They look at me unsure. I dip the filter end of my water bag into the creek until the bag is full again, take my sidearm out of my pack, grab my silly night vision binocs, and take four steps toward the woods.
"Coming?"
By my estimate, we're only a couple clicks out, I can suck it up that far. In fact, we come to the edge of the forest and the fence around the farm in a half hour of easy walking. Ramos takes my binoculars and surveys. No lights, nothing moving. It's a couple hours to sunrise, that's not too surprising.
We retreat 200 yards deeper into the woods, find big trees with lots of leaves and make ourselves sleeping perches. We'll be able to scope out the activity on the farm during the day, theoretically without the farmer scoping us out.
Ramos meets me at the bottom of our tree before we climb up. He's got the third floor apartment, I've got the second.
"Captain, should we try to contact Yorktown?"
"Lieutenant, if they were in orbit, I'd have gotten a one packet message from Shelby every other orbit." I show him my radio, which has a big zero on its screen for incoming. "They're gone. If Shel followed the plan, she won't be able to hear us for a couple days, there's no use in sending a message yet."
"Understood, sir. Need any help getting up the tree?"
I don't answer him, just disappear as fast as I can into the leaves. Up top, I make a little nest and settle in. The hair is a tangled disaster, I need to find a creek tomorrow and try to wash it. The almost regular spacing of said creeks implies again the planet was terraformed. I make a mental note to add that to a report, if I ever make one again. Then I relax, fill my head with the caress of the light breeze, the woodsy aroma, and the feel of tree on my skin, eventually slipping into a solid sleep.
I sleep for a few hours, actually maybe six, before a commotion on the farm wakes me. It's not the crying of the lambs going to slaughter, it's a convoy. The Libor who disembark are wearing vests. Every alien we've seen, except a few on human ships, have been au naturel. These six are carrying weapons and sporting vests. Must be military or police, but no visible snowflakes to run through the translation app. I snap a few pictures with the binocs. Interestingly, all but one of the vest wearing aliens have the same mocha colored fur as Phil.
They leave, but I can't get back to sleep. Spend the afternoon watching a farmer do chores, just like my dad, except for the fur and bee eyes. Still, something comforting in it. It's got a pen full of the half rabbit/half rat things, and another of bigger animals that went into another casserole. There's a set of fruit trees beside the house as well. Not that we're worried, we passed enough trees and vines with fruit and berries we recognized to assure ourselves that we can survive a very long time in these woods.
Also watch Libor ships in the air, running a search pattern across the sky. How they don't know which way we went I don't know, but I'm not tempting fate by asking. Clouds build up every afternoon, it seems, and we get rain, which would make the search more difficult.
After sunset, we assemble beneath our trees. Ramos starts to send Odoms and Swenson to clear away our hiding spots when Weese stops him.
"Sirs, let's leave those treehouses as they are. Tonight, we'll leave another set a little further north, plus a few other clues, then we head south and cover our tracks."
Ramos doesn't even discuss it, he sends Odoms and Swenson to the east side of the farm to cover us, then he, Weese, and I climb the fence. We wait 45 minutes for the lights to go out, then walk quietly to the barn. I spend my time while we wait considering the fence, which is way too high and strong for a farm like this, no animal on the inside could get halfway up it.
The barn yields nothing of interest except Weese steals a bag and fills it with fertilizer. Ten minutes and we're headed to the farm house. The door, like the door to my farmhouse on Colorado, isn't locked. We sneak in quietly, no pet dog around.
We're in the house long enough to grab some bread and larger pieces of fruit, plus a quick look around, then we're gone. No fuss, no muss. Libor stayed sleeping, no joy on weapons or electronics we could use. I was tempted to use the shower, but the hair and the rest of me is going to have to stay dirty.
We march north through the night, cover about 15 clicks. I'd accuse them of going slow so as not to embarrass me, but that would embarrass me. Just before sunup we build new tree houses and get a good day's sleep.
Or almost. Early afternoon two extra small footballs come flying into view and land at the farm. We can't see what happened once they landed, we only know they stayed a couple hours, not too many because those look like four man (it) ships. They get airborne eventually and fly obvious search patterns, clearly looking for us. One does fly over, but we get no indication that they saw anything. By the time the sun goes down, they are long gone away north.
We are quickly out of our trees at sundown, leaving our perches alone so the aliens can find them, and head north ourselves. No slow pace today, we've got to make good time if Weese's plan is going to work. The first hour is uneventful, then I notice something moving off to our right. I slide back to Ramos, who is Tail End Charlie today, and whisper in his ear.
"Are you seeing something to starboard?"
"Yes, sir, whatever it is has been there for the last 20 minutes, give or take."
And here I was thinking I was observant.
"Plan?"
"Stick with what we're doing until we know more. No good running through the poppies if you can't make it snow."
