I don't know if the space behind and between the air conditioning units counts as a nook or a cranny, but we're a couple feet away from a large evaporative unit when suddenly there are four of them and three of us, Yeager to my right, Turin to his, the outer most of the four bad guys trying to circle around us on both sides.
The one to my left has a knife in his right hand, and I step toward him, trying to cut off his flanking maneuver. He's twice my size, but apparently one-third my IQ and untrained, he makes his move toward me with the knife hand leading, slightly off balance.
My left hand closes on his wrist as I step inside, pulling him downward, destroying what little balance he had, then my right foot drills through his left knee, making it snap 30 degrees in an unnatural direction. He screams in pain, I silence him with a quick elbow to the face, his eyes rolling white as he collapses to the ground.
I spin to help my colleagues, hands up in a defensive position, only to find Yeager has flattened Darlington and another by himself and Turin is putting the finishing touches on the fourth. Yeager and I reposition to make sure none of them tries to get up, while Turin calls for backup.
Twenty minutes later we are trailing three Nevada police officers who are pushing the three men who can still walk into the holding area of the Strip police substation. Turin has them take the one we are interested in into Interrogation, and dump the others into the drunk tank. One of the officers asks if he can direct me, I agree because if I told him I know the way he might ask some embarrassing questions.
Turin and I get to go into the Interrogation Room, Yeager is dragged away by the cops to have a small knife wound on his arm checked out. He didn't even mention it. I recognize Darlington from his pictures, and from our short observation in the lounge, but there's something else I can't put my finger on. I'm sure whatever it is will come to me too late to do me any good.
The interview begins with Turin sitting down across from Darlington and confirming both that he had been read his rights and had waived his right to a lawyer. He seems way too comfortable for someone whose feet are chained to a chair in a police station while facing down a large UBI agent.
"You and your friends just assaulted a Naval officer and a federal agent. That's 20 years. This," he points to the screen on the wall, which is showing one of the documents we found that directed us to him, "shows you sabotaged a Union Navy warship. That's three bullets through the heart." He pauses for a second. "We can have a conversation about notifying your next of kin, or one about who's paying you. Your choice." Turin leans in for emphasis.
Darlington leans in just as hard across the metal table, looks Turin in the eye. "You got nothing, you won't be able to hold me. I got friends. You got no idea."
Turin turns his pad toward Darlington. "I've got purchase records, I've got your bank records. Won't take us long to chase the money down, and then you won't be able to deal. You can make my life easier, and save your own."
This time, the bad guy leans backwards, relaxing almost. "You might be surprised how hard that money is to trace, Mr. Agent."
There's a buzz at the door before Turin can respond. He doesn't look happy with the interruption, though I don't think he's getting anywhere with the interview. A voice from the other side on speaker asks for a word, he gets up reluctantly and walks out the door, leaving me alone with Darlington. He's looking me over like I'm his mouse. I stop leaning against the wall, stand straight, my legs spread shoulder width, hands on hips, hopefully some fire in my eyes.
"You'd be wise to deal. If the UBI doesn't take you down, the Navy will."
He actually laughs. "You have no idea what you're up against, Captain Krieger, no idea at all. And when you find out, it will be the last thing you ever find out."
I walk over to the table, put my pad down on it, and flip a couple fingers across the screen until the sound file from McAdams is under my thumb. I make sure to be looking in his eye when I play the five seconds of cat sonata in bee minor with banjo. The color leaves his face.
"I know exactly what I'm up against Mr. Darlington, and they don't scare me any more than you do. Tricky frakkers, but not invincible. Time you told us what you know from your end."
"Doesn't matter. If I tell you I'm dead, if I keep quiet I still have a chance." Then he gets that you're my mouse look back. "You don't have the chance you think you do, no matter what you know."
The door opens and Turin walks back in. "UBI transport just got in," he says to both of us and then looks at Darlington, "you and I will finish this when we're at headquarters." Two uniforms appear and start to get the prisoner ready to transport.
Yeager's there too. "Navy shuttle launch in 10, or we wait for the next orbit, sir."
"Let's roll," I squeeze Turin's arm as I move for the door, "Keep in touch."
"Will do, be safe out there."
"Thanks." And with that Yeager and I run for the Navy yard.
The boost into orbit is uneventful, Yorktown quiet when we float back over, 10 folks away gambling, 10 semi-drunk and sleeping it off, the rest getting us ready to depart. We have wheels up at 0800. Shelby makes me give her the details and tells me next time she's sending the entire Marine detachment with me. I float off and hit my rack.
