Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1

by Bill Robinson

  On the audio, we hear Summerlin call Truxton and Decatur to form up on him, we hear Bode ordering all ships to return fire. None of them had a weapon that would have done any good. Santa Cruz tries to rotate and bring her surviving cannons to bear, but takes another hit, more deadly, and goes dead in space, rotating but not firing, stabilizing a few minutes later, obviously on backup systems.

  Deep space pirates favor the Fitzgerald class cargo ships, 32,000 tons (four times the size of Yorktown), because they were designed to transport liquid cargo, including radioactive waste. Three inch steel armor, a heavy inner hull, and strong cross frame, they are as close to a warship as you can buy on the commercial market (or steal, or kidnap). Four of them are suddenly in the frame, and they are rather obviously armed with 42 inch cannons.

  Our three corvettes had no choice, it would have been surrender or die. Opportunity comes into view five minutes later, Roenicke still not putting up anything resembling a fight. Four of the little pointy ships pop out of the big ship's cargo holds, two headed for Santa Cruz and two for Roenicke.

  They get hooked to Roenicke, the closer ship, without any difficulty. They reach Santa Cruz about seven minutes later, but maybe one minute after they attach Julio puts a stop to it. That would have been just about long enough for him to see what was on board.

  We get a split second of the blinding ball of light, then the camera is pointed to deep space and the boat shooting it is moving rapidly away out of control, Congress caught up in the wake of debris and radiation.

  We run the video from the other two boats at high speed, nothing there to see that makes us any smarter or happier.

  I shoo them out of my room, with orders to McAdams to keep at least a couple Marines on the bridge working the sensors to enhance our vision. All five of those ships had better not sneak up on us together, or we'll have issues.

  Then I put on some Mozart, turn out the lights, and take a quiet moment to mourn my friend, which flows naturally into sleep. I dream I threw Bode into my brig (which I don't actually have one of) and saved two shipfuls of sailors. A message bell wakes me, to tell me Rivera is awake. I go down to sickbay and show her pictures of a nightmare.

  One good thought did occur to me during my nap, and I find McAdams when I'm done in sickbay.

  "Courtney, let's assume that there was a pirate base, maybe in an old mine, on one of these planetoids, and the Libor came across them and took the base. When we get the system scan in, look for a base, not for ships."

  "Aye, Skipper," she responds, "can we look for both?"

  I give her a quick laugh and a nod. Off I float, up to the Marines' deck, this time to find Palmer. He's locked in conversation with Lieutenant Ramos, leader of the Recon team. All six corvette crew are now apparently dressed elsewhere, good thing since the ones I saw had no reason for anyone to want to see them naked.

  "Gentlemen. There's a base on one of these sub-planetary bodies. When we find it, do you want to take it?" They don't look at each other, don't ask a single question.

  "Yes sir," in stereo. Then Palmer has something to add.

  "Sir, I'd also like to have a conversation when we're not in a danger zone about how you've been using my men. I never thought I'd say this, but I'd like you consider making it a permanent arrangement. We still would have plenty of time to train, and we feel much more useful when we're actively helping the mission, spotting debris fields and the like."

  I look him in the eye. "OohRah, Mr. Palmer, I am in absolute agreement on the value of your team. We get to write the Book on frigate ops, I'm going to do everything I can to integrate the Marines into the standard ops."

  "Thank you, sir." I give them a salute before floating back to the bridge.

  We spend the next 24 hours fixing corvettes, sorting through our supplies, eating, and catching up on sleep. Theoretically, we scanned the known and unknown universe, but that was a complete waste of time. It would have been better if we had just found nothing, instead of the 30 or so false leads we came across.

  At their request, we let each corvette crew honor their dead aboard their boats, my only requirement is that they do it sequentially so I can join them. I'd never gotten more than a casual introduction to any of the dead crew, but they were still my responsibility, despite Bode and his orders.

  A long talk with the three corvette skippers afterwards concludes with them shifting their remaining personnel around so that each skipper has a four person crew, including borrowing one of Palmer's Marines, the same young gentleman who was so intrigued by the stories when we were stuck on Omicron I.

  Yeager's right hand, PFC Mussina, is available to fill the spot in Palmer's line if needed.

  About half way through the day our drones sent a massive data download, then headed off to construct a rough triangle around the furthest primary orbital path in the system. They'll switch to monitoring, if something moves they're supposed to tell us, but I'm not counting on them having any better luck than we have.

  McAdams, Gomez, and Bass have been locked in the wardroom since the download came in, leaving Manuel to order around a bunch of older, grumpier Marines. Not optimal, not optimal at all, but he manages. I still think I'm losing McAdams to ChiNO, and I'm beginning to think I want to send Manuel off to Officer Candidate School to replace her.

  It's 2200 when McAdams tells me her report is ready in the wardroom. I grab Shelby and we float down the passageway. What I see is another on the long list of the things I never thought I would see that I have seen on this mission.