"Aye."
I make sure there's a round in the chamber of my sidearm and the safety is off.
And then it comes.
On old Earth, or back home, they'd be wolves. Big hairy dogs, pack hunters most likely, except these have 48 eyes, growl like an entire hive of bees, extra big teeth, fur the color of night. Not dressed like grandma.
One jumps out in front of us, blocking our way. Odoms raises his weapon, but before he can fire a great black shape leaps from our right, knocking him to the ground. Swenson puts a round through its head, but that doesn't stop it. Snarling, biting, Odoms hitting it again and again with his sidearm before he remembers there are bullets in it and puts three into the head from below. This time, it collapses on him, hopefully dead.
Ramos and I take a step toward it, when we both hear the bees coming up behind. We turn, just in time to see two of the beasts leaping at us, all teeth and claws. I put two rounds into the eyes of mine, Ramos manages three into his, killing it. Mine turns and hightails it into the surrounding trees, leaving a trail of blood on the foliage.
Behind us four more shots ring out, and a "wolf" screams. We spin toward that sound, to find Weese standing over the body of another dead animal. Now we know why the fences are so high.
"Report." Ramos' voice is a hard whisper, rather unnecessary given the sounds from our firearms must have traveled miles from where we are.
"Good to go." "A couple scratches." "No damage."
Odoms "scratch" turns out to be two deep gashes in his left arm. We put some antibiotic ointment in them from the med kit in Weese's pack, then grab the bottle of crazy glue and glue them shut.
"Well," I turn to Weese, "is this what you meant by leaving something on the trail the Libor could follow?"
He laughs. "Great planning, sir, wasn't it?"
Ramos is not as amused.
"Let's move, either the aliens or predators will be here shortly."
Weese makes a suggestion. "L-T, I recommend we leave a little trail headed north, a couple hundred meters maybe, then execute a wide right turn and start our movement south."
Ramos looks at me, I non-verbally defer to him.
"Make it happen."
Weese takes point and we move off into the brush, this time not caring to cover our tracks. Maybe 60 meters in, Weese leaves a little blood, the alcohol swab he used to clean Odoms' arm. We're clean for 10 meters, disturb the undergrowth again, then another 20 meters before one last bent bush.
We stop, watch as Weese goes back alo
ng our trail and sets a couple snares, though it seems more likely to me that he'll snare an animal than an alien.
I use the time to get my pad and radio out of my pack. The pad ensures we're within the window of time the orbiting drone should be in range, then I send out one word: Kenna. It won't respond. If I'm lucky, that drone will transmit to the drone hovering over the south pole, which will send my oldest sister's name to Shelby, one letter at a time, both transmissions in random data bursts scattered over at least a day.
When Weese is finished, the five of us start a sweep east before turning south toward the base.
Chapter 17 – Among the Rocks in Space
Commander Shelby Perez considered her options. For the 50th time. They'd been on station running silent for two days, there was little else for her to do. Powell's team, along with Chief Turner's boat crew, had made all necessary repairs in record time, her ship was combat ready. Garcia had three different courses programmed and available in case they were discovered, plus five more that took them back to the planet in a variety of creative ways.
McAdams had tracked the Libor fleet that attacked them to a station in the same orbit as the planet, but not in orbit around the planet. Coated with their organic titanium mixture, it was well hidden. Using the ship's telescopes, she'd discovered another one on the far side of Libor Prime. Sneaky. No orbital defense matrix, instead a nicely hidden layered defense.
The missiles in tubes one and two were locked onto those coordinates.
In four more days, if there had been no contact from the Captain, she was under orders to go home and report. She only had two problems with that. She didn't like how little she had to report, and she didn't want to leave without knowing the fate of her commander and friend.
She was also having to deal with twice daily assault plans from her Marine who thought his 17 Marines could take the alien base.
Suddenly, she knew what she was going to do and stabbed a long finger into her comm button.
"Senior officers to the captain's ready room."
Summerlin and his task force, currently running silent in another cluster of rocks 20,000,000 clicks away, could report to Earth. In three days, if she hadn't heard from Katana, one alien planet was going to regret ever hearing the name Yorktown.
Chapter 18 – On the Ground
We marched quietly all night, every one of us on edge, listening intently for the sound of anything on our six. Weese took extra care to cover us, which meant enough extra breaks that I was not a ball and chain for once. I even took point when we spent an hour walking along the bed of a foot deep stream, my bare feet better at finding the easy way and avoiding the occasional hole. Creeks are great at hiding your tracks, breaking your face after tripping on a rock isn't.
We pause part way down, and the hair gratefully takes a long dip. Hopefully the Libor can't track by smell, because we do. We really, really smell.
It all made me feel like I was 10 again, chasing fish barehanded in Estes Creek behind my house.
