Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1 (13 page)

"I think we do. We inhabit 47 systems, and will someday inhabit hundreds. Right now we have 46 heavy Navy ships. It's not enough if we get a bigger pirate problem, or a real war breaks out."
She thinks for a while, decides to change the subject. Probably was hoping to get me say something I wasn't going to about the Navy, and is giving up.
"You're from Colorado system. Tell me about growing up there."
"My parents own a farm on Colorado 2 outside of Boulder, growing coffee, teas, and spices. It's a red dwarf world so the flavors are uniquely strong. I had a great life growing up, playing with my brothers and sisters, learning to make my own flavors of tea, raising dogs. But I have 10 brothers and sisters, and eventually had to find something to do with my life, since the farm wasn't in my future."
"Ten brothers and sisters?"
"Yep. My oldest brother Kent runs the farm now, with his wife and the cutest little nieces and nephews you have ever seen. My sister Kenna and her husband live there too, first little nieces or nephews a couple months out. All the rest of us have moved on."
"Don't tell me you all have ‘K' first names."
"Kent, Kenna, Kiana, Kristopher, Katana, Kolby, Kadin, Kelly, Kaelyn, Kaycee, and Keanu, in order. Five sets of twins and me, so not as hard on my mom as you might have thought."
"What made you choose the Navy as a career?"
"All of my siblings loved the earth. Besides farming, they work as park rangers and mining engineers, those kind of jobs. I always looked to the stars. I wanted adventure."
"You certainly got your wish. What's next for Katana Krieger?"
I laugh. "Sort out the engines on
Yorktown
, and go where the Navy wants me to be."
"I hear you are something of a naval historian, that the quote you gave at christening is your favorite. Going in harm's way is what you do."
"It is. The officer who first said that along with a task force of ships smaller than
Yorktown
took on one of the most powerful battle fleets ever assembled and beat them. They didn't make it home, but they saved thousands of other Marines and sailors. Possibly the most important moment in US naval history."
"And the future? Governor Krieger? Senator Krieger? President Krieger?"
"No. Admiral Krieger would be nice some day." Shelby laughs from behind us. "But I really don't think much beyond my captain's couch on
Yorktown
. I already have the best job in the known universe."
Ms. Langston waves a hand and the light goes off. "That was perfect, thanks. We made a deal with the Navy to keep it short in exchange for it being exclusive. I assume they told you."
"No, but that works out great. We'll be off to do engine tests in a couple days anyway."
She floats toward me and holds out her hand for me to shake. We do the quick zero gee shake so that neither of us ends up upside down. Then she holds out her pad, and mine beeps.
"That's my number. I'm sure I'll see you again when you get back, but if you think of something that would make a good story, or should be part of our interview, let me know. Thanks again."
I smile. "That you for making this painless."
They clear out, Benson's aide having a chat with them as the three head off the ship, and it's just Shelby and me.
"
Admiral
Krieger? You want to be
Admiral
Krieger?"
"You know, I had to say something, and that's what popped into my head, so maybe I do."
My pad beeps again, Benson's aide messaging me with a "good job." I send back a thanks.
I look at Shelby. "There's something I didn't say in the interview, but you need to know."
She looks at me funny. I talk to her about strangled cats and 0.0001. She just stares at me when I finish. I have to come up with something else to say, since she apparently has nothing.
"Let's do an inspection, see what the repair crews are up to."
She rotates 90 degrees, indicating I should lead the way, and we're off. What we find on deck one is
Yorktown
's stores fully replenished and stickers indicating the station crews have run the diagnostics on the top guns. I make myself a note to check quantities on engine spares. Second deck is all Marine spaces, we take a cursory look, but generally leave them be.
