“Damned right!” muttered Maureen from her holo.
“But I won’t.” Minamoto looked relieved, then puzzled. “Admiral, you’ve seen our vidrecord digitals from the Rizen and Yiplak encounters. Did you ever wonder why the Hunters of the Great Dark are so . . . so animalistic in their behavior? So territorial and predatory?”
Minamoto’s face darkened as dogma fought with recent experience. “I wondered, yes. Why? You have a theory?”
Jack nodded slowly. “Yeah, I got a theory. What if, admiral, what if natural selection at the interstellar scale selects for social predator species? What if convergent evolution means different species can evolve similar social behaviors? What if we humans have more in common with the social carnivores like lions, wolves, hyenas, killer whales, hunting dogs and jackals, and little with chimpanzees and the gorillas? What if there are more Aliens cruising the Kuiper Belt, waiting for an unarmed Human ship? And what if the whole point of Aliens camping out in the Kuiper Belt is to claim Earth and Sol system as someone’s hunting territory?” He paused, noticed that Max now held the fusion cylinder at Pinch Mode and that Maureen had aimed their mass driver launchers at the Bismarck, then continued. “Admiral, I know it’s heresy in the Unity, but we humans are not naturally peaceful, non-violent and altruistic. We’re social predators, we have two million years of pack hunting built into us, and like these Aliens we’ve met in the Kuiper Belt, humans will defend their home territory to the death—just as my Belter ancestors defended family, home and their liberties. Do you see where I’m leading?”
Admiral Hideyoshi Minamoto pursed his lips, gestured angrily at a second aide who approached, then laced his fingers together and focused intently on Jack. “Captain Munroe, I thank you for sparing the lives of my crew. That was an act of mercy. But my oath of duty has long rested with the Communitarian Unity, with Earth, and with the united future of humanity.” The man sighed regretfully. “I cannot join your crusade. But . . . neither will I judge the need for it.” Jack understood—that statement of neutrality was the most that Minamoto could say openly, before his crew. “My Drive Engineer tells me we are now pressure-tight and able to make controlled thrust for the Deimos Yards. We need repairs, sir. Are we free to depart?”
Jack glanced at his friend. “Max? You okay with this?”
The Pole ground his teeth, eyed the admiral’s stiff image, then nodded. “Yeah. Let them go. Maybe this experience will teach them not to mess with a Belter ship that has gravity-pull drive. Or any Belters who are friends of ours.”
Minamoto smiled slightly. “I am in no condition to trouble any other ship.”
Maureen waved at Jack from inside her holo. “I remember Minamoto now. At Kirkwood Gap, he treated our POWs fairly. Let him go.”
Jack nodded solemnly at their recent opponent. “Fleet Admiral Hideyoshi Minamoto, you are free to depart this vector. Please extend my greetings to Governor Aranxis and let him know that should any of my clan family experience a visit from his security forces, the Uhuru will turn its attention inward from the Kuiper Belt to unfinished business at Ceres Central. Understood?”
“Understood.” The man’s image blinked out.
“That was too close,” Max murmured. He touched the Main Drive release. “We’re departing on plasma thrust. Accelerating to twenty percent of lightspeed. Outbound for the Kuiper and Karla comet. Any particular vector, Jack?
“Yeah. One that links up with Wolverine and Badger.”
Max slapped his forehead. “Damn! Forgot all about them. Making vector, Captain.”
Maureen entered the cabin, the rank odor of stress sweat floating ahead of her. She sat down in the Combat station seat to Jack’s right, transferred weapons control with a tap on the armrest panel, and looked over at Jack with a speculative gaze. “Think we’ll run into the Rizen? I fancy a first-hand look at those lion-hippos.”
Jack smiled ruefully at her. “Maureen . . . our prime reason for heading back to the Kuiper is to salvage any useable gravity-pull drives from the Yiplak battle debris. Beyond the two drives Max, Denise and I scavenged after our battle. For other Belter ships willing to join us. Three grav-pull ships is a very small fleet.” He paused, recalling with sharp sorrow their first encounter with predatory Aliens. “And believe me, meeting the Rizen aliens ‘in the flesh’ so to say, is not a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon.”
