Once we get into the final countdown, I let my paranoia run free. I doubt an attack will come here, they lack intel on where we might go. If they are here, they'll be where we were last time, and miss us. High probability that they will observe us, but no time to do anything about it. I assume that they have drones in this system recording everything that goes on.
"Mr. Machado, open outer doors, go hot all cannons, missiles seven through twelve hot."
His fingers fly across the screen, then he reports what I see on my displays.
"All cannons report ready. Missiles seven through twelve armed and ready."
"Mr. Powell, jump engines to standby. When we jump to the transfer point, our third jump, I want the jump engines back up in defensive mode two seconds after the jump is complete. Don't wait for me, count to two and restart. Understood?"
"Aye, Skipper, understood."
She sounds puzzled. She shouldn't be. If there's going to be an ambush, that's where it will be. That's where they ambushed Truxton, we've jumped ships into the same coordinates over and over again. They have to assume we'll do it again. I sound battle stations, let the horns and recorded voices get everyone's attention.
Garcia counts us down on the first jump, and we jump to the empty system.
Nothing on the scans, we do the three second count and we are exactly where we never want to be, in the Libor Prime system, but on the far side of their sun. Nothing on our scans for the three seconds it takes us to reset, we jump toward the transfer point, halfway back to Union space.
Chapter 38
We're visible for two seconds, then the jump engines restart in defensive mode. They make us blind, no electromagnetic radiation can get through the shield either direction, but we're safe, or relatively so.
"RISTA?"
"Definitely another vessel present, maybe more than one, we didn't get a good...."
She doesn't finish the sentence, instead starts another.
"Skipper, we're under attack."
"Mr. Machado?"
"Shield holding, taking a lot of power, engines at 74.3 percent of capacity."
"Courtney, take your best guess of where they'll be when we drop our shield, weapons free, fire at will. Make sure we don't hit Hornet. Put someone on the missiles. Emily, ten seconds."
"Aye, Skipper, we're ready. Juan has the Javelins."
"Aye, Skipper, 10 seconds."
McAdams has four Marine gunners plus her trigger finger ready. It takes a Libor cannon 43 seconds to recharge before they can fire again. With luck, they fired everything they've got. I am rarely, however, that lucky.
"Emily, drop shield in five, four, three, two, now."
And, instantly, there are five ships on visual in front of us, more on tactical.
"Maria, thirty degrees starboard, max thrust 5 seconds."
Fingers are flying all over the bridge as Yorktown pivots at combat speed, seven gees of force slamming us sideways into our couches, then nine gees taking our breath away as the mains fire at full throttle.
I'm bringing our port broadside to bear and giving us a little breathing room. It's not enough.
Yorktown wiggles, groans, twists.
"Direct hit," Shelby in my ear, "cannon 10 off line, outer hull breach on site. Damage control responding."
That bad news is balanced by McAdams. One of the pursuers explodes, its black hull replaced by a billowing mass of red and orange gas.
Tactical shows the four remaining ships on their mains, coming after us.
"Mr. Garcia, 10 degrees to port, go to three gees constant thrust."
If these ships are like the others the Libor have modified, they have no nose cannons. We'll cross the T in front of them, our port battery against, well, nothing.
More cargo carriers, different classes than we've seen before, no Orions or Fitzgeralds. Smaller, quicker ships, still with huge lasers grafted into their innards.
"Mr. Manuel, target..."
I stop for a second as McAdams finishes another. Four 24 inch cannons against those ships isn't a fair fight. One of the ships shuts it's engines off and is pivoting to bring its cannons to bear.
"Mr. McAdams, concentrate fire on the enemy with no active engine signature."
"Aye, Skipper, already on her."
Once Courtney's wolf voice comes out, she's a step ahead of anyone, even me.
"Mr. Manuel, target the two ships in pursuit, bring the missiles below our travel planes and onto their tails. Fire when ready."
He waits three seconds before responding.
"Missiles away."
The third enemy ship continues rotating, past the point it's cannons would be live, no thruster activity.
"Courtney, cease fire. Give me a maximum scan, active approved."
"Aye, active scan."
Hornet leaps onto tactical, moving away, being pursued, now visible because the active radars are pinging. Courtney reports.
"Skipper, two ships destroyed. Third enemy disabled, no longer under its own power. Fourth and fifth ships out of range, our missiles in bound. Hornet under attack, four ships."
"Mr. Manuel, target Hornet's pursuers, one missile each, fire when ready."
He anticipated my order, two quick jabs of his fingers and the last of our air to air missiles rocket away. There's an angry bee hive buzzing across the bridge, everybody can hear it if they're on comm or not. No time to worry about what the Libor think of all this, I'll deal with them later if we're still alive.