Third deck has the command cabin, and crew spaces in the front section, and engineering space in the aft. We wander back into engineering, discover an out of uniform Emily Powell and two of her Petty Officers watching the folks in the red Electric Boat uniforms swarming over engine two. They are where I know the defective part was, floating at different angles. When you look at engineering on a diagram, it makes no sense. When you see crew working in the space at zero gee, you realize how smart the engineers behind it all are. Engineering is three decks high (actually, six if you consider the tanks) in one open space with pipes and machinery arranged for both easy floating and convenient access.
"How are the repairs going, Emily?"
"All done, Skipper. These people are part of the design team. When we docked, I sent eBoat a file of suggestions attached to the information on the bad parts. Yesterday we got the criminal investigators and then the repair team. Today they are considering whether I might not be right and they should makes changes on the other ships while they still can."
"Just remember, Lieutenant," I try to use my light hearted voice, "you have a lot of work left to do for
Yorktown
before you can run off and make a fortune working for a civilian contractor."
She is not lighthearted in her response, a heavy scratch across the hairless plane before speaking. "I could never be happy sitting behind a desk, sir."
"Are we going to make any alterations before we go out?" I'm wondering if there's something new that might break this time, but I don't want to say that exactly that way, especially with Electric Boat within hearing range.
"No sir, it would take a while to design and test new configurations. Would you like a closer look? They're on two, we can go look at four."
"Good idea. Lead on."
We float over and she takes me through the replacement part, and the steps they took to ensure there were no metal shavings or other debris left within the engine.
I look at her when she finishes. "And if I want to run a nine gee test, you're go?"
"Skipper, I would be upset if you didn't take her to nine at least once on this trip." She laughs. Shelby laughs. I laugh. The Electric Boat guys behind us applaud.
Shel and I exit engineering and head to deck four, all missiles, cannons, and two docking ports. There's a red shirted team working on the business end of tube 24, which wouldn't take the missile last time.
The aft section of five and six are water and fuel tanks, the mid section is the boat deck, both sections two decks high. The front section of five is storage, and the front section of six is instrumentation, including out flight computers. Two red shirts down here as well, not sure why, but we leave them be, though they look familiar for some reason.
We finish in the boat dock and grab a pair of portable thruster packs from the work crews, small ten pound devices that make it easier to get around the dry dock in the air. Kids who live in space stations use them very effectively to play superhero. Until their mom's catch them at it.
Takes us two hours to visit all eleven hull penetration sites, and look at the repairs which are as good as I have ever seen. Make a point to go over and visit with the dock crew, and complement them on their work. Then Shel and I exit the dock, and go grab some lunch at one of the little cafes on the station, in the normal grav area. Hamburger, fries, and tea, all sitting there on their respective plates or in their cup, in no danger of floating away. You can even squirt ketchup and it stays where you put it.
Three times we're interrupted by officers wanting to chat about our tactics, and once by a little girl, looks to be five years old, long black hair, who wants me to sign the back of her pad. Shelby laughs the whole time, but I do it. Turns out her dad put her up to it, she has no idea who I am, but she likes my hair. I tell her to make sure she keeps growing hers.
"Well, if you're done being famous, can we get back to work?"
I think for a moment. "Actually, Shel, how about we see if my fame can't get us a reservation at the High Gee Spa on Argo Station? Massages and maybe a swim in the pool?" She hands me my pad.
"Make it for three, can we invite Tony?"
It's 10 hours before I'm back aboard Armstrong, rested, muscles totally relaxed, stomach full of the most interesting delicacies I've eaten in a while. Shelby and Tony decided to stay the night, so I came back alone, but at least I have the silk sheets waiting for me. Maybe famous is good. And then it's even better. There's a package from mom sitting outside my door, full of my favorite fresh tea leaves.

Chapter 9

My body wakes me at 0600 as usual, but the sheets and my pleasant soreness from the massage and swim combine to make me lay there for a half hour before I move. Finally, I push myself out of bed, turn on UnionOne for some noise, and hit the shower.
My interview pops up first on the seven a.m. news, while I am working on drying the hair.
