Libor: Katana Krieger #2

by Bill Robinson

  "Aye, sir, weapons power down, close doors."

  I watch as I make my ship defenseless.

  My comm panels lights, I know who's calling, punch the button with the middle joint on my right index finger.

  "Admiral, Yorktown on station."

  "Krieger, I need you and Lieutenant McAdams on board Hornet immediately."

  "Affirmative, sir, on our way. Give us 20. Should I bring guards?"

  "Negative, just the two of you."

  "Acknowledged, sir, Yorktown out."

  "Courtney, meet be below, bring your pad, we'll take a pod. Shelby, same general orders as around Libor Prime, make sure Chief Gomez keeps working on the data download, I want to know what the frak is going on."

  "Aye, Skipper, we'll be here when you get back."

  I stop in at sickbay to check on Piper, who is out cold. Bonilovich lets me know he'll probably be fine, but we do need to get him to better facilities. Then it's into my quarters to put on my special paranoia uniform, complete with knives and drugs.

  McAdams is already there when I float down the three decks, we get into standard Navy issue suits, and strap ourselves into a pod. I'm driving, McAdams calls shotgun. We beat the 20 minute estimate by 89 seconds, slide ever so gracefully into Hornet's boat deck and sit tight while the doors close and the bay repressurizes.

  Lt. Commander Smith, Hornet's First, meets us and we float up to deck three, but this time he takes us left toward the ward room. We pop through the hatch, and I find the Admiral.

  "Captain Krieger, Lieutenant McAdams, reporting as ordered."

  "At ease. Please join us at the table."

  Their ward room has a large rectangular table, just like mine. The Admiral is at the far head of the table, his captains behind him, along with Bennett and Smith.

  A mocha Libor is floating there as well on the Admiral's right, next to it a not Navy human in a Navy seaman's uniform who I haven't seen before. No doubt in my mind that the dark brown color means Death clan and the tan color means Life. Wonder what the third clan looks like, and who the dude with the beard is.

  "Admiral, can I have a word in private before we begin?"

  He looks disgruntled, but silently agrees, directing me to the far corner with a nod of the head.

  "Sir, I have Senator Piper on board Yorktown. He is addicted to the opiod drugs, and is currently unconscious receiving treatment. Lee's reactors were set to overload, she's gone. I couldn't be certain that our transmissions weren't being intercepted, I felt it better to wait until we were face to face to relay the sit rep."

  He doesn't say anything, I'm sure thinking through all the possible responses, requirements, and repercussions.

  "Understood. Perhaps overly careful, but given the circumstances, understandable. Any other secrets I need to know?"

  "No sir, we're decoding multiple terabytes of data from Lee and intercepts from the ships that attacked us, but nothing yet."

  "Keep me informed. Let's get back."

  We float the 10 feet back to the table.

  They've only been together a few hours, but they've obviously got the comm thing worked out. The big screen in the room is a sea of snowflakes, with the human words underneath, created using the app that Courtney downloaded onto their pads.

  The Admiral points to me, and speaks. "Captain Krieger." The human next to the Libor hits a pad, makes snowflakes that mean captain and commander. We're on the far side of the universe, but when I get home, I need to find someone artistic and make my own personal snowflake.

  "Our friend is the commander of the task force that came out to investigate us. Apparently, the Libor keep ships near the sun and jump intrasystem when threatened. It's much more efficient than our method of keeping ships in planetary orbit, then having to move at sub-luminal speeds to targets. They destroyed the sphere that created the electro-magnetic pulse which disabled us, then took us in tow. Our life support, engines, and comm were all dead, their help was outstanding."

  That's a cute story, except we know it doesn't work that way on Libor Prime, they came out to meet us from the planet. Of course, this planet is military and that planet is, well, biological and diabolical.

  The Admiral points to the human, long dark hair, darker beard, 20 pounds over weight, bloodshot eyes, maybe 45.

  "Mr. Schroeder was aboard CSS Isis when she was taken by the Life clan, and was subsequently taken prisoner by the Death clan during a battle between Life and Death. He's been working for the Death clan even since."

  The man nods at me. He's a traitor, he'd only have survived being taken by Life clan if he'd betrayed his species. I don't understand why we haven't shot him in the head.

  "I love your app." He's talking to me. I need to throw up. "It's way easier to use than the files I've been using."

  I nod at him.

  The Libor commander engages briefly with Schroeder, playing with a tablet identical to the one we have on Yorktown. The traitor translates. If he loves our app so much, why isn't he using it?

  "As we were saying, the Commander has been in contact with the Clan Guardians who have suggested that Hornet representatives come to the planet surface and talk. Since both our kinds are at war with Life clan, we should work together."

  The Admiral looks at me.

  "Opinion?"

  "Sir, I'm not the one to ask. I have been at the wrong end of too many exchanges with the Libor, I don't know if I have any wisdom to share."

