Libor: Katana Krieger #2

by Bill Robinson

  Our stern cannons take our their remaining cannon, then engine two, then one. Unpowered, they are easy rendevous targets now, Garcia slides us close in on their six.

  A normal crew would not have gone down so easily, they still have thruster capability, which means they could have used the remaining 42 cannons on board, and they have a short range missile system. They use none of it. Once again, I will take that as a sign they still have enough consciousness to know we are only shooting at them because they are shooting at us.

  Yorktown bounces slightly as the ZR-1 assault boat detaches from the docking port on deck 1, Jones assigned to balance the ship, showing us that he's not as smooth as his boss.

  We're now in relatively big trouble. Lee's engines are gone, I don't believe we'll get them back on line, which means everyone on board either ends up dead or on board my ship. Neither of those ideas fills me with joy. At current velocity, we have about a day to decide.

  I've got Tony's helmet cam on one screen and Sergeant McGregor's on the other. Nothing exciting happens as they transit over.

  Tony has the ZR attach itself to the stern of the ship. Lee is an old destroyer, with a three inch steel outer hull, three feet of insulation, and a one inch steel inner hull. McGregor's squad of Marines exits the boat and, using their magnetic boots, marches to the airlock on deck one, top of the ship.

  Once they're located properly, the Marine aviators on the boat activate the laser cutters and open a hole into the ship. Tony starts barking orders.

  "McGregor, go. Dobson, Gradishar, go."

  While he waited, McGregor put a small electronic box on the hatch controls, now he reaches down and uses a gloved hand to push the three inch square button on its surface. It blinks and flashes for a couple seconds, then the little LEDs turn green, and the hatch goes through its opening cycle. Two of the Marines lead the way in.

  Simultaneously, Dobson and Gradishar disappear from view, entering into the engineering space beyond, closely followed by the remainder of Sergeant Flanagan's squad. Tony brings up the rear.

  The airlock is empty. Two at a time, McGregor's team floats onto deck one. On both a frigate and a destroyer, this is the primary storage area, plus home to the works for a small cannon battery. Plenty of places for someone to hide, but the team does not take fire. Without difficulty, I watch as they gather by the hatch to deck two, waiting for orders.

  On Tony's cam, I can survey an empty looking engineering space, though it too has numerous places a sniper might be placed. If we do this again, I'm going with, no matter what the boss wants. I can't stand floating on my bridge, unable to do the simplest task without making someone else move out of position.

  "Lieutenant, get me over to the status display please." Painful. Flanagan's squad is positioning themselves to move, and I have their boss looking at monitors.

  "Good. Thank you, Mr. Palmer, you may proceed. The reactor is functioning normally." It would be a very bad day if Lee was rigged to blow with our Marines on board and my ship well within the blast radius.

  Palmer orders both McGregor and Flanagan to move, they lead their teams in, McGregor onto deck two, Flanagan onto three.

  Deck two, the Marine space on Yorktown and a cannon platform on Lee, is deserted. McGregor moves his team quickly to the hatch for deck three, located at the aft section near where Flanagan's team exits engineering.

  Seventeen Marines assemble, Tony positions them to provide cover. No humans or aliens are visible. The forward portion of deck three is the bridge, the center is the mess and the ward room. The aft most section is the captain's and first officer's quarters.

  Quickly, and carefully, the Marines open the three hatches at the after section, and look in. Empty. Occupied, the captain's quarters have family pictures pasted to the walls, the first officer has a few real books clipped into a wooden shelf, but not just now.

  There are twin passageways to the forward part of the ship, the starboard side holding sick bay, the gym, and guest quarters, the port side full of crew quarters.

  McGregor gets the starboard and Flanagan the port. Tony goes with McGregor, I switch my second screen to Flanagan.

  Sick bay is empty, so is the second officer's quarters. The gym is empty, so is the ward room, and so is the mess. The guest quarters are barren.

  One by one, McGregor's team opens the crew spaces and finds them empty. That leaves the bridge, it's hatch sealed.

  They attach another magic box to the hatch control, hit the button, and step back, weapons up. The hatch opens, a hissing sound of air mixing that shouldn't be. McGregor goes first, and calls all clear.

  Inside, eight sailors are strapped into their couches, dead, the life support system on the bridge disabled and the hatch locked. They didn't try to escape, just floated there happily and died. I hate these Libor more with every passing hour.

  The Marines make a quick look into the captain's ready room, also empty, before going to the deck four hatch. On Yorktown, that deck is the home to missiles and cannons. On the destroyer, it's just cannons, lots of cannons.

  The Marines make it down to the deck without incident, begin to move toward the aft section that contains the deck five hatch. Corporal Upchurch leads the way, moves out around the third cannon, then flies backwards, out of control.

  He was hit, a shell pounding into the center of his battle armor, not penetrating it, but launching him like a billiard ball struck by the cue ball. The Marines scatter, taking cover behind the sea of cannons.

