It takes zero time to reach Gamma Upsilon, and ten seconds to confirm we're where we're supposed to be.
"Mr. Jones, plot rendevous course, contact Hornet to confirm expected formation. Mr. McAdams, start data download."
"Aye, sir," in stereo. Jones and Hardy immerse themselves in their consoles for a couple minutes. McAdams had everything pre-programmed and puts one index finger on one temporary button on her screen.
"Course on your screen, Skipper." It's Hardy, Jones probably ran comm and had him do the technical part.
I take a quick look, it's fine work.
"Approved. Execute on your mark."
"My mark, aye." Jones comes back with the acknowledgment.
We get one minute horns, I pull up the wide angle nav display and check on Congress. Summerlin is safely in system and already moving to join up with the rest of his task force. We're all about an hour out from a jump point, the two task forces 10,000 klicks apart.
Jones and/or Hardy park us right where we're supposed to be, Garcia monitoring from a side station. Admiral Sutherland is reportedly easy going, but he does expect a nice tight formation.
I get into my comm panel, and make a phone call.
"Hornet, this is Yorktown, reporting on station."
The Admiral's face appears on my screen, I've never met him before but I checked out his photo and scrounged as much scuttlebutt as I could before we left. He's pushing 60, thin hair glued to his head with something I would never run my hands through, but otherwise a solid face, just the right balance of character and experience.
"Krieger, welcome to Gamma Upsilon. We're receiving your download. Is the Senator available?"
I don't have the chance to respond, the Senator's voice carries over the line.
"Right here, Admiral."
"Would you like to come aboard, sir? I have a couple steaks ready to go."
"No thank you, Admiral, I'm hoping we can be on our way as soon as possible."
"Affirmative. Perhaps on your way home."
"Perhaps. Captain, how long will the remainder of the download take?"
"We'll be done in under five minutes, sir, though I would like the chance to update the Admiral face to face if you'll allow me a few more than that."
"You have 10, Captain, after that I want to be on our way."
"Aye, sir, 10 minutes." His face, which had been in a little box in the corner of my screen, disappears. I flip a couple switches on the comm panel and convert the signal so that he can no longer listen in.
"Krieger," the Admiral starts in, "what do you have for me?"
"Sir, we discovered a set of energy trails in Gamma Nu. They led us to sub-planetary body 024, where we discovered a small pirate ship. Given our mission, I did not pursue. More importantly, sir, there are, on closer examination, two energy trails. It is possible that a second similar pirate ship is running around, but I think it more likely that our alien friends are using the unwitting pirate as cover. Either way, the system is not clean."
"Roger that, Captain, we'll go through your data and see if we can't deal with them. Anything else?"
"No, sir, unless you want to come with us."
He laughs.
"I'd love to Krieger, but I don't want to get Court Martialed."
"Understood. Permission to depart, sir."
"Go get them, Captain, if you need us, we've got your back."
"Roger that, Admiral, thank you."
He cuts the connection. I take a big breath, and let it out in a major league sigh, then I get back to the comm panels and call our corvettes.
"Yorktown to Congress, Summerlin, get your task force on the move, flight plan as approved."
No delay, he's got his ready for combat voice on.
"Affirmative, sir, see you on the other side."
"Roger. Yorktown out."
I watch my screens just long enough to see their engines fire and the three skippers establish a perfect formation.
"Mr. Garcia, take us to jump point, your mark, flight plan alpha. Let's roll."
"Jump point, aye, four gees, mission flight plan."
It's a simple plan, we jump to an unnamed system half way to Libor Prime, keeping up the illusion of limited jump technology, then immediate jump to our destination. We've borrowed from Chester Nimitz, we're headed to Point Luck.
Nothing interesting on the way, except I watch Garcia simulate a T-jump on this star. She's right, it's not an easy thing to do. We only spend enough time in the unnamed system for everyone to have a last bathroom break, and I fill two spare bottles with fresh tea from my ready room. Otherwise, I seriously consider opening my missile doors and activating my cannons, but I follow orders and keep the weapons powered down. I'd also get the Marines into battle armor and on station, but I'm not allowed to do that either. I get myself strapped in, signal Maria to roll.
And then we're floating quietly in the alien star system.
"Mr. McAdams, full scan, passive only. Establish laser link to Congress."
Our three corvettes should be as close to the sun as they can stand without burning up, 20 minutes tops from a jump point. We're halfway between the sun and the inhabited planet, roughly 11 hours from jumping. If a war starts, the corvettes will be able to tell everyone how we died.
I watch my screens, trying to unlock my fingers from the death grip I've got on the arms of my couch. After what seems like days, but is more like 10 minutes, Courtney comes back.
"Scan negative, Skipper, no ships within range, our corvettes are on station, laser link established."
