Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1 (8 page)

Once the ladder is extended, the two privates take defensive positions at the bottom, weapons hot, and Palmer climbs up, the corporal and I watching through the magnifiers in our helmet goggles. He pauses at the top for a second to play his helmet beam around the exposed inner portions of the ship, then bends at the knee, and takes a single hop the last 15 feet into the ship.
He's gone no more than two minutes, carefully puts himself back on the ladder and comes down. Even through the battle armor and full helmet, his body language says he's thinking about what to say.
"Blood stains, sir," he says in a less formal voice than he normally uses to report, "lots of blood stains, and some weapons discharge points as well. Definitely a fight in that space, more so than I would have expected from a civilian transport."
"Lieutenant, any indication of weapon type?"
"No sir. Explosive, not something that we use. We'll swab for residue and try to determine the chemical composition. Might match a known supplier, but I'm betting not. Nothing we've seen at any site follows any of our established norms."
"Roger that Mr. Palmer, roger that."
"Captain, you've got 28 minutes before you need to be in your gig. I suggest we put you in the buggy we brought down, and give you the 360 tour of the ship."
"Good idea, Lieutenant, on your mark."
He turns, and the small four passenger cart is sneaking up behind us, seconds out. I ride shotgun, Yeager and one of the privates from second squad in the back, not there to admire the scenery. The driver extends a gloved fist for a fist bump, not normal procedure for a Marine private to a ship's captain, but I accommodate him.
"Private Wells. Where to, sir?"
"Once around the ship, let's see what we can see."
"Yes, sir." And we're off. The ride is back breaking, all the small rocks tossing the lightweight buggy in the equally lightweight gravity, but it's still much faster than being on foot, so we'll live with it. The port side shows nothing obvious other than the compression damage from the crash, though we have to stop a couple times to double check. The stern of the ship is almost entirely intact, looks pretty much like it looked in orbit.
Off the engineering section starboard we stop one more time to inspect a small visible breach. Yeager, Private Wells, and I hop over, leaving the unintroduced very serious private to guard our transport.
Takes us 20 seconds to recognize what it means, Yeager says it, not me. "Somebody activated an escape balloon."
Ninety nine point nine nine percent of ships are within a day of rescue no matter where they are in Union space (Yorktown currently in the 0.01). Given that room is extremely limited on a ship, and mass is extremely expensive to move, ships usually come equipped with giant inflatable balloons. If you have to abandon ship, you pop out the balloon, inflate it, and seal yourself in until help arrives. They have enough supplies for a couple days packed in them. Thousands of sailors owe their lives to balloons. I'm guessing this time the balloon only created another target for the gunners on that big bastard out there, but it's something else we need to investigate.
Lt. Palmer's voice rings through our radios.
"Three minutes to reacquisition of signal with
Yorktown
, recommend you proceed to camp with all due speed."
"Copy, Mr. Palmer, thanks for the reminder, on our way."
We're back about two minutes late, no big deal, our launch window still 18 minutes long. Palmer is there, but doesn't come over, in fact, he's standing about 100 yards away waving his hands (right one clenched in a fist) as though he's having an extreme conversation with someone. I click over onto the command channel in time to hear the end of a sentence.
"...alternative frequencies?"
"Six sir. Same on all."
"That's not possible, run it again."
"Yes sir." A few seconds of static.
"No go sir."
"Patch me onto the comm and give me simultaneous transmit on all six."
"Copy sir," a pause, "You're go now on all six."
"
Yorktown
, Marine Expeditionary Force, please respond."
Static.
"
Yorktown
, this is Lt. Palmer, over."
Static.
"
Congress
, Marine Expeditionary, do you read?"
More static.
"Any Union warship within range, please respond."
Nothing.
Yorktown
is gone.

Chapter 4.1

What Happened on Yorktown. Don't Read If You Want to Be Surprised.
"
Battlestations. Battlestations. All Hands. Battlestations.
" Horns accompanied the computer generated voice.
Commander Shelby Perez had never pushed that button in anger before, but she was plenty angry now. She knew full well what her Skipper's orders were with regard to the appearance of the enemy, but
Yorktown
was her ship now, and was going to do what she felt was best and deal with whatever the consequences were later. Frak Katana for being so pig headed.
