Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1

by Bill Robinson

  We've got our suit cameras on, everything being relayed skyward.

  "RISTA, Krieger, you getting this?"

  "Aye, Captain, can you get us closer to the bulkhead marked 104-A-19?" It's tough to make her out, the metal ship interfering with comm. I have to move 20 feet right to get where she wants me to be. Don't know how she saw it.

  "This what you want?"

  "Aye, thank you, Skipper." I see what they want. Looks like blood evidence against a semi- destroyed wall. The Marines see it too, and take a sample.

  "Captain, con, 20 minutes to signal loss."

  "Copy. Proceeding inside."

  We gather up, the Marines in front, weapons hot, going three at a time into every shielded space. Third wall, we find bodies.

  "Yorktown, you copy this?" Four women. I zoom in on one of their heads, same haircuts as Garcia and McAdams. Hair is missing in spots, obviously roughly shaved, with a dark brown spot in the center of each bare scalp section. Three or four on each body. "Get the doc out of bed and ask him what these marks are on their heads."

  "Captain." It's one of the Marines, she's has turned a body over while swabbing for evidence. The hands are tied together, something resembling a nylon handcuff. Quick check and all four are the same. Somebody was doing something that should get them three bullets in the heart, or one in the head if I find them first.

  "RISTA, you receiving?"

  "Aye, Captain, never seen anything like it." She's second year out of the Academy, trying to sound older.

  "Roger that."

  "Katana, I think it's time for you to get out of there, and leave it to the Marines. Five minutes to signal loss." Shelby is worried, I'm actually more determined.

  "Objection noted, Mr. Perez, I have a weapon damage point to survey."

  I face where I want to go, try to sound like a captain should. "Let's go Marines, we'll deal with this on the way out."

  We cross through the last two areas, might have been rooms, might have been corridors, all we can tell now is that there used to be walls around them and stuff inside them.

  "Captain, con, 30 seconds to signal loss."

  "Copy that, see you in 70." We should actually regain signal in 55. Yeager and I scheduled to launch in 62.

  There's no reply. We find the hole. It has a mirror image on the deck, the blast hit the ship with enough force to burn completely through the hull, quickly enough that the entry and exit points are a straight line to the naked eye. Palmer's men will measure, and we'll be able to calculate the actual stopping power of the weapons by how long they took to penetrate (that is, how far the ship shifted in relative position to the firing point during the time it took to get from upper deck to lower deck, probably milliseconds.) I decide not to measure the upper hole, because the lower one is exactly 41.22 inches.

  "Captain, Palmer."

  "Go, Lieutenant."

  "Something for you to see. Suggest egress the way you came, and we'll bring you in our side."

  "Copy that, on our way."

  "Sergeant Sullivan?" He's the squad leader, one sergeant, one corporal, six privates.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Suggest you get onto your business, Master Sergeant Yeager and I can get me safely where I need to be."

  He stiffens within his battle armor, almost as if he's standing to attention. "My orders, captain, are to ignore your orders. Shall we get going, sir?"

  I give in, make an open hand gesture toward the far bulkhead.

  We extricate ourselves from the ship, then bounce, it being about half Earth gravity, to Lt. Palmer's position. Tried really hard not to see the bodies on the way out, but failed miserably. Surface of the planet is littered with small rocks, takes all our concentration to move quickly across the surface.

  Palmer and two men from second squad are standing beside the ship, tiny compared to its enormous bulk. We're used to the 50 foot high Yorktown, though we seemed insignificant next to it during the christening. Trump, compressed by the crash, is still more than twice as high, and seemingly infinitely long.

  There's a hull penetration where they are, I recognize instantly what it means, but I let the L-T tell me anyway.

  "Sir, we believe this is a contact bomb breach. Trump was boarded while still in orbit."

  I take time to look over the site with him, let his corporal give me the details of size and nature of the weapon used to cut the hole. Not as clean as we do it, the ZR is designed to lock onto a hull and melt a nice clean opening to get the boarding party in. This is quicker and dirtier.

  While we're admiring the hole, a rough circle about 10 feet in diameter, a private bounces up with a collapsible ladder. The hole opens three decks on the ship, would have done unimaginable damage on a cheaply built freighter like this is. From the ground, we can see the between decks bulkheads, a paltry four inches across, the entirety of one deck, and pieces of the other two. Opening up three decks is about random killing, not taking control of the ship or the situation.

  Once the ladder is extended, the two privates take defensive positions at the bottom, weapons hot, and Palmer climbs up, the corporal and I watching through the magnifiers in our helmet goggles. He pauses at the top for a second to play his helmet beam around the exposed inner portions of the ship, then bends at the knee, and takes a single hop the last 15 feet into the ship.

