Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1

by Bill Robinson

  I signal Yeager, who joins me inside, sealing the hatch behind him. Now I speak.

  "Inspect a few, see if there's anything interesting. We're half way to the zero point, no time to waste."

  "Roger, sir." And he floats off.

  I open the nearest container which is full of electronic components, all very human. Randomly pick another one which has pre-packaged food. Check two more and find nothing. I risk some additional volume.

  "Master Sergeant, let's roll."

  He's waiting for me back at the hatch when I get there, already in position, rifle ready. I spin the lock, open the hatch, and out we go. Quiet in the hallway once again, thankfully, and we move to the port side. Yeager takes his station and lets me enter the corridor. Nothing to the stern, I swivel toward the bow and just about lose my lunch.

  Three people there, or two people and one, what did he call them? Libor. The people are normal, except hair missing which means I can't expect them to care if they shoot me, and both of them have shotguns in their hands. Advantage of shotgun is that is kills without any risk of hull penetration, disadvantage is it's effective range in zero gee is 20 feet.

  Don't know why I focused of them, other than my brain wants to be anywhere but where the Libor is. He's roughly the same height as the men, six two or three, skinny, three fat fingers and one long skinny thumb. No ears. No nose. Some holes that might be them. Slightly furry, sort of cowish skin, no big head hair. Mouth almost human, minus lips. God. One eye, or 1000 eyes, beeish, spans the head from outside where our eyes are in one bulging lump, black, shiny. God. It's got a shotgun too. Wearing human clothes, can't see anything below the neck except the hands.

  All three are wearing mag boots attaching themselves to the floor.

  Yeager is beside me, rifle up. I raise mine as well, go full up on the vocal system as I do.

  "Freeze." I don't know why I said that, but it amplifies toward the men. They don't react.

  That thing answers with a shotgun blast. We're too far for it to be effective against our Marine armor, but it wouldn't know that.

  "One in the heart Master Sergeant," is my response, and both Yeager and I let loose with one round. Instantly there are two holes where my heart would be, we can almost see through them, then they are gone. Its shirt goes a little red, but it's not spreading. I'll take the red as a good sign.

  Another shotgun blast, followed quickly by two more, one from each of them. It didn't flinch despite the two holes we put in it, I think it needs a couple more.

  "Another round, if you please," I sound remarkably calm to myself, despite what's happening in my brain.

  Yeager opens another hole in his chest, I put one through that eye. This time it more than flinches, another couple seconds of cat banjo come from the mouth, then it goes silent, the shotgun suddenly floating free, the hands seemingly not under anyone's control. There's a blob of red exiting the head now, much smaller than we'd have put there if they'd have hit us, but comforting nonetheless. The two men stop moving, apparently no idea what to do.

  I exhale for a second, then move toward them. Yeager moves with me, but 10 feet behind.

  "Who are you?" I say it to both of the men, neither of them answers. I close in, ask again, still no answer. One of them looks familiar, but I can't quite place him. Their eyes don't even move, fixated on the it floating next to them. I turn my attention to the same thing.

  I am at it's side, touch it with my rifle barrel, move the arms, punch it hard in the stomach. No reaction, no sound, no movement.

  Breathing becomes my next priority, I stand still and just breathe for eight or ten breaths. Gather myself, try not to look at its head. Yeager is ignoring it completely, trying to get some response from the two men, but failing totally.

  I use the gun barrel to reach down and turn off the mag boots, letting it into free float. I don't know how, but we're taking it with us. Doubtful the gig is of any use, we have a couple options, both bad. Take the ship, or jump out into space and pray Yorktown gets to us first.

  "Master Sergeant," I quickly adjust the volume, forgot it was on max. "Let's get this thing and get out of here."

  "OhhRah, Captain, OohRah."

  A bullet fired in zero gee hitting a metal wall and ricocheting makes a unique sound. Yeager and I react instantly to it, pivoting to the stern. Four, no three people and an it are literally shooting our way, flying in air, one of them firing at us as he comes. Three hundred years of design have resulted in zero gee weapons without a noticeable recoil, the only question is what they're using for ammo.

  I grab the it by the back of its clothes, thankful for the bio-assist in the suit, and yell at Yeager. "Run." Not captainly I know, but under the circumstances understandable, despite the fact we are in zero gee and can't actually run.

  Yeager doesn't respond at first, he's doing his thing and covering me as I lead the way. An alien in one hand and a rifle in the other, I still manage to jet pretty well down the corridor toward the hatch on compartment five. Yeager has pushed behind me, flying through space backwards, his rifle aimed at where the enemy will shortly be.

  Quick spin, hatch open, I throw my cargo inside without looking and follow it in. Yeager is two seconds behind, and we spin the lock shut. Won't hold them out, and putting a bomb there might take us out too, since we don't know what we've found.

  I turn my head lamp up and once again there's a set of boxes within a webbing suspended throughout the compartment. I make a suggestion to Yeager.