  "Humor me."

  I think for a second. "Sir, we have valuable information that absolutely must get back to Earth, but we also know almost nothing about Libor government and their society and their military. We ought to accept the offer, but only if they'll let us send a comm drone home as well."

  He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.

  "Your paranoia is showing, but so is your wisdom." He turns to Schroeder. "That's the offer. Let our drone go home, we'll go down to the surface."

  The human and the it go back and forth briefly on the tablet, with some hand gestures.

  "Agreed, Admiral, the commander has no problem with you informing Earth. He thinks that would help show our peaceful intentions. His only request is that both you and the Captain come to the surface."

  I expected that.

  "Done. Captain, get to your ship, load and release the drone, pack a bag. Be back here in one orbit."

  "Aye, sir. Should I bring my Marines?" I already know the answer, but I have to ask.

  "No, Captain, we're going to trust the Libor this time."

  "Yes, sir."

  I salute, McAdams salutes, Sutherland hits us both with one.

  We get to the pod, spend the few minutes in transit talking about what data we should send. We settle on everything we can possibly download in 45 minutes.

  I send McAdams to the bridge, let her start, while I go up to deck one and take a fresh backpack out of stores, along with a new k-bar, make a stop on deck two for a fresh sidearm from the Marine's armory, then float down to my cabin and fill the pack with the same stuff I took last time. Survival gear.

  This planet is as close to the sun as Libor Prime, it's certainly tropical, warm, and sunny like that one, though the space between the towns is typically divided into circles and squares, suggesting farms, not forest.

  I'm on the bridge with more than an hour to spare before I have to go, Courtney already well along on her task. We put in all our logs, as well as all the data from the tablet and schedule as much of the data we've intercepted as we can get done in the limited amount of time.

  Gomez takes me through some of what they've got. The pure data is difficult to decode, given that the language patterns are not human and we can't do letter counts or rely on word frequencies to make educated guesses. The tablet has been helpful in that regard, with data transmissions that might be Libor emails saved on it that show on the tablet's screen as snowflakes, but on the tablet's hard drive as the Libor equivalent of bits and bytes.

  The speech is easier, we
have multiple Libor saying multiple words, which the computer is now trained to slow down and compare across the database. The first video Olivia takes me through is from one of the footballs that was with us, then ran and left the human ships to die. The video is fifteen seconds long, which slowed down and translated was detailed attack orders.

  "Most of the video we have, Captain, would seem to be entertainment, and is full of words we don't know."

  She shows me Libor singing and dancing, at least she claims it's singing and dancing, and another clip that could be a TV news show.

  I decide I've seen enough of that, thank Chief Gomez, grab Shelby, and call Emily to my ready room. We spend a half hour going over ship's orders, updating them from Libor Prime, then I tell Shel to violate our orders and program the drone to jump straight home, no pretending to do T jumps. There's no way Schroeder and others have been with the Libor this long without letting them know the truth, and, actually, on an object that small, it's impossible to tell how far it's jumping from it's velocity and energy readings anyway.

  We have a brief talk with Lieutenant Powell, who is now temporary Lt. Commander Powell and Second Officer of USS Yorktown. I enter it in the log, and give her a salute and a smile.

  With 25 minutes to go before I'm due aboard Hornet, I settle into my couch on my bridge.

  "Courtney, drone status?"

  "Ready to go Skipper, course to Earth entered."

  "Affirmative, launch on my mark."

  "Ready."

  "Launch."

  There's no recoil on my ship, but we can see the drone speed away at double digit gees, it will be at the sun in just under 11 hours.

  "Track it outbound, report to me immediately if anything happens to it."

  "Aye, Skipper."

  Shelby floats down to the boat deck with me.

  "Why not take a couple Marines over anyway, or just Yeager. You should be entitled to a bodyguard."

  "I can't Shel. If the Admiral is going alone, I have to as well."

  "Aye. You do remember Admiral Hilgenberg ordered you to stay on board."

  "Aye." She can't even get a laugh out of me.

  "Protect my ship, Commander, I expect her to be in one piece when I get back."

  She salutes, I return it, then climb down into the suiting area. Fifteen minutes later, I'm climbing out aboard the Admiral's ship.

  Chapter 35

  The Libor ship that comes to meet us is another of the smaller 400 ton football ships. It reminds me that we've seen three types of them, and we call them all football class. Maybe we need to be more creative.

  Six crew from Hornet go outside the ship as it's Commander activates an emergency docking collar, stringing a cylindrical nylon tube with magnets on its ends between the two ships. We float down it without need of suits.

  Eight passenger seats on board, one Admiral, three Captains, one traitor, and two Libor, one of whom is the Commander of the ship that met Sutherland. Courtney named him Walt. The other is new.

