“But no stardrive?” Jack said.
“Of course not!” The Alien’s black eyebrows and under-eye fur creased in an intense look. “Only tigers travel star to star. Never the subject peoples. But you will control your affairs, under our guidance.”
Menoma’s forearm, which had pulled back from touching a beam control, began to move forward again. But jerkily.
“So you do fear personal body harm!” Jack yelled.
Menoma blinked suddenly, as if startled. “Not at alllll!” he said, his words stretching out a bit. “But if . . . other com . . . petitors choose per . . . sonal danger, that—”
Jack tapped off his AV sound. “Maureen! Fire the antineutron beam!” He tapped the sound back on.
“that is . . . their . . . choice. Like . . . your choice . . . to now die . . . under—”
On the screen the black beam of antineutrons flashed out to Menoma’s ball in a flat rectangle ship, its cheetah hull glinting under Sol’s light. The beam hit the upper half of the ball.
“Strike!” cried Maureen.
“Keep firing!” Jack yelled.
Yellow-orange light blasted from the ship’s upper hull as its metal underwent a total matter-to-energy conversion. The ball of raw light grew and grew, consuming the upper half of the ship.
Menoma’s image wavered. “my beams. No! You. . . you cannot make antimatter . . . it is not—”
The raw light, fed by Maureen’s continuous output of antineutrons, suddenly surged to encompass the entirety of Menoma’s ship.
A star exploded in front of them.
“Damn!” Elaine cried. “That must have been his reactor going. No more Menoma.”
Jack shook with relief. His most dangerous Alien foe was dead. Gone. Vaporized by antimatter. As was the entirety of Menoma’s ship. Whatever secrets his ship had sheltered, beyond the gravity probes that bent laser beams away from its hull, had disappeared in the star-like blast.
“Well done Jack!” called Max. “But how did you know your circadian trick would work on him?”
He slumped back against his Tech seat. “Well, he said his home star was Delta Boötis B. That’s a main sequence yellow star just like Sol. He clearly came from a planet about that star. And my Tech station expert software said his ship’s internal ship-light was a close match for our spectrum and wavelengths. So, it made sense his circadian clock could be entrained, or photoperiodically reset, by use of far-red light at 730 nanometers. Thus making him too sleepy to respond quickly to Maureen’s antimatter beam.”
Elaine looked intrigued. Denise looked puzzled. “But Captain Jack, it usually takes a day or more to reset someone’s biological clock. Why did this happen so fast with Menoma?”
Jack grinned at their new grownup, who had kept her battle guts intact as well as any of them. “Denise, it varies. Some plants bloom after a single exposure to the photoperiod required for flowering. I was betting that his metabolism had enough phytochrome Pfr to respond to the far-red signal. It did. We live. He doesn’t.”
Maureen snorted from her holo. “Well, we almost didn’t live! But now that we do, shall we join up with Akemi and Minamoto? The Pod Attack is going well but they could likely use our lasers to take out those two frigates and two corvettes that have sped out in four directions, hoping to escape us.”
Jack scanned the front screen and the plan view imagery of Elaine’s. It showed scattered debris where once nine ships had moved on power. The four ships that now moved were all that remained from a fleet of twenty. And two of them, the frigates, were venting white air.
“Maureen, take out their drives.” He gestured to Denise. “ComChief, AV signal to our fleet and to Admiral Minamoto with a Come-Back request.”
“Transmitting,” Denise said.
His seat trembled slightly as the Uhuru’s left and right side laser pods shot out bright green beams at the two frigates. Maureen’s aim took out the thrust modules of both ships. Other lasers from the Orca, Badger and Bismarck took out the drives of the corvettes. Leaving four ships tumbling in space.
“Cease fire! All ships, cease fire. Fleet Admiral Hideyoshi Minamoto, do you wish to communicate with the survivors aboard those four ships and offer them rescue? If they cut their laser power and surrender?”
“Yes, my captain and leader,” Minamoto said solemnly as, behind him, his Command Bridge crew worked at touch panels and yelled to each other, yelling being faster than wireless datalink. “We will handle these survivors. And anyone in EVA suits in the other wreckage. My . . . my crew and I thank you for the opportunity to show mercy to our . . . former enemies.”
Jack nodded briefly. “Mars fleet earned its right to show mercy to survivors, even though they tried to thermonuke us. Please accept my condolences on the loss of your destroyer George Washington. The ship and its crew will be memorialized on a stele at our home base.”
Minamoto waved away a harried looking lieutenant as she offered him a yellow compad. “And where might be this base for your Second Belter Rebellion?”
Jack trusted the man. While formal in manner and a perfectionist in all he did, the man had honor. As when he accepted his crew’s plea to follow Protocol Seven of the Concord of Mars. Anyway, he would need the man’s help in securing Ceres Central from the control of Governor Aranxis. If anyone could get the Unity ships stationed there to surrender to his Belter allies, it would be Minamoto.
“Our base is the asteroid 253 Mathilde. It is where my Drive Engineer Max Piakowski created this new Uhuru.” He paused, thinking of future tasks beyond survival. “And it is the place to which we will take the Rizen ship hulk in order to decipher its stardrive. If you will give the order to the Deimos Yards to release the hulk to my fleet.”
