The triangles on the display rearrange themselves, we'll pass now outside of gun range if they do nothing. And, strangely, nothing is exactly what they do.
"Mr. McAdams, full scan please, active radar authorized." Both my butt and I are sure that something's up.
Three pings exit Yorktown, five seconds apart. A third triangle, this one red as well, pops onto the attack screen.
"Fitzgerald class ship, stationary, nose behind the planetoid. Present course puts us into it's firing solution." McAdams, confirming what I already knew.
"Courtney, tube 20, target that ship, take the missile out of our flight path and around the dark side of 067, maximum acceleration. Launch when ready."
"Aye, sir, programming." A five second pause while fingers fly. "Firing."
There's no door to open, the Javelin simply ejects on it's blast of compressed air, then rockets away at double digit gees.
The missile has no explosive warhead, relying on a 2,000 pound chunk of depleted uranium in its nose that will be moving at 150,000 kph when it hits. With F equal to m times a, that's a heck of a lot of F.
We're three minutes out when RISTA begins her countdown.
"Ten seconds. No sign of movement, no indication that they've seen anything." Courtney can't keep the excitement out of her voice whenever something's about to blow up, except when it's us, that is.
"Three. Two. One." She doesn't have to say boom, we see it, Yorktown now considerably less than a light second from the planetoid. No flash of nuclear light, an old fashioned orange, red and yellow explosion, followed by actual debris in motion. No Fitz in our way now.
"Fine work Ensign. Ready on the forward cannon."
"Aye, Skipper." There's happiness at the complement, and a note of confusion in her voice. On our present trajectory, Opportunity will be under the aft cannon, not the bow cannon, and she's coated with magic to boot.
No change of course and speed on our target, this is the first time we've fought one of these things that it didn't throw us a curve or show some sign of intelligent leadership. Maybe we've killed all the good officers? Don't know. We're about to kill the last of them.
Green triangle crossed the white line showing the course of the red triangle, Yorktown now past Opportunity's flight path and quickly passing 067. Here comes the reaction.
"Opportunity accelerating. Changing course to pursue." McAdams making sure I see it.
"Affirmative. Mr. Garcia, take us to two gees please."
"Two gees, aye." The pressure on our bodies ups by four times, though two gees is toddler speed for us lately.
"Mr. McAdams, transfer missile control to your team, your full attention on the bow cannon."
"Copy, Mr. Bass has missile controls." Good. Gave it to the most experienced person she has.
"Mr. Bass, prepare to launch tube six for circular course, flank them, then target their engines."
"Roger, sir, tube six activating."
Opportunity is trailing, now catching us at 2.9 gee.
"Mr. Garcia, go to 3.5 gee."
"Three point five, aye."
I'm not waiting for long, just want to simplify my math so I know how long we'll have. I could program it into the computer, but I've gotten used to not having any help. We reach the velocity I want.
"Mr. Garcia, engines to standby, rotate the ship to face Opportunity."
"Engines to standby, rotating." Our straps become unnecessary, then we rotate at combat speed, slamming us into them sides for a few seconds. We've accelerated to more than 100,000 kph, and we have a one minute lead over our adversary.
"Mr. McAdams, fire at will, continuous fire. Mr. Bass, standby on missile six." They both acknowledge. I want McAdams to hold their attention, Bass to blow them to hell.
McAdams wakes me up again.
"Skipper, she's rotating." I check the screen, her engines are off, she's turning her broadside to us. Now we're more than a minute apart, given the change to free fall.
"Crossing the T, Courtney, normally smart, this time not so much. Target her weapons. Continuous fire. Mr. Bass, fire."
I keep the attack computer on my left, visual on my right. Opportunity comes around slowly, way more slowly than Orion did when we fought her. The forward most cannon on her port side doesn't make it into firing position, Courtney takes it out with three shots.
We take one in the nose from her center gun, but it's still off angle and we get no damage.
"Five seconds on missile six." Bass with the countdown this time.
He gets to zero, and what was a 240,000 ton cargo ship becomes a 1,000 meter ball of white light. No cheering this time, we just think this is our job now, or maybe we're all too mentally drained to get that excited. My butt reminds me of another explanation, but I tell it to shut up for now.
"Mr. Garcia, get us in orbit around 067, two gees please, no need to hurry. Mr. Bass, prepare tubes 21 and 22, target the dome."
Two ‘ayes,' then horns, then I weigh 240 pounds, my arm much happier at the relatively calm acceleration I've been using. We only use the engines to achieve orbit, so not too much pain. We complete three orbits of the planetoid, every sensor we have, active and passive, recording the smallest detail we can. I do everything I can to establish voice communication when we're line of sight, but nobody answers. We have no landing ship. No assault ship. Our sloop and gigs could only get half the Marines to the ground, and we'd have no backup if something happened to them. I only have one choice, I exercise it as we pass the dome for the fourth time.
"Mr. Bass, tubes 20 and 21, fire."