  He's gone no more than two minutes, carefully puts himself back on the ladder and comes down. Even through the battle armor and full helmet, his body language says he's thinking about what to say.

  "Blood stains, sir," he says in a less formal voice than he normally uses to report, "lots of blood stains, and some weapons discharge points as well. Definitely a fight in that space, more so than I would have expected from a civilian transport."

  "Lieutenant, any indication of weapon type?"

  "No sir. Explosive, not something that we use. We'll swab for residue and try to determine the chemical composition. Might match a known supplier, but I'm betting not. Nothing we've seen at any site follows any of our established norms."

  "Roger that Mr. Palmer, roger that."

  "Captain, you've got 28 minutes before you need to be in your gig. I suggest we put you in the buggy we brought down, and give you the 360 tour of the ship."

  "Good idea, Lieutenant, on your mark."

  He turns, and the small four passenger cart is sneaking up behind us, seconds out. I ride shotgun, Yeager and one of the privates from second squad in the back, not there to admire the scenery. The driver extends a gloved fist for a fist bump, not normal procedure for a Marine private to a ship's captain, but I accommodate him.

  "Private Wells. Where to, sir?"

  "Once around the ship, let's see what we can see."

  "Yes, sir." And we're off. The ride is back breaking, all the small rocks tossing the lightweight buggy in the equally lightweight gravity, but it's still much faster than being on foot, so we'll live with it. The port side shows nothing obvious other than the compression damage from the crash, though we have to stop a couple times to double check. The stern of the ship is almost entirely intact, looks pretty much like it looked in orbit.

  Off the engineering section starboard we stop one more time to inspect a small visible breach. Yeager, Private Wells, and I hop over, leaving the unintroduced very serious private to guard our transport.

  Takes us 20 seconds to recognize what it means, Yeager says it, not me. "Somebody activated an escape balloon."

  Ninety nine point nine nine percent of ships are within a day of rescue no matter where they are in Union space (Yorktown currently in the 0.01). Given that room is extremely limited on a ship, and mass is extremely expensive to move, ships usually come equipped with giant inflatable balloons. If you have to abandon ship, you pop out the balloon, inflate it, and seal yourself in until help arrives. They have enough supplies for a couple days packed in them. Thousands of sailors owe their lives to balloons. I'm guessing this time the balloon only created another target for the gunners on that
big bastard out there, but it's something else we need to investigate.

  Lt. Palmer's voice rings through our radios.

  "Three minutes to reacquisition of signal with Yorktown, recommend you proceed to camp with all due speed."

  "Copy, Mr. Palmer, thanks for the reminder, on our way."

  We're back about two minutes late, no big deal, our launch window still 18 minutes long. Palmer is there, but doesn't come over, in fact, he's standing about 100 yards away waving his hands (right one clenched in a fist) as though he's having an extreme conversation with someone. I click over onto the command channel in time to hear the end of a sentence.

  "...alternative frequencies?"

  "Six sir. Same on all."

  "That's not possible, run it again."

  "Yes sir." A few seconds of static.

  "No go sir."

  "Patch me onto the comm and give me simultaneous transmit on all six."

  "Copy sir," a pause, "You're go now on all six."

  "Yorktown, Marine Expeditionary Force, please respond."

  Static.

  "Yorktown, this is Lt. Palmer, over."

  Static.

  "Congress, Marine Expeditionary, do you read?"

  More static.

  "Any Union warship within range, please respond."

  Nothing. Yorktown is gone.

  Chapter 4.1

  What Happened on Yorktown. Don't Read If You Want to Be Surprised.

  "Battlestations. Battlestations. All Hands. Battlestations." Horns accompanied the computer generated voice.

  Commander Shelby Perez had never pushed that button in anger before, but she was plenty angry now. She knew full well what her Skipper's orders were with regard to the appearance of the enemy, but Yorktown was her ship now, and was going to do what she felt was best and deal with whatever the consequences were later. Frak Katana for being so pig headed.

  "Garcia, calculate a course away from Gamma Omicron One that maximizes distance before putting us in sensor range of intruder vessel. McAdams, same order, compare when done. You have 20 seconds." She'd spent the last hour since Krieger sailed away deciding what to do. Her answer was get away from the planet, hide, and go back when safe. She hadn't decided how long she'd wait before deciding it was never going to be.

  She called up a menu on the right hand display at the captain's station, selected two items and clicked them both without hesitation.

  "Emergency Acceleration Stations. Acceleration in excess of four gravities within one minute. Emergency Acceleration Stations." Another call with its own set of horns. "Rig for silent running. All personal equipment off. Rig for silent running." Which, ironically, was also accompanied by a set of tones.

  Garcia was in her ears. "Course on your monitor, sir."

  She studied it for a few seconds. "Garcia, full power all engines, course approved, go now."

