, only scattered rocks, nothing useful."
"Roger that. Where can they go from Theta?" I try to visualize this sector in my head.
"That I don't know, Skipper, give me an hour. Certainly to Nu and Upsilon. The pattern of ship disappearances makes more sense now, doesn't it."
"Except why, after you capture ships with CT drives, you would still make T jumps?"
"You've got me there, sir."
"Ok, everybody, research time, on your way. Fill in whatever pieces you can to the puzzle. Lt. Powell, wait a second."
Everybody leaves, lost in small group conversations. Shelby and I corral Powell, head clean shaven now, a good sign. The boat deck crew, pretending to the damage control party, is outside the ship patching the holes in the hull. She tells us they are almost done, nothing unusual, and cannon number 10 is back on line. I should be happy, but my brain hurts.

Chapter 7

From the outside, the processing station at Gamma Omicron 6 looks just like it's pictures, a large globe, bigger than a ship, rough metal exterior without any need for spit and polish. It's in high orbit around the planet where the actual mining occurs, but the ore is transported up for finishing. Seems rather inefficient to me, you'd want to process on the planet to minimize the weight you transport to orbit, but I assume whoever designed this had a reason, maybe zero gee alloys.
I am also sure there's nothing of interest inside, but I decide to go with the Marines anyway to make Shelby spend more time in command.
I keep her happy by riding over with them in the assault ship, instead of taking my own. Yeager is happy to be with his fellow jarheads, so two happy birds with one stone.
My psychic powers must be getting weak. The inside of the station is full of equipment we've never seen before, it literally takes us more than an hour to figure out it's a two machines not one and what they do. The first one is making mirrors for 41.22 inch laser cannons. We get a supply of fresh parts sufficient to make three of them and pack them off to analyze. The second makes the coating on the ships. Plastic 50 gallon barrels that are supposed to be various mining things are full of unidentifiable substances. We pack them off too, and photograph everything. They also find a couple intact hard drives in the station control systems, bag them up for McAdams.
Four hours later, we're docking back on
Yorktown
, and I find myself floating in the storage space on deck four, deciding which way to turn. My fingers go to the transmit button on my collar.
"Maria, your course, your acceleration not to exceed two gees, your timing. Check with Lt. Palmer everything stowed before executing. Take us home."
"Course to jump point, aye. Thirty minutes to acceleration." There is an audible note in her voice, equal parts happiness and plain bone weary.
She chooses constant acceleration, no free fall time except when the captain's bladder is full. Half the crew loves her, half can't stand her, but I know they will all love her once we make the jump.
During the final break McAdams floats over to my couch as I am trying to get strapped back in, her pad in her hand. She messages something to mine, it gives it's happy beep.
"We programmed the computers two weeks ago to search through the records of
Yorktown
's construction. We identified three names, one of whom has to be the saboteur. They're listed in that file, with the probability the computer assigned to each and the relevant source data potentially implicating the equipment suppliers are well."
I look at her, stunned. She starts talking again. "Only a fool would try to search and correlate 1.3 million records by hand when they have the most powerful Naval computers ever built within reach, computers that sit idle most of the time." She pauses and looks me in the eye. "Sir."
I give her my best wry smile. "Thank you Ensign."
"No, thank you sir. This has been the greatest month of my life, and I know you didn't have to pick me, you had your choice of anybody."
"Courtney, you did a remarkable job. I can't imagine anyone having done better." I give her a dramatic pause. "But, don't let it go to your head."
Now it's her turn to laugh. "No sir." Acceleration warnings sound, and she floats quickly back to strap herself in. Three hours later, we're within jump range of the star.
"Mr. Garcia, engines to standby."
"Engines to standby, aye." The acceleration disappears, our obvious speed toward a hot sun does not. We are 120 seconds from jumping, I estimate 420 from dying. I'd say that everyone suddenly was floating a little straighter, but I don't know how that's possible.
"Engineering?"
"We're go, Skipper." Powell answers, via intercom.
