Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1 (25 page)

I start to move forward into engineering when a third blast takes us,
Yorktown
reels to port this time. I am thrown into the engineering space, ragdoll style, smashed 10 feet down into the housing for engine three. Nothing broken, everything injured. Shelby reports an inner hull breach in the water tanks. Not a death blow yet, no atmosphere there to lose.
Powell's voice rings across the compartment.
"Skipper, he's shut both weapons busses off at the reactor junction and all the main buss power breakers are popped." Mechanical shutoffs at points that aren't monitored electronically.
Don't stop to think about why she needs me to restart them, I brace my feet against the engine housing that just beat the crap out of me, and push up as hard as I can. Twenty feet later at the top of the space I use the jutting components of engine one to throw myself toward the bow end of the ship and the reactor.
Yorktown
takes a fourth hit, I'm thrown to my port side, thrust my hand onto the piping to protect my head. My left arm slips, jammed between a couple pipes just as the rest of me comes crashing in at an angle. A bolt of pain shoots down the length of my arm and into my shoulder, then the pain recenters on my forearm and lays there throbbing, warning me to move at my own peril. Pretty sure I broke something on that one, maybe more than one something.
Shelby reports deck five open to space, it's the Marine's area this time, not critical or mortal, yet. DC party responding. The spin is increasing, the
Fitz
's ability to actually target us is certainly affected by now, plus the 40 second recharge gap. Zombies at the firing controls perhaps saving our lives. They should have waited until they were right on top of us.
There are two foot-long levers, iron, thick, painted white, both obviously designed to be pushed forward and blend with a matching cut out in the metal overhang, but they are jutting out at 90 degree angles. It's an old plumbers code, parallel is flow, perpendicular means no go.
I grab the right one with my decent arm, brace my feet on the engine cowling, and push. It slides up and clicks into place. There are no lights or indicators up here, I have to trust that it restarted the circuit. Then I pretend to be a gymnast, reach across my body with my right hand and do the same with the left switch.
Yorktown swings again, but this time my butt, despite being suspended in midair and decidedly bruised, knows what just happened.
"Get ‘em Shelby!" No one can hear me, I'm sure, despite yelling at the top of my lungs, but missiles just left their tubes and what I felt was the reaction to their action.
I spin around in the tight space, holding my left arm as tightly to my chest as I can, then push with my legs back toward the stern. Which is suddenly easier because
Yorktown
is stabilizing under her thrusters.
The sight that greets me as I clear engine number one is not something any sane commander should have to ever see on board their ship. I float myself down, useless left arm not a transportation issue, but every motion hurts like hell. Powell is there, Petty Officer Blair is there, Yeager, two bodies, and a sea of floating globules of blood, bright red, pulsing through the air as if connected to a still beating heart.

Chapter 19

"Lieutenant, report." Powell never expected leading Engineering to be so exciting, I'm sure. She's lost three of the six people who have reported to her since we launched.
"Skipper, Specialist Scott reported a warning light on the main fuel tank. I sent Boddicker and Blair to check. I turned my back for just a second, and woke up taped into my couch." She reaches up and touches a nasty bruise on the left side of her head.
"He was armed with a nine mil. Forced Boddicker to tape Blair into his couch, and then shot Mike dead. You know the rest sir. He cut power to weapons, engines and life support."
"Understood. Emily, get to sickbay, no arguments." She's about to argue anyway, then gives up and gives in. She gives a couple quick orders to Blair and makes a call to the bridge to get Jordan and Lowenstein down here to help, then floats off. There's a protocol for blood (really anything liquid) floating in a zero gee space to make sure it doesn't get into the equipment. Blair gets the unpleasant job of starting it.
I reach up and touch the comm button on my collar.
"Mr. Perez, status?"
"Skipper, two
Fitzgerald
's vaporized. DC party finishing repairs to inner hull punctures on deck five, about a dozen external punctures and water tank puncture still open, DC party moving to the tanks next. Otherwise, ship functional, no casualties. We lost a couple thrusters quads and the port cannons."
"Well done, Commander, two dead here. Specialist Scott was working for the wrong side." Scott was the replacement we took on board last time we were home, providing another loose end to clear up. It would be nice, just once, to go back home with the mission actually completed.
"Roger."
Jordan and Lowenstein show themselves and get to work. I give Yeager instructions to deal with the dead, then I manage to float out of engineering and down to the bridge with two legs and one arm.
Shelby takes on look at me and touches her collar. "Dr. Bonilovich to the bridge, on the double."
I've been practicing my wry smiles of late, and I give her one.
"Mr. Garcia, as soon as the damage control party finishes with the water tank, get them back on board, then get us to the asteroid."
"Aye, sir, Chief Turner is outside, reporting 15 minutes on the tanks."
I turn back to my First.
"Status on the Marine assault, Shel?"
"Unknown, they're still maintaining radio silence."