There's a video message from Turin and some attached data files when I check my pad in the morning, I continue to work on drying the hair while I listen. They went through Darlington's pad and his hotel room, found what looks like a spy's coding system. There are pages of English words, the first being WATER, the last being the digits zero through seven, each next to a graphic of what looks like a 3D snowflake. Each snowflake is unique, of course, some quietly so, some dramatically. Nearly 1,600 words total. Someone went to a lot of trouble.
"He erased all his messages, but didn't clear his cache so the techs here were able to pull the last message out easily, it's attached. If we find any more once we get it to headquarters, I'll get them to you. The gentlemen who came at you with the knife is going to need a knee replacement, remind me never to get you mad at me. I'll be back on Earth when I'm done with the interrogations, be nice to see you for dinner when you get home. Turin out."
I got a dictionary and a date. It takes me 15 minutes to translate the message into:
SWORD SHIP
EXPLOSIVE
COMPUTER
JUMP
147326523
Whatever that means.
I am a little early out on the bridge to relieve Ayala, McAdams also there working at a side station with Manuel about come off duty at the main. I call her over, sending the dictionary and the message to her station. They are up on my screen when she gets to me.
"I sent this to your pad. The UBI found it on our saboteur. They thinks its code, you and I know what it really is. Take a look at it, and the message, and let me know what you think."
It's too bad I couldn't have saved this for Christmas, her eyes tell me it's the best present she's ever been given. She heads back to the side station, setting an Olympic record for the 12 foot float in the process.
I take a quick look on the nav display for the UBI shuttle, still only half way to the sun at a leisurely one gee. We may get the chance to wave at them, we'll pass within 10,000 clicks or so as we hit our respective jump points.
We back away from the gate at 0800 precisely, navigate slowly through the crowded airspace around the planet until we reach the restricted military route to the star. We're going to push two gees for 14 hours until we're close enough to jump to Gamma Omicron, slower than usual to accommodate the hangovers.
First six hours are uneventful, then I get a request from my RISTA on a closed channel. Her blue light flashes on my overhead, if we weren't at acceleration not necessary given we're three feet apart. I click her on my earphone.
"Sir, given the small vocabulary on the sheets, I programmed the computers to look not only at those words, but at known synonyms as well, and correlate with words associated with the Navy and with Yorktown."
; "And you found something?"
"Not exactly, but it correlates the highest probability of the message relating to a bomb on our jump drive."
"Us?"
"Aye, captain, sword. You."
"Katana."
"Aye."
"Mr. Garcia, engines to standby."
"Engines to standby, aye."
The lack of gravity is noticeable. The folks on the bridge who went out partying yesterday are particularly glad of the extra interruption to the external pressure on their hangovers.
"Mr. Perez, join me in engineering please. Mr. McAdams, nice work."
Shelby and I float down to engineering, me not explaining yet, an equally puzzled Lt. Powell there to greet us.
"Emily, the UBI intercepted a coded transmission to the saboteur that RISTA believes means a bomb was planted in our jump drive. How long to take a look?"
She's looking at me aghast that someone again may have messed around with her engines. "Fifteen minutes, sir, there's not a lot of room in the drive unit to hide something."
"Get to it. Commander Perez, please notify departure control that we're coasting, in case someone is coming along behind us."
"Roger that." Shelby heads back for the bridge. I wait while four sets of feet stick out from the top of various components at the far end of the engineering space. Twelve minutes.
"Clean sir, nothing there that's not supposed to be."
"Good news, lieutenant, I'll let them know not to scare us like that again."
"Thank you, Skipper." She sighs. I get myself back to the bridge.
"Nothing, sir?" It's McAdams, not used to being wrong.
"That's what probability means, Ensign, the highest probability is not always going to be right."
"Aye."
"Mr. Garcia, put us back on course, two gees."
We spend the next 10 hours watching the brown dwarf star grow larger and larger in our screens. I'm in my ready room, 15 minutes from having to go monitor the jump, catching up on paperwork as best I can under two gee deceleration when the room explodes in sound around me, horns and voices.
"Battlestations. Battlestations. All Hands. Battlestations." The electronic voice, followed by Shelby's very unnecessary. "Captain to the bridge."
The engines standby making it easier for me to get where I'm going, and everyone else to their stations as well, though we practice doing it at up to four gees. Takes me ten seconds to unstrap and get out of my ready room and on to the bridge. There's a transmission playing loudly on the speakers.
"Repeat, this is UBI transport Zimbalist. We are under attack. Unknown assailant. Coordinates...." I don't hear the rest.
"Mr. Marcos, course to intercept, maximum gee approved, roll now!" Shelby flies back to her couch and leaves me mine.
"Maximum gee warning, ten seconds," no pre-recorded voice for that, Garcia is on intercom from her side station, her second at the controls. They have had plenty of time to get the course programmed in.
Yorktown swings wildly to starboard, and then we are shoved backwards at full throttle, nine gees making it hard to think, much less breathe.