"Open outer doors, all remaining missiles. Program them for air to air."
"Aye, sir."
Manuel can get them set to detonate on contact or on a timer, but they have a large heat shield where the tracking systems would be in an air to air missile. We have to program their engine burns and can't alter them once they're away. They are meant to fire once, release their warheads, fall through an atmosphere, and explode on landing or at altitude, not defend the ship.
I say goodbye to two more missiles as they strike our enemies and turn them into the white energy of nuclear fire.
"Mr. Garcia, set course for Hornet, full thrust."
"Hornet, aye."
Manuel is on comm.
"Missile impacts in five seconds. Three. Now."
As he says now, three of the ships pursuing Hornet are gone in three more brilliant flashes of white nuclear light, but when visual and tactical clear, one remains. The Admiral should be able to handle it, but tactical has no evidence he's fired a weapon, and his ship is not longer accelerating, main engines appear dead. At full throttle, fortunately, Yorktown will be able to run them down quickly.
"Skipper, telemetry reports malfunction on missile twelve, impact, but no detonation."
"Thank you, Mr. Manuel."
I start to settle back in, but never make it.
Yorktown flexes, creaks, almost visibly bends, every alarm on my panel lights, mains go down, the bridge is plunged into total darkness. My butt tries to tell me what just happened, but I am way ahead of it. I yell, not sure if the backup comm system is alive.
"Mr. Garcia, keep mains off line, backup thrusters, rotate the ship 90 degrees port when able. Mr. McAdams, all cannons, continuous fire, mine clearing pattern."
"Aye, Skipper!"
There's no wolf in her voice as it plays across the dark bridge, emergency lights slowly coming to life. My left screen reboots, starts playing red status screen after red status screen on a rotating basis. My right shows blank on what should be tactical. I can feel my ship slowly rotating, so at least something's still functioning.
We get lights on the emergency comm system, loud speakers across the ship. Shelby's yells anyway, not wanting to broadcast to the entire crew.
"Inner hull breach, boat deck, Marines responding."
Not enough to kill us, it's designed to be open to space. Minimal damage for flying at high speed straight into a mine field.
"Courtney?"
"No sensors active, weapons on backup power, two broadsides
fired of four needed to complete the sweep. Twelve seconds until third. No idea what we've hit."
"Mr. Powell, status?"
"Skipper, breakers popped all over the panels, we're didn't lose any major systems, I think, we'll know in five."
"Roger that."
My tactical display reboots, then two seconds later we're on active sensors again.
"Skipper, there are six exploded mines in our flight path, and two behind us."
"Affirmative. We need your friends at Naval Experimental to find us a way to scan that organic titanium mixture from a greater distance."
"Aye, sir, I couldn't agree more."
Hornet comes back onto tactical, apparently taking a pounding from a much smaller ship, still no return weapons fire.
"Emily, we need engines, and we need them fast."
"You've got number one, Skipper, working on more."
"Thank you, Lt. Commander. Mr. Garcia, maximum thrust on engine one, get us to Hornet. Engineering, weapons status?"
It's Machado who reports.
"Skipper, all cannons except number 10 reporting green, but neither Lieutenant Powell or I trust those indicators."
"Aye." That was my best wry aye, though we know, or we think we know, the starboard cannons functioned well enough to clear the mine field.
Yorktown shifts now, changing course slowly, then number one spools up, my butt happy with everything it senses. We're accelerating at two gees, the most we can get on one engine, but it's enough.
"RISTA, nose cannon free, the second we're in range, do something about that ship."
"Aye, Skipper, estimating four minutes."
"Continue active scans, there has to be a Libor vessel out here somewhere."
"Affirmative, active scans."
Shelby is talking at me, the regular comm system back on line.
"Engines two, three, and four down, but under repair, all cannons report ready except number 10 is dead. Ship open to space at it's firing point, but inner hull holding. Boat deck still open to space, one pod destroyed, second gig destroyed, doors report functional, but you might not need to open them to get your gig out on a test flight. Three crew injured, no report from Bonilovich on status. Marines assuming damage control duties. Two life support packs out, no one available to repair, recommend not losing the last one. Missile launchers are go, only air to ground available. Jump engines available."
"Copy, First, keep me advised."
Two minutes later, we get engine three restored and increase our acceleration. We're going to have to turn tail toward Hornet to decel in three minutes.