Let's hope that's what it is, the other option is not very good. Bonilovich shows and spends a minute appraising my arm, making it hurt more than it did before he got here. What the frak happened to "do no harm?"
"It's broken, Captain." I knew that, and I didn't spend four years in med school.
"Doctor, I have about 10 minutes before we have to move. Can you do something useful with it in that time?"
"Yes, sir, give me two minutes." He's back in about three, with an injection of pain killer followed by a Kevlar and cloth cast which he tightens into place rather painfully despite the injection, then hooks onto my uniform. And he brings a warning to be in sickbay for a full and proper fitting before it starts to heal on its own, potentially out of correct position. He also tells me that Emily is bruised, but not concussed, and is cleared for duty.
I try to strap myself into my couch and fail. My First Officer quietly laughs her ass off at me for a minute, that equally quietly adjusts the straps for me. I have her set my left screen to the rotating set of status screens, since I'm not going to be able to adjust it easily in flight.
Garcia sounds five minute acceleration warning just about even with Shelby pulling the last strap tight. I'll pretend she hasn't been watching and waiting for me.
I spend the five minutes watching the screens, which now report all systems normal, including life support, and water tanks at 40%, which isn't a problem as long as recycling is functional. They were above 95% and we've been out here awhile.
Exactly on cue,
Yorktown
leaps out at two gees, my arm now possessing it's own form of accelerometer. It's only a few minutes before we rotate and start the longer decel portion of the show.
Congress
,
Truxton
, and
Decatur
are in a low orbit around the planetoid, equally spaced so that at least one of them has lasers on the dome at all times. We park Yorktown in a geostationary orbit nearly, but not exactly, above the base.
We get direct laser comm from all three little buddies, nothing to report except that there is nothing to report. They were scheduled to begin the assault just as the enemy ships reached the mine field, barely more than 90 minutes ago, and a lot less than that when you figure in transit time from orbit to the planet surface.
There are no reserves for this assault, we sent in every Marine on board except Yeager. The landing craft is still attached to Yorktown, but we'd have to put together a group of Navy hands to man it if we have to go in for some reason. More likely, if they get into trouble we'll end up nuking the base and every zombie in it, something Palmer and I talked about before he left.
Has a kind of Hernán Cortés ring to it, except our enemy created the incentive and did it without burning any boats. I'm counting on Palmer to keep his team alive.
Seventeen boring minutes on station until McAdams wakes me up.
"Movement at the main landing bay."
My good arm reaches out and switches my right screen to her screen. Something moving, no clear picture yet.
"Alert the corvettes, laser comm only."
"Copy, direct link active." One of her folks has it, she's still on the visual.
Then we both see it.
"Boat under acceleration, one of theirs." One of the pointy ships is moving away, attack computer has it at 4.8 gees.
"Copy, Mr. McAdams, send to
Congress
and
Truxton
, pursue and stop, if unable, destroy, do not board. Notify
Decatur
to stand by." The last thing I need is having them step into an unknown situation on board an enemy.
Decatur
is on the wrong side of the planetoid to help.
"Pursue and stop, if necessary destroy, do not board, Mr. Bass is transmitting."
Those little ships are highly maneuverable, but if 4.8 is their maximum acceleration they aren't going anywhere. We watch the two corvettes flank them, getting to parallel courses within a kilometer of the escapee.
It tries a quick turn getting briefly behind one of the larger floating boulders and then doubling back, but it only works for a couple minutes and after that it simply runs in a straight line toward the sun.
We hear Summerlin in the clear ordering them to return to the planetoid, we hear him do it three times in total without any response, then we watch the two boats pull within 200 meters before
Truxton
launches a stick of short range missiles. When Palmer gets back from the surface, we'll have another debris field for him to search.
Before the corvettes get back to us, we get an all clear from the surface. The Marines have cleaned out the base, Palmer suggesting I come visit. Shelby points at my arm and eyeballs me to make sure I understand what a bad idea that is.
"On my way, Mr. Palmer, see you shortly."
I can feel the exasperation all the way across the bridge. I tell McAdams to join me, and we go through the now standard non-verbal "can Gomez come too." I tell Yeager to meet us at the LS hatch.
The ride down is quiet, short, and excruciatingly painful. Palmer meets me at the landing pad and tells me the story while we walk.
Compartment by compartment, fire fight by fire fight, Palmer's men and women went through the base. No Libor. No humans with hair. Zombies everywhere, firing without trying to cover themselves, just shooting from open positions until their ammo was gone, or they were dead. The few that fired all their rounds without taking one in return came after the Marines with knives, and died in the attempt. Humans forced to die attacking other humans so the aliens can run away.
We need these Libor dead.
While Palmer and I evaluate the human cost, which fortunately includes no Marines dead or wounded, Courtney and Olivia start a data upload from the main servers to
Yorktown
, easier and cleaner than having to wait here while they transfer it to a portable.
