Two Hornet Marines are in the hatch by the time my conversation is over, armed, covered in blood, not knowing what to do except stand there. Bennett knows.
"Sergeant, Corporal, stand fast, no one leaves this bridge. Understood, no one leaves without my direct order. " Then he turns, opens toward the crew. "All bridge crew to port couches, now."
"Yes, sir!" Comes from the sergeant, his weapon gripped firmly in his hands, now chest high and pointed onto the bridge.
The 12 crew float over on command, wordlessly, leaving me, McAdams, the Admiral, his two captains, Bennett, and Smith scattered on couches across the center section.
"Commander," I try not to sound like I want to interfere, just help, "I've got two squads of Marines inbound, they're at your command."
The Admiral answers.
"Krieger, you and I in the commander's ready room, now." He signals his captains to attend, I get a non-verbal okay to bring Courtney.
We all need to make a head call, the Admiral decides on inverse rank, McAdams first, himself last. Courtney is shaking hard, she's going to be a while. While I wait my turn, my headset goes off.
"Captain, Marine Expeditionary on station, docking."
"Lieutenant Palmer, report to Commander Bennett on the bridge. There are 12 crew under guard. One of them just tried to kill the Admiral. The doctor can figure out who, I think. It's pretty gruesome up here, we lost Rains to a grenade."
"Yes, sir, on our way."
The Admiral looks at me.
"Sir, I take it you left port before the requirement to drug test your crew went into effect."
"Drug testing? Explain."
I give him the 10 minute history of the last two months, including our "guest" from Samar. He is not amused.
"We've heard nothing of this. Nothing. Why didn't command update us?"
"Not sure, sir."
The second of the captains exits the head, the Admiral lets me go in and take care of my business, including cleaning a few red dots off my face and uniform. Tony is standing there when I return. Don't know how long he was there, but the Admiral waited until I got out.
"Lieutenant, Palmer is it? Report."
"Sir, I have a team in the passageway doing forensics, another helping our doctor and your doctor take blood samples from each of the bridge crew. We assume one of them will be positive. We will also, I'm sure, find large quantities of drugs stashed somewhere aboard ship."
He stops, not much else to say.
"Thank you, Lieutenant, carry on. Report back when completed."
Tony salutes and exits. The Admiral waits until the hatch closes before continuing.
"We have a download from Lee's disaster beacon, but no Lee. In fact, the data show all ship's systems nominal when the beacon was activated, no indication of a disaster. There is, however, a file from the beacon that shouldn't be there and that we cannot read."
McAdams should never play poker. Half way through that last sentence, she once again put on her Christmas day happy face. Or Christmas Eve happy face, depending on when you open your presents. The Admiral was going to say something else, but stops himself, looks Courtney in the eye, and talks to her.
"Lieutenant, I take it you think you can read the file."
She wasn't expecting to have to talk to an Admiral. For the first time, I watch her gather before she speaks.
"Yes, sir. We have developed significant capabilities in that area."
The captains behind the Admiral have their skeptical faces on. He obviously doesn't agree.
"Captain Walker will take you to the RISTA station and you can show us."
"Aye, sir, permission to download to Yorktown's computers?"
"Granted. Update me in one hour, either way."
"Aye, sir, one hour."
Walker leaves with Courtney, his face thinking it's a joke. I think it's going to be on him. The Admiral waits until their gone, comes back to me.
"Captain, sorry for your loss."
"It hasn't been a good couple of missions, Admiral. We've lost a lot of outstanding people."
"Do you think the Senator is still alive?"
"Sir, I have no doubt he is, but I have no data at all on where he is. If what we were told by our captive is correct, he's likely not leaving Libor Prime, but we could search for years on that planet and not find him. Though, my guess, the Libor will try to use him in some scheme, and that's when we'll get him back. His aide and the two professors are probably zombies by now."
"You don't trust them."
"No, sir. We need to get the battleships up to speed, go to Libor Prime in force, and suggest they stay the Hell away from us. And not politely."
He doesn't get the chance to respond. The door beeps.
"Come." It's not the Admiral's room, technically, but it is his task force. Commander Bennett appears, having just asked permission to enter his own ready room. I never had to do that aboard Ayachucho, my Admiral stayed on his own ship.
"It was CPO Hayes, sir, he's admitted it, told a wild story about going to a bar on his home world, waking up with men in his room and a needle in his arm. Captain Krieger's Marines are gathering all the information they can from him, the UBI might be able to track down the men or the drugs."
He stops. I start.
"They won't find anything, Commander, I'm sure, but it never hurts to try. Ships go missing, their crews turn up years later in the oddest places, doing the most treasonous things. We haven't been able to stop one plan before it hatched."
