Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1 (26 page)

Highly exposed is the nice way to put it.
But it makes sense. Three hours later we're ripping at high gee toward the Gamma Nu sun, everyone in their battle suits, the crew seemingly focused in another way I have never seen them before. Stern, not tense. Confident, ready to go, quiet. The back and forth exchanges are shorter, crisper. We're in the end game, and everybody knows it.
Something still bothers me though. Can't shake it, can't put my finger on it, well actually I can shake it and touch it, because it's my butt, and it knows that there's something else going on.
Our little buddies are in a triangle formation, but vertical across our mid-section, we're letting the jump energy move them into the battle formation we want rather than trying to fly in it. This way, we'll all jump at exactly the same instant.
No engineers on the bridge this time, the loss of Scott and Boddicker leaves us with just four of them, and they all belong back where the works are, not up here where they can't help in an emergency.
We partially compensate by having a Marine squad on the bridge, McAdams reluctantly turning the bow, stern, keel, and top cannons over to four of them, and gladly using the other four to help with sensors.
She's keeping both missile systems and the starboard cannons under her literal thumb. Hopefully, the enemy will cooperate and stay away from our damaged port side.
I start my final checks a couple minutes out from the jump.
"All hands, status. Mr. Garcia?"
"We're go, Skipper. Autopilot coordination set." Her business voice, never so serious.
"Mr. Powell?" Have to go to her directly with no engineers on the bridge.
"All engines ready, all available cannons armed. Outer doors open, all cannons. All missiles on standby. Jump engines on, one through four, reporting nominal." Something tells me she's scratching her head as she says it.
"Mr. McAdams?"
"We're go, Skipper." As excited as always.
"Mr. Ayala?"
"Go."
"Mr. Perez?"
"Go. DC party in hard suits, reporting ready. Lt. Palmer reports two squads ready to board the assault boat, Marine Force Recon providing on board security."
Shelby telling me we have professionals here to storm engineering this time if needed. I momentarily want to mention barn doors and horses, but I let it go.
"Mr. Maxwell?"
Truxton
is running point today, they drew straws.
"Task Force is go, sir."
"Mr. Garcia, begin jump countdown."
She runs through it, nothing new or unusual.
Yorktown
's jump computers are keying the corvette computers. It would be bad if one of them jumped in at the same spot we do.
It goes black on all the camera screens when it's supposed to, the Marines on the bridge take that as a cue to double check their cannons.
"Ten seconds.... Five.... Jump....."

Chapter 20

Nice and quiet, just the way it's supposed to be. The jump field goes down, but the engines stay on in defensive posture.
"RISTA?"
"Scanning." McAdams is busy, I can see 16 hands flying across screens, she's got the Marines well trained, indistinguishable from her own folks. Takes about 15 seconds, time I use checking our formation, which is perfect down the line.
"Nothing definitive, Skipper. Infrared anomaly from Gamma Upsilon sub-planetary body 067."
"Affirmative. Launch the drones please." We feel the slight shove back into our couches as the last of our drones head off. Nice that they gave us so many for this trip.
Of the three possibles, 067 is the one I would have chosen. It's in a dust cloud, a sea of rocks surrounding it for 40,000 kilometers in every direction. A hundred ships could be hiding out there and we'd never see them until we're within their firing solution.
We're going to sit here in our diamond formation, running silent and plotting courses for the three targets until the drones give us something more interesting to do. It will take them about two hours to get to target, we have three them going above the system plane coming in at angles leading away from us, then diving down into the muck and making their approaches. The fourth is going above the system plane to get a clear field on all three sites at once.
By the time we're an hour in, I've approved courses from our present location to all three mining planetoids, two of which require us to go single file and abandon our diamond. The other choice was above or below the system plane, and that makes me feel totally exposed, like the British in the American revolution marching down a road while the Americans hide in the woods and pick them off. As much as we can, we're gonna hide behind the rocks too. And, we'd still have to make a long final approach through a dust cloud, just at a different angle.
McAdams and her team continue their search from here, but find nothing to add besides the anomaly from 067. Finally, we start getting downloads from the drones. The three on station are doing a directional relay to the fourth, which is using a secure laser to download to us, minimizing the chance the bad guys can trace the comm back to us if they spot the drones.
The first download has nothing, the second download a half hour later has less. I'm tired, grouchy, and we're leaving.
"Mr. McAdams, switch drone four to omnidirectional radio transmission. Mr. Garcia, sound acceleration stations, warn the corvettes. Set course to planetoid 067, go on your mark. Let's roll."
"Course to 067, my mark." We immediately get the five minute horns, the interplay between Marcos and the corvettes is in my ear, then the countdown.
We go to four gees, just a little over two hours to get us 50,000 kilometers off target at 10,000 kph. There is relatively clear sailing to 067 until we hit the serious dust cloud around it, the autopilot can keep us away from anything that's going to hurt us. And hopefully, the dust cloud that's keeping us from seeing will minimize the chance that their sensors will find us once we're in our decel and have engines almost facing the planetoid.
