"Affirmative. Outer doors open."
For the next two hours, we watch helplessly as one missile at a time emerges from the darkness and gently slides into its tube. They spent months practicing on a mock up, but that usually does not produce results this nice. The Marines and the engineers check each one as it seats, and report success after success.
Until the very last one. It slides in fine, but won't seat. It slides out fine, then back in, seats, but won't attach. It unseats, slides out, back in half way and stops. It won't slide out. They slide it back in and then pull again to get it out. I want to call them and remind them that there are 20 nuclear mines in the head end of that thing, but I decide discretion is the better part of valor. Finally, they stop, apparently thinking about what to do next. I decide for them, my finger jumping to the radio button.
"Dock control, Captain Krieger."
"Captain, go."
"We'll pass on the last missile, and take the ones we've got." Fifteen sighs are audible on the bridge.
"Affirmative. No go on number 24."
"Roger. Thanks." I want to add, get that frakkin' thing away from my ship, but I hold it in. I wait until the missile's clear before I speak again.
"Mr. Jordan, close outer doors, all tubes."
"Closing outer doors.... Green board."
It takes the tugs 15 minutes to clear Yorktown of the metal praying mantis, and then we are floating all alone. Five small blips show on the radar, our two pods, two gigs, and sloop. They fit into the boat deck without any trouble.
Then four bigger blips appear on the active radar, our corvettes. We dock the LS-3 on the port side, Richard against the boat deck so it will be clear as soon as we jump, Congress on top, and the assault ship starboard to balance the LS. The boat deck crew and the Marines test the collars to ensure air tight and acceleration secure matings. They give the all clear, and we notify dock control. Instantly, as if he's been waiting for the moment, there's an incoming message on my channel from Admiral Benson.
"Put me on speaker." No nonsense, no need for introductory remarks.
"You already are, Admiral, she's all yours."
"Captain Krieger, Lt. Summerlin, Lt. Springs, ladies and gentlemen of Yorktown, Richard, and Congress you've done remarkable work the past 24 hours, and I'm sure the best is still to come. God speed. FRIGCOM out." And he's gone.
We're in orbit around Earth, large swaths visible in our cameras from this altitude, still looking like an idyllic blue and brown ball, oceans, clouds, mountains, though the ice caps cover most of what was once Canada and Australia. Impossible to tell from orbit that it's uninhabitable, and likely to remain so for thousands of years. The countdown clock shows 38 minutes until our firing window, way too much time to think, so I put the crew to work double checking and triple checking. We have to get to the corona of the sun to jump, we're going at four gees, powered the whole way, fast enough that the jump either works, or we all die. Pretty good motivator.
At the five minute mark the acceleration horn sounds, and the voice let's everyone know now's the time to get strapped in. At three minutes, I go on the speaker.
"This is Captain Krieger. The crew of Bainbridge is counting on us to save them, the crews of our five sisters are counting on us to honor the service. We will not let any of them down. Stand by for acceleration."
I keep the speaker open.
"Helm?"
"Go."
"Engineering?"
"Go."
"RISTA?"
"Go."
"Mr. Perez?"
"Go."
"Mr. Garcia, you are cleared to engage, one gee."
"Cleared for main engine start, one gee." There's an eagerness to her voice.
The computer starts to count down from 10, really too dramatic for my taste, but who am I to fight tradition? It gets to one.
The feeling of rockets starting on a big ship is indescribable. There's a pulsing deep inside of everything, a heavy feeling despite the movement of the ship, and vibration that's almost a sound as well, even though there is no acoustic signature. Yorktown hits one gee without even breathing hard.
"Mr. Garcia, flight plan approved as prepared, you may proceed."
"Affirmative, flight plan is go."
Ten minutes at one gee, up to two gees for another ten, then three for another ten, then start the climb to four. My buttocks reports a vibration at 3.62 gees, the instruments catch up at 3.8.
"Slow to 3.5 gees." Not the first command I wanted to give in deep space. Let's hope it's a minor problem.
"Affirmative, slowing to 3.5."
At 3.5 gees, all of us weigh something between 400 and 700 pounds, a few of the Marines more than that. Yet, I am probably about to give some of those people an order to move which would involve climbing or descending ladders.
"Engineering, status?"
"Skipper, we are diagnosing, 60 seconds please." Both our voices are heavy from talking while weighing a lot.
"Roger."
We wait, seems like hours, but is really 85 seconds.
"Captain, request two minutes at zero gees." Powell sounds almost happy, it must be a truly minor issue.
"Mr. Garcia, engines to standby."
"Affirmative, engines to standby."
And suddenly we are back to floating comfortably in our couches. That lasts for less than the two minutes.
"Captain, adjustment implemented." She's clearly happy now that she beat the 120 second estimate.
