Libor: Katana Krieger #2

by Bill Robinson

  "Agreed. Mr. Garcia, give me course options for a shift in our flight path to starboard, 15 minutes, let RISTA see them before you finalize."

  "Aye, sir, 15 minutes."

  We don't get that long. I barely get settled back in, thinking about options when McAdams is suddenly in my ear, early.

  "Incoming, Skipper! Missiles, 12, centered at 000 mark 000, 10 minutes, 47 seconds to impact, accelerating at 6.84 gees, point of origin unknown."

  "Mr. Garcia, 20 degrees to starboard. Mr. McAdams, port cannons free, take them out." Turn the ship to give us a better angle to shoot.

  McAdams is fingers all over her screen, way too many, way too long.

  "Ineffective." I guessed as much. "Presume coated with that stuff, sir, that would also explain why it took us so long to spot them."

  "Affirmative. How are they tracking us?"

  "Unknown, Skipper, no active radars or lasers detected, could be visual, could be something we haven't invented yet."

  "Mr. Belanger, arm close in missiles." Engineering, or who's ever in the second set of couches on the bridge, has responsibility for our point defense.

  "CWS armed and available, sir."

  "Target and fire, sticks one and two only, radar tracking."

  "Roger, sticks one and two only." There's a too long pause, but finally we feel the missiles go. "Both sticks launched and active."

  "Mr. Garcia, another 10 degrees to starboard please." Not necessary for weapons, but I want to double check that they are still tracking on us. The enemy missiles quickly adjust course, our outbound Darts do the same.

  The tactical screen shows our little blue missile icons closing on their little red missile icons, 12 of each. Then 10 pairs, then nine, then seven, then five, then four pairs, then three red icons, no blue left, all headed our way.

  Belanger speaks. "Recommend launching remaining sticks, sir."

  I am momentarily dumbfounded, how has he been aboard this long without knowing they took away our last two sticks at my request and replaced them with medium range attack missiles?

  "Negative. Mr. McAdams, cycle port cannons again, concentrate fire."

  "Roger, port cannons."

  She targets one missile with five cannons, which only laughs at us, taunts us with its little red icon, the infrared laser might as well be a flashlight.

  "Ineffective, Skipper. Five minutes, 12 seconds."

  "Copy. Mr. Garcia, rotate 70 degrees starboard, full throttle, all engines."

  No reply, but Yorktown punishes everyone on board with the hardest turn we've ever made on purpose, the engines strain as they spool up to maximum thrust while we turn, my butt not happy with a vibration it's sensing in the spool as we straighten out.

  "Maintain nine gees. Mr. McAdams, update?"

  "Missiles tracking now on our six, the turn cost us some speed, they're gaining on us." She pauses for a second, doing some math probably. "Going to be close, we'll have to take nine for at least three minutes."

  "Confirm, Mr. Garcia, program five minute burn at maximum thrust, then down to seven gees."

  I can hear the 990 pounds she weighs in every syllable.

  "Programmed, Skipper." Programmed into the system, if we all pass out, the ship will save us. If the missiles don't kill us first.

  I talk to engineering.

  "Mr. Powell, status?"

  "Skipper, number four has a vibration, unknown cause, temperature rising near maximum, no way to diagnose under this acceleration, searching the instrumentation for a clue. No telling how long that baby will keep working."

  "Copy that, update me if needed."

  "Aye, sir." The only good thing about nine gees is that there's no way she's scratching her head.

  "Mr. Perez, notify Summerlin to jump."

  "Aye, Skipper."

  One thousand kilometers astern.

  "Mr. McAdams, just for fun, target a missile with the aft cannons, try to wipe the smiles off their faces one more time."

  "Aye, Skipper. Wiping."

  Actually, not. And, then, yes. One of the red icons disappears, McAdams gives us a nine gee yell of victory, which is basically a gurgle.

  "One down, Skipper, two more to wipe."

  Five hundred kilometers astern. Still closing.

  "Continuous fire."

  "Continuous fire, aye."

  Three hundred kilometers astern. Still closing.

  She concentrates both cannons on the missile she hasn't shot at yet. Fires them simultaneously.

  Two hundred kilometers astern. Still closing.

  She fires 17 first, then 18.

  One hundred kilometers astern. Still closing.

  She fires 18 first, then 17. I'm sensing some desperation here.

  Twenty kilometers astern. Still closing.

  Then the red icon switches to orange.

  "Mr. Garcia, go to seven gees."

  And instead of weighing 1,100 pounds, I only weigh 900. Big sigh of relief, except you can't possibly sigh at seven gees.

  "Courtney?"

  "Skipper, we're two kilometers ahead, slightly better velocity and acceleration. Skin of our teeth, I'd say."

  "Copy that, except missiles don't need breaks to visit the head. Any idea of the range of those things?"

