Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1 (5 page)

Mankind moved out into the stars. The European Space Agency went one way, establishing an initial base nearly 200 light years from Earth on an Earth-like planet around a sun-like star. The Hwang Dynasty, in control of most of Asia by the mid-2100's, chose another Earth-like system about 150 light years along a far different vector. The United States took a different tack, grabbing a group of planets around brown dwarfs in a halo close to Earth, as the last mover the nearest known uninhabited Earth like world was more than 200 light years away, too far for comfort. Gradually, they spread out within their neighborhoods, settling dozens of new worlds.
Then the last war on Earth broke out. Each of the three space powers claimed that they were not responsible for starting it, each claimed that they did not initiate the ground bombardment, but between the three they turned their home, the home of mankind, into a radioactive ice ball that only now is beginning to warm. From eight billion, the human race was suddenly no more than 50 million, scattered among the stars. To this day, no clear record exists of what happened, or why.
The devastation ended the war, starting a 100 year peace of necessity as each society, the Europeans, the Dynasty, and the Union of peoples from across North and South America, fought to survive without support from mother Earth.
That was followed by 100 years of almost unending war between the three, establishing boundaries, fighting over the border systems with the most easily available resources. For the past 96 years, though, there has been peace among them, shaky, the occasional "accident," accusations of government paid privateers, but peace.
McAdams had laid out a set of probabilities for me, much more calmly than I received them. Roughly eighty percent that pirates or privateers were responsible for
Bainbridge
, 95 percent conditional probability of multiple ships. Fifteen percent that it was an accident or disaster on one ship that spread to the other. And five percent that we were about to jump into a third war against one or both of the other branches of man. Actually, also 0.0001 chance it was aliens. I'm not sure if they were serious, or they just put that in there to make me laugh.
We're about to find out.
"Mr. Garcia, engines to standby." You can almost feel the relief run through the ship. We do long stints at four gees all the time, but that doesn't mean you get used to them.
"Engines to standby, aye." The acceleration dies to nothing, though we are still traveling more than one percent of the speed of light.
"Engineering?"
"We're go, Skipper." Powell answers this one directly, via intercom.
"Mr. Powell, jump engines active." A pause.
"Jump engines one through four report ready." Redundancy is a good thing when you have one chance to get it right.
"Mr. Garcia, set jump coordinates."
"Coordinates set."
"Mr. Marcos?"
"Coordinates confirmed." Everyone has to agree we're headed to the right spot before we jump – at least when we're not in a combat situation. One digit wrong and we all die.
"Mr. Ayala?" Done with the juniors, I turn to the Second officer.
"Coordinates confirmed."
"Mr. Perez?" The First is last.
"Coordinates confirmed. Recommend we proceed."
"Mr. Garcia, jump authorized."
"Aye, sir, jump authorized."
I enter my authorization code into the nav computer and press enter. Green lights go on.
"One minute," Garcia lets us know what we all know, "Systems nominal."
We're jumping to a point 500,000 kilometers from the largest planetary body, an earth sized rock in too wild an orbit to be habitable above ground. McAdams has us behind the planet's orbital path and above the major plane of the system.
"Twenty seconds, jump fields up." Garcia is monitoring, the whole thing programmed into the computer, and the backup computer, and the backup backup computer, and two more, one to each drive, plus a spare. The jump field blocks all electromagnetic radiation, in or out, it makes us blind, but can also shield a ship from laser attack under the right conditions.
It goes black on all the camera screens, really a good sign. Light might mean death.
"Ten seconds.... Five.... Jump....."
It's absolutely nothing to jump. No dizzy falling through rainbows of color, no being turned inside out, just one place one second, and another before the clock ticks again.
"Jump complete."
The fields drop automatically, and everybody gets to work. I break the quiet.
"Engineering. Status?"
"Everything's still nominal, Skipper, she worked perfectly." An even happier Lt. Powell.
"Thank your crew for me. Nice job lieutenant."
