“Serious stuff,” Cassie said as she pulled at the rainbow-colored neck scarf she had brought with her from Ceres Central. It matched the colors of her hazel eyes. She glanced around the eleven people gathered at the table, looked up at the blaring audio speaker that pumped out hundred year-old Country and Western tunes, then held up her right index finger. “First, Fleet Admiral Minamoto was forcibly retired. To a Mars fleet retirement dome. Officially due to the damage suffered by the Bismarck, but actually due to the public awareness of his use of thermonuke torps against your ship.” She lifted a slim black eyebrow. “Course you had nothing to do with that data getting out, right?”
He shrugged. “Go on. There’s more?”
“Much more.” Cassie’s tone had sharpened to one of high anxiety. She raised a second finger. “Two, he’s been replaced by some Russian from Murmansk. From an old naval family there. And the covert orders from the Unity are still the same—to nuke you and any other ship with a grav-pull drive.”
Jack folded his hands together atop the table, leaving his shot glass of bourbon untouched. Others at the table turned equally serious. “Not good. Cassie, any chance of gaining a laserfax copy of the Unity order that says the Unity Space Force is to nuke us? Would love to spread that among the Chinese and Brazilians.”
She shook her head, blue-black curls flying easily in the low gee. “Doesn’t exist. Howard told me the order is given verbally to each admiral, by way of a secure laser-link from the Geneva office of Dictat Maathias. Nothing on the ship NavTrack computer, ship Library, net-posted ship orders, nothing. And as you saw with Minamoto, the only time the rest of the crew finds out about it is when he gives the order to launch torpedoes.”
Jack looked at each of his six ship captains. “Allies, we have our own thermonuke torps. From a Rebellion stash my Grandpa told me about. So we can defend ourselves that way. If necessary.”
Minna leaned forward, looking first to Cassie then to him. “Captain Jack, how many torps will we acquire? How soon? And what are your orders for using them?”
Elaine and Denise, who’d recently signed on as the newest members of Uhuru’s crew, also looked intensely curious. Max and Maureen, of course, knew all about his plans. “Four per ship. You can use your spysat launchers. They’ll fit. We get them just after we depart Mathilde. At an asteroid you’ll know about when we get there. And our use of them will be up to each ship captain . . . though my personal policy is to use them only when an Alien ship is about to capture one of our ships, or a Unity Space Force ship is about to nuke us.”
Elaine, at 30 years an experienced Hopper and cargo ship pilot, rested her narrow chin on her left fist and stared at him. “Brother of mine, it seems you do know how to keep secrets. That’s twenty-eight thermonuke torps which were supposed to be surrendered when the Rebellion ended in 2076. Are there more to be had? I’m sure Mathilde’s Citizen Council would like to have a few in case this giant dump is ever discovered by the Unity.”
Jack unfolded his hands, lifted his bourbon with his right, sipped it and fixed an unwavering gaze on his tough, slim and tall sister. The woman who had chosen, on her own, to volunteer as the new Pilot and Medoc for the Uhuru. Even after seeing all the vidrecords of their encounters with Aliens and with the Bismarck. She was the essence of family loyalty. “Yes, there are more torps. Grandpa trusted me with the deep space locations of two more stockpiles. They’re known only to me . . . and to Dad. In case I perish out there, he can act to protect our home. This place that’s home to everyone else.”
Elaine blinked quickly. No wetness showed in her amber eyes. But he knew that he’d surprised her with the news that their father, an easy-going prospector who never yelled at them nor got into a drunken fight with other prospectors, that father had the key to the deadliest weapons yet developed by humanity. “Thank you, my brother.” She looked aside to her sister, who seemed equally shocked by Jack’s revelations. “Cassie? Any more fingers to raise?”
“Uh . . . yes.” Cassie scanned the crowd of men and women who had chosen to join Jack’s crusade to protect humanity from social predator Aliens who aimed to claim Sol system as their new Hunt territory. She raised a third finger. “There is a laserfax order that instructs every Unity ship captain to detain any person known to have had contact with these Aliens. That includes most of us here. And your crew folks too.”