Then a couple thoughts occur to me.
"Commander, we're already holding one prisoner, we could take him off your hands, I have a lot more Marines to guard them than you do. We also have two crew and a Marine from Samar who you are welcome to if you want them."
"I'll trade you one traitor for three crew any day, thank you Captain."
"My pleasure."
The Admiral rejoins the conversation.
"Gentlemen, get your exchange done, and your ships repaired. I want to head for the sun tomorrow, be home by Tuesday morning."
This time, I'm part of the ‘ayes' in stereo.
We salute and get on the move out onto the bridge. I find Tony, tell him to take Hayes back to Yorktown with him, and to tell Shelby we're giving Foreman, Marinaro, and Reed to Hornet. He gives orders and his men surround Hayes and hustle him off the bridge.
I float to the RISTA stations. McAdams is sitting, smiling, while Walker and a Hornet lieutenant are reading something on the screen over her shoulder. Walker is talking to himself.
"Well I'll be damned." I win my bet, Walker's smile is gone.
"Courtney, what did you find?"
"It's a message to us from the Libor. Death clan. It claims that Life clan intends to use Lee, Atahualpa, and Hornet to attack the Death clan home world. There are jump coordinates, date, and time. They want the Death clan to think we did it, stop fighting them and start fighting us. The Senator will be on board Lee."
"Lieutenant, that doesn't quite make sense, they sure didn't seem to be trying to board Hornet, and they blew up Samar. Why not take her too?"
"No explanation, Skipper. Five sentences and coordinates is all we got."
Walker has disappeared into the ready room. I'm thinking I'm not going to happy in about five minutes. It's actually two minutes when the Admiral calls me back in.
"Captain, do you believe the message?"
"Sir, I don't believe anything any Libor ever says, but that doesn't mean Lee and Atahualpa are not on course to the Death clan homeworld, or that the Senator is not on board Lee. On the other hand, none of your ships have air to ground attack capability, so there is a piece of the story we're missing."
"Ted, what do you think?" He's talking to Walker.
"If there's any chance it's true, we need to move, now. If we jump home, it will be too late. We have three hours to be on course to the sun in this system at four gees, or we can't be at the designated point at the correct time." Walker's summary is correct, th
ough I don't want to think about what it means.
"Hersh?" That's the other Captain in Sutherland's staff.
"I agree. We can't risk it, we should jump where the message dictates."
The Admiral thinks for a few seconds, then looks at me. I don't wait to be asked.
"Admiral, are you prepared to kill your own destroyers?"
Now he really thinks much longer, harder.
"Krieger, your estimate, what's the status of their crews?"
"All the men are likely zombies, infected with a fungus that makes them do whatever anybody asks before it eventually kills them. The women are either dead or drugged. Little chance we can save them. There are likely a few Libor on board each ship as well, and possibly a human conspirator or two."
"Tell me about this Death clan."
"Sir, we only found out about them from one Libor, whose ancestor was apparently taken prisoner by the Life clan. Personally, I think it's their military. That Libor had a bearing about him that screamed Marine, but, again, that might also be me putting too much into reading alien body language. They could be morticians for all I know. He did tell me that I'd know when to go to his world, and that the only way to stop Life was to partner with Death."
He turns to his Captains.
"Brown, get his Lieutenant back in here, plus Bennett and Kramer."
"Aye." He called him ‘Hersh' a second ago.
Once the room is full again, Sutherland turns to McAdams.
"Lieutenant, where are those coordinates?"
"Sir, the number is in base eight. The Libor do base eight math, not base ten." She reaches for the big screen in the room, somehow she noticed that it's touch capable. I need to upgrade my ready room.
"We are here." She hits a system with a forefinger, turns it green.
"Libor Prime is here." She hits a second system, turns it orange.
"The jump coordinates are here." She hits a third system, about 70 light years from Libor Prime, deeper into their space, turns it red.
The Admiral looks for a minute, then asks Courtney a question. "What do we know about that system?"
"Absolutely nothing, sir, no survey we know of ever looked for habitable planets that far outside human space. Our jump coordinate system uses Earth as the "fixed" point in space, though every jump has to be recalculated to allow for the fact that nothing in space is actually fixed. We assume their home world would be a similar point in their jump coordinate system, but they have been very careful to protect those data from us."
I interject.
"Admiral, the planet we were on was terraformed. There is no chance it is the original Libor home world. Those coordinates are two T jumps away, they'd go here," I light a fourth system in purple, "and then to the red system. It is a logical location for their true home world, if it's true that they only inhabit three planets."
The room goes silent, the Admiral goes from screen to his pad to McAdams to me and back to his screen. Then he raises up a little.
"Bennett, sit rep on Hornet repairs?"