  I get to sit behind the pilots again, updating my skills. I doubt I will be flying one anytime soon, but I see a couple little things I missed when I did.

  They use the same constant decel that they used last time, which makes for a smooth ride. This planet is not nearly as interesting to fly over, once we get leveled off a couple thousand feet up we're zooming rapidly over farms and villages, not forest. A few minutes of that, and we're descending toward an airbase that could be any airbase on any human planet, buildings that look like warehouses, barracks, and hangars, surrounding one central office building. This base has two sets of parallel runways set at 90 degree angles and a control tower on the hangar side of the runways.

  There are three sets of fences surrounding the base, with eight guard posts spaced along the center fence. Whatever happens, we're not sneaking out of this one.

  The landing is smooth, I think the Death folks relish showing off, their pilots are constantly making minute adjustments to the controls and, despite the fact I know they have autopilots, they don't use them other than making the descents from orbit.

  A blast of heat and humidity strikes me as the hatch opens, not unexpected, and I unbuckle, stand, and grab my pack out of the overhead as I wait my turn to depart. Schroeder and I are the last ones, clearly the bottom of the rank pile, and he makes a hand gesture suggesting that I go ahead of him. I decline and make him lead on. No way I want that guy where I can't see him.

  I move quickly down the steps to the tarmac, the group apparently waiting for us before leaving. We have been joined by four extra tall Libor, wearing vests and carrying rifles. I'll take them as an honor guard, there's no way I can take them with my little nine millimeter.

  There is a bus like vehicle waiting for us, with comfortable seats and bottles of water. I grab an open row, only to have the not so lovely Mr. Schroeder get out of his seat and wander back to sit next to me. Luckily, I took the aisle seat, so he's across the aisle from me, not directly next to me.

  "You don't like me, do you, Captain?"

  "No, Mr. Schoeder, it's not you, I am uncomfortable with anyone who's working with the Libor."

  "We'll all be working with them eventually, they aren't bad, at least the Death aren't bad, once you get to know them."

  "I'm not planning on getting to know them, but I'll take your word for it."

  The bus takes us down the tarmac to an area populated with aircraft, and stops in front of your basic jetliner. Looks like aluminum, standard fuselage, logical when one assumes that aerodynamics are the same for aliens as for us, main wing mounted high at the tail with a canard forward. Two turbofan looking engines. A set of stairs on wheels leading up to the cabin door.

  I get inside, thinking of how to avoid Schroeder this time, when the Admiral solves the problem. He's got the window seat in the first row, four across first class style seating, and lets me know he saved the seat next to him for me. His captains are in the seats across the aisle, the six Libor fill the rows behind, and Schroeder is finding a seat several rows away. I stuff my pack into the overhead and take my seat.

  "They tell me the flight will last about an hour, I think we should use that time to get me caught up."

  "Aye, sir. How can I help?"

  "I want a 15 minute summary of everything that's happened since you got to Libor Prime."

  We're interrupted by a flight attendant bearing water, then a pre-recorded message in banjo cat which I take to mean buckle up, and your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device. The flight attendant confirms at least the first part of that by doing a belt inspection.

  The taxi out is short, the acceleration down the runway standard, and the climb out familiar. Flaps retracting, gear going up, a couple bumps as we pass through the scattered cloud layer, with my eyes closed it would be no different than catching a United flight from Boulder to Denver back home.

  The Admiral brings me back in, and I tell him my tale of woe, skipping over most of what happened in the woods. It takes me more like 20 minutes, but he doesn't push.

  "And your tactical estimate of their military potential?"

  "Sir, I can give you an estimate, but based solely on what we think we know. Our facts are, in fact, extremely limited. There's no way I'd want to plan an attack anywhere in their space, with the half-assed intelligence we have." I pause. "Sorry, Admiral."

  "No need, Captain, my sense is that the politicians who planned this mission didn't even get to half an ass. Tell me what you know, and tell me what you suspect."

  I take a deep breath and start in. A lot of this has been running through my head for the past months, it will be nice to test it against someone with good tactical sense.

  "If the claims are true, that they inhabit three planets about like this one, then humans inhabit a dozen each with more people on them than the entire Libor race. We also haven't seen any ships larger than Hornet. The ships they stole are all at least 24,000 tons, which may confirm that, sir."

  "They have some tec
hnology beyond ours, such as the laser deflecting ship coating, and their biological warfare agents. Their jump tech and engine tech is behind us, though their ship designs are creative. Their weapons are about on par."

  "We've seen serious planetary defenses, sir, the Life's mostly at their sun and the Death's mostly at this planet. We have no idea what their industrial capabilities are, or how many warships they have at this time."

  "I think the Death clan is the military, and the Life clan are biologists and chemists. Not a fair war, except that Life can make Death fight for them if they get their hands on them, just as our people have turned traitor."