"Aye, missiles loose."
We watch the red trails track downwards for a few seconds, 067 disappearing for a millisecond in a white cloud. It reappears as a scarred brown apple missing a large bite, and with a somewhat wobbly orbital path. If anyone was alive down there, they are gone, no matter how far into the mining tunnels they were.
I have to tell my butt to shut up again, despite the fact that I agree with its assessment.
We spend the next two days in orbit, not looking for trouble, simply doing repairs. Gomez teaches McAdams about servers, and uses our spares to replace nine defective ones in our racks. Shelby reports no error messages for the first time in a while.
We patch the boat deck and pressurize it, patch the remaining outer hull breaches, make the doors on the unfired missiles operate as they should. Get recycling and life support back to normal. Heal the injuries to the jump engines. Dr. Bonilovich gives everyone a quick scan, no brain damage he can find, except Marcos and one Marine are out of commission with concussions.
Congress, Truxton, and Decatur show up the second day, and we dock them on Yorktown, no problem with finding available collars now. Set up movie night on the Marines deck, the whole crew assembles to watch a double feature: snow-free camera footage of the Task Force killing three enemy ships, and a hit romantic comedy that came out while we were gone and Benson slipped to me quietly before we left Earth. The Marines pretended not to laugh, everyone else enjoyed it, the romantic comedy that is. We all enjoyed the first part.
The next morning I have McAdams do one last data download from the drones, then we turn Yorktown toward the sun and accelerate away from our planetoid. Twelve hours later, we are briefly enveloped in a black sphere, which fades away, leaving our screens full of gorgeous blue ocean accented by whiffs of cotton white clouds.
Chapter 22
"Armstrong Station, Yorktown, request approach and docking clearance." Shelby makes the standard radio call for clearance after jumping home, the station glimmering brightly 500 kilometers off our nose.
"Yorktown, welcome home." Again a surprisingly quick response, and a surprising direction. "Cleared to Grissom Station, track Delta, bay Alpha 7, over."
Shel gives her the read back, we detach the corvettes who head to their own docks on Shepard, followed by a brief retro thrust down to the lower orbit of track Delta to catch up with Grissom. I call ahead for a reservation.
"NA
VCOMM, Yorktown, track Delta, heading Grissom, ETA 1622 hours." The Boss answers the phone again.
"Krieger, the is Benson, welcome home. ChiNO and I will meet you, no one to disembark without my authorization. Remind your crew about the regs and the consequences of disobeying. Out."
"Copy, Admiral. Yorktown out." I hit the shipwide speakers.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Captain. First, thank you all for a mission extraordinarily well done. Second, I must remind you that we are still governed by regulation. Any discussion of our mission or your knowledge of our enemy is considered treason, and will result in the most severe penalties. Finally, initiate your shut down check lists as soon as we dock, but do not disembark without authorization from your chain of command. Krieger out."
The doors to Alpha 7 are already open when we arrive, no Marines in the giant landing bay this time, no interruptions with getting the moorings and docking collar in place. Everybody starts to work shutting systems down, I disengage myself and float down to the main hatch in the boat deck.
There's a very large, very heavily armed Marine next to the hatch when I get there, not one of ours. Then another bigger one floats in. They take positions each side of the hatch. Benson enters, then Everingham, then Marine General Cuellar, then another maybe even larger Marine. I'm wearing a two day old stained dark blue uniform with the hair not very well tied down, my left arm still in it's cast. Clearly underdressed.
I snap to attention and bring my right hand to my forehead for the first one, I bring it down when Benson returns my salute with all three officers on board. The Admiral is normally straight to business, but he looks at the cast for a second before he starts.
"Specialist First Class William Scott is under arrest." Nothing at all what I expected him to say, they have obviously been busy while we were gone. My face must have given something away because he stops there. I finish for him.
"Specialist William Scott is in a body container in the freezer on deck one, two holes in his chest courtesy of my security force." Satisfied looks from all three officers, and all three Marine guards who are supposed to be more stoic than that and probably not supposed to be listening in. Benson relaxes.
"Must be a good story. Let's get to your ready room, have your Marine commander meet us there."
"Aye, sir." I touch my collar and talk to Tony while I let the guards orchestrate the order in which the four of us without weapons move upstairs.
The lead Marine announces "Admiral on the bridge," just before he steps through, my crew in free float trying to be at attention without the motion causing them to do it upside down. Benson hits them with an "as you were" almost instantly.
Shelby is waiting with Tony at the hatch to my room, which I open, then float aside. One Marine goes first, hopefully not concerned that there is some unexpected danger sitting in my office, then the three flag officers, then the three of us. The last two Marines are going to guard the door. Something pretty crazy is going on.
Benson looks at me again.
"Condensed version of your mission now, Katana, I'll read your logs this afternoon." I guess that means I'm on.