"Two cannons downs, engine one still non-functional, engine two repaired but not tested."
The Admiral exhales hard.
"Krieger, Bennett, prepare your ships. Coordinate courses and jump sequences, send them to my staff for approval. Departure in 120 minutes, we'll jump from system to system, keeping up the ruse of T jumps. My staff will prepare a battle plan, RISTA leaders McAdams and Kramer will assist, via comm for Lieutenant McAdams. We will fire on Union warships on my order only. Krieger, have your Marine commander prepare an assault plan for Lee, if the opportunity to rescue the Senator appears, I will authorize it. Questions?"
I know better than to ask the ones I've got, everyone else takes the better part of valor as well.
"Oh, and I want you to provide my staff with that decoding app."
"Aye. Courtney?"
McAdams plays with her pad until we hear beeps from around the room, then Sutherland sends us off.
"Dismissed."
Courtney and I float up to the LS and head home, neither of us speaking on the way.
Chapter 32
Shelby is waiting for us when we arrive.
"Katana, what happened?"
"Shel, let's get to the bridge, we're wheels up in 95 minutes."
"Wheels up for where, Skipper?"
"Death."
She gives me a look that could relate to that particular word.
"I'll explain on the way, let's move."
She's not any happier by the time we get to the bridge. I ignore her for a minute.
"Mr. Garcia, plot a four gee course to the sun, coordinate with Hornet so that we don't rear-end them on the way. Mr. McAdams will give you jump coordinates once she and Hornet agree."
"Aye, Skipper, course to jump point."
I watch as she delegates the course planning to Ensign Jones, gets on the radio to Hornet herself.
"Shelby meet me in my ready room, Courtney too." Then I touch the mic on my collar. "Mr. Powell, Mr. Palmer, Captain's ready room, on the double. Mr. Garcia, join us when you can."
I get lots of ayes.
By the time Powell gets down from Engineering, Garcia is right behind her, my team is all present, save one.
"Folks, we lost Mr. Rains. A bad guy tossed a grenade on Hornet's bridge, Jacob saved us all, took it in the chest." I pause for a second to let that sink in. "We got a coded message that might be from the Death clan Libor. It claims that Lee and Atahualpa are under Life clan Libor control and headed to Death home world to convince them we're bad guys. The Admiral is taking us in." Another pause. "Emily, ship's status?"
"Skipper, cannon six is gone, all others repaired. Hull punctures patched internally, but we haven't had time to go outside and do it right. Engines good to go."
"Thank you. You are senior, that makes you acting Second Officer, however, Commander Perez and I will split the bridge time, we can't afford to have you away from Engineering."
"Aye, Skipper."
"Mr. Palmer, you have 19 hours to develop an assault plan for Lee, assuming the Senator is on board and the opportunity to save him presents itself. Pass it by Mr. Perez, then on to me once she approves."
"Yes, sir."
"Folks, we have no idea what we're getting ourselves into here. I need everybody on their toes. If you have any ideas, throw them at me, no matter how crazy. If you think I'm missing something, hit me with it. If you see something I need to see, yell at me."
I think I'm done, then remember I'm not.
"Emily, we also need to go have a talk with Belanger."
"Aye, Skipper."
"You and I should have fixed that problem long ago. I think we both passed on it when we knew better."
"Affirmative, Skipper, sorry."
"Okay, everybody's got their orders, let's get to work."
I get to my cabin, take a long shower, scrub every inch of me down twice, give the hair a third shot, then hit myself with two dry sequences. The uniform I had on is retired until I get home, though I put it in the cleaning container anyway.
An hour before wheels up I'm locked into my couch, monitoring the comm traffic between Garcia and her counterparts on Hornet, between McAdams and the Admiral's staff, and between Shelby and Tony.
Nothing is exactly as I would have done it, but the courses they're sketching out will get us to where we need to be, the battle plan should be sufficient if all we're facing is two zombie crewed destroyers, and Tony's assault plan is basically perfect, but it has to assume who and what's on board Lee, and there's no way to know for sure what he's facing.
I click on approval when asked on each segment without comment. The Admiral is going to have final say, and I don't know him. Showalter made sure to engage his subordinates in his battle group, sincerely wanted their opinion, but Sutherland could be different. Unless he's choosing to kill me, I'll keep my mouth shut.
Finally, all the plans are planned, all the courses programmed, and the ships rotate gently towar
d the sun. My comm light lights. I reach up and activate the system.
"Krieger."
"Captain, this is Captain Brown. Open comm to your crew, await the Admiral."
"Aye." My right hand goes up again and puts comm on shipwide. "Ready."
There's a brief pause, then a commanding voice fills my ship.
Libor: Katana Krieger #2 Page 24