She shrugged, then combed fingers through sweaty curls. “Whatever—you’re the Captain.” Maureen peered at her Tactical display. “The Bismarck is diverging from its track. Heading in-system, toward Mars.” She looked up, her expression now grandmother friendly. “You did good, young Jack. Ephraim would have been proud of you.”
“Thaaanks,” he mumbled, then looked down at his Navpanel before she could see his reaction. At least with grav-control, your tears don’t float around where everyone can see them. But tears were the least of Jack’s worries.
Could the jaguar, badger and wolverine work together as a Human hunting pack? In the wild, those predators usually hunted alone. Now, they must Hunt together, despite Minna’s unease over his leadership and Ignacio’s headstrong will to evict the Stranger from the Kuiper. Would it happen? It must! For just ahead in the Kuiper Belt, he, Max, Maureen and their two allies would face possible death at the hands of social carnivores who roamed the Great Dark. Roamed it the way tigers roam the forest, always on the lookout for new prey.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Five days later, Jack led the Uhuru and its allied ships into an elliptical orbit about the Kuiper object 1993 FW, site of their battle with the Yiplak aliens some four months earlier. In an image downlinked from the ship’s telescope the frozen comet, reddish like Pholus and with a diameter of 175 kilometers, turned slowly on its axis in a ‘day’ of 14 hours. A thousand klicks out orbited its companion, the tiny satellite named Mole, safely beyond the Roche Limit for any companion of FW, or Karla as Denise had called it. At an average distance of 45 AU from Sol, the illumination in this part of the Kuiper Belt depended mostly on reflected starlight, with the Sun a pale beacon that made him feel chill and lonely and far from the memory of his clan family. At least this time, on this visit to 1993 FW, they came to salvage, to scavenge, rather than to attack. He touched on the Comlink, tight-beamed a Come-Back to his fellow Captains, and waited for them to join him, Max and Maureen for a scavenger-hunt conference.
The swarthy face of Ignacio Aldecoa of the Badger was first to appear on the front screen, followed by Minna Kekkonen of the Wolverine. The Basque beat the Finn woman to the first comment. “Captain Munroe, how do we find our needle in the haystack?”
He grinned. It was an apt analogy for their job of locating ship debris from the battle with the Yiplak mini-ships and their mother ship. “Hey, Ignacio, I know our ship has the biggest Astrophysics panel, but it’s your friends from 16 Psyche who will benefit if we find one or more working grav-pull drives among the hulks. Didn’t your crew of cousins figure out how to find them on the way out?”
Minna overrode Ignacio’s sputtering with a “If I may?” then continued talking. “Munroe, Max, Maureen, and my esteemed fellow Captain Aldecoa, we on the Wolverine did study Uhuru’s battle records. The answer for where you might find ship debris is simple: the Lagrange points of this two-body system are logical starting places.”
“Great, Minna,” said Maureen from the front of the cabin, her anxiety at being in a strange place making her talk more than usual. “Now, how many such points are there and where are they?”
The Finn’s steely blue gaze warmed slightly. “In the Trojan points, first of all. Sixty degrees ahead of and sixty degrees trailing in the orbit of Mole. You know, the way 1980 S25 Calypso leads Tethys, 1980 S13 Telesto trails it, and how 1980 S6 Helene leads Dione, all in orbit about Saturn?” On screen, Ignacio seemed irritated as Minna dominated the group consultation. The man reached up and reseated his boina, or small beret, on his head. The Finn, who’d led her first Unity commerce-raiding party when Ignacio was still in m
ining school, continued. “Debris will tend to collect in those spots. Also, at a Lagrange point between Mole and 1993 FW, but pretty close to Mole’s facing side.” She paused and looked off screen, perhaps at data offered by her Astrophysics crewman Alaric. “There could also be a small libration point on the side of FW opposite from Mole. But bear in mind, the local gravitational fields of both FW and Mole are quite small, and unlikely to hold combat debris that exited at speeds beyond 150 meters per second.”
Jack felt his heart sink. That was a very, very low speed for successful capture of Yiplak ship debris. Perhaps one of the four mini-ships that had been hulled by their ball bearing blast had crashed on FW? Or maybe the nose fragment of Big Mother still orbited FW in a highly elliptical track? He waved at Ignacio. “Captain Aldecoa, your ship has the better radar of our group. Would you care to lead the sweep of these localities?”
