Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1 (22 page)

Yorktown
cap. Should have had one rum, not two. I have become a pansy in my thirties.
As scheduled the crew are all on board by 0800, except for McAdams and Gomez. There are transfer orders, though, making Gomez mine, along with a new PFC to fill out the Marine unit and a replacement for Engineering as well. I assign Gomez to the empty bunk in McAdams' quad, hopefully she won't mind living with two officers and a brand new enlisted man.
We also get notification that a four man Marine Recon team will be joining Palmer's unit. Special Forces. If we're lucky, we won't need their help.
At 0900 I get Shelby, Ayala, Garcia and Powell into my ready room, thank them for the planning, tell them which scenarios we're taking. Let them know the Admirals were impressed and agreed with my choices.
Then I pop upstairs to find Tony, and find Yeager huddled with him. Two birds. I raise a hand to keep them from jumping to attention.
"Anything I need to know?"
"No sir," Tony sounds ready to go. "We're just talking about what the General passed to us, and how we should alter training to prepare for combat."
"You mean, shoot them in the eye?"
"Aye, sir." He smiles a little at the homonym.
"I'll let you get back to it. Master Sergeant, haven't had the chance to thank you for having my back out there."
"My pleasure sir, that was easily the most fun I've had since I was the L.T.'s age."
I laugh, then leave them be.
Back down to the bridge, then it's float and do nothing. I start on another sleazy novel I downloaded in a moment of weakness, the sequel to the vampire book I read stranded on Gamma Omicron 1. Our two missing crew finally appear about 1400, and I drag them into my ready room.
"Chief Gomez," I reach out my hand, "welcome to
Yorktown
. Your transfer orders just came through. Courtney, she's bunking in your empty." She's been using guest quarters down the passageway.
Gomez is all smiles. "Thank you, sir, I won't disappoint you."
"I know you won't." I look at McAdams. "What do you have for me?"
"Not much, skipper." For the first time since I've known her, the blue eyes look dull and tired, betting she hasn't slept in 48 hours. "We made no more progress on the language, the autopsy didn't tell us anything the scan hadn't already shown, and it's too early for all the biochemical workups to be finished."
"We're getting used to going in blind, aren't we."
"Aye, sir, that we are."
"There's a plan on your pads, we're going wheels up as soon as we can get clearance. Look it over and let me know if there's something we've missed."
"Aye, skipper."
"And get some sleep. Chief," I turn to Gomez, "make sure she only works 24 hours a day this trip, not the 27 she's been keeping."
"Will do sir," I think Gomez isn't used to commanding officers making jokes.
"On your way then," I say, nodding toward the hatch. They comply. I do a quick check that everything's locked down, empty the bladder, check the hair, and then float out to the bridge.
"Mr. Marcos, Mr. Grich, let's get out of here." Garcia is off duty, but strapped into the port side station. I'm confident she's supervising.
Marcos gets on the radio. "Grissom control,
Yorktown
, requesting evac clearance."
"Standby
Yorktown
, opening doors." Normally they give you your clearance and trust you not to run into the doors. Must be a newbie. Takes three minutes for the mechanism to work, then we get our clearance.
"
Yorktown
, cleared to evac, maintain 500 meters, station track."
"
Yorktown
cleared to 500 meters, moving." Marcos talks as Grich's hands flit across his panels at the same time. I watch our moorings withdraw on visual, see the same on my screens.
Grich edges
Yorktown
out, his first time. Good choice, considering this is the largest docking bay we are ever likely to be in. I could fly us out, even after the two rums.
He gets us clear and settled at 500 meters, no problem. Once again we can see the big blue ball beneath us, a reminder of the dangers of needless war. Not going to let these Libor do that to any of our planets.
"Mr. Marcos, take us to the jump point."
"Jump point, aye." Hands flip, five minute warning horns sound. We count it down, and we're once again jammed back into the fake leather. It will take us almost a day to reach the jump point, we'll be back in Theta roughly 53 hours after we left.
Once we're safely on our way and my butt has assured me the engines are good to go, I open the shipwide intercom.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Captain Krieger. I am authorized by the Chief of Naval Operations to read the following statement. This information is classified most secret, release to unauthorized persons is considered treason and is punishable as such."
"Evidence gathered aboard CSS
Defino
confirms that it, CSS
Orion
, and CSS
Suncoast
had been commandeered by a non-human alien race called the Libor. We believe that CSS
Opportunity
and probably additional ships remain under the command of said aliens, and that they have likely established a base in either the Gamma Nu or Gamma Upsilon systems."