I survey my board, there are four green lights from the corvettes.
"Mr. Jordan, disengage collars on
Richard
and
Congress
."
"Collars retracting." I wait a few seconds, then I ask, even though I can see it happening on the cameras and we feel the bumps as the departing ships confirm one of Newton's laws.
"Mr. Marcos?"
"Both ships report free, establishing planned formation."
"RISTA?"
"No energy sources within range. All passive sensors report negative. Possible radio transmission on distress beacon frequency bearing 024 mark 155 relative. On your screen, Skipper."
There's a three dimensional representation on my monitor,
Yorktown
and our two little buddies in the center, the planet nearby (Gamma Omicron 2) and other large objects on a grid, with a purple arrow from us to the radio source, if it was a radio source.
"That's from the inner planet." I state the obvious, she takes it as a question.
"Affirmative, sir, Gamma Omicron 1, our second most probable crash site, first most likely if the cause is accidental."
"Copy. Recommendations?"
"Skipper, I'd stay with the original plan until we have more data."
"Agreed."
I tap my left middle finger on the button in front of it. Nothing to do for the last 24 hours, I reprogrammed it to initiate a radio call between
Yorktown
and the four boats with us.
"Krieger to task force, initiate search as planned. Data link on the hour."
Richard
and
Congress
confirm. I don't communicate with the still attached two boats who aren't going anywhere just yet. In fact, now that we've jumped, their crews are joining us on board.
"Mr. Garcia, lets roll."
"Aye, sir."
The acceleration alarm sounds again.
Congress
and
Richard
are ahead of us, moving away at multiple gees, the first toward the two outer planets, the second toward the asteroid belt. We're going to loop around the nearby planet, gather data, and use the travel time to the inner planet to analyze it.
"Three gravities in 30 seconds." We tighten up the few straps we loosened. The countdown continues, we're much more relaxed this time. Mistake.
Main engine thrust pushes us back into our couches, but sideways as well, the ship twisting away from its planned course, thruster activity off the charts, red lights flashing across all my screens.
"Engine four inoperative." Jordan's voice.
"Mr. Garcia, engines to standby."
"Engines to standby, aye."
"Stabilize the ship. Report when ready. Engineering, status?"
"Sorry Skipper, we're looking into it. Still go on three engines, no more than two gees please unless necessary."
I look over the nav display on my screen. Garcia has stabilized us, and the damage to our course doesn't look too bad.
"Mr. Garcia?"
"Ship stable on all axes. We have a new course at two gees plotted and available, sir."
I check the nav display and look at the proposed course. It will get us where we need to be, with a 50% time penalty and one required course correction half way in. Probably not what we really want to do, but for now, we need to move.
"Approved. Go on your mark."
"Affirmative, my mark. Sixty seconds to acceleration." Horns sound rather unnecessarily.
The engines kick in, with a lot less kick than before. Twenty minutes at this acceleration, then coast for 20 hours to survey the planet. Slingshot with its gravity to a higher speed and onto a course toward planet number two. Hopefully repaired by then and able to add enough speed to get back on schedule.
It's an impatient 20 minutes. The second the engines go off, I give Ayala the con, grab Shelby, and we make all possible speed to engineering. The news is not good.
"We have to tear it apart and rebuild. Metal shavings probably, but we won't know until we get there. Bad parts, misaligned, something took out the primary fuel pump." Powell looks and sounds embarrassed by it all, she's going to have a nasty cut on top of her head if she doesn't stop running her very short nails across it that hard.
"Could we have known?"
"No sir. We went through every visible part of every visible part more times than I can count. At least we have the spares to fix it, assuming they don't share whatever defect took this out."
"No use worrying about it then, get us back to full strength. How long?"
"Two days, maybe 36 hours, but I'd hold on two whole days. I want to do this careful so we don't damage any evidence we could provide the contractors."
"Go with your gut, Emily. Keep me informed."