Langston starts by showing her path through the ship to my ready room, giving their viewers a good idea of how tight space is on board, and then cuts to me floating in front of the screens. She points out that I have my own variation on the official Navy uniform, and then runs the whole interview, edited to get rid of our pauses.
By 0730 I have cleaned my stuff out of the room, and my duffel and I are headed back to
Yorktown
. I won't be bunking anywhere else for a while, not sure how long. The Navy crew is all aboard by 0800, the Marines not here, but drilling somewhere else. Apparently, Lt. Palmer wants to make sure he's had a chance to practice assaulting the
Orion
class ships, and the Marine Commandant accommodated him by building them a mockup in world record time. Good idea, since it remains my intention to stand on the command deck of one of those ships soon.
We spend two days running diagnostics on every system, making sure our inventory is right, and otherwise doing all the boring detail work necessary so we can do the important work. By 1600 on our last day at home, we're ready for departure, except we're short of missiles. Won't take care of that until we exit the dock tomorrow. I send the crew off to get ready for dinner with the Admirals.
With the Marines still off ship, we borrow their utility space, by far the biggest open area on the ship. We've got the ward room and the mess, but neither is very big or unoccupied. The Marines have a 600 square foot open area that they use for just about everything other than sleeping or their zero gee exercises. It's where we had the buffet set up before we left on our first mission.
A half dozen enlisted folk arrive with containers of hot food, still in tubes, but fresh is always good. We'll be eating freeze dried and frozen again starting tomorrow. It's me, Shelby, Matt, Maria, Emily, and Courtney, not a Lieutenant yet, but close enough. Summerlin and Palmer are there too. At exactly 1900, the two Admirals enter, and one of them yells "at ease" before we can straighten up. They must have been hiding somewhere on board to be that precise.
The enlisted who brought the food leave, my guess is the admiral's aides are waiting a deck down, and as soon as we finish, everyone will be back to clean up. I had lunch with an admiral once, Benson in his office when I took the
Yorktown
commission. I left hungry. His crew brought out tubes of soup. He asked me a question, and while I answered, he drank his soup tube dry. They came and got both his empty and my full, before his even hit the table.
They brought out the main course, sandwiches made to stay together in zero gee, sticky that is, and he asked me another question. While I answered, he ate the sandwich. As soon as he finished, they came and took mine away. And so with dessert.
This time, I am going to make sure I get something to eat.
Turns out not to be a problem, they invite us to eat first. The food is eaten and removed, except for some little dessert cakes and the beverages, before either of them says another word other than discussing their families with my crew. Everingham is a grand father, cute grandkids living on Buenos Aires, Benson has a newlywed daughter, but no kids yet.
FRIGCOM floats over to the screen, actually a projector here that gives us a six foot high picture on the wall, and connects his pad.
"You are all familiar with the tactical situation. At least three large vessels out there, probably in one of the Gamma Systems." The screen shows a photo of that cargo class of ship, and the names of the three missing ships.
"Your orders are to hunt and destroy, taking only reasonable risks while doing so. If they have a base, we want it identified and neutralized. We also have many unanswered questions which you are to attempt to answer. Again, no unreasonable risks, we want the ships and crews home in one piece."
"We have analyzed the coating on
Orion
. While that analysis is still incomplete, it is a titanium based compound with a variety of other components. The exact chemical composition is not listed in any reference, current or historical, that we can find. As you know, an excellent insulator, better than anything we use, creates a stealthy ship that's hard to shoot."
"We have not learned anything useful about the 41.22 inch cannons, including why that size is being used, and no luck with the encryption they are using."
"The autopsies of the crews from
Trump
and
Orion
showed that they had been injected with a fungus, a fungus we have never seen before. That is not surprising, given that there are more than 100,000 known fungi, and every Earth-like planet we discover has new unique fungi growing on it."
He flips to a slide with a picture of something green, and a chemical formula.