"Garcia, calculate a course away from Gamma Omicron One that maximizes distance before putting us in sensor range of intruder vessel. McAdams, same order, compare when done. You have 20 seconds." She'd spent the last hour since Krieger sailed away deciding what to do. Her answer was get away from the planet, hide, and go back when safe. She hadn't decided how long she'd wait before deciding it was never going to be.
She called up a menu on the right hand display at the captain's station, selected two items and clicked them both without hesitation.
"Emergency Acceleration Stations. Acceleration in excess of four gravities within one minute. Emergency Acceleration Stations." Another call with its own set of horns. "Rig for silent running. All personal equipment off. Rig for silent running." Which, ironically, was also accompanied by a set of tones.
Garcia was in her ears. "Course on your monitor, sir."
She studied it for a few seconds. "Garcia, full power all engines, course approved, go now."
"Full power, 10 seconds." The emergency acceleration horns sounded a second time.
"McAdams, deactivate radio transmission from the drone, establish laser link."
‘Aye, First, laser link only." The drone had been programmed to accelerate above the northern pole of the planet below if it detected a ship entering orbit. That movement, and the pictures it transmitted had triggered the current crisis. By moving to the laser link, they could cloak their transmissions unless the enemy ship physically broke the connections, but it also was line of sight only.
"Powell, unless the engines are about to explode, no complaints."
"Roger, understood." There was some exasperation in Emily Powell's voice, but not a question about her compliance.
The ship rocked sideways with sudden thruster inputs as its nose located the right vector, then everyone was jammed backward with hundreds of pounds of extra weight. Perez lined her hands onto the rests her couch provided, and flicked the switch to put the nav display on her left screen. Outside the ship, nothing visible had changed except she began to move away from the planet. The smoke and fire of old rocket launches was a display of inefficiency and waste not tolerated in the modern ship.
"Engineering," she called again, "Complete silent running checklist."
"Roger, First, silent running checklist." Perez's right screen flicked over to the 52 item list, all red. She watched as they began to turn to green.
Yorktown
was stabilizing at 4.2 gees. It's acting captain knew in a real emergency that would never be enough, but it would probably, probably, suffice here.
"Garcia, McAdams, recalc course to ensure highest probability given known velocity."
"Done sir," Garcia's co-pilot responded for them, "Original burn was 16.2 seconds short given actual thrust, parameters already adjusted to compensate."
"Acknowledged. All stations prepare for silent running. Engineering, pick up the pace on shutting down non-essential power. Get items 21 through 32 now."
"Wilco." Some of those items were tough to complete under four gees, but she wanted them done now. One slip could mean being spotted, and then she would have to take the ship home and abandon Krieger.
Yorktown
's engines burned for 12 minutes, plus a few seconds, the enemy ship about to round the corner in spacial terms, leaving time to shut everything down.
Yorktown
would continue to coast away from Gamma Omicron 1 at about 30 kilometers per second. Perez started giving orders again.
"Garcia, engines off. Powell, reactor two to standby. McAdams, determine angle to minimize potential radar signature from intruder, forward to Garcia. Garcia, upon receipt move the ship. All hands, silent running, now."
Lt. Summerlin floated out of his couch, nothing for him to do during the outbound trip but watch the status displays to make sure
Congress
was undamaged. He made his way next to the captain's couch, and leaned in, his voice a whisper for only her, the crew caught up in the shift as the
Yorktown
turned her nose back toward the planet.
"Commander, you have a great crew, relax and show them you're in command."
She nodded, and went back to flipping from screen to screen. It seemed to her to take forever for the silent running checklist to turn completely green, until finally the last item flashed emerald, and she pushed back into her couch.
"Ayala, Garcia, McAdams, Powell, captain's ready room, now. Summerlin, care to join us?"
He got out of her way, floated toward the rear of the command deck, she still managed to unstrap and beat him to the door. She knew that Katana had programmed her First's biometrics into it to active automatically when she was off ship, and Ayala's as well, privacy not an issue for her commander. It still felt like something of a violation. The door popped open to her touch.
Inside, there was a dark blue enlisted uniform floating in the middle of the space. Perez grabbed it in her right hand and pushed it toward the open door of the head. To no one in particular, and not expecting or requesting an answer, she asked a question.
"Why does she wear those things?"
It was the youngest one who answered, thinking aloud more than directly in reply.