  There's no way to see where the shots are coming from, there's definitely more than one shooter, but with all the ricochets and incoming, no way to tell how many. So far, the shells are not armor piercing, Upchurch unhurt, except for his pride.

  There are 20 cannons on this deck, 10 on each side. Tony sets his team to advance, one at a time, and clean the deck. He gets ready to move when McAdams is in my ear.

  "Captain, someone's opening Lee's boat hatch."

  I switch my left screen to outside visual and see for myself. The large hatch, two giant pieces of steel, each roughly 15 by 50 feet, are swinging into space.

  "Lieutenant, how quickly can you get to deck six?" I already know the answer, but I have to ask it.

  "It'll be a while, sir, unless you want me to simply rush the enemy."

  "No, Mr. Palmer, don't endanger your men any more than we already are, we'll deal with it from here."

  "Yes, sir." Then, not to me, I hear him order his team forward to the next gun.

  "Courtney, you thinking captain's gig?"

  "Aye, Skipper, a pod won't get them anywhere useful, a gig would potentially make it to the planet."

  "Or to another ship if one's hiding out here."

  "Aye."

  "Target anything that comes out, do not fire."

  "Aye, target, hold fire."

  I watch my Marines as they slowly, carefully, but with great effect, sweep down deck four. There's a human at cannon three, head shaved, the marks we've seen before that mean he's been injected with a lethal fungus.

  He keeps firing until he's out of ammo, then stands and pushes off from the cannon, flying at the Marines, only to be taken down by his comrades firing from behind.

  Tony begins the sweep to the next cannon, and the captain's gig exits the boat deck and powers away toward the sun, keeping itself between Lee and Yorktown.

  "RISTA?"

  "We have no firing solution without hitting Lee."

  "Affirm, that won't last, go weapons hot, take it out when it presents."

  "Aye, Skipper, weapons hot, end the bastards."

  "Aye." She feels the same way I do. They blindly sacrifice humans to escape, they care no more for us than for the animals at their farms. Tony's cleared the deck by the time I finish that thought, three more humans sacrificing themselves.

  A warning light hits my screen, a change in energy emissions from the destroyer.

  "Mr. Palmer, get me to computer terminal, on the double!"

  "Aye, sir."
>
  I should be on board, I'd be able to analyze, though I have a sinking feeling in my behind.

  "How's that, sir?" Palmer is looking down at a screen showing weapons status.

  "Click on Engineering, then go to Reactor, please."

  He complies without talking. The sea of red lights tell me what's up, even if I couldn't read the indicators.

  "Tony, the reactor is going critical. You and your crew have 15 minutes on board. Quick search of the last two decks, get your techies to start a download from the computer. Then get everyone off. Roll now."

  "Aye, sir, moving."

  Courtney gets a clean shot at the fleeing gig and turns whatever's inside into subatomic particles. Both of us would cheer, except there's work to do, and quickly.

  Deck five and six are mostly one big deck, the boat deck, now open to space, except for the control center where the deck gang work. The Marines slide down through the hatch anyway, and are greeted by a surprise.

  In the far corner of the control center, cowering, is one Senator Paul Piper, still in possession of all his hair.

  He looks at the Marines and makes a nearly inaudible, "Help me."

  I contemplate leaving him there for a second, or maybe two, but by the time I get rid of that idea Tony has already gotten to him and helped him to his feet.

  "Lieutenant, get him to the ZR, get your tech folks into the instrumentation bay, we need that download of Lee's database."

  "Affirmative. Corporal McNally get to the instrumentation bay, take Dobson with you. Flanagan, take the rest of your squad, get the Senator back to the boat. Don't leave the Senator unguarded, don't let him touch anything. McGregor, get McNally and Dobson and yourself out of here in 10."

  He gets a bunch of yes, sirs, and his team disperses. The download starts within five minutes, takes 20, I don't think we'll get that long.

  Lee is clear of all personnel, the Senator is under guard in sickbay, we button up Yorktown and set course to where we left Hornet with 30 seconds to spare.

  "Mr. Garcia, full thrust."

  "Aye, full thrust."

  Ten minutes later, Lee disappears in another ball of nuclear fire. Seventh ship the Navy's lost, and no one will even admit we're at war.

  We did get about three quarters of her database downloaded, with luck, there's something useful in it.

  Two hours later, McAdams gets my attention with a big problem, three hours later we reach zero relative velocity, exactly at the spot we left the Admiral, the problem still unsolved.

  "Courtney, have you found Hornet yet?"

  "Negative, Skipper, no sign of her."

  Frak me, I've lost a superior officer and an 8,000 ton warship.

  Chapter 34

  We sit there twiddling our various body parts for another half hour before Dobson, of course, spots something, yelling her usual "Ooh Rah" across the bridge. McAdams takes another 12 minutes before reporting, though I see what they see on their screens and have a pretty good idea long before then.