At day's end we estimate we're slightly east of the base and 45 to 50 kilometers north of it when we find new trees and prepare our perches, just before sunrise. I take the time to clean and reload my weapon before settling in and dreaming of home.
The next night is a 25 kilometer hike, we travel fast, with a few unnecessary stops, I'm sure, for me. We hunker down early on some lame excuse, sleep the day away. The Libor continue their aerial patrol, searching, but generally north and west of our present position.
At sundown, we cover the remaining distance, the base coming into view about 4 am from a hilltop a half click off its eastern edge. It's dead quiet, not a creature stirring. There's no obvious security, nothing wanders by during the hour we have eyes on. Either they absolutely don't think we're a threat and they have no worries about the local population, or they've hidden their devices well. Our only real data point is the ease at which we exited the base, which suggests the former. The general trickiness of everything they do, however, suggests the latter.
We build our new hides for the day and clamber up our trees. Ramos has us on a new schedule, or rather he has his team on a new schedule, six hour shifts, day and night. I tried not to take offense when he left me off the schedule, claiming I lacked the proper training. I really tried not to take offense when he confiscated my binoculars for his team.
At sundown we meet below to discover they have nothing to report. We spend the night, or much of it, back up in the perches, before taking them down and moving a click or so just before sunrise. Until I decide what our next step is, that's going to be our life. Surveil, shift, sleep, surveil.
Chapter 19 – Among the Rocks in Space
Commander Shelby Perez had never enjoyed a planning session as much as she had enjoyed the last 12 hours. For the first time, she made the final decisions. Courses, targets, weapons. She'd done it in simulation, and she'd done it as a First Officer, but never as the top dog. Every now and then a tiny voice in her brain reminded her that she was here because Katana was gone, but that didn't lessen the excitement. In fact, it only heightened her awareness of the importance of each order.
They had a plan, possibly a suicide mission, but she could see in their eyes that none of her team wanted anything other than to go back to Libor Prime.
Shelby was floating in the command couch, reading reports from Garcia and McAdams, when a small light started to glow on her console. She stared at it, not believing, not wanting to get her hopes up.
"McAdams?"
"Working on it, sir, give me a second."
There was a longer than one second pause.
"Commander, we received a transmission from the drone, five bytes transmitted with a bunch of garbage to make decryption harder, each byte two to four hours apart, random sequence."
Shelby was ready to jump across the bridge and rip it out of her.
"Kay eee en en aa."
Shelby Perez exploded, her fist making a dent in the air around her. "DAMN HER! DAMN HER!"
"Sir?"
"Sorry." The whole bridge heard, and was now waiting with McAdams for the explanation.
"It's code Lieutenant. Katana Krieger is alive and not taken by the Enemy."
Chapter 20 – On the Ground
The next day and the next day we meet at the bottom of different trees to hear the same report. Nothing. No sign of the Senator, no humans at all actually, no intel on the defenses of the base or even if there are any.
What the Navy captain noticed that the Marines did not is that one or two of the 400 ton footballs come in about the same time every evening, are refueled and restocked immediately and left parked on the tarmac until crews take them back up, usually well before dawn. There's never one there at sunup. I keep that all to myself for now, waiting to see if one of them picks up on it. I could be missing something. After all, I'm just the untrained girl in the unit. We know where a couple close by creeks are, and have a random, we hope, pattern of hiding places laid out that keeps us nearby. We also don't smell nearly as bad as we did a couple days ago. I even decide it's time to put my clean uniform on after the second day.
Day three of nothing and I've had enough. They start making plans for the night's move, but I stop them. I start by talking to them about the football class ships and their flight patterns. Then I get serious.
"Mr. Ramos. Two nights from now, we are going onto the base, attempt to determine whether or not the Senator is present, followed by an attempt to leave the planet via one of those boats. I can plan and you can do, or you can plan and let me know."
I stare at him waiting for an answer.
"Weese, pick the spot to penetrate the fence. Odoms, give me a sit rep on our weapons. Swenson, check all the comm gear, we'll need it when we make orbit."
Perfect response.
"Captain," he's looking at me now, "let's go make a plan."
When you know nothing, planning is easy. We have no choice but to assume the Senator is in the building we were all in,
not only because we were there, but because it's the only building that looks like an official building, not something that has to do with aviation.
We go in at local midnight, because it's midnight and that's the traditional sneaky attack time. Get into the building unseen. Search it unseen. Get to the boat unseen. Get to orbit and pray Yorktown is there, no Libor kills us on the way up, and Shelby doesn't kill us by accident once were there. Easy.
Before we start to move for the night, I send Shel what I assume will be my final message. I start it with the code that will force the drone to send it all at once, but it's only 13 characters, there's a good chance the aliens won't notice or won't understand. In fact, my transmission to the drone is probably more dangerous.
Libor: Katana Krieger #2 Page 18