  "Let's take the high ground." I grab the dead it and push upwards, Yeager along side this time. When we reach the top of the webbing, I point, he takes the high point port side and I take it starboard. We can hear the hatch opening, no chance we're going to put a helmet light on it to see, though there's enough light from outside to see the four suited enemy entering below. The last one closes the hatch, and we go back into darkness.

  I turn the infrared on in my visor, night vision, which highlights four objects. One I know is Yeager. The other three are undoubtedly the humans. Mr. Big Eye is nowhere to be seen, but I'm betting that's not mutual.

  My visor gives me a reasonable picture of the battle space, and the plan is clear. The three men, not in any mental position to take the initiative, are formed to prevent our leaving. The it is certainly on the prowl, looking for human prey.

  My right hand goes to the panel on my left forearm, activating the radio circuits, turning the audio input to max, and turning off the audio output. Now I can talk to Yeager, pray the it either won't hear or won't understand.

  And then I go to silent running. I breathe shallow, do my best not to move, try to stop my heart from pounding. My only chance to find it is to hear it.

  One minute. Two. Three.

  There's a flash of light, muzzle burst, and the sound to my left. From the angle, the it just fired at my sergeant. No way I can return fire, and Yeager is stymied too. We can only see each other. Another flash, another sound. We need to move.

  "Master Sergeant," I yell into my radio while simultaneously turning off all the external audio, "Meet me on the deck." I reach around to my left side, grab a grenade, pull the pin, and throw it with amplified electronic muscle toward the base of the compartment. The second grenade is a second behind. I count to three, grab the dead it, and follow.

  I push as hard as I can toward the deck, just as the explosives hit. Blinding flash of white and red, muted by the reactive surface of my visor. Shock wave slowing my decent a little, but I'm still headed the right way. Light from the corridor floods the lower part of the compartment, remnants of the walls and cargo containers moving off to the sides.

  I hit the ground, my boots locking me in place for a split second. The human closest to the hole has opened fire, a couple rounds near misses. I spin toward him, my boots recognizing and going with my flow. He's firing more or less blindly, makes we wonder if he's aware enough to know I'm not the thing he should be shooting at.

  My rifle goes up and I do what I
have to do, though I hit him in the shoulder, not the eye. Yeager is with me, and together we exit stage left, dead it in tow. We turn toward the port side, only to find another it and the two men we left standing blocking our way. This it has a rifle with him, not as advanced as the other, a cargo ship's arsenal not normally a thing of beauty or consistency.

  There is movement behind us in the hole. I reach out, grab one of Yeager's remaining bombs, hit magnetic and contact, then toss it toward the rear wall of compartment four, as far away to starboard as I can. Yeager is exchanging fire with the it and the three men, I'm confident he put a couple holes into this Libor, with the same negative effect as the last one.

  I don't know why we haven't been hit, but I'm not stopping to find out. The bomb detonates behind us, the debris flying out in the perfect circle of a zero gee inferno. Yeager and I back quickly that way, rifle fire suddenly coming at us through the hole in compartment five as well as down the hallway. We're both firing back, dust and smoke everywhere. We're outnumbered at least three to one, and moving backwards. Not a magical tactical situation.

  As always, I get to the opening first, throw the dead it in, and follow into the blackness. My light comes on and I reach up to maximize the output and survey the compartment. One minute ago I thought I was a dead woman, and suddenly karma has reached out once again and made me way luckier than I deserve.

  Suspended in the rigging of compartment four is a 50 foot spherical lifeboat called USS Bainbridge. Yeager's with me now, and I get an earful of "OohRah." I think the situation has drained every other word from my Marine except that one. If the reactor is hot, we're going to live. I think.

  I push toward where the base of the corvette should be, twenty feet off the ground in the darkness. The it still in my left hand, my rifle locked onto its attachment point freeing my right hand. I reverse myself to go feet first, letting the AI in my boots lock on to the surface of the boat. A slight knee bend is all is need to stabilize myself. Two steps and I find the access panel, hit the correct switches and pray thanks to all that I know when the docking hatch opens.

  The it goes inside, then me, then Yeager. We seal the hatch, leave the it right there, and float up two decks to the bridge. The only lighting is the battery powered emergency lights, if we can't do better then we are dead. The bats won't power any weapons or propulsion.

  "You've got weapons, I've got controls." I say it as hopefully as I can. Yeager leaps to the right hand couch in the second row, I go for the left hand couch in the first. I find the master power panel in the overhead, three joyful green lights blinking at me. Green is standby, dark is on, red is screwed. I push in all three buttons, activating the redundant electrical busses, watch the lights go out and the ship start coming to life.

  I take a risk and remove my helmet and gloves on the assumption that either I'm piloting Bainbridge out of here or dying in her. Through the window I can see four humans and two Libor, two shotguns and four rifles, all exhausting their ammo trying to dent the hull. It won't be long until they find something that will, or get lucky and hit something unfortunate.