"Winfield Scott wore enlisted uniforms in the Mexican American War. One of his junior officers, US Grant, copied him, later accepted Lee's surrender in a private's outfit. Omar Bradley, Bull Halsey, World War II. Chuck Minter, First Galactic. There's a long history to the style."
Commander Perez looked at Lieutenant Summerlin.
"Commander, I have a suggestion," he started in a soft voice.

Chapter 5

"Lieutenant, get your people back here now!" I'm moving and yelling at the same time, taking full advantage of the bio-assist built into the suit to cover 20 feet with each step, limited only by the fact that each landing is on large numbers of those small rocks, and keeping my butt clean is a priority.
"Landing ship, go hot, you're moving everybody into the hills to the east, at least 30 clicks. Sergeant Yeager, how much loiter time do we have if we take the gig up, leaving enough fuel to get to orbit?"
There's a pause, good that he's being thoughtful, not good for my nerves.
"Estimate 90 minutes, sir."
"Good, we're leaving now. The 2 inch laser in the nose isn't much of a weapon, but we might be able to provide some cover if they don't come too heavy. Mr. Palmer, get your team on the LS, get out of range, go silent, do it yesterday. Am I clear? Bad guys on their way."
"Crystal, sir, we're moving."
I can see most of his troops on the move in the heads up display on my suit. Yeager is already sitting in the gig when I get there, getting the systems fired up. One jump, I am in my seat, and get strapped in without making him wait too long.
"Hills to the east, or plains to the west, your preference for better strategic position?" Yeager has more ground combat experience than the rest of
Yorktown
's crew combined.
He doesn't pause this time, his gravely voice a nice hard edge to it. "West. Distract them from the LS as it bugs out if the bad guys start heading that way."
"Agreed. Let's get airborne, find us a good spot. I'll run the sensors."
"Affirmative."
No pause as he lifts us off the ground, raising a cloud of dust that will only make the site look more suspicious if whoever it is gets here too soon. Can't be helped. The only good part is that they've hammered two corvettes to date, they know the footprint, so they'll recognize the signature here if they look. Might help Shel get away if they're looking small.
From 10,000 feet, both of us see a different hideout north of our position on a mesa of sorts, a couple kilometers in diameter. We hang in the vicinity, trying to be where an active radar will mistake us for rock.
We watch the LS get up, not more than 500 meters above ground level and rocket toward the east. If they can get into the hills, plenty of nice spots to hide. I hardly breathe for the next 10 minutes until they've landed, my mark one eyeballs saying they went nearly 50 clicks out. No visible trail, but it shows on my infrared, so it will likely show for whoever's on their way.
Twenty minutes later, I decide that fortune has favored the foolish. No instrument I have can find any trace of the LS, though there's a circle in the dirt next to
Trump
that wasn't there yesterday, and the only thing in our universe that could make it is a corvette sized lander. Yeager and I land on top of our local mesa, kill all our energy sources, exit the ship and flatten ourselves on the back side of a small hill, trusting our suit sensors to find trouble.
And they do. Another five minutes and a ship falls from the sky, I'd wager 400 tons, pointy on both the front and back ends, with obvious thruster quads each side, and eight big, rotating thruster pods all around. Nothing like anything I have ever seen before, clearly not Hwang or Royal Navy, some pirate king out here is really teaching us a thing or two. The ship handles perfectly for the task at hand, conducting a search pattern, able to shift direction and velocity with remarkable ease at 90 degree angles by flipping the pods as needed.
Doesn't appear to be armed, but we're not chancing it. It loiters for about an hour, and then heads skyward again, exactly what it would do if it's mother ship was in orbit, and it came down on one pass, and left as mama came around for the second time. I take that to mean there hasn't been a confrontation between her and
Yorktown
, both from the timing perspective, and my possibly irrational belief that Shelby would have blown them out of the sky if they'd met broadside to broadside.
We wait another 30 minutes, guessing that they would be out of range, pop off the mesa and go find the LS. Easy to do, and with ample landing space right next to it, we try to limit our dust cloud on the way down. I get my pad out of the gig, tie it's comm system to the gig's system which has a much better antenna, and then we shut down everything that might give a space-borne adversary a means to find us. The one thing we can't do is camouflage our ships, a big camera will certainly find us if they look.