"Thank you, Courtney. Start our welcome program." I use my captain voice, they'll all be more nervous than I am, I have to show nothing if I can.
"Copy. Welcome program go." She reaches her index finger out again, and hits another temporary button on her screen. Our acquisition lights flick on, full strength and blinking. We're transmitting messages on every frequency we know they use in the system, at full power. Our radar is pinging every three seconds.
It's not English we're sending visually and over the radio, it's on and off pulses. Three on, one off, one on, one off, four on, one off. It's 3.14159 over and over again. Some scientist 50 years ago decided that pi is a universal magic number, and got it incorporated in the alien visit master plan.
We'll actually never know if he was right or not, because my butt and I both know that the aliens speak English all too well.
The bridge goes quiet, church quiet, a few whispers here and there, but no sound above a half decibel. It will take not quite four minutes for the first signals to reach the Libor planet. If it were us and someone started doing to Earth what we're doing, we'd have a warship en route inside of 10 minutes, and a substantial force underway within an hour. Planetary defense ships would be eyeballing the intruder in eight to ten hours. I have no idea how long it would take us to get a scientific or linguistic team on site.
Given that we've got the active radars at maximum, we'll know four or five minutes after a ship breaks orbit. Courtney's got her full team and four Marines watching every returning ping.
We stay in church mode for five minutes and sixteen seconds. Then a Marine breaks the quiet.
"OohRah! OohRah!"
It's PFC Dobson again, I am personally going to recommend she be made into a Sergeant when we get home, or maybe just steal her from the Marines when my bosses steal Courtney from me. I had no idea any human could yell that loudly.
I call up her screen onto my left one. There's a radar blip on the edge of the alien planet.
"RISTA, confirm."
"Aye, Skipper, new target departing enemy planet, on course toward our position. Acceleration 4.56 gees, time to intercept nine hours, 47 minutes."
"Roger, disengage radio transmissions, maintain acquisition lights and active radars. Designate target as L1."
"Aye, out-going transmissions ceasing. No incoming transmissions, at least none we can identify, Skipper."
"Copy that." I get into my comm panel. "L
ieutenant Summerlin, notify Hornet, enemy inbound."
I turn back to my screens, switch my right to tactical which is displaying course and speed information on the Libor ship. My concentration is broken by the Senator.
"Captain Krieger." He's on open voice, everyone on board with headphones can hear him. "Please inform your crew that the Libor are not the ‘enemy' and they should be referred to as the ‘Libor' or at worst the ‘aliens'."
I switch my system from bridge to open voice as well.
"Aye, sir. All hands, you heard the Senator. Please do as he asks."
Then I switch to a private line with Senator Piper.
"Sir, I would appreciate it if you would come through me, rather than address my entire crew with a request."
"I understand your position, Captain. Carry on."
"Yes, sir."
Not sure, but I think that was a refusal. I go back to bridge comm, listen in while RISTA coordinates new monitoring assignments with the Marines. We're all jittery now, you can feel the tension across the bridge. I'd swear Yorktown herself is vibrating at a different frequency than normal. One inbound ship, but we know what's flying it.
There's a not quite eight minute pause for my words to travel the laser beam to Congress and return, and we hear the response from Summerlin.
"Affirmative, Captain, Truxton departing for Gamma Upsilon." Summerlin is staying in system, sending another ship to tell the tale.
An hour and a half hour later, the situation changes once again, Courtney's got another sighting.
"New contact departing Libor planet. Accelerating at 4.56 gee, contact L1 going to 1.14 gee. Skipper, the new contact is coming to us, the first ship is going to end up on station between us and the planet."
"Aye, RISTA, logical. The first ship is a warship which was already in orbit, the new contact means they had time to get their emergency response team on its way. Designate that ship L2, please."
"Aye, sir."
Now I make another choice.
"Mr. Garcia, Mr. Powell, Mr. McAdams. I want you to schedule yourselves and your primary teams for rest periods, at least three hours each, preferably more. Naps or the closest thing we can get to them. Everybody back at stations 30 minutes before the Libor arrive. We could be up a long time folks, we need to grab some rest while we can. Mr. Perez, you're off duty now as well, four hours."
I get a bunch of ayes, followed by the entire bridge crew slowly being replaced by their seconds. Jones takes lead pilot, though we're not going anywhere. Manuel is the lone RISTA, with a fresh crew of Marines as backup. Then I make a potentially stupid command decision, once Shelby is safely off the bridge.
"Mr. Rains, you've got the ship, I'll be in my ready room trying to sleep."
"Aye, sir, I have the con, sir." I wish he'd not sounded scared when he said it.
I float off the bridge. Without turning the lights on, I set an alarm for a tad more than three hours, strap myself into my couch and turn on the bridge cameras. Nobody is really doing or saying anything, just watching the ship approach on radar, too far out for decent visual. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I slip into a fitful, dreamless sleep.