"Aye, sir."
Shelby and I float down the tunnel to the bridge, just in time to authorize the shift change. I head for my cabin, and a quick shower, my first in a while, while she takes the con. A zero gee shower is no big deal, water ejects at speed from the ceiling, a fan pushes air toward the floor, taking the water with it. Kinda like showering inside a vacuum cleaner.
One blast of water to soak your body, a minute to soap up, then a longer blast of water to clear the suds and dirt away. A couple of gallons of water for the recycling system, cleanliness, but not the respite a long hot shower can be on the ground.
Dry myself off, but the hair is still very wet when I put a clean uniform partly on, not bothering with all the zippers, and attach myself to my couch for a well earned sleep. I get about four hours before the door chime sounds.
"Come." I should have checked my appearance, but too sleepy.
Commander Shelby Perez enters, and immediately exhibits a total lack of proper decorum, rolling forward, laughing at her commanding officer. It takes me two seconds to figure it out. The hair, dry now, has formed a giant mane around my lion's head, three feet in every direction.
"Engineering wants us, says it can't wait. You need me to call the Marines to get control of that mess?"
"You're just jealous," I laugh back at myself, fixing the dark blue uniform first before taming the hair with a ship cap. "Any idea what's up?"
"No. Sounded like something she didn't want to say over the live channel."
I increase my speed. A worried Shelby makes for a worried Katana.
When we get to engineering, Emily and two of her group are huddled at the repair table, using a camera/microscope to look at an engine part, blown up to many times normal size on the display overhead.
"Lieutenant?"
She turns toward us, her staff back away, not a good sign.
"Let me show you something, Skipper." She takes the camera and points it at the surface of the part, which appears to be a pump from the engine pressure regulating system. We move next to the table.
"Look at the manufacturer's markings on the pump." She expects me to see something, but it's just painted numbers and a couple of etched marks. Eventually, she realizes that I may be the captain, but I need to be led a little bit.
"California Forge makes these things. They color the actual metal they use to permanently mark the part and batch numbers. Serious pride in workmanship. This is paint. It's a fake."
I move in to take a closer look.
"And, Captain, we saw this on engine four when we started the rebuild, but this pump is from engine two I'm sorry, sir, we should have noticed a long time ago." Her team has disappeared into the bowels of the engineering space.
Frak. Cost cutting? Sabotage?
"What about the primary fuel pumps?" An important question, but mostly to stall while I think.
"They're normal, stock parts, but they can't handle the pressure that these fake babies create when they fail. We don't dare start up an engine without the pressure regulators functioning properly."
"How about 1 and 3?"
"One's good to go, three Petty Officer Carver is inspecting as we speak." Carver must have heard her name, because she floats down from above almost instantly, another camera setup in her hand, shaking her bald head.
"No go, boss, number 3 has the same markings."
Shoot me. Two hundred light years from home, one good engine, rescue mission might be needed for us. Except we're not going down that easy.
"Spares?" My last hope.
"We have one, that's one, good spare. We'll put it on number 3 for balance if you agree."
I look at Shelby, she nods, I nod back at Emily.
"Lieutenant, sabotage or illegal cost cutting?"
"My opinion sir?" I give her another nod.
"Sabotage."

Chapter 3

The captain of a crippled frigate asks a few more questions of her chief engineer, then leads her First officer back to the bridge, where they grab the Second, and roust the chief pilot and RISTA from bed. A five minute explanation leads to a five minute argument between the Second and the RISTA.
"We need to call the corvettes back," Mr. Ayala suggests, "Can't leave them out there if they are going to need our help and we can't provide it."
"The search pattern isn't nearly complete, we don't have enough data to understand the tactical situation," RISTA counters.
"The tactical situation is that we're screwed. Good strategy is to maximize our mass in one spot and redo the search parameters." The back and forth continues.
I should have stopped it earlier, but I find it mildly entertaining, and a useful distraction when I need to think.