“Geldi!” yelled Ignacio, his black mustache quivering with anger. “This must stop! The Unity does not rule every human. Not me. Not my cousins on Badger. Jack, when do we attack Geneva and get rid of these pigs masquerading as humans?”
He’d been expecting the man to blow as the bad news about the Unity accumulated. “My ally, zure laguntza behar dut.”
Ignacio blinked, pushed back his boina from his thinning hair, and nodded. “You have my help. Have had it. Will always have it. For you are a man of honor.”
“Thank you.” Jack looked around the table, including Akemi, Júlia, Aashman and Kasun in particular. “My allies, our first priority must be to drive these Aliens out of Sol system. Including both the Kuiper Belt and even distant planetoids like this Sedna place. Once that is done, and we know more about this interstellar predator culture, then we will turn our attention inward. A second Belter Rebellion will happen! And the Unity Space Force will either join us, avoid us, or die! Agreed?”
“D’accord,” said Denise, her youthful look uncertain..
“Hai,” spoke Akemi, her pale oval face intensely serious.
“Bai,” muttered Ignacio, his expression deadly firm.
“Kyllä,” said Minna in a sing-song voice.
“Ótimo!” yelled Júlia in slangy Portugese.
“Haan,” whispered Aashman, his look thoughtful.
“Ow,” firmly spoke Kasun.
“Není,” said Nikola softly, sharing with him a Czech word he always loved to hear her say.
“Damn it, of course I agree,” Max said as he lifted a local Mathilde beer.
“Brother, yes from me too,” said Elaine, her eyes now wet.
“Yes, endlessly yes,” said Cassie as she sat back in her plastic chair, crossed arms over her gut, and looked around like a cat ready to pounce. “Time to eat, yes?”
“Yes!” Ignacio said loudly. “Gizon honek guztia ordainduko du!”
Jack grinned at the man. “You’ll pay for everything? Sorry. But the topsuck captain always pays. Right folks?”
Everyone laughed, even super serious Aashman.
Jack sat back, feeling relieved. His allies and his crew were smart, tough, independent thinking people. Getting them to act together, as a fleet of deadly predator ships, was vital to their future survival in the Kuiper and beyond. They would practice fleet maneuvers after picking up the thermonuke torps at 21 Lutetia. And on the way out to Sedna, they would travel slightly out of the ecliptic to avoid running into Unity ships. After all, the Scattered Disk Objects that Nikola had found for him orbited Sol at angles small to large from the ecliptic. Anyway, the one fact about the Aliens that held true was that none of them had appeared inside of Pluto’s semi-major orbit, or inside 40 AU. Beyond that . . . well, they were out there. And he was going to find them, defeat them, steal their tech and then tough-guy walk into whatever hangout place existed on this Sedna planetoid. Armed to the teeth.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jack sat in his cushioned Tech station chair in the front row of seats in the rearmed and refitted Uhuru, liking the feel of the four crew folks who filled its roomy Pilot cabin with him. Outbound for the Kuiper they were, but regular watches by live people were a rule he had borrowed from the combat tales of his grandpa, before the man died when he was twelve. To his right sat Maureen at her Combat station, fully strapped in despite the luxury of one gee internal gravity maintained by their grav-pull drive. Beyond the Belfast granny sat his sister Elaine, their new Pilot, whose gaze was fixed on the front screen that showed soot-black space relieved only by the rainbow sparkle of distant stars. Her hands, though, were busy
as they danced over her NavTrack touchpanel, feeding in the vectors of their fleet allies for possible future vector changes. Behind Elaine sat stocky, rad-tanned Max, his gray eyes uplifted to the readouts showing from the Main Drive control module that had lowered from the ceiling. To Max’s left, and just behind Jack’s right shoulder, sat the youngest crew person. Denise the impulsive redhead had jumped back to their ship after one tour aboard Minna’s ship Wolverine. She had not shared her reason, nor had Minna said anything to Jack as the topsuck captain of their seven ship fleet. Imperturbable Minna the Finn never showed any discomfort, worry or unease. Course she had years as a commerce raider of Unity shipping under her wide leather belt. A raider’s life was either very short, or longer and profitable. Denise looked up from her Comlink lap panel, catching his look.
