Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1

by Bill Robinson

  "Lieutenant Maxwell reports 82 minutes from weapons range."

  "Thank you, RISTA, anything new on the local scan?"

  "Negative, sir, but they're out there." Anger now mixed with the frustration.

  "Copy that, they've had three years to hide their defenses, we're not going to find them easily."

  I check my straps, and run a hand through the hair, which managed to get loose around 14 gees. All is well.

  "RISTA, all available cannons active. You have firing permission at your discretion. Notify Mr. Garcia if we need to rotate the ship. Missiles hold without my authorization." That should cheer her up.

  My nav display has Yorktown in the center, our target at the top, and a wall of asteroids in between. Every asteroid we've passed has cut into the fighting capacity of my ship, I have a sudden flash back to Earnest Evans and Johnston. The last time anyone saw him alive he was standing at the stern of his mutilated ship yelling instructions to attack through an open hatch to his men operating the ship by hand below. Just like Evans, I've committed us to going in, no matter the cost.

  Dobson is screaming across the bridge again, I don't see it, but everyone is unalterably glad she does. I'm not sure Courtney sees it or not, but our nose cannon opens up on the coordinates, firing in a pattern that suggests our Marine just saved our bacon. Something explodes out there, not within my visual range.

  "RISTA, analysis?"

  "Skipper, not enough..." I think she's going to say ‘data,' but she doesn't get it out.

  The lights go out, the computers blink off, on, off, and stay that way, the normal background hiss of the life support systems go quiet. It's blacker than any night I have ever been through, then we're slammed sideways once again.

  Flickers start across the bridge, the screens come back on one by one, Courtney is in my ear, so is the sound of the life support fans, but not all of them.

  "EMP, Skipper," I knew that one, but I don't say it. Then something I didn't know.

  "Small ships on approach, estimate 12, firing." She pauses. "Drones, Skipper, private sector models a mining company might use for sample collection. Not supposed to be armed."

  She says the last as my ship takes a laser hit. Her fingers dance across her screen, then her forefinger crashes down one last time. That drone will not be bothering us again.

  We keep taking hits, Garcia spinning the ship to get our cannons in position to attack. McAdams firing our limited cannon array. Small nimble targets, we get hit 20 times, McAdams gets three more. I'm estimating three inch cannons, not deadly by themselves, but neither is one bee sting. Get enough of them, though....

  "Mr. Garcia...." I don't get that out either, our panels die, the ship goes dark and deadly quiet once again. We can count the laser hits now by the oldest means on Earth, our ears. Six more before the panels, or maybe 80 percent of the panels, come back to life. Hardy has no screens, Marcos has one, but he's not awake enough to use his at this point.

  Shelby's on intercom, "Both keel cannons and 18 inoperative. Missile launchers out." One aft gun, one nose gun, two on the roof. That's it.

  Eight of those little frakkers left, and we still haven't found the source of the EMP.

  Powell comes on intercom, death in her voice. "Main engines out, Skipper, starboard thruster quads down."

  We bounce now with every hit, Yorktown beginning small movements on her own, partial thrusters making Garcia's job near impossible. Courtney is laying down a random fire pattern in desperation, the drones seemingly aware of which cannons we have left.

  The drones seemingly aware.....

  "Mr. McAdams, they're doing what we're doing!" I don't know why I thought she'd understand that sentence. I start again, faster and louder.

  "They've got a drone above the system plane acting as a controller! No pilots on anything they've got down here. Alter the search parameters on our drone to look on it's plane, not ours!"

  "Aye!" The first time in a long time there's something but frustration there.

  We take another couple hits. Shelby is not making my day. "Cannon 14 out. Boat deck open to space. Inner hull breaches on the LS. No comm with the ZR." All our Marines are in that boat.

  "Skipper," Courtney, excited, "Got it."

  I see it on my screen now, switch the attack computer to center on it. Looks more like a satellite than a drone, but who gives a whatever.

  "Activate our drone, full thrust, course 020 mark 001 relative."

  "Aye, Skipper, ramming speed!"

  Twenty seconds later there's a small explosion on my long range visual, like one rock hitting another. Our world goes quiet. There was one really good spot to scout the dust cloud, and both of us had our observation platforms in it. We got lucky.

  I switch back to local visual, get to watch the attack drones flying straight lines on whatever course they are on, firing ahead off into empty space.

  "Courtney, just for safety sake, disengage their molecules from one another."

  "Aye, Skipper, with pleasure." McAdams plays the nose cannon, Bass plays the aft, with Garcia on thrusters, and Manuel on drums. The melody doesn't end until every one of their targets is dust.

  Chapter 21

  "Mr. Garcia, stabilize us, get us to zero delta vee any way you can." I want us stopped in space.