  Courtney's got a giant sheet of paper spread across the table, might be glued down, I can't tell for sure why it's not floating away. I knew we had a printer on board, I just didn't know we had paper, or that anyone knew how to use it.

  She's used markers, or crayons, or something, to color objects on the map, and draw lines between the colored sections.

  I'm ready for her to pull out carved wooden direwolf and lion heads, move them across the map, and tell me that winter is coming.

  Only it's a little tiny Yorktown, three littler tinier corvettes, a great big Opportunity, and four Fitzgeralds she yanks from her side pocket and plops onto the table. God help me, I'm ready to start laughing and I know I can't. I also know this is my fault. I never should have showed her my old school ways.

  Then she pulls out a couple asteroid looking things and adds them to the pile. Those must be the castles. She grabs the little Yorktown and plunks it down on the map, then puts the corvettes next to it. The table top is metal, so the action figures are magnetic.

  "Skipper," this is going to be good, I don't interrupt, "we used the laser printer to make a map of the system, and used the 3D printer in engineering to make some models. We are here." She points to the three inch long Yorktown. I already got that part, but I remain silent. Possibly because I would have to laugh if I try to talk.

  "Based on your direction, we searched Union mineral claim records and discovered there are two abandoned mines within the system, both of which were built with standard 100 meter dome structures for a support crew. No evidence that either dome was removed when the claims went dormant."

  "The drone data show the energy patterns and output that I've sketched onto the map. Red indicates a probable active power source. Green is an energy trail, possibly from a ship. Yellow is a transmission on a standard radio frequency, though those signals can be spurious."

  "We performed 250,000 simulations, and came to the most probable solution." She ran it through the computer, but still made the models rather than show me the printout. Don't know if I should be happy or insulted.

  She puts the first "castle" down on a red circle, which has a number underneath that would make it a sub-planetary body 300 million kilometers from the explosion site, in the next primary orbital path out from where we are.

  "There's a base here. Sub-planetary body Gamma Nu 049. The four Fitzgeralds operate from it." She plops their little models down next to the castle, sorry, asteroid. "Opportunity c
omes to visit sometimes, jumps in and out here, still doing T jumps only." She puts the big cargo ship model near to the sun. "We calculate that based on the energy trails and their predominate pattern relative to the sun. None of the Fitzgerald type energy signatures ever approach the star."

  The planetoid is about the size of Earth's moon, surrounded by it's own ring system of asteroids and dust.

  "We believe Opportunity has departed the system, and that it's us versus the four smaller cargo ships at the present time. No way to tell if they know we are here, or if they know we have found the corvettes and they are still functional." She pauses, I float over to her side of the table.

  Now it's my turn to play with the toys. "So we put Yorktown here." I move the model to a point a couple hours flying time from the base. "And try to get the enemy ships to respond. We send the corvettes here," I move the models to the far side of the base, "with the ZR loaded with Marines."

  McAdams is depressed, it clearly never occurred to her to make a little tiny corvette ZR- 1.

  "If we can get two or three of the Fitzgerald's to take the bait, we storm the base, capture everyone and everything, and Yorktown blows the Fitz's into their respective subatomic particles."

  "Aye, sir," McAdams continues my thought, "though those four ships, based on the gun cameras from Congress, have four cannons each of the 42 inch variety, and they are more maneuverable than the ships we've had to fight."

  "Agreed, Ensign, but they also have zombies at the controls. We'll use that to our advantage, we'll make them fly through Kasserine Pass." I point to a spot on her map. "That would seem to be right about here."

  She looks at the picture and thinks for a minute.

  "Mines?"

  "Aye, Ensign, mines. Plot a course for the mine layer, minimize the possibility that it would be visible on sensors from that base. Do the same for the corvettes, including the ZR, from our present position. Yorktown will do an intrasystem jump, plot a course that gets us to the sun without being seen, then jump us to where we need to be on your map."

  She's smiling. "Aye, sir, aye. I assume you want us to be seen after the jump."

  "That's the idea, Courtney. Within the hour, please. My ready room."

  She comes back with the plan in the new school way, math on a pad, no sigils. It will take 32 hours to get the mines laid and the Marines and their escorts into position to assault the base. We have the blueprints of the dome, a standard geodesic model used throughout Union space for bases this size. Every Marine in the universe has practiced assaulting them, and most of them actually have.

  Takes me 32 seconds to get Shelby, Ayala, Summerlin, Maxwell, Rivera, Palmer, and Ramos to join us. Thirty two minutes to go through the details of the plan. It's simple really, provided the bad guys do what we want.

  We'll make Yorktown visible by jumping her in roughly 200,000 kilometers from the base in an area populated with many large asteroids, our missile programmed to lay the mines in between the clusters. We'll stand there jumping up and down and waving, hoping the four ships come after us. Whatever the mines don't kill, our missiles will.

