Libor: Katana Krieger #2

by Bill Robinson

  "Mr. Powell, jump engines active." A pause, she's 70 feet away in engineering.

  "Jump engines one through four report ready."

  "Mr. Garcia, set jump coordinates."

  "Coordinates set."

  "Mr. Stewart?" He's flying with Garcia. We make everybody on the bridge double check the numbers when we jump, except during combat.

  "Coordinates confirmed."

  "Mr. Rains?" I turn to the Second officer.

  "Coordinates confirmed." Good, strong. Makes me happy.

  "Mr. Perez?" The First is last as always.

  "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."

  And then we're in Gamma Nu.

  "Mr. Garcia?"

  "Location confirmed, Skipper, we are exactly where we wanted to be."

  "Lieutenant McAdams, establish link with our drones, download data." "Aye, Skipper."

  And now we wait. From our present location, it's two hours for our signal to reach all three drones we left on station here, and two hours more before we get the data back, plus download time.

  "Full passive scan while we wait, please."

  "Roger, Marines executing."

  There are four Marines on our bridge, augmenting McAdams and her crew. Not the original plan for the frigate fleet, but something I take pride in having started.

  McAdams is back in five minutes.

  "Skipper, no energy signatures or radio sources detected. All sensors read clear."

  "Roger that, continue scan."

  "Aye."

  This solar system is dust, rocks, and dozens of small planetoids. Ships can hide easily, it's a perfect location for pirate activity, or an alien invasion. There's a wealth of valuable minerals in neighboring systems, lots of mining, lots of unprotected ship traffic.

  We're quiet for another three hours plus, then the boards light as the data begins to download. We haven't been here in several weeks, there's gigabytes coming in from each drone which are scattered in a triangle across the system. We're also relaying everything to Congress, who will make sure it gets home once we head for alien planets.

  I watch the link info, not trying to analyze anything, McAdams is already flipping through the numbers. About three minutes in, there's something going on between her and Chief Gomez.

  "Courtney?"

  "Just a second, Skipper, we might have something."

  I hate when people keep secrets, but I like getting it wrong even less, and I want my officers to be sure before they speak.

  "Skipper," two minutes, more than a second, but not long, "map on your screen."

  I switch to the tactical screen, overlaid on the navigation display of the system. There's a couple lines indicating energy trails around a big rock, Gamma Nu 024, which we know is an abandoned mine, and possibly an old pirate base. I ask my question, but I know what it means.

  "Ships. Or one ship that's been here a while. Opinion?"

  "One ship, Skipper, the energy trails are virtually identical. They tried to keep to the dust clouds, but you have to fly between them eventually. Nothing showing between that area and the sun, though, so no visible jump activity."

  "Ship type?"

  "Unknown. The energy configuration is not in our database."

  "Roger that. How long until the download finishes?"

  "Ten minutes."

  "Okay. Continue scanning the entire system, but have someone isolate this area and see if they can find anyone."

  "Aye, sir."

  I flip through all the screens I can think of that are pointed toward the area, infrared, visual, radio, and general electromagnetic, but I don't see anything. Then I evaluate options for getting there until Courtney comes back.

  "Skipper, download complete. Initial data sweep says no other possible ship trails besides the ones at 024. No sign of any ship there now, but dust and debris makes the probability of our detecting anything at this range on the low end."

  "Copy." I pause for a second. "Mr. Garcia, plot an intrasystem jump from our position to a point 100,000 kilometers above the north pole of that planetoid."

  "Aye, sir, plotting."

  I get a voice in my ear, something I am not used to on my ship.

  "Captain?"

  "Yes, Senator?"

  "How long do you think it will be before we can move on?" He shouldn't need to ask that, he's certainly been listening in, knows what's going on, and claims to be ex-Navy.

  "Sir, we're investigating a ship in this system. If we find nothing on site, we'll be able to jump for Gamma Upsilon tonight, although I was thinking of waiting until 0800 to give my crew a night's sleep."

  "That's acceptable, Captain, but no later than 0800."

  "Aye, sir." Annoying. If we find the ship, we could be here a lot longer, and he's just going to have to live with it. Garcia is finished.

  "Skipper, jump plot on your screen."

  "Thank you, Lieutenant." I look it over, push it over to Shelby, who appeared on the bridge a few minutes ago at my request. Her shift technically is still a couple hours away, but I want her here. When we jump, I'll go to battle stations, and she'd have to report anyway.

  "Commander?"

  "Recommend you accept it, sir."

  "Mr. Garcia, course and jump plan approved, go on your mark, update autopilot link."

  "Aye, Skipper, my mark."

  She gives the ship a five minute warning for high acceleration, horns and vocals. The professors set about strapping themselves back in, they've spent the last five hours seemingly in constant transit between their couches and the head.