"Sirs, we jumped to Gamma Theta, and quickly determined no Navy ships were present. We jumped to Nu, discovered wreckage which we identified as coming from Roenicke and Santa Cruz, found our corvettes disabled. No survivors from the two destroyers, five dead on the corvettes." Everingham and Benson exchange multiple looks during that one paragraph.
"We destroyed four Fitzgerald class ships and assaulted the base in Gamma Nu, Specialist Scott attempted to sabotage the ship during the battle, we survived, he did not. Then we jumped to Gamma Upsilon, where we destroyed CSS Opportunity, four smaller ships, and a base, while sustaining heavy damage ourselves."
"We repaired Yorktown sufficiently to jump home, and here we are."
Benson thinks for a second, then starts in.
"Fine work, Captain." He pauses. "While you were gone, saboteurs overloaded the reactors on Carpenter Station. The explosion killed nearly 12,000 Navy, Marines, and civilians, and obliterated Saratoga and Independence." Benson just named the third and fourth frigates which were in early stages of construction, parts of their crews already on site. Frak. Those captains were my friends.
"Our investigation identified one of the saboteurs, and his data trail led us to Scott. We were unable to send you help because the president ordered the four cruiser battle groups deployed to the Earth, Argentina, Brazil, and Canada systems, and the destroyer groups to various smaller systems. He assured us repeatedly that Admiral Bode must have things well in hand."
"We've been waiting for your return, and the president for Bode's, before an official announcement beyond ‘terrorists' went out to the public. We have released the names of the three saboteurs that we identified, including Scott, and explained a new set of heightened security measures, but nothing beyond that."
The president is up for re-election in five months. I wonder how this all is going to play out in that. I don't say my thought out loud.
"Your crew gets seven days leave each, starting as soon as you can release them. I need your logs now, report to my office at 0800 tomorrow. We've got quarters reserved for you in the VIP section on station. Yorktown has top priority for repair and re-supply. The president is meeting with his security team three days from now, Admiral Everingham will be leaving tomorrow to join them on Canada Two after we're through with you."
Great. Everybody gets to leave but me. Would have been nice to go home for a couple days and see my mom.
"The press will be all over you again, that's why we brought you directly to Grissom instead of docking you on Armstrong. I will have my team set up another interview with Ms. Langston for you in a few days. My guess is the president will want to give a speech announcing the presence of the aliens before then, and he'll expect you to convince eight billion people that they are safe."
"Me?"
"You are the only commander to beat them, not just once, but multiple times now. We may have to make you an Admiral."
"God no, sir." I didn't mean to say it, it just came out. The room explodes in laughter, everybody but me, including the Marines.
When they return to a composed state, Benson looks at Cuellar who looks at Palmer.
"Lieutenant, let's go visit with your detachment." Palmer acknowledges, and they exit.
Benson puts his pad into a spare port in my console, so does Everingham. I get the hint, attach mine, and upload all of the data, video, and logs I've got into both of theirs. FRIGCOM hands me a card key for my quarters, then they move together to the hatch.
Everingham gets the last word. "We'll see you in 15 hours." We all salute, and Shelby and I are floating alone. I don't say a word, just motion toward the hatch, and I follow her back out to the bridge.
I get back to my couch, and pad all crew their seven day leaves, plus two extra days for the folks I owe from Gamma Omicron, subject to early recall and the usual stay on comm warnings. Then I pad each department head authority to detach their people when ready.
"Shelby, Matt, you're both on leave as of right now. I'll let you know what happens with the bosses tomorrow, if they'll let me."
Matt acknowledges and heads off to his quarters. Shelby stays put. Takes me a second, but I finally realize why.
"Come on."
We float out into the passageway and open the hatch to deck two, then float up. Thirty Marines are getting a pep talk from their commandant, actually 31 because Yeager has joined them. The 32nd is still aboard Decatur. He finishes with a flourish, earns a giant OohRah. Tony tells them they have earned a week's leave, and dismisses them.
I discover warp speed actually does exist, the Marines clear the deck faster than light. Cuellar and Palmer exchange a few words and a salute, then the general floats over to me, tells me he wants to talk about how to better train his Marines to serve with the frigate fleet, and leaves. I wait where I am for Tony and Shelby to finish talking. Shel floats back over
in a couple minutes.
"Tony's only got 48 hours leave. I won't take mine, you can use my help."
I look at her.
"Permission denied. Get something at the BOQ, cohabitate for the week, relax. You and I can hit the spa a couple times while he's busy." She laughs, nods. I give her a head flick toward Palmer, she floats that way, I head back down to my now almost empty bridge.
I run the crew roster screen, there are six of us left on board, McAdams and Gomez with me on the bridge, the two up on the Marine deck, and, of course, Powell. I start with the two closest to me.
"Ladies, what are your plans for the week?" Courtney answers for both of them.
"Skipper, we've been invited to the Naval Experimental Research Division's lab on Dakota One, Orinoco's leaving in the morning." I laugh, that's exactly what I would have expected.
Yorktown: Katana Krieger #1 Page 31