"We do not know the extent of the alien incursion, nor their ultimate goals. We do know they have little regard for human life.
Yorktown
, her crew, and her team are the front line of humanity's defense against these invaders. All of mankind wishes you Godspeed."
"Everingham, Admiral, Chief of Naval Operations."
I give that 10 seconds to sink in. A little too melodramatic for my taste.
"We do our jobs, ladies and gentlemen, we do our jobs no differently than if these were run of the mill pirates. With luck we find our team still in Theta and we jump to Nu together. If they are already gone, we jump to Nu and count on the natural confusion of the terrain there to protect them until we arrive. Then we send these aliens back where they came from, and we get ourselves home in one piece Krieger out."

Chapter 16

There is an unusual buzz on board ship as we approach the jump point, nothing verbal, but you can feel it all the same. The last shift never left the bridge, they simply moved over to side couches. Eventually, every single person who had a spot on the bridge available to them is here, the first time that's happened since our first jump.
"Engines to standby." We've done this enough that it feels familiar, but even I can't shake the worry about what we'll find on the other side.
"Engines to standby, aye." Our couches release us into free fall.
"Engineering?"
I run through the ranks of everyone who has to agree, then I enter my authorization code into the nav computer and press enter. Green lights.
"One minute," Garcia following protocol, "Systems nominal."
We're jumping to a point 100,000 kilometers above the system plane, an hour at maximum thrust from being able to jump out of the system, and as close to Gamma Theta 1 as those parameters allow. It's not very close. At least 12 hours to bring missiles to bear if we need to.
"Twenty seconds, jump fields up." Garcia using her business voice.
It goes black on all the camera screens, just as it's supposed to be.
"Ten seconds.... Five.... Jump....."
It's an absolutely normal nothing jump.
"Jump complete."
The fields drop and everybody gets to work. As usual, I break the quiet.
"Engineering. Status?"
"Everything's still nominal, Skipper." Definite relief in the Powell's voice.
"RISTA quick scan, passive only."
"No energy sources currently within range. All passive sensors report negative. Going to visual." McAdams sounds as tired as she looked.
We're about seven light seconds from Theta 1. The main visual telescope can survey the planet, not quite in real time. Same with infrared, radio telescopes, and other passive sensors. We know where they were when we left, without intentional orbital changes we know exactly where they should be now.
"Nothing on visual skipper. Radio transmissions negative on Union military frequencies."
"Copy, Mr. McAdams. Scan for energy trails to jump points." Assuming they waited until optimal transition points from orbit, there would be a set of likely paths they followed from the planet to the sun to jump, one per orbit. We've been mapping them out for the past 10 hours in anticipation of finding nothing in system.
"Already scanning Skipper."
Bass comes in from a side station. "Possible energy trail consistent with jump 12 orbits after our departure." He lists coordinates.
I flip my screen to his, I assume McAdams does the same. We're getting infrared and radiation signatures that are clearly manmade. Five ships make a lot of noise, not the kind they used to in the water, but it's still there if you know how to look.
"Courtney?"
"Skipper, it's got to be them. Energy readings consistent with Union Navy drives, too hot to be from
Opportunity
."
"Affirmative. Mr. Garcia, sound acceleration and jump stations, get us to Nu, maximum thrust."
No need to wait this time, we told everyone to stay at stations. Three different alarms ring through the ship as we turn hard toward the sun and Garcia takes us to four gees.
Terrible hour strapped in our couches, nothing meaningful to do except wonder what we'll find. They've been there for two days. Anything is possible from they found an empty system and moved on to Upsilon, to they're all dead, to they destroyed
Opportunity
and are headed home.
We're coming in above the system plane again, between the sun and the main orbital track, close to a cluster of three sub-planetary bodies surrounded by a ring of smaller asteroids and dust clouds. If I were stupid and jumping in I'd go to the middle of that cluster, exactly where I'd be the biggest target. If they were smart, they'd be where we're going to be, coming out of the sun on the enemy's blind side. It's just a guess, he could have jumped them in anywhere.
Finally, jump fields go up, down we go through our procedures, another uneventful jump and we're in Gamma Nu.
"Mr. Jordan, all cannons hot, open outer doors on missiles three and four, Mr. McAdams, quick scan please." Shelby used the missiles in one and two a couple days ago, thankfully.
