Libor: Katana Krieger #2

by Bill Robinson

  "We've got a day, we'll think of something." She sounds so definite.

  "Aye."

  We run silently for the remaining half hour, then head off to our respective cabins. I put an old movie on my big screen, make some popcorn, and layout my favorite new uniform for the first time complete with knives and antidote injectors.

  About three quarters of the way through the film, I kill it, switching to the photos of the two military installations. I can figure out what some of the buildings are used for, such as hangars, but mostly we have no idea, and we won't know until we're inside of one. Finally, about 0200, I hit my rack and, surprisingly, sleep like a baby.

  For the first time I can remember, my internal clock gives me an extra hour of sleep. My bag is warm and comfortable around me, and I spend an extra 15 minutes floating inside it before reluctantly pulling down the zipper and freeing myself for a quick shower, breakfast, and check on my messages. We've gotten no responses from the messages we sent home, no way even to know if they have made it through the censors and been received.

  I notify Rains to stay on post a little longer, tell him I have prep work to do for my excursion. My backpack is in one of the lockers in my cabin, and I extricate it. In goes the second enhanced uniform I got from Maddie, clean underwear to keep my mom happy, my toothbrush, hair brush, tooth paste, lots of anti-fungals which I put into an empty vitamin bottle, little bottle of liquid soap, a small container of antibiotics, and another of aspirin. Then my sidearm, two spare clips, a standard K-bar knife, a surface to air handheld radio, survival poncho slash tent, tiny first aid kit, solar battery charger, a small towel, flashlight, and night vision binoculars with a built in camera. Lastly, I throw in a half dozen nutrition bars, which equals three days of rations.

  The Senator would have a fit if he saw what I was packing, and so would Admiral Hilgenberg. I don't give a crap.

  I can always try to justify it by reminding them that the planet's land surface is 98 percent woods or jungle and I packed the same as I would if I were headed to an uninhabited planet with the same characteristic. Which doesn't mean I believe that, or that they would either.

  Then I unzip my uniform front so that it's open about six inches below my neck, grab the three cylinders of antidote and work them one at a time into their spot in the uni, followed by a knife into the left side scabbard and another into the right side. I can feel all of them against my skin, the cold metal comforting in its unique way.

  A quick look around my cabin to make sure I haven't forgotten anything, then zip the front back up, grab the backpack, and head for the bridge. Rains eases out of my couch, and I send him off to bed before settling into my still warm couch and spending a few minutes looking at ship's systems and nav screens. Then I have questions for Courtney.

  "Mr. McAdams, any sign of our drones?" They should be here now, one 180 degrees opposite from us across the planet in roughly the same orbit, and the other hovering over the north pole. They are also in stealth mode, not broadcasting any electromagnetic energy.

  "No, Skipper, as expected. We don't have any indication of them being destroyed either, and they both had emergency locator beacons on board just in case. I think we can safely say they are here."

  "One bit of good news. Any sign of an orbital defense matrix or other defense grid?"

  "No, sir, whatever they have is well hidden."

  "Aye. How's the mapping going?"

  "We've got the entire planet surface mapped and downloaded to the corvettes, should be back on Earth later today."

  "Good. Will you download to my pad please?"

  "Aye, Skipper, on it's way." And just to prove it, my pad beeps.

  "Thank you, Courtney, fine work."

  "Thanks, Skipper."

  I disengage myself from my couch and move off to my ready room, fill a big bottle full of fresh iced tea, and create a set of orders for Shelby. Takes me until almost 1400 before I am done and ready to talk to her about them. It takes her 30 seconds to get here after I message, she must have been sitting on the bridge. My bad for not just inviting her in at the beginning.

  I hope I don't look like she does, I doubt she's slept for a while. Her eyes are there, but for the first time in all the years I've known her they are empty.

  "Shelby, we need to go through your orders." "Aye, Katana." No life, no emotion.

  One by one, we go through every detail, starting with I get back here just fine in a couple days and she orbits taking as many photos and intercepting as much radio traffic as she can while I'm gone. We still haven't figured out how to turn their video streams into video we can see or how to turn their radio transmissions into something we can listen to. If there's war coming we're at a huge disadvantage if they can read ours and we can't read theirs.

  Then the fun part: what to do if she loses contact with us, or she knows we're dead, or their Navy comes acallin'. Orders in there for Summerlin and his corvettes as well, with the primary goal of making sure FRIGCOM and ChiNO have the details.

  We finish right at time to go. We head back out to the bridge together, I grab my backpack, and Shelby comes with me down to the boat deck. Yeager is waiting in the suiting area, coming to attention as we enter.

  I salute, he returns.

  "Let's roll, Master Sergeant."

  "Yes, sir."

  I turn to Shelby, give her a salute and a smile.

  "The ship is yours, Commander, we'll see you in a couple days."

  "Aye, Skipper. A couple days." She salutes one last time and floats off toward the hatch for deck four.