"Mr. Powell, jump engines to standby." A pause.
"Jump engines one through four report ready."
"Mr. Garcia, set jump coordinates."
"Coordinates set."
"Mr. Grich?" Petty Officer, Garcia's fifth, making his first jump in the co-pilot's seat.
"Coordinates confirmed." Good strong response for a first time.
"Mr. Ayala?"
"Coordinates confirmed."
"Mr. Perez?"
"Coordinates confirmed. Recommend we proceed."
"Mr. Garcia, jump authorized."
"Aye, sir, jump authorized."
I enter my authorization code into the nav computer and press enter. Green lights go on. Each Union star system has a designated parking zone near the station to set as it's jump coordinates. In theory, especially when you know you are the only jump capable ship in the system, it should prevent collisions, though on rare occasions a ship cuts the line at a busy terminal by jumping illegally into the space of a distant system they are sure will be empty. If all goes well, we'll be alone in our grid, 300 clicks off Armstrong Station in few seconds.
"One minute," Garcia keeps to the script, "Systems nominal."
"Twenty seconds, jump fields up." Garcia makes one last confirmation of the panel. Camera screens go black.
"Ten seconds.... Five.... Jump....."
"Jump complete."
The fields drop automatically, and everybody gets to work, the giant bulk of the two mile long station visible in our screens, backed by the blue planet below. Never looked that beautiful before.
Congress
and the ZR detach and putter off to the other side of the planet, destination the corvette docking area on Shepard Station, another of the four Navy bases in orbit around Earth. We'll dump the remains of the LS when we're closer. Shelby breaks the quiet, the First Officer talks for the ship on its way in, checking with station traffic control for course and docking instructions which leaves the captain free to make sure we don't ram something.
"Armstrong Station,
Yorktown
, request approach and docking clearance." It's shockingly fast back to us, they're usually out to lunch and you catch them between bites.
"Welcome home
Yorktown
. Follow Bravo to Echo One, cleared to dock, Bay 4."
"Bravo to Echo One, Bay 4.
Yorktown
moving," Shelby clicks off, continues to monitor, but plays with her console to change the active frequency. The codes we got are invisible lines in the space around the station, you follow them to get you to where you are going without denting your ship along the way. Bay 4 is directly below where this adventure started, a much bigger dock that
Yorktown
had before. Maybe it's all they had open.
Shelby makes her second call as Garcia nudges the ship forward to pick up the approach vectors. I watch for course deviations on my screen, but there aren't any.
"NAVCOMM, this is
Yorktown
, checking in." That's the Naval communications center. Earth is our center of operations. They might want to know we're home.
"Krieger, this is Benson." The boss answering his own phone, another in a long list of things I've never heard or seen before.
"Admiral, good to hear your voice, sir." I cut in over Shelby, who was smart enough to look my way before responding.
"Likewise. ChiNO and I are coming aboard as soon as you dock. Keep your crew on board until we get there. Over."
"Wilco, Admiral, see you in a few minutes.
Yorktown
out."
What's that all about?
Garcia parks us like we're a compact car in an RV space, whatever that means. Another expression from the past we still use but don't get. "Whole nine yards." "Phat party." One of those.
Ten minutes later, my boss and his boss float onto the bridge in their dress uniforms looking like the day, 31 days ago, we left. They left their aides somewhere else. Benson only accepts my salute before he plugs into the speaker.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Admiral Benson, FRIGCOM. A few days ago, CSS
Packard
jumped into the yard with video of a battle between
Yorktown
and a behemoth. Within a day, their captain had sold that video without our knowledge to every news outlet in 40 systems. He is now rich, and you, the crew of the USS
Yorktown
, are the new heroes of the Union and the pride of the Navy."
"You have done more good for the Navy in the past few days than you can possibly imagine, but we need you to be careful. Say as little as possible, be polite, be professional, represent the Navy. And, again, thank you. You've done us all proud."
Shelby and I exchange worried glances. There has to be a back story here too, or they would have waited for us.
