Escape 2: Fight the Aliens

by T. Jackson King

  The stocky man leaned forward, his vacsuit sliding over his broad chest. The man tapped his Liaison control pillar. “Captains Baraka and Leonard, launch half of your remaining rockets against these Collector ships after our warhead barrage detonates!”

  “Admiral!” called Baraka. “Do we launch our last Trident?”

  “No, hold that for later,” the CNO said quickly.

  Bill heard and appreciated what Jane and the CNO were doing. But his attention was elsewhere. The system graphic holo showed three clusters of yellow dots converging on the six starships. Those were the MITV warheads launched on a polar arc by Blue Sky and the Trident warheads launched on equatorial vectors by Louisiana. The Minnesota’s Standard 2 warheads showed in the graphic coming up from the South Pole, but they would arrive five minutes after the first three clusters came within laser range of the starships. Which was now. His true space holo of the Collector ships showed green flares popping up like popcorn all around the curve of Earth as the Aliens fired lasers at the incoming warheads. That would not do. The point of launching 300 warheads at once was to overwhelm the defensive fire of the Collectors.

  “Captain, those 24 lasers of the Collectors are taking out warheads faster than I expected. Your orders?”

  Jane grimaced. “Have the closest warheads go to detonation. Those are our MITV thermonukes and the nearer sub nukes. They will create a cloud of fusion plasma that will disrupt later laser fire.”

  Bill tapped his pillar’s Fire Control surface. “Detonating closest warheads. Which makes for a hundred thermonuke blasts. The x-ray laser warhead cluster is following behind,” Bill said.

  “Good. Advise me of the results,” she said.

  A new sun took shape above and to either side of the six Collector ships as the fusion plasma fireballs of the hydrogen thermonuclear warheads detonated in airless space. Whatever the kiloton or megaton level of each warhead, they produced spheres of infrared light, visible yellow light and golden plasma fireballs, all while spreading high-energy neutrons, gamma rays, neutrinos and medium-hard x-rays in a shell of radiation. Sadly, the inverse-square law that Bill had learned about months ago from Bright Sparkle now limited the strength of those rads. While all the warheads were within 4,000 miles of the enemy ships, none were close by like the one that had nearly hit the hull of the tail-end Charlie ship. A few green flares showed here and there as gaps opened in the plasma gas cloud that lay between the ships and the oncoming warheads. Bill felt encouragement. Then dismay as his system graphic reported bad news.

  “Captain, our spysat reports all six ships have fired their antimatter projectors at the incoming warheads.”

  “Crap!” she said, her expression in the comlink holo showing frustration. “But the antimatter comes in coherent beams. Plenty of room for misses. So some warheads will not be vaporized, right?”

  “You are correct,” the ship AI hummed from the ceiling. “However, the plasma cloud from the multiple detonations is no barrier to antimatter beams. Any solid object within 4,000 miles of a Collector ship that is hit will undergo total matter-to-energy conversion. That will create many tiny stars.”

  “Captain,” Bill called. “My fire control is counting the number of destroyed warheads. We lost 47 to the first round of laser counterfire, then a hundred in the simultaneous detonation. Which leaves about 150 warheads still intact and incoming, including the x-ray laser warheads and the Standard 2 warheads coming up from the South Pole. The Standards have crossed over the equator and are now within targeting range of the Collector ships.”

  “Captain Jane,” called Lofty Flyer from Navigation. “This ship and allied ships are now above Earth’s North Pole. Shortly our ships will be in direct line of sight of the Collector ships.”

  Bill could see that from his system graphic holo. With Earth’s circumference being 24,900 miles, the great circle distance from the north to south poles would be half that, or a little over 12,000 miles. Their distance from the North Pole to the equator was now 6,000 miles. The Collector ships lay at 20 degrees north of the equator, which put them closer to his fleet. Fortunately the planet’s curve kept them out of direct line of sight, and laser fire, for the moment. But in two minutes or less they would all be within line of sight targeting by Alien lasers. Which had now resumed laser zapping the incoming warheads. His fire control counter said nine had just died.

  “Captain, I’m detonating the remaining warheads to add to the rad impact on Collector ship sensors,” Bill said, touching his Weapons control pillar.