  I activate my comm gear, establish a laser link with Congress.

  "Lieutenant Summerlin."

  "Aye, sir." His voice is strong, clear.

  "Once we find the ship after the jump, I need you to stay at 024 and hold the planetoid if Yorktown has to move."

  "Roger, Captain, Congress to hold station."

  "Affirmative, see you on the other side." I cut the link in the middle of his response, then get back to prepping Yorktown.

  "Mr. Machado, all cannons hot, close in weapons array active." One of the new guys on the bridge, representing engineering.

  "Aye, sir, all cannons plus CWS."

  I watch my screens as our 18 laser cannons activate, their outer protective doors swinging open.

  "All cannons report ready, sir, CWS active."

  I don't respond, just take in everything on my screens. Then I activate my touch screens and sound battle stations. We get horns, alarms, and a few people who weren't on the bridge getting here on the double. Backup pilots, McAdam's entire team, and my Second.

  The countdown gets to zero and we spend an hour weighing four times our normal, then run through our jump procedure. Less tension than normal because an error is likely to put us somewhere else in this solar system, and that isn't life threatening, or mostly not life threatening.

  Horns and alarms at one minute, then we're hovering motionless over sub-planetary body 024 and I get to work while Shelby cleans up after the jump.

  "Mr. McAdams, full scan, active approved."

  "Active sensors, aye."

  Seven people, McAdams, Gomez, Manuel, and the four Marines are suddenly a sea of hands and arms, screens flashing.

  The visual screens are useless, nothing but a big rock beneath us and dust everywhere else, with the occasional blackness of space and a single star or two peeking through. Passive sensors will be mostly blind as well, radar is our only hope, though it gives our position away as well.

  I expect it will be a while, but once again I am in error.

  "New target," it's McAdams, her voice full of excitement for the first time in a long time, "093 mark 104 relative, speed 3,000 kph, slowing. On your scr
een."

  It's only 30,000 kilometers off our starboard side, small radar image, moving toward us. I switch to visual, easy range for the telescopes. It looks like a private yacht, possibly a Burger but partially obscured by all the dust, tail mostly our direction on a course to orbit the planetoid. No cannons in its hind quarter, can't see its broadsides. A fifty footer would be my guess.

  "Mr. Garcia." That's all I get out before McAdams interrupts, though I've already got it.

  "They see us, Skipper, engines powering up, accelerating."

  "Roger that. Mr. Garcia, course 090 mark 100 relative for now, go to two gees until we know better."

  "090 mark 100, two gees, aye." Garcia is pretty excited too, she hits her console and Yorktown springs to life, slamming us hard back into our couches. My left arm, now bearing the brunt of the turn, reminds me it's barely attached. I removed the cast myself, and now my arm's jammed painfully into my side.

  "Shelby," I don't take my eyes off the nav plots on my screen, "get some Marines into the assault boat." That's a bad order if Tony hasn't already done it, I should have loaded the assault ship before we jumped, but who expected them to be a few thousand clicks off our three? Now the Marines have to move at twice their normal weight.

  "Aye, Skipper."

  McAdams comes back.

  "Captain, they're at 11 gees!" She yelled that, I got it in my ear from four feet away and through the comm system.

  "Confirm, Lieutenant." I almost called her ensign, but fixed it before it got out, I must be excited too. Eleven.

  "Confirmed, Skipper."

  "Mr. Garcia, go to four gees, plot course to follow enemy vessel." Eleven. Yorktown can do nine. Our corvettes might be able to hit eight on a good day. Eleven. Most humans can't take that for more than a few seconds.

  "Four gees, aye." Her fingers move, we get a horn to warn the Marines and a 10 second pause before we double our already excessive weights.

  "RISTA, any ideas on where they're headed?"

  "No, sir, nothing indicated along their path. It looks more like they turned and ran, though there is a heavy dust cloud at 010 mark 000 relative, 270,000 clicks." Much calmer now. "If that's their destination, they have to alter course in the next 12 minutes, and then they're 94 minutes out if they don't want to simply fly through it."

  "Aye." My ship is a tortoise. I'd hope that alien hares are as stupid as terrestrial ones, but given our experience with these aliens, they did not turn and run, they have a plan and a few snares between where we are and where they're leading us. I'd send a missile their way, but I want to capture them if I can, figure out where their base is, maybe learn if there are more of them around.

  Courtney's got more.

  "Skipper, they're down to nine gees. Twenty two seconds at 11."

  "Aye, RISTA. Any idea when they learned to accelerate like this?" We've never seen any alien travel above 4.6 gee.

  "No, sir. Private yachts rarely can break three."

  "Aye."