Twenty seconds is the maximum allowed at nine except in close combat, then he's got us cruising at six, still a monstrously crushing weight against our couches, then down to 4.5, maximum continuous thrust allowed if we want everyone to be conscious when we get there.
"Time to intercept?"
"Twelve minutes, skipper." The problem is we can only accelerate for half the distance if we want to be stationary when we arrive, then we have to rotate, otherwise, we overshoot and are fundamentally useless.
"RISTA, all sensors, active and passive, maximum range, find me the attacker. Mr. Jordan, all lasers hot. Open outer door on tube three, warm up the nuke."
They both respond, I don't hear. A few seconds of desperation, thinking about what else I can do.
"New target bearing 002 mark 000 relative, accelerating," it's McAdams who's at her side console like Garcia, technically off duty but up here working anyhow, "estimate 400 tons, by configuration its one of the ships from Gamma Omicron."
"Mr. Marcos, whatever acceleration it takes, run that ship down." We're in decel, it's going to take one heck of a maneuver to get there.
"Aye, sir, going to forward thrust." Yorktown goes to engine standby, pivots on full thrusters to get our nose pointed at the target, then we're back at nine gees, then six.
Bass is in our ears, his voice barely recognizable with six times normal force required to speak. "They're on jump course, 10 seconds." We aren't going to catch them, I have to watch helplessly as the ship approaches the star on my nav screen, then vanishes. My fist tries to make a hole in my arm rest, but fails.
"Mr. Marcos, Mr. Bass, find Zimbalist, get us there. Lt. Palmer, ready your away team."
Yorktown swings one more time, more calmly than it did last time, but still at combat speed, and we do a six gee accel/decel to target. There's little left, floating detritus that used to be a friend of mine.
"Mr. Perez, notify NAVCOMM locally, take the con. Don't think they'll be back, but if they show their heads, 30 megatons down their throats, no need to challenge first. Mr. McAdams, get me all possible destinations within the T jump range and probabilities when I get back. Twenty minutes tops, then we are jumping."
I get Yeager to bring my suit to the Marine hatch, and we board the ZR together with one squad of Marines and Palmer.
"Folks," I get on comm just to them, "this is not an investigation. We are looking for survivors or immediately available critical evidence. Otherwise, we're out and back. We're better served getting after the sons of bitches who did this."
We do a float through, that's everybody a set distance apart, starting at one end, and floating to the other of the main field. No survivors, though we basically knew that before we started, I couldn't leave if there was still a chance. None of them find anything useful, but I do, Darlington's pad, which was the one thing in all this mess I thought might be savable. One in a million that it survived, but there it was, I floated across the top of the field with my pad set to search for wireless signals. No evidence bag, no telling anyone else, it goes into my side pouch.
"Lt. Palmer, let's get back on board."
"Roger, sir, I'm sorry."
"Tell me what you saw." He doesn't start until we're sitting in the ZR, helmets off.
"Smaller laser, no more than 2 inchers knocked out the engines, then detonated the reactor and fuel. Nothing spectacular."
"Lieutenant, it takes precision timing to attack a ship this close to the sun and get to the jump point before somebody burns up. They had perfect intel to coordinate the attack. They used the weapons at their disposal to best possible effect. They silenced the one person who could lead us to them. I'd say they've been smart, efficient, and about as effective as you could possibly be."
"Yes sir."
"Tony, trust me when I say that you, Shelby, and I are still going to teach them a lesson no matter how efficient they think they are."
With that we feel the thunk of docking, grab our helmets, and get back inside.
I call a conference of my senior officers in my ready room.
"Where did they go?" I'm looking at McAdams.
"We assumed they would not go deeper into our occupied space, and they would not cross the border into Hwang space. That suggests Gamma Upsilon to Theta or Omicron, sir. Small probability of movement into one of the Delta systems, but hard to believe that no one would see them if they did, Skipper."
"Commander?"
"I agree. Omicron or Theta."
"Ok, our three corvettes were to meet us in Theta, let's jump to Omicron and see if we can do some hunting. Stations everyone, let's get out of here as quick as we can."
They leave me be, except for Shelby. "Sorry, Katana."
"You know the advantage of being where I am is that I am going to get to see whoever did this suffer. I know that's not the ‘right' way to feel, but they obviously don't ca
re about the human race, we don't need to care about them."
She looks at me, still maybe not believing the truth of our adversaries.
We float on out to get to work. Only change I make from normal is to get everyone into their combat suits, just in case we come into Omicron facing 240,000 tons of enemy ship. All our guns are out, missile doors closed.
Normal jump prep, jump engines go on normally, we do the required three officer check that the correct coordinates are entered, and I enter my jump authorization code.
Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1 Page 16