  A new golden cloud now appeared on all sides of the Collector ships as 123 warheads detonated. But the detonation had occurred 3,000 miles away from Alien ships, so the only impact would be sleets of radiation.

  “Are the x-ray laser warheads still intact?” Jane called.

  “They are. They’re at the back of the western grouping,” Bill said. “Uh, the Standards are now within laser zap range.”

  “Use those laser warheads now! Before they can be killed,” Jane ordered.

  “X-ray laser warheads now detonating,” Bill said.

  Twelve tiny suns appeared to one side of the fading plasma cloud that had been formed by the second barrage of standard thermonukes. While x-rays are always invisible to human eyes, the Blue Sky had sensors able to track them. On the true space holo he and everyone else now saw twelve golden lines appear suddenly. All hit the tail-end Charlie Collector ship. They hit like a shotgun blast.

  “Captain,” called Sky Traveler from the ceiling speaker. “The ship mind on the x-ray target ship reports the intensity of penetrating x-rays ranged from lethal with 15 minutes to disabling within an hour. It projects total disabling of ship crew by the time this ship’s boarding pod arrives.”

  “Excellent news,” Jane said, leaning forward as their fleet of five ships crossed over the Bering Strait. “What about the other five ships? Any word from those ship minds?”

  “Yes,” the AI hummed low. “They report brief disabling of targeting sensors due to external radiation impacts. Three ships are temporarily sensor blind until their AI replaces their multi-spectral sensors. Which is their emergency programming obligation. Two ships retain full sensor function, though the plasma cloud created by the second wave of detonations is interfering with all ships’ ability to make target lock-on.”

  “That means we need to attack now!” Jane growled. “All ships, spread out into Scenario Orion! Fire at will!”

  “We’re flipping tail to nose!” Bill said as he tapped his nose lasers Fire Control, aiming at the two ships with still functional sensors. Two bright green lasers zipped across 2,723 miles to hit glancing blows on the two functional Collector ships.

  “Ship is in spiral advance mode!” called Lofty Flyer.

  As he tapped the Blue Sky’s rear lasers to fire, Bill watched the system graphic. On it his ship, the two subs and the two transports were moving sideways and around in a braided spiral vector track that made maximum use of the Magfield engines on each ship. Those engines allowed any ship to jink up, down, sideways, even backward briefly, as all advanced on the string of six Collector ships.

  Which now fired back using their own lasers.

  Star bright green beams passed to one side of the Blue Sky, barely missed the transport Tall Trees, missed Talking Skin and the Minnesota, but hit the rear of the Louisiana.

  “We’re hit!” called Baraka over the neutrino comlink.

  “Where? How bad?” asked Richardson as Bill fired the nose and tail lasers of the Blue Sky as if he were tapping out a Ragtime melody on an old-style piano keyboard.

  “Lost our tail and screw aft of the main ballast tanks and the hull above auxiliary machinery room two is venting air to space,” Baraka said hurriedly. “Internal hatches closed! We have air in most of the ship. People injuries are two from the machinery room. May be fatal if their suits were breached.”

  “Are you able to fight?” Richardson called.

  “Yes!” Baraka yelled. “Launching three Harp
oons through our forward torpedo tubes.”

  “Captain Baraka,” called Jane quickly. “Take your ship out of this engagement now! Move to the L4 spot ahead of the Moon. You have little to fight with and I want your people alive to fight another day!”

  “Is that a direct order?” Baraka said, sounding reluctant.

  “It is! Carry out my order,” Jane said testily.

  “Leaving orbit for L4,” Baraka said. “Will advise of repairs status and injuries later.”

  Bill tapped his Fire Control panel for the fourth time, sending a new grouping of green laser beams at the two nearest Collector ships. Which were also jinking sideways while counter-firing their lasers at the four remaining ships in his fleet.

  Ten bright green laser beams shot through their formation as five of the six Collector ships concentrated on their fleet.

  “Impact on hull above Waste Recycling Chamber!” called Star Traveler. “Our hull is intact but adaptive optics are dead in that area.”