"What is interesting is that this particular fungi produces a chemical similar to scopolamine. It is a drug widely used in the 20th and 21st centuries on Earth by criminals. Under the influence, a person does whatever they are told, and has no memory of what they have done. If I slipped some into your drinks, you would willingly transfer every credit from your bank accounts to me and not remember doing it tomorrow. These pirates are taking control of the crews of the ships."
"This isn't unusual in nature, there was a fungus on Earth that would take over ant colonies. The ants died eventually, but they created a habitat for the fungi to breed first. Our scientists haven't had time to do truly scientific tests, but it appears that this particular fungi is lethal to women virtually instantly, while men can obviously survive for some time."
"If there was ever a group of bad guys we needed to put down, these are they. There may be 100 men strapped into acceleration couches, slowly dying, but being made to do God knows what before that happens, and we can be reasonably certain that the 70 or so women on those crews are all dead."
He puts a picture up on the screen of a dark haired man, one of the three Courtney identified as a possible saboteur.
"Your first stop is going to be Las Vegas. We have identified this man, Mark Darlington, as the likely saboteur, and the UBI places him in Nevada system. You will be transporting a UBI agent outbound, and assisting him before jumping to Gamma Omicron. The operational plan is to make sure Omicron and Theta are clear before going backward along the ship theft path. After Theta, your discretion as to how to proceed however."
"
Congress
,
Truxton
and
Decatur
will rendevous with you at Gamma Theta One, possibly with
Perry
if she can be ready in time. Our operations staff suggests one corvette permanently stationed in Theta, one in Omicron, and one in Nu, with
Yorktown
moving as required, but you'll have to evaluate based on the tactical situation on site."
"Questions?"
I've already told my crew not to ask about sending in three battle groups and just ending this. I don't know what there is to ask otherwise.
"Sir, how long are we to stay on station this trip?" It's Summerlin, who is going to be stuck in a very small space if we make him stand guard over Omicron.
"No set limit, Lieutenant.
Yorktown
has six months of supplies, not including having to resupply three corvettes if you're out there more than 30 days. My hope is a shorter deployment than the 31 days you just went through. Again, Captain Krieger will have the final say."
"Aye, sir."
"Anything else?" He scans the room, sees no one. "Good, you are wheels up at 0900, missile load at 0915, and departure when ready. Special Agent Turin will report at 0800, please make him comfortable, I don't think he's ever been on a warship before."
I respond for all of us. "Thank you for the food and the briefing, Admiral. We'll do our best to end this quickly."
"I know you will," he says while beginning his salute. We return in unison.
ChiNO makes us go through all that again, turns away to leave, then turns back.
"Good hunting." Then they both float over and down the hatch.
Twelve conversations instantly break out among eight officers. I haul everyone back in.
"Commander Perez, coordinate with everyone in this room, get me two action plans. One assuming it's just us, and one assuming we have two extra corvettes. Within that second plan, look at one plan with the three little buddies split up, and with the three of them forming a small battle group."
"Aye, sir."
"It's 2000. Plans roughed out by 2200 so I can look at them tonight, then we can finalize them during the trip out to the jump point. Everyone ready to go in the morning?"
There's a chorus of ayes.
"Mr. Summerlin, what do you know about the Skippers of
Truxton
and
Decatur
?"
"Good officers sir, good choice for us. Lt. Maxwell of
Truxton
is an old friend, we've done duty together many times. Lt. Rivera of
Decatur
used to be my First, I recommended her for the command, she's outstanding."
"Excellent. I'll leave you all to get to planning, I've got a couple tasks from FRIGCOM that he wants me to complete tonight as well." I head over to the hatch and down a deck to my ready room, the sounds of McAdams and Ayala arguing following me.
Partly what I said was true, Benson wants additional details on part of my report, and he wants my comments on some proposals to change the configuration of the last four frigates. Not sure that I know enough to make intelligent commentary on the advantages of changing out some of the full sized missiles for bundles of close in missiles. Yorktown has one close in missile battery, which can be used either to defeat incoming missiles or to attack a nearby target.