Finally, I decide there's nothing more to learn here, get everybody loaded back into their respective boats and one by one clear them for ascent to
Yorktown
. Palmer wants to go back and do the forensic work, I am getting us out of here and back on the trail of the bad guys. We'll let the Navy send a forensics team back later. Power off, everything will be literally frozen in place.
We dock the landing and assault ships back aboard, unload their passengers, then put the LS back on its tether and push it out into space. That creates docking space for the three corvettes so their crews can come aboard, hit the gym, showers, mess, and whatever else strikes their fancy.
Spend the next day still orbiting planetoid 149, cleaning, resupplying, re-everything, until our battle group is once again ready for battle.
Opportunity
is still out there, and still very dangerous. We're possibly going to find her with companion ships as well, if we can find her. I am getting some really bad feelings in the butt about what's going on.
I watch the assault from Palmer's helmet cam video, then Ramos' cam, then each of the three sergeants. By far the hardest video I've ever had to watch. Yes, they were pirates. Yes, we might have blown them to bits eventually ourselves (or made them walk the plank) for whatever bad things they were doing out here. But everyone has the right to die on their own terms, not on somebody else's.
Each compartment opens, there's a burst of gunfire or not from inside. If there is, in goes a flash-bang, then a couple Marines. The flash's don't really seem to disorient the men inside, perhaps given their already messed up mental state, but none of them are good shots, a fact which I prefer to put down to them retaining some sense of what they are being forced to do.
Make a note to suggest some non-lethal weapons be added to our stores if this turns into a real war and we have to do this again.
Eventually, I give up on the video, write a large number of commendations into my log, then catch up on some overdue sleep. Bonilovich gets a visit from me when I wake up. He wants to attach a permanent cast, I make him give me one I can get into a space suit. He lets me know I shouldn't be doing that, I remind him this is a warship.
Master Chief Turner takes me out in a pod to inspect the repairs on the hull punctures, which are as clean as they get this far from home. The man and his crew do great work, though I will admit I've given them far too much practice on a ship that's not even two months old. Getting in and out of my suit was an adventure I'd rather not repeat any time soon, but I'm not telling anyone.
Our five port cannons are another story. Palmer, Emily, Shelby, and I float them one by one, shake our heads, and move on to the next. They will have to replaced when we get home. And, for once, I'm happy that all the missile launchers are on the starboard side. I do consider disassembling one of the starboard cannons and trying to move it to port, but that likely just leaves us another cannon down.
We also send a Marine unit over to the debris field from the pointy ship, but they find no evidence of the aliens other than the hull of the ship itself. I have them take the usual random debris samples anyway, we might learn something useful. It's nice that we eat, a whole section of our stores space that was once food is taken up with debris canisters now.
I have McAdams make a download from the three drones we still have out there, and it confirms no movement or potential objects of interest other than us. I send
Decatur
over to the other abandoned mining colony in the system that we know about. Rivera finds even less there than here, the dome has a puncture, probably asteroid, that makes it essentially useless even for pirates.
Then I get everyone together to start planning for going to Upsilon. The system is much like the one we're in, lots of smaller bodies, no planet sized ones, lots of rocks, lots of dust.
I expect we'll find there what we found here, namely the Libor in control of what once was a pirate base, their ship augmented by converted pirate vessels. McAdams was way ahead of me, when I ask for advice she's got a map, computerized, either she's given up on crayons or she didn't have time.
"Skipper, there are three former mines in the Upsilon system, we've got four drones left, I would propose sending one drone to each site, with the fourth checking out a large cluster of sub- planetary bodies with no known mines."
We all stare at the screens on my ready room wall, thinking about the plan. Ayala is the first to speak, and he suggests something almost completely different, three drones in a standard triangular search pattern and a fourth above the system plane. After a couple minutes of arguing, I put a stop to it and ask if anyone else has an opinion.
Everybody takes sides, mostly with McAdams, though a few think we're better off not making any assumptions and go in as we would if we were blind. I decide.
"Let's compromise. We send three drones to the three mines, and we put the fourth into a slot above the system plane where it can have a clear field of view. Bigger question is where do we jump, and what formation? My inclination is to keep us together, but with room to maneuver."
The system is up on my top display, with the mine locations marked by red dots. I need to get McAdams a direwolf icon for future use. They are in two different orbital paths, but all are on the same "side" of the sun, within a 100 degree semicircular arc. This system looks like a giant version of Saturn, three main orbital paths full of dust, rocks and debris, like a giant ring system. Either not enough mass for the debris to form planets, or there were three planets here that disintegrated, I'm not enough of an astrophysicist to figure out which.
Shelby points to a relatively clean spot, no large objects nearby, at the edge of the inner most ring. Would put us just 400,000 kilometers from two of the mines, a day at combat thrust from the third. She doesn't say anything, just points. McAdams nods. Ayala shakes his head. Maxwell actually speaks.
"That's appropriate, Captain. Jump in a diamond formation, corvettes in a leading triangle,
Yorktown
behind us. Easiest path to which ever mine we need to access, though it does leave us highly exposed right at the moment of jump."