  Bill blinked, hoping against hope that he could make a direct hit on one of the Collector ships. There was no way he or Jane would use the ship’s antimatter projector to kill one or more Collector ships. Not with the chance their sneak attack with pod boarding teams might work. But any damage they could do now would divert Alien crews from fighting the spec ops boarders.

  “Minnesota is hit!” called Leonard.

  “Specify!” yelled Richardson.

  “Our bow dome sonar sphere is gone!” the Anglo captain said. “Our topside maneuvering room is breached to space. We lost three operators who were sucked out when the air left through the breach. Equipment is still operational. I’m sending in repair teams with new operators.”

  “Richardson,” called Jane, her tone command hard. “Get that sub out of this fight! You only have one Standard missile left and a half dozen Harpoons and ASROCs. I want them intact in case we have to play defense later on!”

  “Captain Leonard, remove your ship from this battle. Take it to L4 and await further orders,” Richardson said, his tone that of a carrier captain intent on preserving people and war-fighting capabilities.

  “Moving out of orbit,” Leonard said. “Will advise later of repairs and losses.”

  “Yes!” Bill yelled as his Weapons holo showed his tail lasers had scored direct hits on two of the Collector ships just as green laser beams from Talking Skin and Tall Trees hit the same ships. “Ship mind, ask the AIs on those two ships about the damage they just took!”

  Bill watched as their three ships closed to within 900 miles of the six Collector ships, one of which was not moving in orbit or firing any weapon. The other five ships were jinking forward and sideways to minimize the direct hit chances from the Earth side laser fire, but none of them showed the fleet cohesion of the Scenario Orion formation.

  “Ship minds report hull breaches in both ships,” the AI hummed. “No loss of crew life, but the Transport Exit Chamber of one ship is badly damaged, while the nose lasers of the other ship are gone.”

  “Yes!” Bill felt elation at the news even as he kept firing at the three other Collector ships. His Weapons holo showed glancing hits on two of them, with silver sparkles in the true space holo indicating some hull damage. That left one Collector ship with no laser damage from—

  “Time to break off this attack!” Jane yelled. “Transports, leave orbit now! Adopt spiraling exit track until out of laser range. Navigator Lofty Flyer, take us up and out in the same mode, but keep us between the transports and the enemy below.”

  “Leaving orbit!” the brown squirrel lady chittered.

  Their three ships rose suddenly even as green laser beams chased after them. Bill fired back, hoping for a strike on the fifth Collector. A bright sparkle suggested minor damage near that ship’s tail. He stopped as the fleet reached middle Earth orbit level.

  “Captain!” called Star Traveler. “Incoming call from Diligent Taskmaster!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The giant cockroach filled most of the comlink holo on Bill’s right. While it wore no clothes there were leather straps hanging from its curving shoulders in a criss-cross fashion, while his lower arm pair tapped on two control pillars that were in front of him. As before, four of his Alien crew worked at similar pillars in the rear of his ship’s Command Bridge. Ignoring the other ship’s different layout, Bill wondered why the hell they were getting a call now.

  “Human primitive Jane Yamaguchi, your disabling of the crew and captain of ship Dark Cloud changes our relationship,” the critter rasped harshly. “Any further use of such x-ray lasers against any Collector ship will result in antimatter bombardment of large Human population centers!”

  One corner of the comlink holo showed Jane as she sat atop the command pedestal in the center of their bridge deck. While her vacsuit included air cooling, the stress of the last few minutes had had an effect. Sweat showed on her pale forehead and short lengths of her carbon black hair had come loose from her ponytail clasp. Her reaction to the cockroach’s threat was fury.

  “Bastard! Offspring of a diseased egg clutch! Are you so afraid of our spaceships that you must now attack unarmed people?” she yelled.

  Bill liked her Alien version of profanity. He made a vow to share the holo of this encounter with his saloon buddies once this battle was all over. The leader of the attack on Earth blinked black compound eyes.

  “We do not fear a single Collector ship crewed by primitives,” it rasped, sounding like a file against metal. “But the x-ray laser is a weapon not included in our Library datafile on Human military technology. We allow your ships to escape. We concentrate now on collecting Humans for our containment cells. Anyone who fires on a collector pod or on our ships will be destroyed by our lasers!”