The Basque looked mollified at being chosen as lead ship. “We will! You honor Euskal Herria by your choice—we will not fail you.”
“I’m sure you won’t,” Jack said dryly.
Aldecoa’s image blinked off the front screen. That of Minna stayed on, her expression Nordic-distant and a bit aloof. Ten years his senior, the woman gave Jack the impression she chaffed at his command of their group. He nodded politely. “Minna? Something else?”
She looked from him to silent Max to watchful Maureen, then back to Jack. “Munroe, you realize the implications of the use by Bismarck of nuke torps against you?”
A sinking feeling tugged at Jack. He’d been trying to not think of what that meant, looking forward instead to their current task of finding Alien ship debris, searching it with crew in EVA suits, salvaging the tubes-and-globe assemblage of any gravity-pull drive still in one piece, getting the new drive back to 253 Mathilde and later integrating it with a new ship’s Autonomous computer using the Control software so laboriously developed by Max. It was a tall order under any circumstances. Doing it when, at any time, they could be attacked without warning by a Hunter of the Great Dark made for gray hairs, an unsettled stomach, and a need for intense focus on the job at hand. “Yeah, Minna, I wondered about how quickly the Unity abandoned one of their prime principles. Your view?”
The petite Finn woman frowned. “The Unity has decided if they can’t recover the Uhuru’s gravity-pull drive, then no one else will either. You’re more than an outlaw, Munroe. You’re fusion bait. Any ship with grav-pull is bait. Including me and Ignacio.”
“You got that right!” Max grunted. His friend looked at him, open worry showing on his face. “Jack, let Badger and Wolverine comb the debris fields. We should stay on Combat Alert, ready for either the Unity or a Great Dark Hunter. Yes?”
Minna and Max both made too much sense, and Maureen no doubt agreed. “Yes. Shift our orbit into a high polar one above 1993 FW—but use only maneuvering thrusters. I don’t want to advertise our presence to anyone hanging around and listening for stray gravity wave pulses.”
Max suddenly snapped his fingers. “Hey, Minna! I just realized how you can narrow your search focus.” The Pole’s excitement over solving an engineering puzzle made darker his rad-tanned face. “Set your gravitomagnetic sensors to a low G-Band sensitivity. If any ship debris still carries a working gravity-pull drive, it will be giving off a ‘local frame’ gravity distortion equal to what exists on our three ships under internal gravity. There won’t be any gravitational lensing of the starfield, but the shape of local space will be slightly impinged.” Maureen clapped admiringly. “I’m sending you and Ignacio the sensor reset parameters now,” Max said, sounding calmer. “Good hunting!”
Minna nodded formally, said “Thank you,” and then vanished from the front screen. The reddish image of 1993 FW Karla reappeared before Jack, as did the tiny pink dot of Mole, thanks to the scope’s auto-tracking. To one side, the screen showed NavTrack vector traceries, radiowave emissions from distant Jupiter, UV and IR emission sources that ought to be stray debris from the battle five months ago, and the distant IR point-glow of other Kuiper Belt objects. They reminded him that Luu and Jewitt, the discoverers of the Kuiper, had estimated the Belt contained at least 35,000 objects larger than 100 kilometers and up to ten billion proto-comets of much smaller size. A lot of places to seek the Hunters of the Great Dark, and plenty of places in which to hide. Jack gestured to Max. “Drive Engineer, please move us into sentry orbit.”
Max nodded, looking happy with the challenge of doing orbital mechanics the old-fashioned way. “Vectoring. Our new polar track will regularize within twelve orbits of FW.”
“Thanks, Max.” Jack glanced aside at Maureen, who still kept her short curls a lustrous black despite her age. It had been his comment on the apparent tinting of her hair that had brought the hand slap, months ago when she’d showed up and volunteered to “Hunt Aliens, eat a good steak, and smoke a cigar” with him and Max. That had been their recruiting mnemonic among the old-line Belter families, and if there was anyone they could trust, it was Grandmother Maureen.
Noticing his inspection, she lifted one eyebrow and smiled agreeably at him. “Yes, young man? That’s a look I don’t often see these days.”