"Shelby, what do you think?" I cut off the two boxers before either one goes for the knockout.
"Stay with what we started, no reason to change until we have better data." At that, the ensign in the room smiles a little cat smile.
"Mr. Garcia," I change direction, "How will this impact our course correction?"
"No impact, sir, we need to recalc for the abnormal thrust conditions."
I wish she had used a different word than "abnormal."
"RISTA, have we learned anything yet?"
"No sir," now the Second is smiling, "but our data analysis has just begun. We're 12 hours from closest approach, and that's when the fun should start."
"How about the signal from Gamma Omicron 1?"
"Still there, but weak and intermittent. No way to determine if it's a disaster beacon or just a radiation anomaly."
"Ok. I'll alert the corvette captains of our status. We'll continue as planned, but let's go on alert for the next 24 hours, just in case. Extra hands at all stations. Anything else?"
Shelby hems, not her usual style, then speaks. "Do we send a message home?"
"No," I'm taking something of a risk, "Not until we have some good news to go with it."
I shoo them out of my ready room, and draft an encrypted message to the two boat captains. It will take a half-hour or so to get to them at their current distances. Then I settle in to read their hourly reports, which takes 10 minutes. Nothing to report except some possible radiation trails from ships, fairly old, in the vicinity of one of the mining stations in the asteroid belt.
We make a painful course correction four hours later on one engine, Powell not ready to try number three yet. Ayala's right about one thing. If the corvettes get into trouble, we are a long way from being able to help.
Free fall routine settles in aboard. We are clear from Gamma Omicron 2, and four days out from 1, no one on board wanting to shorten the trip by firing up our last good engine. First two days uneventful, but I get called back to the bridge just as I am settling in to sleep after being relieved on the third. I leave the hair unbundled this time, not intending a long stay, amusing the crew.
Shelby floats away, a message from
Richard
ready to go on screen. Lt. Springs is in standard corvette battle dress, a t shirt and shorts. Life on convoy escort duty is not like life elsewhere in the service.
"Captain Krieger, we've located two radiation trails at mining site Beta, projected paths in the attached data stream.," at that Lieutenant Bass's hands start flying across the RISTA station. "Energy signatures are consistent with Union starships."
We use large, low energy engines, allegedly for their reliability, the Hwangs use clusters of small, extremely high intensity motors, and the Royal Navy, well, they'd still be building ships out of wood with canvas sails if they could figure a way. However it goes, the energy trails of the three brothers are unique.
"Request permission to abandon search grid and follow energy signatures. Springs, commanding, 2014 universal time, March 5, 2486, out."
The message was sent 96 minutes ago.
"Lt. Bass?"
"Signatures confirmed sir. Apparent path is what the convoy would have taken leaving station Beta and heading for Gamma Omicron 1."
"Anyone disagree with approving their request?"
Silence. "Mr. Bass, a quick check with your boss please."
We wait while he hits the intercom, then reports.
"Tally Ho from Ensign McAdams, sir. Recommends recalling
Congress
as well."
"Thank you. Back to work everyone."
I hit a couple buttons to activate the recorder system. "My complements to you and your crew, Lt. Springs. Plan approved. We are en route GO 1, rendevous with us at attached coordinates, Krieger, commanding,
Yorktown
," and our time and date. Then I encrypt it and send it. Repeat to
Congress
to haul butt inbound. Then back to sleep, taking the hair with me.
For the first time in a while, I get a full eight hours, possibly because I spent three hours on the treadmill getting out as much stress as possible earlier in the day. I shower, grab a tube of breakfast, dress, and exit my quarters. Shelby is coming my way, far end of the corridor.
Before we can say anything, the officer's head (like mine, combo bath and shower) opens, and a wet Matt Ayala in a towel zips past, trying to salute and not expose himself at the same time. Shelby and I both start to laugh, when the door opens a second time, and an equally wet Courtney McAdams floats out. The head is four foot by four foot. While they might have just been conserving water, it's more likely they were engaged in what space crews euphemistically call ZGM, zero gee maneuvers. Followed by the float of shame. All normal, except you are not supposed to get caught by the captain.