  Yeager and I get our suits (I'm taking a standard Navy suit, not my custom made Marine outfit) on without feeling the need to talk, the boat crew showing up part way through to check us out, then help us to the captain's gig. It's a new one, I haven't taken it out yet, so we spend a couple extra minutes double checking everything for the pre-flight. It looks like an old school fighter, and has aerodynamic controls as well as thrusters for airless flight regimes.

  Chief Turner and his boys help us in, Yeager in front, me in the rear, and check all our connections, finally watching as we close our canopies and checking our seals. Turner and his crew evacuate the bay while Yeager starts up the boat's systems and I warm up comm and data links. I then double check his work as he double checks mine.

  Yeager finishes first. "We're good to go, Captain."

  "Aye, Sergeant." I switch to external comm. "Chief, open the doors please. Yorktown, this is FA one one, requesting permission to depart."

  Shelby has Rains talking for the ship. "You are cleared to depart, Captain."

  "Aye, cleared to go."

  I give Turner a signal indicating our clearance, shortly thereafter we can feel the pumps work to remove the air, and the doors swinging open beneath us as the pumps finish.

  "Master Sergeant, take us out."

  His hands barely move, the careful quick movements of the experienced aviator. The boat moves gently away from Yorktown, stabilizes, followed by a flick of his hands on the autopilot panel. The mains light briefly to push us toward the Libor ship, small puffs of thruster every few seconds to keep us on course.

  Half way to target, the exterior hatch on L2 opens, and a three-fingered space suit exits. It stands motionless while we let the computer make a perfect rendevous roughly 20 feet above target. Neither Yeager nor I have said a word during the transit.

  "Nice work, Master Sergeant. Run the evac checklist please."

  "Yes, sir."

  Together we go through every step to safely depressurize our craft, Yeager doing most of the work while I unstrap myself and do a quick double check of my backpack, despite it being way to late to add anything to it.

  "Checklist complete, Captain." I seal the velcro on my bag.

  "Thank you, Mr. Yeager, canopy opening."

  My gloved hand reaches out for the switch, the clear plastic rotates up and I am free to depart. My hands go to the edge of the cockpit and I start to push up when Yeager talks on
the closed channel.

  "I wish I was going with you, sir."

  "I wish neither of us was going, Walter."

  "Roger that, sir."

  My hands tighten on the sides of the cockpit and I push myself out of the gig into the black of deep space. A couple quick bursts of my thrusters and I am within arms reach of an alien, who guides me into the airlock. In my helmet, I hear Yeager talking to Rains, heading home.

  The airlock looks no different than it did in the video, but it's its true size is nothing like I imagined watching on a bridge screen. My gig could fit in here, it can't just be a personnel transfer point, but try as I might, I cannot see any cracks that would suggest a larger opening as well. A mystery for another day.

  My helmet lights tell me I can safely remove it, and I do, carefully unlatching so as not to tangle the hair in it. The Libor is doing the same, it's Phil, though I refrain from calling him that. It looks at me, I can't really say ‘looks me in the eyes' since it's got 46 or so more than I do, but I get the hint.

  With exaggerated motions he puts his helmet onto one of the catches on the wall, followed by removing his suit. I accommodate, put my helmet and then my suit a significant ways down the bulkhead where four Marine and four Navy suits are already hanging. I play good girl and leave my backpack attached to the suit.

  Phil's waiting for me at the far end, and I float quietly down to it, while it opens the hatch into the ship. I've seen it all before, I, well, I take as wide a swing around Phil as I can when I get to the hatch, then slip as quickly as I can through it (it the hatch, not it the it).

  Something about the odor of the ship bothers me, and it takes me the length of the trip down the passageway to figure it out. There is no odor on this ship. Even Yorktown smells of sweaty Marine, half eaten food, and various lubricants and fluids, and that's on a good day. This ship is odorless, colorless, and tasteless.

  I know where I'm going, so I don't wait for Phil, just float into the ward room, to find the Senator, his aide, the professors, four Marines, and Cliff. I nod first to Lieutenant Ramos, who is looking both relaxed and ready along the far wall, then catch the Senator's eyes, of which he still has two.

  "Ah, Captain, good to see you." He turns to Cliff, and speaks with a decidedly formal tone. Snowflakes appear on the screen beside him as he talks, one of the professors acting as translator.

  "May I present Captain Katana Krieger, commander of the USS Yorktown."

  Not sure what exactly the protocol is, I give him a half nod, half bow sort of thing.

  "Pleased to me you," to which I add silently, "now can I go home?"

  Cliff responds in more unintelligible banjo cat, gives a half bow of its own, and several welcoming snowflakes scroll across the big screen.

  "Captain," the Senator continues using a heavy voice, booming in the small space, "We're going to have something of a banquet, followed by a treaty signing. Tomorrow we'll head down to the surface to spend the day sight seeing."

  "Aye, Senator" I take out my pad and send Shelby a message. By agreement, each message I send her will contain the name of one of my siblings, one after the other, until I run out or I get back aboard. If she gets a message without a name (or a repeat), it means either I didn't send it, or something's wrong. This time I ask her to have Chief Kent check to make sure I unplugged my teapot.