  "Skipper, objects at 220 mark 000 relative, appear to be heading toward a planet. My guess at this distance is two L1 size football class ships, towing Hornet. The planet is within the habitable zone, slightly larger than Earth. They are 16 minutes from orbit."

  "Mr. Garcia, coordinate with RISTA, minimum time course to Hornet, engage on your mark."

  "Aye, sir, my mark."

  She must have already been coordinating, because we get five minute warning horns instantly and the course appears on my screen. Looks good, I let her work undisturbed. We're not going to intercept them until after they reach orbit, though we will be there in less than half the time it took them.

  "Mr. Machado, all cannons hot, open doors on tubes seven through 12." We only have six air to air missiles left, we started with 18. The dozen air to ground missiles in our tubes can function in a pinch, but their guidance systems are, at best, rudimentary in a space battle.

  My ship shoves us into our couches one more time, our little frigate against an entire planet one more time, no intel on what we're up against one more time.

  "Courtney, maximum effort, scan for orbital defenses, defense stations like they had at Libor Prime, whatever you can find."

  "Aye, Skipper, I've had Juan on it since we found the planet, should I take Olivia off of analyzing the download?"

  I sigh. "No. That download has top priority, even over the planet. Load all our data onto our comm drone and program it to go home, just in case."

  "Aye. Moving the Marines onto the search for defense systems."

  An hour later, we're still tracking inbound, still totally in the dark, when my comm panel lights. I reach up and accept the message.

  Admiral Sutherland appears on my screen.

  "Krieger, you can stand down, we've found some friends. Rendevous with us, we'll maintain our current orbital track."

  Now I wish I had planned something with him. He didn't use ‘Kristopher,' the next sibling in line, but he didn't know he was supposed to either. Trap or no trap, that is the question.

  "Affirmative, orbital rendevous at our discretion."

  "Captain, you can fill me in on Lee when we meet. See you in approximately one hour."

  "Roger that, Admiral, our computer is saying 58 minutes."

  "Sutherland out."

  I do nothing to change our status, leaving the ship at battlestations and all weapons hot.

  "Shel?"

  "Friends? He can't be serious, can he?"

  "He sure sounded serious. Recommendations?"

  "Keep weapons hot and a squad of Marines in full armor at all times."

  I laugh. "You get to give Tony that order, remember, he's only got two squads, that means 12 hours a day stuck in that stuff."

  "I'll talk to him, we'll put together a plan for you."

  "Aye, thanks."

  I get back to other business.

  "RISTA, anything on defenses?"

  "Skipper, eight visible defense platforms in high orbit, we extrapolate 12 total for the planet, four orbiting stations in low orbit, and two large stations 278,000 kilometers ahead and behind the planet in its orbital track. Numerous geosynchronous objects as well, but we have been unable to determine if they are for communication or defense or both. Many ships in orbit, we're trying to separate out potential military from civilian."

  "In other words, as heavily armed as Earth or Canada."

  "Aye, sir, though the stations and other objects could be civilian."

  "Could be. Aren't. The Death clan is their military, I'm even more sure now than I was before. Mr. McAdams, double check that we're recording every bit of intercepted comm traffic we can for decode later."

  "Aye, Skipper."

  And so we beat on, not against the stream, but into the fire, not knowing what awaits us. The crew is calm, determined, perhaps having been sure they are going to die so many times that it no longer has any meaning.

  There is quiet talk among the divisions, the pilots plotting, courses, that is. RISTA sorting through terabytes of data, data from the tablet we recovered, from intercepted communications, and from Lee's hard drive. Engineers coming and going, strengthening the patches on the hull breaches, making minor repairs to the life support packs and cannons, doing what they can to the engines while they are lighted.

  It is obvious that this planet is a little more tightly populated than Libor Prime, still laid out in a spiderweb configuration with no mega-cities, but there are only two big continents, with lots of ocean. If I were to guess, if Libor Prime had 50 million inhabitants, this planet is closer to 75 million.

  We slip past the outer ring of geosynchronous satellites, which take no apparent notice. We've long since turned our tail toward the planet, slowing to orbital velocity, timed to bring us in close to Hornet and her "friends."

  We pass the orbital defense platforms, our cameras and sensors gathering every bit of data we can on them. They are spheres, spheres with a ring of missiles around their circumference, north pole t
o south pole, pointed outwards, and, I'm sure, a dozen of those 42 laser cannons waiting to be extended as needed.

  Our engines go silent and we rotate 180 degrees, Garcia nearly perfect, she's put Yorktown 492 meters off Hornet's port side. I'll give her the eight meter error.

  There's an 8,000 ton armed football a couple hundred meters off her bow, and another about twice that far from her stern. Hornet's gun ports are closed, I decide to do the same.

  "Mr. Machado, close outer doors, weapons cold."