“Jack? Something on your mind?”
“Yeah.” He gestured at the front screen. “The Aliens. Out there. You’re the Animal Ethologist here. Got any ideas on why they are behaving the way they are?”
Denise’s green eyes blinked, then held steady under his gaze. “You mean why, beyond the obvious efforts to claim Sol system as part of their home territory?”
Maureen waved a hand over her lap panel, shutting down a combat simulation that she had been playing with. The woman looked back over her shoulder at Denise, her expression intense. “Add me to that query list.”
“Me too,” said Elaine, her gaze swinging from the front screen to Maureen and backward to Denise. Who blushed at the attention being paid to her.
“Hey Max! Help!”
Their Drive Engineer gave their 19 year-old a bemused look, his rad-tanned face crinkling. “Young stowaway who likes our cigars too much, help yourself!”
Denise, strapped in to her station seat like everyone else, gave a shrug, which made her wool leotard jiggle nicely. “Well, Jack, you and Max have done a lot of study on natural selection, evolutionary biology and such. Including human culture variation, right Jack?”
He leaned his chin on his uplifted right fist and stared at her, wondering if he could increase her blush. “Yup. We have. I have. So?”
The red freckles on her pale white face got notably darker. But her green gaze turned tough, as if she knew what he and Max were doing. What the other older folks were doing. Being smart, she understood how boring space travel was and how they all needed some entertainment after a week in space, the last few days spent streaking along at twenty percent of lightspeed. Still, they had not yet reached the 40 AU limit where Jack would start to worry about Alien predators. And Denise was not going to complain about being selected as the generational entertainment.
“Behavioral ecology says there is a reason for every action and every behavior shown by any animal,” she said calmly. “Which is what humans and these Aliens are. Jack, you keyed into that when you used the Rizen’s evolution under a Sol-like star to reset their circadian body clock using far-red light during your talks with them. You used what is known as a zeitgeiber to do that.” She paused, noticing how she now held the attention of everyone, even Maureen, who rarely showed deference to anyone. “Well, that is an inbuilt, genetically-evolved reset cue that we humans share with most Earth animals. For sure there are similar cues for these Aliens. What they are for the Yiplak and the Nasen, we don’t know since they never said anything about their home stars. Although, when I reviewed our vidrecords, the light on board the Yiplak ship had an orange-red tinge to it, while that aboard the Nasen ship had a yellow-white tone. Sooo, I would speculate the Yiplak evolved under a K or M-type star F-type star while the Nasen likely evolved under an F-type star.”
Maureen grimaced. “Cute theorizing, girl. Possibly correct. But again, why are these Aliens here, in Sol system? Why is there this interstellar culture of predators roaming space looking to claim other star systems as part of their territory?”
Denise frowned. “Well, Animal Ethology says every animal species possesses what we call territorial acquisition behavior. That translates to going out beyond your home nest and looking for a broader ecological niche in which to find food, find a mate and to discourage other predators from mooching on your territorial resources.”
Jack nodded. “That’s what Max and I read about, back at Charon Base right after our fight with the Rizen. Buy why has this animal behavior gone interstellar? These are thinking peoples, after all!”
Denise sobered as she scanned the four of them. “Thinking, yes. Similar to us, yes. But not the same as us. For example, Captain Akemi Hagiwara can give you plenty of reasons for why modern Japanese still practice the tea ceremony. A useless behavior when you can tell your kitchen autobots to make you a cup of tea with a simple verbal command. A puzzle to us Belters. And she’s human.”
Elaine nodded slowly. “Denise, granted we humans do behaviors that make no sense to other humans. But how does this relate to the Rizen, Yiplak, Nasen and other Aliens out in the Kuiper and beyond?”
Denise bit her lip. “It relates to the Aliens because, as John Alcock said last century, ‘cultural evolution involves selection for various learning abilities that permit individuals to adopt the cultural practices of their societies’. In short, the Alien social predators are here because it is genetically favorable for them to compete among themselves for more territory to add to their ecological niche.”