  While we wait, I get to watch the professors work on expanding their vocabulary with the Libor, which is even funnier in person. I am definitely no longer creeped out by the aliens themselves, only by the danger they represent.

  About 1900 we get fed, and I try all the food presented. We're up to seven types of fruit, all but one of which look like berries, and a third animal, somewhat piggish, is in tonight's casserole. They also serve kabobs of the half rat, half rabbit thing they made earlier. All of it is surprisingly tasty, though not hot in a spicy way. All of it is either bite size or sticky enough to hang on your fork, smart eating for zero gee.

  The Marines are still eating their own rations.

  They clear the food away and wipe the table clean, then two large documents appear, one written in English and the other a sea on snowflakes. Piper gives a short speech about how wonderful this is, Cliff gives a really short spew of banjo cat which takes a while to display on the monitor in English, but is similarly a lot of nothing. Then they each sign the document, Piper with a pen and a normal signature, Cliff with a marker that looks like a two inch diameter Sharpie. His signature is a drawing of considerable complexity.

  Then the Senator forms a receiving line, and I am forced to shake the hand of an alien. I have dealt with cows before back home, and the Libor skin is very cow-like, but it's still not my happiest time.

  I manage to explain through the professors that I need my backpack, and am allowed to retrieve it before they show me to my cabin. In many ways, L2 is designed like Yorktown. There are bunking areas along the wall opposite the wardroom, each designed to hold more than one crew alien. Unlike ours, they share the entire space, no real privacy. There are four sleeping bags against the wall to the right of the hatch, four lockers against the wall opposite the hatch, and a desk, chairs, zero-gee sink/head, and computer terminal against the final wall. I get the room to myself, no one to share it with.

  Once I'm in, I go through my backpack which strangely contains everything I packed. They must really not think of us as a threat if they left my weapon alone. Spend a couple hours trying and failing to figure out the computer terminal and then turn in. Instead of climbing into a Libor bag, I stay fully dressed, turn the lights off, and simply float in the middle of the room. Surprisingly, I fall asleep almost immediately.

  We're due to depart about 0700. My brain wakes me up at my usual 0600. I need to pee, but I forgot to ask how. Hoping there's no camera watching me, I make use of the zero-gee sink/head in a way that would probably cause my mom to tan my behind. Then I loosen my uniform as much as possible, put warm water onto my towel, and wipe myself down from head to toe as much as possible. The hair is just going to have to live with it.

  Breakfast in the wardroom, more fruit and a loaf of bread, unknown grain, but tasty, dark, a hint of molasses, except probably not. They may be evil, but they do eat healthy. Part way through there's a bump against the ship, reminds me of docking a corvette. The Libor feel it too, and let us know our ride is here.

  Phil leads us back to the airlock. The hatch leading to the docked ship is open, no need to suit up, it leads the group into the lander, starting with the Senator. We should have sent two Marines first. I go almost last, Ramos and his team bringing up the rear.

  The ship is another of the ‘football' class, original size. I've been in one before, though this one has seats where the previous one was a cargo vessel. The professors have taken the cool seats behind the pilots, I make one of them move just by looking at him and flicking my hand toward another seat. Whimps.

  The seats fit reasonably well, the straps work fine, and in less than five minutes the pilots are detaching us from L2. I've spent enough time looking at the photos and memorizing the control layout to know what's going on. They aren't using an autopilot, as far as I can tell, the lead pilot (who is sitting on the right) uses his mocha-furred right hand to control the thrusters, his left to control the throttle. The second pilot, also of the mocha variety, is controlling the direction of the pods. It would be a real bitch for a single pilot to fly this baby without computer assist, although the controls are all within reach of either pilot.

  They turn on their flight management system, and we make a constant thrust decel through the decent, a cool and fuel wasting maneuver that minimizes gee forces on the passengers. Half hour after departure we are skimming rapidly under manual control 1,000 feet above a forest, green, old trees a hundred feet tall or more, scattered creeks and rivers, hills, and, off in the distance, mountains. From the map I know where we're headed, one of the two military installations isolated from civilians. There aren't any sights to see on our course. I'll g
ive them the benefit of the doubt for now, there could be an aircraft waiting to move us across the planet.

  My bedroom growing up on Colorado looked out onto an old pine and oak forest that stretched across the planet east and north from the many small family farms and the smaller town which collectively were known as Boulder.

  The terraformers had seeded the Colorado forests with half a dozen species of birds, including my favorite, the peregrine falcons. The forest was also home to squirrels, rabbits, beaver, three species of deer, bobcats, and wolves, plus the perpetual uninvited human co-habitants, rats. After an initial 100 years of careful human management, a well balanced ecosystem had seemingly emerged. We still have no answer to the fight over the optimal number of species needed to establish a self-regulating system on a terraformed planet, but I'm partial to the small, carefully selected, theory which works so well back home.