  "Full power, 10 seconds." The emergency acceleration horns sounded a second time.

  "McAdams, deactivate radio transmission from the drone, establish laser link."

  ‘Aye, First, laser link only." The drone had been programmed to accelerate above the northern pole of the planet below if it detected a ship entering orbit. That movement, and the pictures it transmitted had triggered the current crisis. By moving to the laser link, they could cloak their transmissions unless the enemy ship physically broke the connections, but it also was line of sight only.

  "Powell, unless the engines are about to explode, no complaints."

  "Roger, understood." There was some exasperation in Emily Powell's voice, but not a question about her compliance.

  The ship rocked sideways with sudden thruster inputs as its nose located the right vector, then everyone was jammed backward with hundreds of pounds of extra weight. Perez lined her hands onto the rests her couch provided, and flicked the switch to put the nav display on her left screen. Outside the ship, nothing visible had changed except she began to move away from the planet. The smoke and fire of old rocket launches was a display of inefficiency and waste not tolerated in the modern ship.

  "Engineering," she called again, "Complete silent running checklist."

  "Roger, First, silent running checklist." Perez's right screen flicked over to the 52 item list, all red. She watched as they began to turn to green.

  Yorktown was stabilizing at 4.2 gees. It's acting captain knew in a real emergency that would never be enough, but it would probably, probably, suffice here.

  "Garcia, McAdams, recalc course to ensure highest probability given known velocity."

  "Done sir," Garcia's co-pilot responded for them, "Original burn was 16.2 seconds short given actual thrust, parameters already adjusted to compensate."

  "Acknowledged. All stations prepare for silent running. Engineering, pick up the pace on shutting down non-essential power. Get items 21 through 32 now."

  "Wilco." Some of those items were tough to complete under four gees, but she wanted them done now. One slip could mean being spotted, and then she would have to take the ship home and abandon Krieger.

  Yorktown's engines burned for 12 minutes, plus a few seconds, the enemy ship about to round the corner in spacial terms, leaving time to shut everything down. Yorktown would continue to coast away from Gamma Omicron 1 at about 30 kilometers per second. Perez started giving orders again.

  "Garcia, engines off. Powell, reactor two to standby. McAdams, determine angle to minimize potential radar signature from intruder, forward to Garcia. Garcia, upon receipt move the ship. All hands, silent running, now."

  Lt. Summerlin floated out of his couch, nothing for him to do during the outbound trip but watch the status displays to make sure Congress was undamaged. He made his way next to the captain's couch, and leaned in, his voice a whisper for only her, the crew caught up in the shift as the Yorktown turned her nose back toward the planet.

  "Commander, you have a great crew, relax and show them you're in command."

  She nodded, and went back to flipping from screen to screen. It seemed to her to take forever for the silent running checklist to turn completely green, until finally the last item flashed emerald, and she pushed back into her couch.

  "Ayala, Garcia, McAdams, Powell, captain's ready room, now. Summerlin, care to join us?"

  He got out of her way, floated toward the rear of the command deck, she still managed to unstrap and beat him to the door. She knew that Katana had programmed her First's biometrics into it to active automatically when she was off ship, and Ayala's as well, privacy not an issue for her commander. It still felt like something of a violation. The door popped open to her touch.

  Inside, there was a dark blue enlisted uniform floating in the middle of the space. Perez grabbed it in her right hand and pushed it toward the open door of the head. To no one in particular, and not expecting or requesting an answer, she asked a question.

  "Why does she wear those things?"

  It was the youngest one who answered, thinking aloud more than directly in reply.

  "Winfield Scott wore enlisted uniforms in the Mexican American War. One of his junior officers, US Grant, copied him, later accepted Lee's surrender in a private's outfit. Omar Bradley, Bull Halsey, World War II. Chuck Minter, First Galactic. There's a long history to the style."

  Commander Perez looked at Lieutenant Summerlin.

  "Commander, I have a suggestion," he started in a soft voice.

  Chapter 5

  "Lieutenant, get your people back here now!" I'm moving and yelling at the same time, taking full advantage of the bio-assist built into the suit to cover 20 feet with each step, limited only by the fact that each landing is on large numbers of those small rocks, and keeping my butt clean is a priority.

  "Landing ship, go hot, you're moving everybody into the hills to the east, at least 30 clicks. Sergeant Yeager, how much loiter time do we have if we take the gig up, leaving enough fuel to get to orbit?"

  There's a pause, good that he's being thoughtful, not good for my nerves.

&
nbsp; "Estimate 90 minutes, sir."

  "Good, we're leaving now. The 2 inch laser in the nose isn't much of a weapon, but we might be able to provide some cover if they don't come too heavy. Mr. Palmer, get your team on the LS, get out of range, go silent, do it yesterday. Am I clear? Bad guys on their way."