  "Affirmative, sir, Engineering reports engine one on line." Our old friend bailing us out again. I owe it dinner and a movie.

  Fifteen seconds later we're under thrust, slowing. I get on my intercom.

  "First, status please."

  "One main engine available. Jump engines out. Three cannons active. Missile launchers out. Close in weapons system active. LS cooked, crew on board Yorktown. Marines alive, but their boat is dead. ZR crew is good to go. Boat deck open to space, no injuries. One life support pack out. You don't want to read the server logs and seven of the servers are toast. A couple of the others are squishy. A dozen holes in the outer hull, none in the inner hull. All cannon doors open, missile door system inoperative." She pauses, takes a breath.

  "Four crew down with high gee injuries. Our Task Force is still 48 minutes from their intercept, we have no comm drone active at present, no drones left aboard. Damage control working on the missile launchers, Skipper."

  "Thank you, Commander." I hit another button. "Lieutenant Powell, update please."

  "Captain, we've lost half the circuit boards on the ship, we're in the process of replacing them, starting with the main engines. Once you clear the DC party, we need them to go outside and repair or replace the two damaged starboard thruster quads. We're an hour or so from having all four main babies back on line, assuming there's no other damage. Worst possible case on the thrusters would be two hours after they get outside. Doubtful we can repair the cannons until we're in drydock."

  "Copy, keep me informed if anything changes." I go back to local. "Mr. McAdams, status?"

  "All sensors clear, Skipper."

  "Copy, try to establish contact with our Task Force please, report when you know something."

  "Aye."

  The doctor appears and enlists Hardy to help him get Marcos out of his couch and down to sickbay. We'll all need to pay him a visit at some point before we're done.

  "Mr. Garcia, I want a course to 067, parabolic, start 000 mark 180 relative and bring us around. Maximum thrust you're comfortable with given the terrain."

  "Copy, sir."

  "Mr. Palmer." Shelby says the Marines are good to go, let's find out.

  "Yes, sir!" Sounds normal.

  "Get into the ZR and LS, clean everything out of them we might need. We're dumping them here, I'm not taking them back. Report when completed." Not protocol, but I don't care right now.

  "Wilco, sir, on our way."

  I want to keep going, but I don't have anything else to say. So I come up with something.

  "Mr. Ayala, you have the con. Commander, let's go for a float."

  I extricate myself from my couch, and push through the hatch. Shelby and I se
t an intercept course for deck three and the DC party. They do not look happy.

  "Chief Turner, what do you have for me?"

  "Sir, we've replaced the burnt our circuit boards, but the doors still won't open."

  He's a big man, trying to float low in the space so he doesn't look down at me. I wonder who he's worked with before if he automatically thinks that way.

  "Chief, are the firing mechanisms working?"

  "Yes, sir, everything's good to go, except we can't get the doors open."

  I nod, easy solution.

  "Go ahead and get outside, replace the thruster quads. When you do, rip the doors off of tubes 6, 20, 21, and 22."

  "Six, 20, 21, and 22, aye. On our way." His expression changes from depressed to thinking he's going to have some fun. My ship is going to need some serious down time when we get home. I pat Yorktown on her missile controller and silently apologize.

  "Thank you, chief, keep me updated." That will give me the two air to ground nukes, a ballistic warhead, and a multiple warhead air to air missile.

  They head to the hatch for deck two, I grab Shelby and head back for deck four, but instead of turning toward the bridge, we push for Engineering.

  Two sets of legs are sticking out of engine three, and two more out of engine two. Only one set is wearing a light blue uniform. I float up next to them.

  "Mr. Powell?" She jumps, I scared her. Not my intent, might be funny if she hadn't been through what she's just been through.

  "Sorry, sir."

  "No, I'm sorry I startled you. What's our status?"

  "No change Skipper, still better part of an hour to have the mains ready, unknown how long to get everything back to normal." She's scratching her head, she's put a semi-permanent red mark on it the past week.

  "Copy that. We'll let you get back to it. Let me know if I can loan you some hands to help."

  "Thank you sir, but once the DC party is done outside, they should be all the help we'll need."

  "Affirm." And we float out and down to the bridge.

  I relieve Ayala, get strapped into my couch, survey the bridge.

  "Mr. McAdams?"

  "Skipper, communication established with Truxton, strong datalink, weak voice, but acceptable. They are," she double checks her screen, "seven minutes, two seconds out."

  "Copy. Mr. Garcia?"

  "Course plotted and available on your screen, sir."

  "Thank you. Shelby, check with Chief Turner, please."

  She moves, no reply, I call up Garcia's course.

  "Maria, course approved, hold until the DC party is on board and we have more than one engine."