  "Negative, sir, they are approximately 82 percent the mass of our Javelins, if that translates to range, and they came from the area around the mine field, I'd estimate another 115 minutes, give or take."

  "Affirmative, I can hold it that long. Sit rep on enemy ships?"

  She's gone a second. I could look it up myself on tactical, in fact, I'm staring at it right now, but she might see something I missed, and vice versa.

  "Six enemy ships trailing, 4.56 gees, three more moving out from the sun, not currently a threat, but they'd be in the way if we turn toward the sun after outrunning the missiles."

  "Flanked, in other words."

  "Aye, Skipper, nine ships, well laid out hammer and anvil."

  "Update when necessary."

  "Aye, sir."

  We manage to blow one more missile to wherever missiles go when they die, but have to wait out the last one, 91.5 minutes go by before it shuts down and I can cut thrust to zero briefly, the powerless beastie unable to close range anymore. I hit the head and refill the tea. I have a lot of lost tea time to make up.

  It also gives Emily five minutes to touch her engines before I bother her. This time, by floating down to engineering, Shelby in tow.

  "Emily, status report."

  "Skipper, that baby has a cooling pump issue, I need 10 hours maybe to disassemble and rebuild. We can run it as is, but it will shut down on its own, and there's no way to predict when, but it's not going to be long."

  "Aye. Other three good to go?"

  "Affirmative, Skipper."

  "Then we're going to move. I'll find you a spot to do the repairs, but it may take a while."

  "Understood, Skipper. Glad to have you home." She looks at Shelby. "No offense, sir."

  "None taken Lieutenant, I'm as glad as anyone."

  We leave Emily to her duty, and I drag Shel over to sickbay to make sure nothing bad happened to Weese during the extreme maneuvers. Bonilovich reports that he's improving, despite weighing in at 1,800 pounds for two hours. That's one tough Marine.

  Five other crew passed out during the extended high acceleration, but the doctor took a quick look and certified them all fit for duty.

  We also go visit the Marines guarding our prisoner to check in from their end, and take a quick peek inside at Phil. He's quiet, refuses to engage with me, not that I really care.

  We're back on the bridge in time for engine start, and I have Maria push us to five gees using three engines. I want to put a little space between us and the Libor while I figure out what to do.

  I tie together the senior staff on comm.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, we can't do seven gees on three engines, we've outrun our last missile for a while. We can't kill them with any degree of ce
rtainty. We have to fly through a sea of enemy ships, missiles, and mines to get to the sun to jump. We need to get home ASAP, so that everyone there understands what's happened, just in case a drugged up Senator magically appears, starts raving about our good friends the Libor and gets people killed. Summerlin should be taking that message home, but I'd be a lot happier if it were us."

  "So. How do we get to a jump point? Take an hour, think it through, come up with ideas."

  I hang up on them before I have to listen to five ayes. I stare at the system tactical display for a half hour, conclude there's no way for us to get to the sun and jump with any reasonable degree of certainty. I would lean back in my couch, but I'm pretty much glued to it by the force of the engines. I tell Maria to take us down to 4.6, cutting another 100 pounds or so off my frame.

  Then my butt makes a suggestion. At first, I think it's stupid. At second, I think it's stupid, but possible. At third, I pretty much agree it's the only way.

  I call my audio conference back together after an hour.

  "Suggestion time. How can we get to the sun in one piece? Maria?"

  "Nothing that would work, sir."

  "Emily?"

  "I, well, I agree, sir, no options I trust."

  "RISTA?"

  "Skipper, we might send a spread of air to ground missiles at the mine field and hope to detonate enough of them to sneak through. In my sims, we had about a 10 percent chance of getting to a jump point doing that, versus less than one percent now."

  "Mr. Rains?"

  "Nothing, sir, sorry, sir."

  "Shelby?"

  "I almost like McAdams' idea, Skipper, but we need to add a few percentage points before we try it."

  "Maria," I start softly, "the gas giant in this system is large enough to enable a T jump, yes?"

  She answers instantly, her voice full of horror, imaging what I'm about to ask her to do.

  "Skipper, I've never even simulated a gas giant based jump. And all the jumps I've made at stars have been simulated."

  "But it can be done."

  There's a tension among the other officers, I think all of their lightbulbs have switched on. Modern C-T jumps require a nice, big, star. T jumps require a large gravity well, but not necessarily sun sized.

  "Yes, but, Skipper...."

  "Set course for the gas giant, maintain 4.6 gees. Do the math. Do we jump intrasystem to the star and then do a standard jump out of here? Or do we take the T jump to the transfer point we've been using and then jump out from there? How long do you need?"

  "Sir, can I get Courtney to double check the math? It's complicated non-Euclidian geometry, not really my speciality."

  "Maria, you can have anyone you want, plus a free bottle of fresh brewed iced tea."

  "Aye. I'd like a couple hours, Skipper, to check it out."