"That's one way to settle an argument," I was thinking it, Shelby says it first.
Then she gets serious. "Last hourly from
Richard
was 2100, 45 minutes after she sent her last voice message. You didn't order them to keep up the hourlies, but I don't like it."
We float down to the bridge. Probationary Seaman Samuel is at the RISTA station. He looks at me, I hold his eye.
"Find me
Richard
, visual, infrared, I don't care how."
"Aye, sir, I'll have to pull sensors off the Gamma Omicron 1 sweep."
"Anything you need."
Then I pull Shel aside, and we get with Ayala in the command couch.
"Options?"
"With one, maybe two engines, it makes no sense to go after them. If they just aren't reporting, they'll be going much faster than we can match, and we'll pass each other, wave a couple times, and screw everything up." Shelby is a realist.
I get the feeling Ayala wants to say he told us so, but he's too professional to let it out. Instead, he suggests sending a probe that direction to enhance our sensor range. I let him go to it, though I know we're going to change course in a minute and start searching for wreckage.
When he's done, I tell him, "Notify Lt. Summerlin, my orders, proceed maximum speed to station Beta." Ayala looks at me.
"We're about to follow, lieutenant commander, we're just waiting for RISTA to confirm they're gone.
I get another stare.
"Have your team plot the intercept course for Beta and keep it updated, maximum acceleration, all available engines."
I motion to Shelby and we push hard for engineering. McAdams, dry now, passes us in the corridor, Samuel must have called her confirming silently what my butt knew half way through Shelby's update. Bass shows his head before we get to the engineering hatch.
Lt. Powell has number three on line, fairly confident it will work, but suggesting we start slow. Not going to happen. She's also got her crew working with their 3D printer trying to build a work around for the other two. The First and I return to the bridge.
It's a wake. We only spent a few hours with them, but they were our responsibility. I look at McAdams.
"Debris and radiation fields in orbit around Beta consistent with the destruction of a class one corvette. High energy streams of unknown nature in the area, we'll have to get closer to get into more detail." She says it like it's her fault. It's mine.
"Mr. Ayala, I have the con." He disengages himself from the command couch, floats over to the Second's station. "Mr. Marcos, set course for Beta, your mark, maximum acceleration."
"Aye, sir, my mark, maximum gee." Acceleration warnings echo through the ship. Five minutes.
I hang there in my couch, trying to make
Yorktown
accelerate with my mind. We're three, maybe two and a half, days away. If anyone survived the attack they'll be out of air and water long before then. If they'd have gotten into their evac balloon we'd have seen it on visual by now. Anybody alive is in a suit, praying for salvation not likely to come.
The clock gets to one minute, and I have a bizarre thought.
"Hold countdown."
"Countdown hold." Marcos has a puzzled voice.
"Can we shoot three missiles into orbit around Gamma Omicron 1?"
I get no response. I start again.
"I want us to leave three missiles in orbit, in stealth mode, in orbit around GO 1. Can we do it from here? Two air to air nukes and the mine layer."
It's Ensign McAdams who answers, anger still there in her voice. "Leave it to me, sir."
She, Marcos, and her boys get it done in record time. Seventeen minutes later we've altered
Yorktown
's trajectory slightly, reprogrammed the launchers, and watched 80 megatons sail away from the ship. They are painted the same black as a warship, coated in the same quasi reflective material that makes it harder to burn with a laser, shielded from any energy escaping to give them away. Unless they transit something light, they are seriously hard to detect. And, we can activate engines and warheads from anywhere in the system.
A couple thousand meters and they are no longer distinguishable from the surrounding space.
"Mr. Marcos, course to Beta, maximum acceleration, your mark."
"My mark, maximum gee." The five minute horns sound, then the one minute.