I see Courtney's hand punch out to her console, firing at the ship attacking Sutherland's ship. Only one cannon in the nose with a 19 second recharge rate. Nothing on tactical changes after the first shot, nor after the second. They stop firing at our comrades on the third, and their ship is floating in two pieces after the fourth.
"Cease fire."
"Aye, Skipper."
The wolf sounds disappointed I didn't let her finish, but I want to have debris to search. She'd make sure there weren't two atoms left attached to each other if I didn't stop her. I let Shelby know I want Tony on his way as soon as we're on station. Then I reach into my comm panel and call Admiral Sutherland on visual.
"Hornet this is Yorktown, do you read?"
"Yorktown, this is Hornet, read you loud and clear, thanks for the help, Captain."
It's Commander Bennett, the ship's captain, not the Admiral, whose face now fills my screen. Better protocol, but I wonder if that's the reason.
"Our pleasure. What's your status?"
"Engines out, but under repair, three hull breaches, we lost four crewmen in damage control when a second shot hit them during a repair. All our weapon systems went down when the food we brought on board exploded. Two of those boxes were explosives, not dehydrated dinners. We moved them into our forward storage, which unfortunately, as you know, is directly under the fire control systems."
"Sorry, I didn't trusted the little frak who packed them, we should have gone through them for you."
"I'm the one who moved them without looking, sir. We'll have engine power in about two hours, weapons in manual mode about then too."
"Aye. We've got two engines out, a couple hull holes of our own, and we're out of air to air missiles. We should be functional about the same time."
"The Admiral and his staff are discussing how we'll proceed, I'm sure he'll let you know when they make a decision."
"Copy that. We'll see you in a couple minutes, Yorktown out."
Maria turns Yorktown tail first 30 seconds later and engages the engines to slow us down, brings us to a perfect stop on Hornet's starboard side, the remains of the attacker to port.
I get on comm.
"Mr. Palmer, get on your way."
"Yes, sir, detaching."
We can feel the ZR-1 free itself from Yorktown, and watch on visual as it sails toward the pieces of what we can plainly see now is a Thatcher-class transport that somebody bought or stole in the Empire.
I unhook my straps and float over to where the Libor are still strapped in.
I sign an "I'm sorry" to Khan. He makes far too many signs for me to understand, but Osborne updates me.
"Khan says there is no reason to apologize, and that he is once again impressed with your combat skills."
I give Khan the honorable thank you sign, then I speak to Osborne.
"Please inform Khan that Seaman Schroeder planted two explosives in the food containers he packed. Hornet was almost lost because of them."
"Schroeder? You're sure?"
"Aye, no question. Unless you think someone else would have switched the boxes?"
"No, no."
He engages Khan and it turns into a very long sign session.
"Khan wishes to know if you can arrange to send a message to Alexander."
Now I have to stop and think before I respond. I sign a yes, with a qualifier, to Khan.
"We have a communications drone that can be programmed to enter orbit around his planet, and it can send a signal, but it's not designed to use Libor communications frequencies or protocols. We might be able to adapt it, though."
He signs to Khan and they go back and forth.
"Khan requests that you do anything you can, and he and his staff are available to assist. He will create a written message if you will give him pen and paper."
I touch my collar.
"Mr. McAdams, please join me."
"Aye, sir."
She floats over, I'm not sure what she'll think of the request I'm about to make, but she'll do her duty.
"Courtney, this is Khan the 85th, the Ambassador from the Death clan. We want to send a comm probe back to his planet with a written message inside about the sabotage of Hornet. I want you to make it happen. Any ideas?"
She thinks for a second, but not too long.
"We can modify the probe to use their frequencies, and it can send a short text message, assuming the Death use the same protocols as the Life. And, perhaps write on the side of the probe the name of who it's intended for?"
Now why didn't I think of that?
"Ship's Officer First Class Osborne, this is Lieutenant McAdams. Please introduce her to Khan and inform him that she is this ship's wolf. She is at his disposal with regard to the message."
"Yes, sir. Pleased to meet you Lieutenant."
Then he turns and explains to Khan. I would say his eyes lit up if he were human, but I don't know the equivalent words if you have 48. I do think the idea of 90 pounds of McAdams being a wolf took him by surprise.
"Courtney, make sure we always have enough folks on scanners, I want to find that Libor ship before we go."
"Aye, Skipper, I'll have both Juan and Olivia on it now, and then give it to the Marines when they get back on board. If it's out there, they'll find it."
"Copy that."
I turn and float toward the hatch, touch my collar again on the way.
&n
bsp; "Commander Perez, you have the con, I'm off to inspect the ship."
"Aye, Skipper, I have the con."
Libor: Katana Krieger #2 Page 31