"We've reserved space for each of you in a quiet section of officer's quarters, they will be a little nicer than some of you are used to. My office staff is waiting at the bottom of the egress tunnel with keys. Make sure you finish your work on ship before you go, and get permission from your chain of command. I know many of you have been planning to take leave, and go visit family, go to your home systems. That isn't possible now, we need
Yorktown
and her crew available to us on station. Expect two or three weeks debrief before we let you go. Report back aboard at 0900 tomorrow for orders. Benson, out."
He catches my eye, tilts his head toward my ready room. I take care of some business before I go.
"Lt. Ayala, you have the con, make sure we shut down by the book, turn them loose when they're ready. Commander Perez, with me." The four of us float to my room, close the door.
"I don't need your final report until tomorrow," ChiNO dispenses with any formality, "and I've read your log a half dozen times. Your opinion, three ships out there, still armed and dangerous?"
"No question, sirs," I respond, "We need at least one battle group in each the three affected Gamma systems, and we need it soon." I try to emphasize the word "soon."
"
Yorktown
is to be ready to sail in 72 hours, you're going back. We tried to retask the cruisers, but with your victory, the administration assured the public that the threat is ended. The battle groups are appearing at Founding Day celebrations in two dozen systems, and we are not permitted to interfere with the schedule, it being an election year."
"Admiral...." I want to use language even I can't use in front of the boss.
"I know, you can't be ready. We will have a crew of 300 plus here in the morning.
Yorktown
will be like brand new before you go. Your crew is Navy, they'll understand."
"I don't really Admiral, we'll do our best, but even
Yorktown
can't be in three systems at the same time."
"We know that," he says, "we'll get you at least one more corvette, and
Congress
is going back with you."
I want to remind him that two of the three corvettes that have gotten to see those 42 inchers are dead, and the third is here in dock only because we were in between it and the guns, but he's a smart and competent officer, he knows it just as well as I do. Up to me to protect my task force better this time.
"There's something else," I change the subject and message him the data from McAdams. "One of these three put the defective parts on our engines. There's a traitor on this list."
"You sure?"
"One hundred percent, sir, computer correlated the data, we confirmed by hand. Had to be. If these folks are coming over tomorrow morning to help, the corrective action would be a shot in the head."
"If they aren't in custody by tomorrow morning, I'll do it myself, Captain." ChiNO is a good man. "Dinner on board, night before you leave, FRIGCOM and I with you and your lieutenants."
"Aye, sir." He starts to leave, then stops.
"You are going to be asked to do a lot of interviews in the next two days. Tell them you are going back out to do engine tests. No mention of ships still out there. My advice, stay away from the media as best you can."
"Thank you, sir. Is this really that big a deal?"
"You have no idea, Captain. You not only saved the frigate fleet, there's talk of building more beyond our original six. A Navy ship took on an enemy 30 times its size to save a bunch of civilians. Looks, sounds, and is heroic, Katana. Been a long time since so many people knew the name of a ship captain."
"Just doing what we were sent to do, sir."
"Yep. Doesn't make it any less exciting. Nineteen hundred two days from now. Stay out of trouble til then."
"Aye, aye." They really do leave this time.
Shelby and I stare at each other for a couple minutes, then just float back out to see what's what. The ground crew has appeared, and Ayala has already given just about everyone the chance to go. Powell refused, I send Shel to deal with that. McAdams is floating, looks like she's about to head out. Otherwise, the bridge is full of brown shirted station staff and red shirted Electric Boat staff only.
"Mr. Ayala, you're relieved. Back on board, 0800 hours tomorrow, staff meeting."
"Aye, sir." And he's gone.
"Ensign, get on your way too."
"Aye, sir." But I get that feeling in my butt.
"Courtney?"
She looks at me like she wants to say something, but isn't sure, looks around to see if anyone can hear. Finally, she decides.
"0.0001, sir." She turns and zips off before I can respond. Not that I can make my mouth move right now.