  I get a wry ‘aye' from Garcia, then settle in to cycling through every screen I have. It's amazing how many systems we have, and how many are showing red on my board. Spend some time making my log entries, and I sneak a peek at the server logs, which, as Shelby predicted, scare the begeebees out of me.

  "Mr. Gomez?" She's working hard at something, I'm wondering if it has anything to do with those logs I just read.

  "Aye, sir."

  "Tell me about our servers."

  "Skipper, they're a mess. Give me a day or two, and we'll get them fixed or replaced, but nothing we can do in the time available."

  "Roger that, keep an extra eye on them for me."

  "Affirmative, sir."

  Not much of a conversation, and I go back to updating my logs, which are not much prettier than the server logs. I wait about six minutes from Courtney's mark.

  "Mr. McAdams, establish voice link with Truxton, on speakers." She hits her panel, then talks into her mic a couple times.

  "Voice link active, sir, limited visual from Truxton."

  We get static, lots of static and some snow on the visual, not something we normally get but not surprising given the load of dust the signal is traveling through.

  The three corvettes are faster than any of the ships they're chasing. Congress is trailing, herding the ships toward the sun, Truxton flanking them to port, and Decatur to starboard. They've given Rivera the tough job, she's got the Fitzgerald class ship.

  We hear Maxwell ordering them to stop, hear him repeat, hear him add a nice threat to the third time. Then he orders the attack.

  Summerlin fakes a direct assault on the Vargas, it's captain reacting badly and rotating to give Congress the chance to get in close. He releases the last two sticks of their close in weapons and vaporize their target.

  Rivera starts low, times the enemy response then jams her throttles to the wall. skims the top of the Fitzgerald at high gee, and unleashes two sticks of missiles. The Fitz fares no better than the Vargas, two down.

  Speed kills.

  Maxwell tries again, giving the alien ship one last chance. It answers by using it's quads to try and evade, Truxton's lasers put an end to that, then it's missiles end the pointy ship. As clean a space battle as you'll ever see, veteran commanders executing to perfection. I like it, my butt does not. We'll have to have a chat later.

  I relay my congratulations to the Task Force, order them to rendevous with us well outside the dust cloud. If we die, at least someone will get our story home.

  Five minutes later the DC party finally reports having replaced the thruster quads, and are getting to work on the missile doors. I need to talk to Palmer.

  "Mr. Palmer, where are you on cleaning out the corvettes?"

  "Sir, the ZR is empty, give me five minutes on the LS."

  "Copy. Mr. Perez, when Chief Turner is done with the doors, let's detach those two from the ship and have him use the pod to give them a push away from us."

  "Affirmative." She goes to her own comm, probably talking to Tony first.

  As soon as Turner reports finished, well after Palmer already gave us the green light, we uncouple the two corvettes and Turner sets them in motion out into the dust cloud, no more than a few kph, but more than enough to keep them clear. Five more minutes, and the pod is secure in the landing bay, which is still rather permanently depressurized. Takes longer than normal, but eventually they report secure.

  We have to wait another 20 minutes until Powell reports engines restored.

  "Mr. Garcia, course to 067, combat speed, let's roll."

  "Aye, sir." Five minute horns sound throughout the ship

  On cue, we're jammed back into our seats, Yorktown feels happy to be moving again. It doesn't last for long, once we're at speed we'll shut down to avoid head on conflict with any of the rocks.

  "Eyes open everyone, Opportunity is still out here somewhere. We absolutely need to find her before she finds us."

  Despite all the magic in their coating, they have no chance if we can get behind them. On the other hand, they get a broadside first and Weaver's first mission will be to bring Constitution out here looking for our remains.

  We turn into our decel program a couple hours later. With luck, and the controller out, maybe no asteroid is going to be sending an EMP our way this time, and maybe we can finally catch them unawares.

  RISTA wakes us all up.

  "Skipper, Opportunity in orbit, not under thrust, will cross our course pretty precisely for someone who doesn't know where we are, data on your screen."

  I watch as the attack computer adds a red triangle to the display, perpendicular and ahead of the green triangle that is what's left of Yorktown. They'll be sitting there waiting for us almost matched in velocity with three 42 inch cannons pointed at us if we do nothing about it. They must have calculated our course from the beginning and altered orbit. Confirms what my butt and I have been discussing.

  "Mr. Garcia, engines to standby, bring the nose around to direction of flight."

  "Engines to standby, rotating." Pressure drops away, we float more or less free in our couches as the ship goes from tail first to nose first.

  The attack computer is showing us flying past them at just about the moment we would go into range. We need to be a little faster.

  "Mr. Garcia, go to zero point two five gee, stand by fo
r higher acceleration on my mark."

  "Zero point two five, aye, standing by for thrust on order." Let's see if they'll follow us.