"Thank you Mr. Powell. Mr. Garcia, resume one gee."
"One gee, aye."
This time we climb back to four, no vibration, no worries. Nothing to do for 24 hours. We turn the engines back for 15 minutes every three hours (it is impossible for a human being to perform certain necessary bodily functions at four gees). Otherwise, we strap in, and wait, mostly miserable under the extra pounds. You can sleep, read, watch a movie, listen to music, play games by yourself or against your crewmates, or just be bored, whatever your pleasure.
Six hours in, we switch to Perez's shift, and eight hours later to Ayala's. I spend that time suspended in my ready room, nervously watching as I give them their first chances to sit alone in the big chair (float alone in the big couch?). Two hours before the jump, I join my shift in command.
Three hundred years ago, a Russian mathematician named Mariana Tereshkova did a remarkable geometric manipulation that described a mechanism for instantaneous movement between physical positions. The math relied on a very large gravity well and the relative masses of a large object and a small one, such as a ship. The ship had to fly toward the gravity well at an exact velocity and at a very precise angle. At just the right point, it could energize a field of gravitons which would magically transport the ship to literally anywhere. There was an effective drag coefficient involved in practice, however, which limited the jump capability to about 40 light years. By jumping from star to star, a ship could still get almost anywhere it wanted to go, but it was not easy.
Travel by Tereshkova jump was dangerous and expensive. A slight velocity or angle error and the ship burned up in the waiting sun. A computer error, and the ship ended up somewhere it did not intend, and, if it were not close enough to another gravity well, the crew was doomed to starvation long before they could make it home. No permanent bases were established outside the solar system, space belonged to the explorer, just as the oceans did 800 years ago.
Then, 100 years later, an American named Donald Cooper reworked Tereshkova's equations switching from geometry to more conventional mathematics, re-centering them on the mass of the star, not the ship. His version eliminated large planets such as Jupiter as gravity sources, but removed both the necessity of a tightly controlled flight path, and the distance limitation. The Cooper-Tereshkova Jump, or CT Jump, required only careful control of the software, and a powerful enough reactor aboard ship.
Mankind moved out into the stars. The European Space Agency went one way, establishing an initial base nearly 200 light y
ears from Earth on an Earth-like planet around a sun-like star. The Hwang Dynasty, in control of most of Asia by the mid-2100's, chose another Earth-like system about 150 light years along a far different vector. The United States took a different tack, grabbing a group of planets around brown dwarfs in a halo close to Earth, as the last mover the nearest known uninhabited Earth like world was more than 200 light years away, too far for comfort. Gradually, they spread out within their neighborhoods, settling dozens of new worlds.
Then the last war on Earth broke out. Each of the three space powers claimed that they were not responsible for starting it, each claimed that they did not initiate the ground bombardment, but between the three they turned their home, the home of mankind, into a radioactive ice ball that only now is beginning to warm. From eight billion, the human race was suddenly no more than 50 million, scattered among the stars. To this day, no clear record exists of what happened, or why.
The devastation ended the war, starting a 100 year peace of necessity as each society, the Europeans, the Dynasty, and the Union of peoples from across North and South America, fought to survive without support from mother Earth.
That was followed by 100 years of almost unending war between the three, establishing boundaries, fighting over the border systems with the most easily available resources. For the past 96 years, though, there has been peace among them, shaky, the occasional "accident," accusations of government paid privateers, but peace.
McAdams had laid out a set of probabilities for me, much more calmly than I received them. Roughly eighty percent that pirates or privateers were responsible for Bainbridge, 95 percent conditional probability of multiple ships. Fifteen percent that it was an accident or disaster on one ship that spread to the other. And five percent that we were about to jump into a third war against one or both of the other branches of man. Actually, also 0.0001 chance it was aliens. I'm not sure if they were serious, or they just put that in there to make me laugh.
We're about to find out.
"Mr. Garcia, engines to standby." You can almost feel the relief run through the ship. We do long stints at four gees all the time, but that doesn't mean you get used to them.
"Engines to standby, aye." The acceleration dies to nothing, though we are still traveling more than one percent of the speed of light.
"Engineering?"
"We're go, Skipper." Powell answers this one directly, via intercom.
"Mr. Powell, jump engines active." A pause.
"Jump engines one through four report ready." Redundancy is a good thing when you have one chance to get it right.
"Mr. Garcia, set jump coordinates."
"Coordinates set."
"Mr. Marcos?"
"Coordinates confirmed." Everyone has to agree we're headed to the right spot before we jump – at least when we're not in a combat situation. One digit wrong and we all die.
"Mr. Ayala?" Done with the juniors, I turn to the Second officer.
"Coordinates confirmed."
"Mr. Perez?" The First is last.