We get into the hatch, and carefully remove our armor and integrate it with the Marines' stuff already overflowing in the bottom deck. Hardly any room to move, there are boxes of unknown whatever taking up about half the normal space.
Nineteen folks on the LS when we got there, Palmer, two of his eight person squads, and the two LS pilots, both enlisted Marines. Yeager and I make 21. It's going to make for cozy living. Eight women, including me, 13 men. Most of the faces are filled with very un-Marine like looks when I step into the control deck, I am about to say something, then decide I should follow protocol a little.
"Lt. Palmer, sit rep."
"Sir, 21 souls on board. Consumables for at least 30 days, maybe 45 if we're careful, and not picky eaters. All our personal weapons are good to go, we've got three shoulder launched anti- aircraft missiles on board as well. We are planning a two person patrol to be outside at all times, with one of the missiles available, my sergeants are working on the details now. No information on status of
Yorktown
or
Congress
." He stops to think, I make him stop.
"Thank you, Lieutenant. Folks, he forgot to mention there isn't a shower on board, and we're going to be pretty ripe by the time the rescue party shows." There's laughter, a good sign. "My orders to Commander Perez were to get
Yorktown
home and bring back the cavalry. They are still at least 18 hours from jumping, and if we assume a day to assemble back on Earth, a day to get to the jump point, and a day to get here, we're at least four days from seeing a friendly face."
"I recommend we do our surveillance from inside the LS, we don't need to waste the O2 every time someone leaves, or have to spend the time recharging our suits. Let's get them as close to full on stores as we can, and as ready to wear as we can, and keep them that way. Two crew on alert at all times if we need to get outside."
"Questions?" None now, probably just being Marines and not wanting to show weakness.
"Good. I'm starving, what's for dinner?"
I spend the evening finishing a history of the US Civil War that was recently discovered, written in the 1960s. Different perspective that what I've read before, and a more detailed account of various tactical errors and brilliance of the campaigns. Then I find an empty rack and get some sleep.
The next day is organizational and boredom. We get everything on the ship laid out and cataloged, preparing for a long stay, including the watch shifts. Everybody, including me and Yeager, will take our turns. Read a sleazy novel I had hidden away on my pad for my next leave, all full of vampires and witches. Sleep soundly for the first time in a while.
Morning dawns still stranded with 20 of my new best friends, and being a good captain, I stand in line to use the head like everybody else. My turn comes, but I barely get my pants down, much less start taking care of business, when my pad beeps at me. No matter how stunning I find the call sign, I make myself finish before reading the message.
It's a single packet transmission, heavily encrypted, a comm signal designed in the First Galactic to be both hard to intercept and hard to crack if it is. Total transmission is 1,024 bytes, with no more than 256 bytes of text. A couple more bytes of header information and the rest of the packet nonsense there to make it harder to decrypyt and decode if you don't have the key. Takes my pad five minutes to sort out, even though it's short.
YORKTOWN DEEP SPACE SILENT STOP CONGRESS ASTEROIDS STOP SEE U WHEN CLEAR STOP SUMMERLIN OUT
I let Palmer read it, then I read it to the ship. Now they have questions. And smiles.
"Hard to know exactly, but my guess would be that
Yorktown
spotted them, they didn't see her, so Commander Perez left orbit, and is drifting out there with most power shut down, waiting for the bad guys to depart. Then they'll be back for us. And, maybe I'll have to court martial the Commander when they do.
Congress
must have taken the long way around into the asteroid field, and sent us the message from there. Now they'll go dark and wait as well. Better for them to take the risk of the transmission than the frigate."
One of the privates tries to be funny. "They're going to be plenty bored pretending to be an asteroid."
Palmer corrects him. "You've never served on a convoy corvette have you son."
"Uh, no sir." He didn't expect the boss to come back at him.
"Corvette captains hand pick their crews, seven folks, all young, fit, and energetic. I can't tell you exactly what they'll be up to, but boring it won't be. I met Lt. Summerlin and his team." A couple of the veteran Marines tell their stories of corvette life. I break down and tell mine.
"The summer between junior and senior year at the Academy you do one month each on three ships. I got assigned as the co-pilot fill in for a sick crew member on a corvette guarding a convoy from Earth to the Montana system. They didn't expect me to play, but it's an awfully small space, and they didn't tone down one bit because I was there. Learned a lot that summer, even some things about how to pilot a ship." They laugh. The guy who started the whole thing looks like he's thinking of asking for a transfer to convoy duty.