We didn't get within range to use a close in missile barrage. Destroyers use them, but we were often broadside to broadside with the pirate ships. Getting that close to a 42 inch laser would probably be your last move, Admiral Nelson to the contrary.
The other reason I wanted to get away was to spend time looking at the system maps for the Gamma group. Our nomenclature for systems is easy. Earth like planetary systems get country names. We only have three, so they are Argentina, Brazil, and Canada. The 44 inhabited red dwarf systems are states of the US, when we run out of those we will go to Canadian provinces and Mexican states. The planets in the systems are numbered from closest out, and the cities typically have city names that go with the state or province. All the uninhabited systems, 389 of them, are Greek letters with the first being a sector and the second being a star in it.
There is a 96 year old gentleman's agreement with the Empire and Dynasty that no one will add new systems to their space, since those border struggles are what got us into 100 years of killing each other. We expect to not run out of letters for a long time.
All the Gamma stars are within the same part of our space, which is part of one arm of the Milky Way. They are near to the Dynasty border, but most of them border on unclaimed space outside of all three human clusters. On the other hand, there are relatively few nearby stars, that direction being toward the edge of the arm.
I call up the star charts for Gamma Nu, Upsilon, Theta and Omicron, as well as the neighboring systems. I also call up the data for the nearest non-Union sectors, both the Empress's sectors and the unexplored ones. Somewhere out there, these ships have a base. The equipment on Gamma Omicron 6 produced that coating material, but there was nothing there to apply it, nor the facilities to install the laser cannons on the ships.
So despite my lack of peg leg or parrot, I spend an evening trying to think like a pirate (given that the other choice is to think like an alien and I am uncomfortable trying to do that) and figure out where I would put my base of operations. There are a surprising number of possibilities.
My pad beeps at 2200, and I spend the next hour going over the proposals, before hitting my rack. It occurs to me, as I settle in, that I should have stolen the silk sheets.
At 0700 I am showered, changed, and floating in front of my couch on the bridge, as is everyone else on the crew. The Marines show up a few minutes later, followed at 0800 by a tall, nice looking, well built 30-something man in what is obviously a brand new Union Bureau of Investigation space uniform. He looks more than a little uncomfortable, keeps brushing his long brown hair out of his eyes, except that it isn't in them.
"Special Agent Mike Turin," he says, holding out his badge and then offering to shake my hand. Nice handshake, nice grey eyes. Didn't shave this morning, adds to his swagger.
I take his small blue duffel bag, and offer to show him his cabin, the least I can do. As we float down the corridor, I interrogate him briefly.
"How certain are we, Special Agent, that this Darlington person is on Las Vegas?"
"We are 100 percent sure he was there two weeks ago, no one has seen him since, but he hasn't left as far as we know either. You know, probably better than I, that if there is one planet you can get off of without being noticed, its Nevada 1. Can't be sure we'll find him, but it's our best shot."
"I understand you've never been on a warship before."
"That's true, my first time."
"Well, you're welcome to join us on the bridge, or you can deal with the acceleration in your cabin." I have him put his hand on the door, and use my pad to tune it to his biometrics. It pops open.
"Let me show you how to use the acceleration couch." I strap him in, show him how to get out, all very professional, and all very personal. "We'll be at high acceleration most of the time until we jump, and immediately after, we'll have some coast time once that is completed."
"Thanks," he's thinking. "I'll stay here if its all the same to you, that way I can catch up on some reports."
"Fine," I float toward the door, "My cabin is next door if I'm off duty and you need anything." I can't believe I said that. He doesn't answer, or at least he doesn't answer until I am well down the hall out of earshot.
"Mr. Garcia, get us on a countdown, get us out of here."
"Aye, sir, eight minutes to scheduled departure time."