"Scanning. No energy sources or disaster beacons detected, Skipper. Continuing."
"Copy. Launch drones as programmed." We're launching three drones to create a search grid, pretty standard by the book grid to search a star system. Still takes at least a week, and even then you're not sure. We will get a preliminary report from them in 72 hours.
Two days since Bode jumped them all in. Most of the likely locations for them to be are within two to three light hours of the sun, so any ship's disaster beacon within the expected range should be available to us now. We didn't expect to have easy trails to follow like we did in Theta unless their automated beacons were live. I don't know if the quiet we're hearing is good or bad, my butt is sure that it's bad news.
We rotate through my shift, I yield the big couch to Shelby, and she to Ayala. I hang out through most of Shel's shift in one of the spare couches, flipping screens, though not so much as a stray radio signal passes by. By the time I head off to get a nap my butt and I are in total agreement. Something bad happened.
Twenty hours into the search I'm sleeping, sort of, in my ready room. The half of my brain that's asleep is startled awake by McAdams on the intercom.
"Skipper, we think we have something." I'm sure she does, even if she isn't.
"On my way." Takes me 15 seconds to get out of my couch, and get to the bridge, the hair flying free in my wake.
She, Gomez, Manuel, and Bass all look exhausted now. The hair raises up in protest as I roll to a stop.
"What do you have?"
They put a set of images from the radio telescopes up on one monitor, a visual on the other. I look for a second.
"A recent explosion, not a signature that occurs in nature." McAdams says it, I had it too. Days ago at most. No telling from the data what it is beyond that.
"Agreed. Any sign of a debris field?"
"No sir, but the amount of dust and rocks in that area makes it impossible to determine at this distance. We're conducting a circular search pattern on radio and infrared with this point as it's center, nothing in that yet. There's a lot of iron bearing rock floating out that way, Skipper, it's going to be hard to find anything, particularly ships coated with that miracle stuff."
"Understood, do your best." I pause. "Courtney, get some rest, take care of your team too. You can use Palmer's men to cover the search grid at the side stations, it'll give them something to do."
"Aye, sir." I have to get her to understand she doesn't have to do it all, and she needs to delegate to her folks better. Still, she's 23. I wasn't any better at that age.
"Do you think we should move that direction?" We're going to, I want her opinion anyway.
"Aye, Skipper, nothing at all from any of the drones, nothing else from any of our scans, this is our only lead."
I lean over from the RISTA toward my couch, currently occupied by my Second.. "Mr. Ayala, coordinate with RISTA, give me course and speed options to their target site. Pad them to me when complete, with recommendations."
I get an aye from him and send McAdams and her crew off to the showers. Literally. Then I go back into my ready room and play with course and speed options myself. We're 90 million kilometers away, at four gees that's 18 hours, add a six hour coast in the middle to get better scans before we go in, and it's a day. Means whoever did it is a day further away.
Can't be helped until someone changes the laws of physics and invents warp drive.
I go through the play of letting Ayala and McAdams advise me to do what I've already decided to do, then we get strapped back into our couches and hit the thrusters to four gees. Eight Marines on the bridge at all times now, each scanning 45 degrees of space off our bow, half with infrared and half visual. Don't know what the prize is to the one who finds something, but it must be good because you can feel the waves of competition off them when you float onto the bridge.
Nothing shows, though, even during the six hour pause we take to have everybody scan with everything we've got. As McAdams predicted, too much iron in the rocks to separate then from debris, if there is any.
No sign of the last white whale either, but we can't be that lucky.
We turn to begin the decel, the Marines now looking past our stern, not that it matters to them. Nine hours of decel, zero contacts until the past 30 minutes. Within 100,000 kilometers it becomes clear in both visual and infrared that the remains of a ship or ships is in the center of the expanding energy cloud. Lots of titanium mixed in with the debris, but that could be either the remains of our friends, or the remnants of the coating protecting our enemies.
Yorktown
goes to zero relative movement 10,000 kilometers off the center of the energy field, in an area that is within the debris field, but doesn't appear to be in the path of anything dangerous.
"RISTA, what do you have for me?" McAdams is at her station, her team all on the bridge working at side stations with the Marines off preparing their gear.
"Too much titanium, Skipper, can't be from any one of the ships, there must be at least two here. No way to know which without more data. No locator beacons, their reactors must have exploded or someone was carrying nukes."