The 500 pound version of me spends the time rotating through every screen, heavy on visual, looking for our foes. I don't know why I think I'm better at it than the other eight people doing exactly the same thing, but I do it anyway. As usual, I lose.
"OohRah!," it's PFC Dobson yelling again, she's going to be a corporal very quickly she keeps this up, "320 mark 005 relative." I just looked at her screen and saw nothing. I switch back and still see nothing for a second, then the image alters and zooms in.
It's a
Vargas
class fuel tanker, larger than the
Fitzgerald
's, but slower and less well armored, apparently heading for the planetoid.
"Good work, Mr. Dobson." I state the obvious. "Stay sharp everyone, that's not the only ship we need to find."
On the last rest break, we fill the bridge. Hardy and Grich fill the two empty engineering couches, giving us four pilots on duty. All four RISTA staff slide into couches, Ayala joins me and Shelby. Four of the Marines have to leave the party, fortunately they left Dobson with us. She might not think so, might rather be part of the boarding party in case we assault the base, but I want her eyes just where they are.
We hit our decel program without spotting any more ships, bad luck for us. We slow to 10,000 kph, already coming in on the far side of the planetoid from where the
Vargas
is headed, so no alteration in plan yet. Engines go to standby and we rotate back into our direction of flight.
I spend the last few minutes of the decel looking at Garcia's latest flight plan. As we've gotten closer, we've put together a better map of the objects we need to avoid.
Yorktown
's taken enough damage, we don't need to have to file an insurance claim because we ran into a rock. It's going to be like flying the Himalayas at 15,000 feet.
I briefly contemplated allowing active radar to up the accuracy of our map by a factor of 10, but that would let everyone in the area know exactly where we are. I'll live with the level of detail we have, if we can sneak up on the bad guys.
"Mr. Garcia, course to 067 approved."
"Aye, sir."
She hits a couple keys which execute the plan in the flight management computer, and we start down the long and winding road with a couple jolts from our thrusters. I leave everything be for an hour, until we're about to start into the dust ring.
"RISTA, weapons status?"
"All cannon doors open, everything reads nominal, sir" Bass with the response.
"Engineering. Status?"
"All quiet, Skipper, all systems green."
"Let's keep it that way, Lieutenant." I try to be a little lighthearted with my response.
"Roger that, Captain."
Then we go back to watching.
Yorktown
is in free float through the boulder field, the thrusters making course corrections every few minutes. Sometimes we can tell why, sometimes the computer must have done the vector arithmetic for an object well ahead not obvious in our visuals. Sometimes it's a longer push from the bow thrusters to keep us from accelerating from the course changes.
"Thirty thousand kilometers. Everything on the line." Marcos updating for us. We're about to penetrate into the real mess ahead, perfect cover for bad guys, all the dust and rocks a pirate's dream. Now we know that pirates and aliens think alike.
More staring at screens, black space and brown rocks tipped with glints of sunlight on the visual, infrared highlighting the sides of the rocks exposed to the sun, but little else. Radio telescopes have intermittent pulses from 067, and that's it. We lost track of the tanker, but it should be less than 15 minutes out from the planetoid when Marcos gives us the second update.
"Twenty thousand kilometers. Still on the line."
Ten more boring minutes before McAdams starts in.
"Skipper, movement on the base."
I switch my screen to hers, there are three infrared signatures which most likely are ships under power headed away from us.
"Identify." I assume she's already doing it, but that doesn't let me keep quiet. I have to wait 20 seconds for the response.
"Sir, one definitely an alien vessel, another of those 400 ton boats. Second radiation signature matches the
Vargas
class ship spotted earlier. Third signature most likely another
Fitzgerald
class. Course suggests they are heading outbound solar."
"Copy." I reach for the radio buttons, establish a secure laser data link with
Truxton
.
"Mr. Maxwell, alien ships headed to a jump point, course on the download I just sent. Task Force is to pursue, capture if possible, destroy otherwise, do not board. Acknowledge."
"Acknowledged, Captain. Pursue, capture or destroy, do not board."
"No unnecessary risks, Lieutenant. We'll send a nuke to trail you, available at your request."
"Roger, sir. Course change in 30 seconds."
"Copy, good hunting,
Yorktown
out."
Then I go back to internal comm. "Mr. McAdams, send the missile in tube 7 to follow them, do not arm until ordered. Launch on your mark."
"Affirmative, Skipper, multiple warhead ship-to-ship missile, tube 7, launch 10 seconds after Task Force departs."
I watch the three spheres go hot on infrared, create a triangle formation and scoot away headed above the plane of the dust field, no reason for them to try and hide any longer. Possible their departure gave away our position, but I'll risk it. We feel the missile eject, then watch it's infrared wake move after the little guys.
I start to settle back into my couch, but I should have known better.
Yorktown
rocks to port, starts a yaw in the same direction, thruster activity goes off the chart as the autopilot tries to get us back on course. My screens flash off, then on, then back off, then come back on.