"Coordinates confirmed. Recommend we proceed."
"Mr. Garcia, jump authorized."
"Aye, sir, jump authorized."
I enter my authorization code into the nav computer and press enter. Green lights go on.
"One minute," Garcia lets us know what we all know, "Systems nominal."
We're jumping to a point 500,000 kilometers from the largest planetary body, an earth sized rock in too wild an orbit to be habitable above ground. McAdams has us behind the planet's orbital path and above the major plane of the system.
"Twenty seconds, jump fields up." Garcia is monitoring, the whole thing programmed into the computer, and the backup computer, and the backup backup computer, and two more, one to each drive, plus a spare. The jump field blocks all electromagnetic radiation, in or out, it makes us blind, but can also shield a ship from laser attack under the right conditions.
It goes black on all the camera screens, really a good sign. Light might mean death.
"Ten seconds.... Five.... Jump....."
It's absolutely nothing to jump. No dizzy falling through rainbows of color, no being turned inside out, just one place one second, and another before the clock ticks again.
"Jump complete."
The fields drop automatically, and everybody gets to work. I break the quiet.
"Engineering. Status?"
"Everything's still nominal, Skipper, she worked perfectly." An even happier Lt. Powell.
"Thank your crew for me. Nice job lieutenant."
I survey my board, there are four green lights from the corvettes.
"Mr. Jordan, disengage collars on Richard and Congress."
"Collars retracting." I wait a few seconds, then I ask, even though I can see it happening on the cameras and we feel the bumps as the departing ships confirm one of Newton's laws.
"Mr. Marcos?"
"Both ships report free, establishing planned formation."
"RISTA?"
"No energy sources within range. All passive sensors report negative. Possible radio transmission on distress beacon frequency bearing 024 mark 155 relative. On your screen, Skipper."
There's a three dimensional representation on my monitor, Yorktown and our two little buddies in the center, the planet nearby (Gamma Omicron 2) and other large objects on a grid, with a purple arrow from us to the radio source, if it was a radio source.
"That's from the inner planet." I state the obvious, she takes it as a question.
"Affirmative, sir, Gamma Omicron 1, our second most probable crash site, first most likely if the cause is accidental."
"Copy. Recommendations?"
"Skipper, I'd stay with the original plan until we have more data."
"Agreed."
I tap my left middle finger on the button in front of it. Nothing to do for the last 24 hours, I reprogrammed it to initiate a radio call between Yorktown and the four boats with us.
"Krieger to task force, initiate search as planned. Data link on the hour."
Richard and Congress confirm. I don't communicate with the still attached two boats who aren't going anywhere just yet. In fact, now that we've jumped, their crews are joining us on board.
"Mr. Garcia, lets roll."
"Aye, sir."
The acceleration alarm sounds again. Congress and Richard are ahead of us, moving away at multiple gees, the first toward the two outer planets, the second toward the asteroid belt. We're going to loop around the nearby planet, gather data, and use the travel time to the inner planet to analyze it.
"Three gravities in 30 seconds." We tighten up the few straps we loosened. The countdown continues, we're much more relaxed this time. Mistake.
Main engine thrust pushes us back into our couches, but sideways as well, the ship twisting away from its planned course, thruster activity off the charts, red lights flashing across all my screens.
"Engine four inoperative." Jordan's voice.
"Mr. Garcia, engines to standby."
"Engines to standby, aye."
"Stabilize the ship. Report when ready. Engineering, status?"
"Sorry Skipper, we're looking into it. Still go on three engines, no more than two gees please unless necessary."
I look over the nav display on my screen. Garcia has stabilized us, and the damage to our course doesn't look too bad.
"Mr. Garcia?"
"Ship stable on all axes. We have a new course at two gees plotted and available, sir."
I check the nav display and look at the proposed course. It will get us where we need to be, with a 50% time penalty and one required course correction half way in. Probably not what we really want to do, but for now, we need to move.
"Approved. Go on your mark."
"Affirmative, my mark. Sixty seconds to acceleration." Horns sound rather unnecessarily.
The engines kick in, with a lot less kick than before. Twenty minutes at this acceleration, then coast for 20 hours to survey the planet. Sli
ngshot with its gravity to a higher speed and onto a course toward planet number two. Hopefully repaired by then and able to add enough speed to get back on schedule.
It's an impatient 20 minutes. The second the engines go off, I give Ayala the con, grab Shelby, and we make all possible speed to engineering. The news is not good.
"We have to tear it apart and rebuild. Metal shavings probably, but we won't know until we get there. Bad parts, misaligned, something took out the primary fuel pump." Powell looks and sounds embarrassed by it all, she's going to have a nasty cut on top of her head if she doesn't stop running her very short nails across it that hard.
Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1 Page 4