"Acknowledged. Any signs of live ships in the vicinity?"
"Negative, sir."
"As expected. Pad the updated energy readings to me please, and try to figure out where the winners went after the battle." I don't wait for her response, push a button instead. "Mr. Palmer, your survey team is on."
"Yes, sir, leaving now."
We feel the ZR detach from the ship, as usual two squads in the assault boat, one in the sloop as backup. The special ops guys are in the wardroom, watching. Active radar didn't locate any wreckage larger than six inches across, they are just doing random evidence collection in hopes we can learn something, or the labs back home can tell us something, though my butt is sure it's a waste of time.
I'm far more interested in energy trails. Just as I am positive the wreckage here is at least two Union ships, I am equally positive that
Opportunity
left here in one piece or close to it. There's something in all these data that should tell us where. Unfortunately, the expanding radiation from the explosion moves out faster than the ships, so we won't have as easy a trail to follow as we did in Theta.
A quick glance over at McAdams' station and I can see wave after wave of numbers flashing across her screen. I am old school, I have the computer turn the numbers into graphics, nice 3D pictures or 2D slices of the 3D tomato for me to digest. I take eight basic colors and assign each one to a type or strength of radiation, and sing "ohm" while I try to live in the oneness of the image. The trick is finding the right combinations, whether it's covering the right type of radiation or isolating the correct levels.
Two of the pictures I draw keep drawing me back in, something in them I'm sure, I have to isolate it better. An hour staring, flipping, and sorting, and I am still sure I'm right, and sure my picture is still wrong. I should have brought some Tarot cards.
I am so lost in what I am doing that it only slowly dawns on me the McAdams has left her couch and floated over next to mine. How long she stared at the screen I have no idea. She probably thinks I'm taking one of those rip-off on-line art courses.
"Can I help you, Ensign?" I try not to sound too annoyed.
"Sorry, Skipper, never seen anyone analyze radiation patterns in quite that way before."
"Do you have something for me, Courtney?" I can't keep the annoyed out of that one.
"Yes, sir, sorry. May I put something on your screen?"
"Go ahead."
She touches a button on my arm rest, which switches my screens to mirror her screens. There is a graphic on the left, much simpler than mine, and a sea of numbers on the right. She points to the numbers.
"That's a high density radiation trail, could be a large piece of a reactor, but it could be a ship. The only problem is it's not headed for a jump point, it's headed along the same orbital path as the nearby sub-planetary bodies. Could be they tried to hide by doing that."
"Possibly." I need to stall for a second while I think how to handle it. I want to look at my graphics, but not with McAdams looking over my shoulder. I push the intercom.
"Commander Perez, RISTA has a possible escape route mapped. Would you be so kind as to ask the ZR to stop by on their way home?"
Shelby is mildly amused. "Affirmative, contacting them now, sir, if the ensign will pad me some coordinates." Courtney complies.
"Thank you, Courtney, let me know what they find. How likely do you think it is that we're in friendly debris and the trail is a bad guy?"
"Skipper, I." She stops for second. "Our team is gone, sir, I can't prove it, but I know."
"I am of the same opinion, for the same reason. Let me know when the data from the drones comes in."
"Aye, sir." She pauses again. "Skipper, would you show me what you're doing?"
I explain, eight colors, categories, my theory that patterns emerge that the unconscious can see. "Too many folks get lost in the trees when they need to look at the forest, my mom used to say. I think that's true."
"Thank you sir," her voice reveals that I have made her think. Hopefully I haven't screwed her up.
I go back to the two pictures that I found fascinating, and try to isolate the radiation path that Courtney found, but on them. I can mark it out pretty easily, but something about the overall pattern is still bothering me.
The Marines are gone for 10 hours including the detour to the promised path. They return with a couple of crates of random debris which Sergeants Flanagan and McGregor think is from Union destroyers, outer hull remains. Makes sense since that's the densest part. The important thing is the two most veteran investigators we have are sure it's from Navy vessels. We can assume that our battle group is gone, there's too much titanium for any other assumption.
I gather Shelby, Ayala, McAdams, Garcia, Powell, and Palmer in my ready room once I'm done talking to the Marines.
"Suggestions on where to go next?" I know, I finally figured out what was bothering me, but I need to know whatever else I don't know before we go.
McAdams puts her data up on the top monitor, draws a 3D graph on the bottom. "My suggestion is to follow this path, it's the only energy trail we've been able to identify, 082 mark 000 relative."