Spend the day reading, and thinking of ways to clean my hair on a one liter daily water ration. Sleep soundly again, though the aroma is already starting to build on board. Fortunately, my pad starts beeping at 1300 the next day, while I'm having a delicious lunch of pre-packaged rations. They make me read it out loud. Okay, I'm the captain, they didn't make me, but I did anyway.
"ENEMY SHIP ON COURSE TO GAMMA OMICRON 6, LS LAUNCH WINDOW AT 1745, SEE YOU IN ORBIT, PEREZ. OUT." For the first time on this mission there's a cheer. I silently hope it's not the last.
Yeager and I get off the ground a half hour later, do a quick visual and instrument scan, then direct the LS back to the crash site. I do not want to leave without the evidence that's sitting there. The Marines are happy to only have to smell themselves inside their suits, and we perform the grizzly tasks of removing the bodies and sampling the blood stains, along with measuring and sampling the obvious weapons discharge points.
By 1715, we're still not done, but I put an end to it, making sure we're not going to miss the launch window. By 1745 the LS is locked and loaded. I give it clearance to go, the Marine aviators hit the thrusters and they climb out rapidly, Yeager and I trailing, providing cover of a sort. By 1820, we're happily docked with Union Starship
Yorktown
. By 1900, I'm showered and changed, and floating in my ready room with my senior team, minus Summerlin who will meet us
en route
. Five gigantic smiles floating across from me wearing light blue uniforms, and one in dark green.
"Thank you all for violating my orders, it was really starting to smell." They laugh a polite laugh. Then I get to business.
"What do we know?"
Shelby flips on my screen and ties her pad to it. "This is the ship that went into orbit, photos from the drone. We've identified her as Brazil system based cargo ship
Orion
, went missing on a routine mission to Omicron Theta 29 months ago, no escort, investigation found nothing. We have her blueprints on file, quarter inch steel hull, 240,000 tons empty."
"
Orion
sent several of an unknown type of vessel to the mining station on planet, we assume to collect the iron ore being produced. She broke orbit 14 hours ago at 1.8 gee acceleration, we calculate she's on a moderate fuel consumption trajectory to planet 6, four days transit time."
"There have been engineering modifications to
Orion
, she barely shows on passive scans, we can follow her now because her engines are powered and we're facing her tail. When she goes to coast, we may or may not be able to follow her to destination."
I nod.
"Mr. Ayala, anything?"
"No sir. We should follow and turn her into dust before she know's we're coming, but I'm happy with follow and find out what's going on."
"Understood. Mr. Garcia?"
"I've plotted several different course options for us to follow, assuming you'd want to stay silent. On your pad now, sir."
"Thank you. Mr. Powell?"
"Still no joy on engines 2 and 4, preparing another possible work around. Otherwise, we're fully functional, Skipper."
"Keep at it, I know you'll get it. Update me when you get a chance." She nods. "Mr. McAdams?"
"Sir, we're hypothesizing a base on Gamma Omicron 6. Weird energy readings emanating from there, we'd thought they were the mining station at first, but digging deeper there are sub- frequency signals not from standard power units. No possible way to estimate numbers and strength."
"Understood, just as blind as we always are. I want you to gather details of every unexplained ship gone missing within the 24 closest sectors over the past 48 months. Look for any patterns."
"Aye, sir." I got the chance to light the bulb over her head, her blue eyes sparkle for a second with the possibilities I've suggested. Most officers her age would pretend that they saw it, she's mature enough to get after any suggestion from whatever source. Except Ayala, that is.
I call up the possible courses and we discuss the probabilities. Outbound, we want to stay in her baffles. If we are directly behind, thrusting toward her engines, we will be really hard to spot. Once they turn for braking, however, if we're still there we're all too easy to spot if they go active, and probably going to light up their passive as well, but we get a brief time delay to exploit depending on how far away we stay.
In the end, I gamble on them not initiating their turn until close to the time they start braking thrust, and pick a course which exactly follows theirs for three days before beginning a loop to get us ahead of them, but also ahead of the planet's orbital path. If we pull it off, we can stay invisible to them, not the other way around. Means staying at silent running for another four or five days, which will not excite the crew since it requires them to power down their pads for non- military use.