Jack raised a finger. “But Denise, the resources the Aliens might gain from taking over Sol system cannot be fully transferred back to their home system. And the cost of fighting us is high. So why fight, when they could just trade star to star for whatever rare resources they might need?”
Denise smiled like the mouthy teen who’d stowed away on board the first Uhuru. “Because it makes cultural sense. Star to star combat does not have to make economic sense, if it makes cultural sense back home. We can guess that the winners of new territories gain in cultural prestige, power, influence and perhaps mating opportunities when they return home with proof of their success at territorial acquisition behavior. Understand?”
Jack nodded slowly. “So . . . we have social predators camped on our stellar doorstep because their cultural pattern requires them to fight us for more territory. But Denise, evolution requires that any behavior must benefit the individual inclusive fitness of a person. Or so I’ve read. Yet this cultural behavior does not make genetic sense for individuals.”
“Yes it does,” Elaine said abruptly, her look sour as if she had bitten into a lemon. “Warfare on Earth in the last century and into the early part of this century caused many individual deaths. But the point was to preserve the national territory and national resources for the entire nation. Preserving your national territory equaled survival for your spouse and offspring back home. Right Denise?”
“Right!” The redhead looked pleased that her Why answer had achieved some acceptance among Jack’s crew.
He sighed, understanding intellectually the point Denise was making, but still, it felt wrong. Course, wrong was often an individual perspective, when what mattered to the genes of a species was that they were propagated into more territory, either through genetic adaptation or through capture of territory once held by a competing animal. And now, Denise had made the point that natural selection operates at the interstellar level.
Maureen snorted. “So we know why they fight us. But what the crap can we learn about them that will be useful in killing these bastards!”
Denise’s red eyelashes fluttered and her face paled. But her jaw muscles tensed as she chose not to be pushed around by their Combat Commander. “Fine. We can try mimetic sign stimuli to let us get close enough to kill ‘em, in person or on ship if they accept a vidsignal from us.”
Maureen frowned. “Mimetic what?”
Max eyed Jack from beyond young Denise, his look interested. “Good point young Denise.”
The girl’s freckles got darker. She nodded at Jack, Maureen and Elaine as if their personal attention on her was normal. “Mimetic sign signal is when one animal species uses a movem
ent or behavior to fool a predator into doing something, or not doing something.”
Elaine nodded slowly. “Example? Or examples?”
Denise held up one slim figure. “The false cleaner fish of tropical reefs. The true cleaner fish is a small fish that does an undulating dance as it approaches a bigger parrot fish. The dance causes the parrot fish to freeze into near immobility. When the cleaner fish arrives, it nips away at parasites and small critters adhering to the scales of the parrot fish. Both fish get something out of this cooperative behavior.” She paused, tapped her lap panel, and pointed to the right side of the front viewscreen, which now showed colorful images of reef fish doing just what she was describing. “The false cleaner fish does exactly what the true one does. But when it arrives next to the parrot fish, it snips a piece of flesh from the parrot fish and hightails it away! The bigger fish has been fooled by a mimetic action that it evolved to tolerate, usually to its benefit.”
“Good example,” Jack said. “Anything we could do to freeze up an Alien predator would be helpful in future confrontations. Other examples?”
Denise nodded, a half-smile on her young face. “Thank you, Captain Jack.” She looked over at Max, then faced everyone else. “Well, our ship hull design already makes use of the aposematic or Müllerian mimic principle to signal to other predators that we are dangerous predators. The way the red, yellow and black bands of a coral snake signal to the reptile-eating motmot bird that they must stay away from any stick-like object with these color stripes. Hmmm. We could try the parasitism principle.”
This was something new to Jack. “Parasitism what?”
Denise tapped her lap panel and nodded to the front screen. “It involves birds raising eggs of other birds. Guuillemots are oceanic birds that always recognize their own egg and will never host a stranger’s egg. But kittiwake gulls are the opposite. They never learn to discriminate between their eggs and those of an intruder.”
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