  Palmer's Marine force will attack the base through it's main landing bay, with Marine Force Recon coming in through an escape hatch and attacking the rear. A lot of unknowns, including how many aliens are there, how many pirates (both conscious and drugged) are there, and how potent the weapons stash is. My guess is that we'll be up against a small number of folks with very tough weapons.

  Palmer and Ramos are of a like mind, they're going in heavy.

  "Let me give everyone a couple of reminders." It's time to finish and get to work, but I don't say it that way.

  "Number one, if more than one of the Fitz's stays behind to guard the base, the assault is delayed until Yorktown arrives on scene. If one stays behind, follow the plan to deal with it, do not get creative. Two, humans with hair are traitors, but they are knowledgeable traitors and we should try to capture them. Three, humans without hair are dying slowly, no chance of returning them to a functional state. Be humane, but not at the expense of your people."

  "And finally, we'd like to take an alien or two home with us, but again, not at the expense of any living human being. Dead aliens are always welcome."

  "Questions?" I look from eye to eye, there's an air of confidence and trust in them all despite most of them being recently almost dead, and the fact that Julio was here with us planning an attack not so long ago.

  There are no questions.

  "Assault task force is wheels up at 0800. Missile launch as soon as you're ready. Let's roll." It's 1500 now, that's plenty of time to finish prep and catch whatever sleep you can.

  Once they clear out my ready room, I get into the computer and run battle sim after battle sim after battle sim. We don't know if the Fitz's are coated with anything, they sure didn't look like it in the video, but if we think they're not and they are, it will be a really bad day.

  I've fought human pirate flown Fitzgerald's as commander of Ayacucho, so I know they stand up pretty well against an 18" cannon, but all the sims and my butt are in complete agreement that our 24's wouldn't have much trouble, and, of course, it's a total waste of firepower to send a nuclear missile against one ship that small. I make a mental note to recommend that someone invent a launcher for smaller missiles that fits in the firing tube for the bigger missiles for the frigate corps.

  On the down side, Yorktown wouldn't survive long with 42" cannon hits from multiple directions simultaneously if the four bad guys manage to surround us. On the up side, they've got four cannons each, two port and two starboard, nothing front or rear mounted from what we can tell.

  McAdams stirs me from my screens long enough to request missile launch permission. I pop out to the bridge to give my okay, and watch as compressed air ejects it from it's tube, followed by the Javelin's engine firing. Then I go back to my scenario building.

  Eventually, I run out of new possibilities, float down to my quarters, strap myself in and get some sleep.

  It's 0700 when I tie the hair down, drop by the mess for a tube of breakfast and get my butt to the bridge. Yes, I showered and put on a clean uniform too.

  The three corvettes with names and our ZR are locked, loaded and ready to depart soon after, their crews except the Marines sleeping on board last night. Summerlin is in command until the assault begins, then it's Palmer's mission.

  "Assault Task Force ready, request mission clearance." Summerlin, as always, can't keep the excitement out of his voice.

  "Task Force cleared to go, good hunting Lieutenant," I do my best to sound the calm, cool captain.

  The response is four sets of engines spooling up, and the boats heading out on a parabolic course designed to maximize the quantity of rocks between them and their target. I give them a quick salute for luck, then turn my attention to my ship.

  "Mr. Garcia, get us to the jump point, course as approved, on your mark."

  "Roger, departure on my mark."

  We could get to the jump point in 12 hours, but that would mean engines live in open space between the planetoids and the sun. Instead, we're doing a relatively short acceleration until we clear the rocks, then going silent and, hopefully, invisible. Timed to get us a jump in 33 hours, one hour after the mines are laid and the Marines are ready.

  Horns sound, five minutes. Garcia rotates the nose and exactly on cue we're shoved backwards into our couches. No more sims, back to reality, hoping I haven't pulled my team out of the proverbial fry pan to dump them into the alien fire.

  Chapter 18

  Nothing to do for more than a day while we float in free fall toward the sun, can't even finish my sleazy novel because I'm the captain and I can't violate the silent running code and use my pad for personal business.

  So I build a battle plan for going to Gamma Upsilon once we're done with Nu, the main computers shielded and safe. Maybe I should consider adding a sleazy novel section to the flight management database. It does worry me that I haven't se
en a cruiser battle group yet, and we're well past the time it would take to get here from California, so I'm working 100 percent on the assumption that karma will again leave us on our own and in the dark.

  Two hours out I divert my attention and everyone on board's attention, back to making sure we're ready. Finally, it's time to go and we are approaching the jump point, though much more slowly than any of our recent jumps. Given that we're jumping seven light minutes instead of 200 light years, it will work just fine.

  We're in our couches, battle suits on, double checking the gloves, necks, and boots are sealed. Velcro straps, but they mean the difference between life and death in a decompression. Helmets out from their stowage and attached to the couch. The simple act of clamping helmets into their locks and pulling the final straps across necks is enough to make everyone go quiet.