  It also suddenly occurs to me where I've seen that human. He used to be the commander of the boat I am commandeering.

  "Captain, weapons available." He's more normal sounding than me now, probably helpful that he's got eight active laser cannons.

  "Go cannons hot." I can feel the lasers extend from the hull. The question is what to shoot at?

  My screens are finally up, and the systems report ready. I punch the switches for the fuel pumps, then turn the engine start switch to auto, and turn my attention to life support and comm. Down below, they are rolling something into the space through the hatch, a six foot square box with a big snowflake on the side. I make a decision.

  "You may fire when ready, Gridley" Yeager either gets the reference or doesn't care, he opens fire with the lasers.

  "Activate missile array. Target forward bulkhead, fire when ready." I pass on the Gridley.

  The engines report ready, I hit a couple necessary switches then reach to the right and grab the manual thrust lever on the center console. You're supposed to wait five minutes for them to cycle and balance. I turn Yeager loose, we can't wait that long.

  "Missiles fire."

  Yeager is one calm gunner. The barrage shoves us back hard, a dozen modern age spears exit right below us. We watch the vapor trails for a split second until they reach target and the far bulkhead explodes outward, the ship's atmosphere following quickly behind. Can't see what happened to the occupants of the compartment, but it was a kindness to the men, and far better than the Libor deserved.

  We can see the planet below through a gaping opening in the side of the ship. I shove the throttles to the wall and take us out, a little worried that we might catch on one or more of the webs, but we clear the ship without incident.

  "Master Sergeant, activate all explosives still on board Defino." It would be bad if he activated the ones on Bainbridge still in his pack.

  I cut thrust to zero, and pivot the boat to watch. Yeager reports the explosives detonate, nothing obvious happens, but something's not right. Then it hits me, Defino is rotating, bringing her 42 inch cannons to bear on us. I punch the comm buttons.

  "Yorktown, this is Bainbridge, do you read? Commander Perez, weapons free, destroy Defino, repeat, weapons free, destroy Defino."

  I spin Bainbridge to starboard, and pin the thrust lever to the far stop, we need to get away, far away. If she followed the plan Yorktown is still out of effective laser range, but with missiles set. She should be astern of Defino, so that's the direction I'm headed, but at this point anything except parallel is a fine course by me.

  "Bainbridge, Yorktown, get clear Skipper, two Javelins on their way. Repeat 60 megatons en route, ETA one minute. Over." It's McAdams voice.

  "Roger, Yorktown, need an intercept course as soon as you've got one."

  Shelby's voice answers. "Continue present course, over."

  "Bainbridge, aye." Only one problem, and that's the red that's suddenly filling all my screens. Yeager sees it on his displays too.

  "Weapons systems inactive, captain." That's not the only thing. We're done. The main reactor is dying, and not slowly. Maybe 30 seconds of power left, then we pray the batteries have a decent charge, something I should be able to determine from this couch, but that screen refuses to come up. Not a hopeful sign. I let Shel know.

  "Yorktown, main reactor dead. Battery status unknown."

  "Affirmative."

  I put my helmet and gloves back on, activate my audio, start to tell Yeager to make sure he's buttoned up too. I don't finish the sentence. Behind us, Defino explodes in that white nuclear light, normally something I would enjoy immensely, except I am in an uncontrollable ship well within the debris and blast radius.

  The radiation monitors in my suit warn me the debris is coming, the gamma rays got here virtually instantly at the speed of light, objects are slower. So far, radiation within survival limits inside the suit. Can't tell if Yeager got his buttoned.

  We lose the lights except for the emergency lights, all of my panels go black. Works better than a battery gauge to tell me our status.

  It starts like a gentle rain on the hull, the little pieces arriving, not a threat to us, just a warning. The radiation gauge is rising into the yellow. The rain sounds become those of hail, bigger pieces now, still not likely to kill us, another harbinger.

  Then a definite bump. Another. Something big and Bainbridge starts a slow roll to port. Another, the roll becomes two dimensional, a little faster. A very large piece floats past the command window. Then another. And then we take a big hit, makes up rotate like a top in about eight directions simultaneously.

  I do my best to fight, but your brain needs blood and even with the suit systems there are limits to what a human body can stand. I try to call Yorktown for help, but the world turns black before I get the first syllable out.

  Chapter 14

  Bright white
light. That's what you see when you're dead, and that's what I see now. Only Heaven should smell better and be less noisy. I open my eyes to have a look at the place of eternal bliss, only to find Dr. Bonilovich inches from my face, staring at me, his bloodshot eyes and nasty breath in no way celestial.

  "You're awake. Good. Don't try to move too fast. Would you like some water?" Doctors. They must teach them all to say certain phrases.

  "Water would be wonderful, tea would be perfect." I know what the answer will be.

  "Tea isn't good for you at this point." He hands me a cup with a straw. I'm the captain, I should get something more dignified, but I drink anyway until the cup runneth empty.