"RISTA?" I try to keep my voice calm, but it's tough with the ship trying to spin.
"EMP, Skipper, unusual wave form, got to us even through our shielding. Computers did a quick reload and restart."
"Source?" Okay, the source was me being stupid enough to be so close to the little buddies when they lit their engines, regardless of what fired on us.
"Unknown, searching."
"Mr. Garcia, get us off the computer, go to manual."
"Aye, sir, switching to manual." The flight management computer will still tell her what to do, it just won't execute it. All four pilots hit their consoles.
Then we're slammed again, every light on the ship goes out, our screens pop off. Emergency lighting comes, then the computers reboot again, longer this time. Gomez is in my ear.
"Full reboot on two of the FMS, attack computer down, going to manual reload." If she can't handle it, nobody can.
"Courtney, find the source. Cannons go weapons free at your command, take it out."
"Aye, Skipper, still searching."
Powell comes into my ear now. "Jump engines down, Captain, recycling out."
"Copy, jump engines have priority, we need the shield."
"Aye."
I see McAdams' hands fly across her screen, just as the ship takes a third hit and the emergency lights go out. My left screen is down, right one flashes twice, but holds on, indications we fired and were fired upon flashing across it.
"RISTA?"
"Got it, Skipper, on your screen." Her voice has that I just killed something and I'm good at it tone.
My right screen has an image of a metallic box with a snowflake painted on it's side sitting on the surface of an asteroid, I'm assuming one close by. I hit play, and watch as it explodes into pieces. I've seen that box before.
"Courtney, that was one of the boxes Yeager and I saw on
Defino
."
"Roger that, Skipper, now we know what they do." Learned it the hard way, we did.
The emergency lights and half of the standard lights come back on making the bridge look somewhat ghostly, bright in spots, almost foggy in others.
"Nice shooting, Ensign. If there are any more of those things, let's find them before they find us."
"Affirmative, we're changing our search parameters to emphasize the asteroid surfaces." She's talking on her comm, I can see the Marines resetting their consoles.
The attack computer comes alive on my left screen, Gomez good to her word. I overlay the nav display, and immediately don't like what I see. My vector math isn't that good, I have computers and pilots to take care of it for me, but I a quick extrapolation in my head says we're on course to go through a cluster of three asteroids.
"Mr. Garcia, get us around the cluster ahead, not through, two gees approved. Rotate 180 degrees, put the starboard cannons onto them."
One of the three is directly above our flight path, one off to each side, forming a nice sized triangle, with absolutely zero dust in between. My butt and I both think they're a perfect trap, the lack of dust there a siren call to the unwary seaman.
"Mr. McAdams, when you get a second, shoot some holes into that asteroid cluster."
There's an emergency acceleration horn, the nose swings 40 degrees to starboard as we simultaneously rotate to port and the engines kick in, Maria using both gees I authorized. It's going to be close. McAdams hits her screen a couple times.
"Firing now, Skipper, closest asteroid, three shots."
We watch on visual. Nothing.
"Guess I'm just overly paranoid."
I barely get that out of my mouth when the entire asteroid explodes, boulders the size of our pods flying at us at high speed.
"Maria, full thrust, all engines!"
Nine gees shoves us into our couches, the world spinning in my eyes as I try to get focused again. We don't make it out. One of the rocks hits us starboard near the stern, swinging our tail around at high speed, the engines still roaring.
We're well above 15 gees in combination, every acceleration warning I have hits my screens, from high gee to limit of human tolerance to mechanical on the ship structure, some warnings I've never seen in five years commanding a ship.
Yorktown
herself strains against the pull, creaking like her oaken ancestors in a gale.
"Engines to standby, stabilize the ship!" I can barely talk, it was meant to be a yell but came out as a whisper. There's no verbal response, but the engines drop away and slowly the ship comes stable. If we'd gone through the center of that cluster, we'd have been turned into a dead lump of iron.
"Mr. Garcia, st...." I'm about to ask for status, but I just happened to glance at my screen, "Full thrust, starboard 90 degrees!" Once again, too late. A boulder fills my screen, smashing into the starboard side, this time amidship, starting another spin along the long axis of the ship. Someone stops it without my having to ask, I'll assume it was Garcia.
As soon as I can focus, I glance around the bridge. Marcos is out cold, floating helplessly strapped into his couch. So is Gomez, her hair more mobile than she. A couple of the Marines might be too, it's hard to tell from here. McAdams is still strapped in three feet from me, obviously groggy, the blue eyes glazedly looking at me without seeing me, but at least she's not unconscious. Shelby's on my other side already talking to someone on the intercom.
A quick look at the nav screen to make sure we're not in any immediate danger followed by any equally quick check on the damage to our course, which is substantial, and a few seconds to clear the messages and warnings off my screens. I reach into my overhead and convert my right screen into an emergency pilot panel, so maybe I am overly paranoid, with four of them already on the bridge.