  "Course change first, then take all the time you need."

  "Aye, Skipper, course correction is relatively minor, we'll go in 60 seconds."

  "Approved. Get your plan to me when ready. Mr. McAdams, help as she needs it."

  The ship swings quietly a little further to starboard, lining us up perfectly with the gas giant. On the tactical display, the scale is so small we were already pointed straight at it, which is probably what my butt saw when it came up with this, though we're two days flying distant.

  It's almost three hours before Maria and Courtney re-establish the comm interface between all the senior staff.

  "Skipper," Maria sounds more confident than the last time we talked, "We recommend jumping to the transfer point in the next system. As you know, jumps have to comply with the principles of conservation of space-time energy and momentum, we'll be traveling with enough velocity that it's nearly impossible to safely T jump a fraction of a light year."

  As far as I know, it's been more than 300 years since any human being intentionally did a T jump. Whatever they think is safest is decidedly the way to go.

  "Approved. Let me see the details when you have them written up. Courtney, what's our tactical status likely to be at jump?"

  "Skipper, the enemy ships, assuming no change, will be 273,000 kilometers behind us, at roughly a matching velocity. If they know where we're headed, they could follow in two hours, 32 minutes."

  "Plenty of time for us to get out of there. The question is, from there do we jump home, or to Gamma Upsilon?"

  It's Shelby who answers.

  "Mission orders would still dictate Gamma Upsilon."

  "Copy that." I might as well play by the rules. "Mr. Garcia, plan on a standard jump to Gamma Upsilon. Give us five minutes to do a quick scan before we make the second jump."

  "Aye, Skipper."

  With that, I send them off. I plug my pad into my console and download the logs I made on the planet surface, then spend some time editing them so they read nicely, spell correctly, and are more or less grammatically correct. As I finish each day, I push it to Shelby so I won't have to explain it all later. I get a couple one word responses back from her, but nothing serious.

  Other than that I basically do nothing for the next two days. Sneak in a couple more quick showers, try to get the hair to behave, answer a few questions from Shel about my adventures, read her logs about my time away. Sleep. Breathe.

  I do have one happy moment. During the second to last potty break, there's a knock on my ready room door.

  "Come."

  It's Courtney and Olivia. Courtney actually reaches up and moves her hair out of her eyes as she comes to a stop. The three of us now own the three longest heads of hair in 200 light years, she's got to learn some new skills.

  "What do you have for me?"

  "Skipper, Olivia broke it."

  "Something needs repairs?" I guess I'm a little slow today.

  "No, sir, we have access to the tablet device you took from Libor Prime."

  "Excellent. What have you learned?"

  "Nothing yet, we're downloading the data. But, Skipper, there are video files on there, and audio messages as well. Give us a couple days, and I guarantee we'll be able to listen in on their transmissions. We're also translating the paperwork you stole, though it's only a lot of administrivia so far.

  "Fine work you two. Keep me updated. Don't forget to get some rack time as well."

  "Aye, Skipper."

  They salute and are gone. I get back to the bridge and prepare. We're either about to make history, or become it.

  Garcia worked out the plan such that we go engines standby 20 minutes before the jump, giving us time to relax a little from the 45 plus hours at high gees, and prepare mentally for what's ahead. Not only do we need to have the right numbers in the jump computer, we have to be precisely aligned with the planet, at the perfect velocity, and at an exact distance from it's center. Otherwise, we're going to end up squished flat on its surface, Yorktown's remaining engines are not powerful enough to turn us away.

  I only give one order.

  "Mr. Garcia, the ship is yours."

  Then it's sit back and watch. My nav screen is programmed with a long green line with a dot on it. We have to be on the line, with the correct velocity vector relative to the planet and jump precisely when we reach the dot. And I do mean precisely.

  If we're off the line, or too early, or too late, something bad happens, either we jump randomly or we don't jump at all. You could just say, we die, but there's a difference between crashing into a gas giant three minutes later or starving to death months from now after I've eaten my entire crew in deep space somewhere.

  It's a four dimensional geometry problem, Professor Crossfield at the Academy described it as a four dimensional triangle, which means you can't tell from looking at a two dimensional screen what's about to happen, other than green is good.

  Maria's moved the engineers out of the second row of active bridge stations, placed Hardy, Grich, and Keyworth all on the bridge, her most experienced men. Ensign Jones ranks them, but that's not relevant to getting the job done sometimes. Never go against a Sicil
ian when death is on the line. Or in this case, a senior Chief Petty Officer.

  They're quietly efficient, a minimum of talk, doing something so unusual, supremely dangerous but maybe historic, something they can tell their grandkids about one day, if they live to have them. Everybody else has their fingers, toes, and every other body part they can find crossed. The countdown starts at 60 seconds, I watch the nav display with one eye and the clock with the other. I actually briefly contemplate the advantage of having 48.