It's a good thing I chose to sleep in my ready room and not on the bridge, because I nearly pull the couch apart jumping up when the alarm goes off. I take my time to recover, do some breathing exercises. I get it now. Not that I'm a control freak, but, well, I am a control freak. A control freak on a completely out of control mission. Not truly in command of my own ship, not able to defend my crew from risks I know are out there. I'm going to have to get over it and get to work.
I send Shel to relieve Rains when her four hours are up, and I spend the time in my ready room with some hot tea and the system charts. I realize now the one gap in our intel, the stealth drone that was sent in never got close enough to the planet to tell us anything useful about it, other than there's a widespread, but low total power, electrical grid and lots of vegetation. I message McAdams to use the Marines to map the planet, and search for an orbital defense grid I assume is there, somewhere.
Two hours to go we have our first clear pictures of the enemy ship (yes, the enemy ship, screw the Senator). It's one of the football shaped ships we've seen before, on steroids. I'd estimate the same tonnage as Yorktown, though slightly longer, fat in the middle and pointy at both ends. Eight really large thruster pods, four at each end, provide propulsion. The computer says the big engines are just as inefficient as their little ones, meaning we can out run them, but not out maneuver them.
Sixty minutes out, I float to the bridge and relieve my First.
"Senator, it's time for you and the professors to head below."
"Yes, Captain, I was thinking that myself."
I go to another comm circuit.
"Lieutenant Ramos, take your team to deck one."
He's back instantly.
"Yes, sir, on our way." I flip another switch.
"Chief Turner, prepare landing ship as planned."
"Affirmative, Skipper, we're ready."
They're taking one of our two landing craft. Two Marines crew the boat, they'll have the four man Recon team, the two professors, the Senator and his aide. The boat can hold 25 people and supply them for a month. Lots of extra space if the Libor want to go aboard, lots of room for gear if our folks are going visiting. And, lots of good cameras so the rest of us can watch.
The Senator leads his party from the bridge, I wonder if I'll see any of them alive again. Then I break my orders, open a private comm channel to Tony.
"Lieutenant, get a squad into battle armor, please. And get the assault boat crew to warm up their baby."
"Sir?"
"I know what our orders are, let's be ready in case something goes wrong. Make sure the Senator doesn't see you move."
"Yes, sir. I'll send Sergeant McGregor's unit. The Senator's passing through right now, we'll be clear in a couple minutes."
"Copy that."
Takes ten minutes before we get a request for departure from the landing craft, and we detach it from Yorktown. It has no where to go for a while, spends its time hovering nearby, waiting like the rest of us. Tony lets me know his boys and girls are good to go.
I go visual on my left screen, infrared on my right, and watch as the enemy ship comes to rest about 1,400 meters dead ahead. I can admire the advantages of the engine pods, a design we ought to think about for some of our boats as well.
The ship is indeed about our size, a bigger version of the little boats we've encountered in human space. No secret coating on this one, a question on top of questions, since only the converted human ships have been treated, not a single Libor built ship we've seen is outfitted with something that is a serious strategic advantage.
The armament is the same though. Three 42 inch laser cannons on the port side and three on the starboard, no cannons elsewhere, and no other weapons visible.
We can't get a good look at the first ship that left their home world, and is now at rest half way between the planet and us, but by energy configuration and radar return, it's likely identical to what's in front of us.
I take care of some housekeeping.
"Mr. Garcia, acquisition lights to normal. Mr. McAdams, turn our radars off. Maintain passive sensors on high alert."
I get my ayes in response, and briefly switch screens to confirm.
While I'm talking, the landing boat has moved from next to Yorktown to the mid- point between the ships. Now, according to our protocol, it will wait to see if there's a response. Unless the enemy rotates they don't have a weapon I can see that they can bring to bear, so the response will be likely be peaceful.
Nothing happens for a minute or two, then a hatch opens on the top of the ship. One space suited figure emerges and stands attached to the ship, probably magnetic boots same as we use. It waves at us, three fingers and a thumb, then reaches down and unhooks two hoses and a third thing, possibly a docking cable, from the hull. I'd say it's an invitation.
The Senator must see it that way too, the LS moves toward the Libor ship and parks itself just above the hatch. The it throws the cable upward, striking the LS near its base, then it plays with a control on its suit and the cable reels back in until it's taught, probably another electromagnet attachment. For better or worse, our landing boat is not going anywhere.
All the occupants of the LS are wearing their suits, or better be if they're following the rules, and we can access their cameras. I flip the screen I had on infrared to pick up the Senator's cam, get a face full of his aide putting his helmet on, then a float into the boat's airlock.
Libor: Katana Krieger #2 Page 11