He blushed, but not from middle-age angst. Jack wanted to please Maureen, and through her please the memory of his Grandpa Ephraim, the man who’d kamikaze’d at Kirkwood Gap. He gestured nonchalantly at her. “Nothing racy, Combat Commander. Just a wonderment—if you were a Hunter of the Great Dark, how often would you visit the larger Kuiper objects . . . on the prowl for prey? And would you leave behind a trip-wire sensor?”
Max sat back in his seat as the vector change began, looking interested in the question. Jack waited for Maureen. Who now tilted her head to one side, the way a sparrow does when waiting for a worm to appear from its hole. “Good question. If there’s one thing that Sun Tzu, Georgie Patton and Stanislaw Sosabowski ever agreed on, it was—always anticipate your opponent, never grow complacent.” To the right rear, Max smiled warmly at Maureen’s historical reference to the general who’d commanded Poland’s 6th Assault and Attack Brigade in WWII. Their Historian smiled back, then eyed Jack. “Yes, I would leave behind a sensor, but one that is mostly passive in operation. As for prowling after prey, I’d do it the way wolves do it—always hunt in a pack, continually move from place to place in your hunting range, and always know the habits of your prey-meat.”
“But Maureen,” he said, his fingers tapping his Tech panel to bring an IAU illustration of the Kuiper Belt to the front screen, “the Rizen and the Yiplak seem to be solo predators, not pack predators. To me, they more resemble intelligent tigers, grizzly bears and Nile crocodiles, all of which hunt their prey in solo mode. Otherwise, we would see clusters of ships from multiple Alien species, working together as pack hunters like killer whales, wolves and hyenas. But we don’t. It seems the Hunters of the Great Dark do it one prey per species, with other Aliens seeking prey in other parts of the Kuiper Belt.
“But Maureen’s point means,” Max said thoughtfully, “these Alien predators have been monitoring our broadcasts to Earth and Mars, and are probably aware of our encounter with the Bismarck. Right?”
“Right,” Maureen said softly, then reached forward to touch ON her Weapons status screen. “If it were up to me, I’d attack us now. While our tiny fleet is dispersed. But the Kuiper is big—we may get this done before new tigers show up.”
May. She’d said may. Jack felt an adrenaline flush and the sudden pumping of his heart. “I don’t like being the Hunted. Do you, Maureen?”
“Nope.” She smiled, but it was a wintry smile cold as the carbon dioxide snow atop Mons Olympus. “But we’re stuck here. For now. And you were right to maneuver us on chemfuel thrusters. The smaller the spore we leave behind, the harder it is for a tiger to find you.”
Her talk of tigers reminded Jack that Minna possessed the only Ethologist among the three ships, their former crewmate Denise Rauvin. Denise understood Behavioral Ecology and the habits of social carnivores, though Max
had made an intense study of it at Charon Base and later at 253 Mathilde. The Uhuru stood ready for a new First Contact. Still, the mind-image of Alien tigers roaming the Great Dark beyond Pluto unsettled him. Had they picked up the scent of Humans? He gestured thanks at Maureen. “Good advice, Combat Commander.” He looked ahead, facing the front screen and its red-line traceries of the Badger and Wolverine as their allies headed for likely debris fields. “Max, please keep the fusion cylinder on Hot backup. I want the option of a Plasma Pinwheel ready and waiting.”
“Will do,” said the man who’d watched helplessly as the Rizen aliens tore his lover Monique into red-spurting chunks of raw meat. “This time, there will be no wishful thinking. Like allowing the Nazis to control Danzig last century.”
Maureen looked over at Jack, her gray eyes thoughtful. “Speaking of which, my Captain, when are you going to slap down Minna the Cow? She calls you by your last name and everyone else by their first name. And she rarely addresses you by your title of Captain. A hunting pack can have only one leader.”
He damn well knew Maureen was right. He had avoided confrontation during their flight out from Pholus. But he knew he had to confront the Finn before any new Aliens showed up to challenge the Human ships for Sol territorial rights.
“I’ll take our Lander over to her ship later today, after she reaches her first debris field. When I leave, either she accepts me as pack leader, or the Wolverine will have a new Captain.”
Maureen nodded abruptly. “Good. Better to sort this out now, rather than later when we’re fighting for our lives.”
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