  To Bill’s left he saw Richardson give a head shake to Jane as she looked his way, her manner clearly asking whether the two retreating subs contained any more x-ray laser warheads. His No answer understood, she looked to the holo of Diligent Taskmaster.

  “Giant insect who pretends to be a fighter, our forces will not again use x-ray lasers against your ships,” she said, her face muscles clenching. “But humanity will fight your attempt to capture any human! Be prepared for great losses of your collector pods!”

  “New pods can be built by our Factory Chamber, as you surely know,” the Alien rasped in a low tone. His upper arm pair spread wide. “Any future attacks on our ships will result in antimatter destruction of your primitive Human craft. Your ship is damaged. So are two of the four smaller craft you call allies. I will allow you to keep your Collector ship, since there will be no Human space launch site left functioning after we leave with hundreds of Humans!”

  Jane made a foul gesture at him. “Crèche Master Diligent Taskmaster, can you not count? This ship has only 20 containment cells. There are at most 120 containment cells on your six ships. You do not have confinement room for hundreds of Humans!”

  The creature’s two brown antennae leaned forward. “We do if we store three Humans per cell. It is only a two day journey back to HD 128311. Our captives will survive that long. And our Market world merchants will welcome such a flood of primitives!”

  Jane changed her manner from angry Mom to commander formal. “I am pleased to hear you endorse prisoner crowding. We will so crowd you and your fellow Collector crews in that dome on Mars I spoke of earlier. We will see if any primitive Alien is willing to be a cannibal.”

  The giant cockroach’s mouth palps clacked together loudly. “Primitive! Stay away from us and live. We move now to take captives and to destroy your space launch sites!”

  The Alien’s image vanished from the comlink holo.

  Bill acted. “Star Traveler! Can you tell which Collector ship that neutrino signal came from? I want to know which ship contains that bastard!”

  “I can,” the AI hummed quickly. “I’ve marked the ship carrying Diligent Taskmaster with a brown icon to one side of its purple dot on the system graphic.”

  “C
aptain Yamaguchi,” called Lofty Flyer as her long brown tail whipped from side to side. “My Navigation sensors and the spysats report the enemy fleet is ejecting dozens of collector pods. Pods are even exiting from the ship Dark Cloud.” The flying squirrel who had taught flight dynamics and flying on her home world scanned the holos in front of her. She tapped her control pillar with a claw-finger. “The Collector ships are separating! Three are heading west toward your provinces of Japan and China. Two are heading east toward your provinces of British Columbia and California. The dead ship Dark Cloud is not moving.”

  “Captain!” called Richardson, his tone excited. “Peterson has just told me they are launching Standard 2 missiles against the descending collector pods. The missiles come from the Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Port Royal and the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer USS Zumwalt, both based in Pearl Harbor. Uh, there’s also been an ASAT missile launch from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Hawaii. It’s known as Barking Sands. The Navy has used it to test Aegis BMD and the Army’s THAD.”

  Bill licked his lips. “Vice admiral, I do hope the Port Royal and the Zumwalt are stealthy. Otherwise, they’re gonna be dead ducks very soon.”

  The man to his left looked his way, his expression tense but determined. “The Zumwalt is very stealthy by its design. The Port Royal not so much.”

  “Got my fingers crossed,” Bill said he watched the spysats image of the central Pacific and the Hawaiian islands.

  “Well, both ships use the AN/SPY-1 phased array radar for targeting. Their Standards, Harpoons and Evolved Sea Sparrows should take out the pods they are aimed at,” Richardson said, his tone hopeful.

  “Star Traveler,” called Jane from behind Bill. “Link me into that Peterson signal. Tell them I want to talk to General Poindexter.”

  “Linking in. Message sent. Reply incoming,” the AI hummed as it spoke in laconic mode.

  Poindexter’s black face and upper body mostly filled the comlink holo to Bill’s right. As it did the comlink holos before Jane, Richardson and his crewmates. He liked that Jane’s policy was to share all outside communications with everyone on the crew. After all, the five Aliens had volunteered to serve as crew when they could have chosen a return to their home world, like a dozen other captive Aliens had done. The JCS chief fixed on her display image of Jane.