  I feel thrusters firing, my tactical screens show both ships' courses and speeds. They edge down to seven gees, still pulling away from us. I run some quick scenarios going to nine briefly and holding at six, but I decide to stay at four until I know more. We're 90 seconds out and they're traveling 4,000 kph faster than we are and accelerating faster as well, but they also don't appear to be coated with that miracle stuff, and our laser cannons are well within blow them to bits range.

  Yorktown vibrates under the increased acceleration, my body pushed back into the fake leather, my arm shifted this time to lessen the pain as it digs into my side. I switch my left screen to the visual from the telescope, my right back to the energy patterns we used to locate the ship in the first place.

  Somewhere on that screen is the clue to where we're headed, someplace familiar to them, someplace they think will give them the tactical edge, someplace they don't think we'll suspect. I just don't see it.

  Then I see something else, something scary. The energy patterns, which at first glance look identical, aren't. I hit the mouse to bring up the computer control window, start an analysis to change my image. The computer, one by one, runs through each line, each ray of energy left by the engine of a ship, and isolates them. There's always variability in energy patterns, no ship flies even a thousand kilometers without its engine and reactor outputs fluctuating slightly. But the fluctuations should be random. These aren't.

  The lines start green, all green, but slowly some change to blue as the underlying pattern comes to the surface. There's a third ship out here.

  I type a quick note on the screen, flash it to McAdams on the private circuit. No point in letting the Senator in on it yet.

  She's got something for me a few seconds later, can't be from what I just sent.

  "Aspect change on enemy vessel, course for dust cloud just like we thought, Skipper." Nice and calm, her hunting voice coming out.

  "Roger that." I am about to order our course change when my butt starts laughing. It takes me a good 10 seconds to catch up with it.

  "Mr. Garcia, engines to standby."

  The response is full of puzzlement. "Engines to standby, aye."

  I capture one frame of the video from the telescope, and send it to Shelby, McAdams, and Rains. Knowing them, they are all watching a tactical displays or the numerical displays, not the photographic. Shelby's back first.

  "Skipper, we're going to let these pirates go?"

  "That's my thought. Do you think we need to spend a day or two chasing them?"

  "No, sir."

  The Senator can't leave well enough alone. I thought stopping the engines and the conversation with my First would be enough to let him know we're moving on.

  "Captain Krieger, are you telling me we just wasted a day chasing a pirate?"

  "Yes, Senator, but there was no way to know from the data, it's an energy pattern we've never seen before and we had a duty to check it out. By regulations, we should stay and apprehend, but I think we'll be forgiven if we ask Admiral Sutherland to send a destroyer back to take care of it."

  Not telling him what I'm really going to ask Sutherland to do. We ought to stay here, I have to bite my lip to not order us back to the planetoid to begin the search again, but I do what I have to do. No waiting now until 0800 tomorrow, I get the non-verbal command from the Senator.

  "Mr. Garcia, plot a four gee course to a jump point, get us to Gamma Upsilon, your mark."

  "Four gees, aye."

  Five minute horns sound, the course, which she must have been already working on, appears on my nav display. Clean, minimal time. She and her co-pilot are hard at work, I leave them to it.

  "Mr. Perez, get the Marines out of their boat, then get with Congress and have them meet us in Upsilon."

  "Aye, Skipper." I see Shelby talking into her mic, probably a private line to Tony in the assault boat. I catch myself wondering if there's additional data being exchanged. Rains snaps me out of my reverie.

  "Captain, how do you know they're pirates?" He's on an open line, the whole bridge heard him ask. McAdams, off line, gives a laugh loud enough that I catch it without comm. I need to figure out something he's good at and get him to do it in front of the crew fast, his respect level, if he had one, keeps dropping.

  "Mr. Rains, look at the vid cap I sent. When they turned, they exposed their broadside."

  "Aye, sir, I understand that. What was I supposed to see?"

  I should start by telling him the to use the private line, but it's so too late.

  "Lt. Commander, take a look at their cannons."

  "Aye, sir." I'm not sure if that was a question or a statement.

  "They've got five cannons, Mr. Rains, no two of which are the same size. They stole the ship, stole a bunch of cannons, wedged them into place. Our enemy uses well placed 42 inch weapons, not a two, a three, a six, a twelve, and a fifteen, and not even installed in a straight line."

  There's a pause, I'm sure he's checking out the photo again.

&nb
sp; "Aye, sir, I have it now."

  I don't respond because, fortunately for all of us, the acceleration alarm sounds and we are shoved back into our couches as Yorktown rotates toward the sun and accelerates.

  Chapter 7

  It takes us ten and a half hours to reach the jump point. I spend much of the time conferring with Courtney and Shelby in my ready room. We all agree, the Libor are still in Gamma Nu and are responsible for the second energy trails, but there's nothing we can do about it.