Just before the engines light, Marcos realizes something.
‘Skipper, how long should we program the maximum burn?"
I take a deep breath. "Until the engines blow up or we do, ensign, and maybe after that."
Two engines, max thrust, we stabilize at just over four gees, my butt not liking the vibration pattern it's feeling. We'll need a day outbound, then a day flying backwards, reversing. I stay in my couch, rereading every report, looking at every piece of data, going back into the construction reports on the ship, mission planning, there are literally millions of documents and I get through a couple hundred before I give up. Somewhere in there is a bad man (or woman) I need to find.
Ten hours into the acceleration the automatic warnings on my panels light, the engine gauges are creeping into a bad zone. I fight it for two hours longer than I should, then give in on that too.
"Mr. Garcia," shift change happened a while ago. "Engines to standby."
"Engines to standby." Thrust drops away, we coast. Still traveling more than three million miles an hour, but 170 some million miles left to go, three days if we can't use the engines.
"Commander Perez, with me. Mr. Ayala has the con."
"Affirmative, I have the con."
I look at him as he prepares to take my couch. "Send a message to
Congress
, update on our status, my orders, no closer than 1 million clicks from Beta unless
Yorktown
present."
"Aye, sir."
We float quickly, but silently down to engineering. Emily Powell meets us at the hatch.
"I'm sorry, sir."
"No," I shake my head at her, "My fault. If I were smarter I'd know a combat ready ship in 72 hours is better than a derelict at 48." I pause. "What do you need from me to get
Yorktown
ready for battle?"
She looks me in the eye. "Except for two of our engines, this ship is more ready for combat than any ship in the fleet." How about that, the captain getting a pep talk from the engineer. "Those two babies are out, sir, there's a slim chance we can revive them, but only slim. We can give you two gees, 24/7, for the next 10 years. Faster than that, and all bets are off."
"Thank you lieutenant." I reach for the transmit button on my collar. "Mr. Ayala, sound free fall stations. We won't be using the engines for a while." I don't listen for his reply. The horns are enough.
"Emily, all your efforts into fixing 2 and 4, not at the expense of sleep or food. Something out there got
Bainbridge
and
Richard
, something we know nothing about. Maybe a smart captain would spend some time thinking, instead of rushing blindly in after them."
I push off the ground toward the hatch, Shel behind me. I get back to the bridge and float at my station. Then I open the ship-wide speaker.
"This is the captain. We have 72 hours before reaching Beta station, and as we sit here we know nothing about what happened to
Bainbridge
and
Richard
. That is unacceptable. This ship collects huge amounts of data, intentionally through RISTA systems and unintentionally through our nav and communications systems. We have the best RISTA team in existence, and they have been able to get through less than one percent of those data, working around the clock. I am making every bit of data available to all crew from this moment. Find me something folks. Two days leave for each lead. Pass everything to Ensign McAdams. Krieger out."
Shelby is wondering if its time to open the reg book for the section on crazy captains. I leave her space to do it. "Commander, you have the con."
Hit the treadmill for an hour and 15, then shower and float in my rack, a fitful on and off sleep is all I can manage. We spend the morning doing every weapons drill I can think of, blast two of our four practice drones to bits. Doesn't make me feel any better. I do like the 24's though.
Ayacucho
, like all destroyers, had 18 inch lasers, the 24's have nearly 80 percent more power. They don't have the fire rate, and they aren't quite as flexible in their mountings, but I like what happens when they hit a drone square on.
That afternoon, Lt. Palmer appears looking rather sheepish, which is difficult for a man with arms bigger than my legs and no neck to speak of. Standing next to him is another Marine, both very large black men dressed in green space casual suits, the new arrival trying to hide behind his boss and look like a Marine at the same time. Not possible.
Palmer identifies him as possibly soon to be demoted Private First Class Louis Armstrong, who, during our casual introductive questioning, claims to be not at all musical. Five minutes later, he wins the first two day pass.