“Deimos Yards will be ordered to do exactly that.” Minamoto frowned. “I have heard of this asteroid. It has no metals on it to speak of. Why ever did you choose it for a base?”
“Because while it is indeed made up of mostly carbonaceous chrondrite with a surface of phyllosilicate regolith, its low mass made it easy to hollow out. For our space dock.” Jack smiled. “And for the habitat torus inside the dock cavern. Twelve thousand people now call it home. Including my mother and father. Do your parents still live?”
The older man shook his head slowly. “They died a decade ago. They now reside in a memorial cenotaph just outside of Osaka. My only living relative is a sister, who manages logistics for a mining business based in Syria Planum Central.”
Jack ignored Denise’s waving hand. “My admiral, I would consider it an honor to introduce your sister to my parents and my two sisters. But there is still work to be done here in Moon orbit. I believe Captain Júlia has word for me from the Brazilian Autarchy in Copernicus Crater.”
“The Bismarck will carry out its duties as part of your fleet,” Minamoto said firmly. “Now, I must tend to my duty. We sustained four laser strikes on our belly laser pod and I must visit my wounded.”
“Until later, Fleet Admiral Hideyoshi Minamoto,” Jack said. “Denise, let me hear what Júlia has to say.”
Above the screen glowed the images of his six captains, including Ignacio wearing his black boina. All of them seemed distracted by post battle decisions. But Júlia had a big smile for him.
“Captain Jack!” she said, sounding excited. “As you know, there were no anti-spatial laser attacks on us from Copernicus Crater. That was due to a stroke of luck! A fourth cousin on my mother’s side is in dayshift command. He kept his laser batteries silent. But he tells me that Autarch Vitoria Goncalves wishes to speak with you about this Moon independence you proposed.”
“Your plea to your fourth cousin saved us from losing more people and perhaps more ships than the one we lost,” Jack said, looking at the other captain images. “Captains Júlia, Akemi, Minna, Ignacio, Aashman and Kasun, please stay alert to any warships incoming from Earth. Geneva will hear from me shortly. But first, I will speak with this Autarch. Denise?”
Their expert in Animal Ethology and Be
havioral Ecology tapped her comlink panel, her brown freckles bright against her pale face. “On the front screen, without encryption.”
Jack stared at a black-haired, stocky woman in a red plaid blouse and blue shift who sat behind a dark brown mahogany desk somewhere in the underground offices of Copernicus Crater. A touch panel was inlaid into her desk to one side, while a carafe of clear water stood to the other side. Flowers in a crystal vase brought colors like the rainbow to her office and her presence. She smiled briefly at his image.
“Captain Jack Munroe of the Belter spaceship Uhuru, thank you for taking my transmission,” she said, her voice low but musical, almost as tuneful as Maureen’s.
He inclined his head in respect, for this woman governed the lives of three million people living under the Brazilian Autarchy. “Autarch Vitoria Goncalves, it is an honor to speak with you. My crews and my ships appreciate the restraint shown by the Aerospatiale defense lasers of Copernicus Crater.”
The woman’s thick black eyebrows creased slightly. “The restraint was the choice of the landing field’s day manager, a man whom I gather is related to one of your ship captains.”
“He is,” Jack said easily. “Just as my captains claim a heritage from many Earth cultures and nations, we of the Asteroid Belt choose to show respect to all independent social clusters. Such as your Moon colony.”
“Your Captain Júlia conveyed to my day manager, and now to me, your assertion that the Brazilian Autarchy on our Moon will be able to be independent under the . . . guidance of you people from the Belt. Please explain to me how this will happen.”
Jack recalled his words to People’s Minister Ying on Mars, to Hideyoshi before that, and to his family clan and ship captains earlier than that when they ate that vital meal on 253 Mathilde. It seemed he must turn his anthropology work to the service of diplomacy. Of a sort.
“Autarch, my fleet is a joining together of a Belter fleet with the fleet of an independent Mars, which loaned them and their admiral to us by authority of People’s Minister Ying Lo-pak. We are all people who place the safety of humanity first, our own home societies second, while we jointly celebrate the uniqueness embedded in those societies.” The Autarch lifted one eyebrow, as if she had heard such smooth words too many times before. “Enough of basic diplomacy. I and my fleet offer the Brazilian Autarchy of the Moon protection from Alien predators, and from efforts by Earth to extract taxes, resources, people and anything else of value from your colony. We have offered such protection, with recognition of its independence, to Mars. We will offer the same to the colonies on Europa, Enceladus and Charon Base. In short, we Belters seek a solar system where all peoples control their own affairs as they see fit, while all work together to jointly protect Sol system from future Alien attacks. Which will come, I assure you.”
The woman frowned, then fixed her brown gaze on him. “Then your AV vidcasts were all accurate? Nothing fabricated?”
“They were,” Jack said, his attention briefly distracted as Maureen walked into the cabin and sat at her combat station to his right. “As was my statement that Geneva forced an end to the first Belter Rebellion in 2072 by threatening to thermonuke our major population center on Ceres.”
The woman’s alertness increased at his comments. “And what is the policy of the Belt toward use of thermonuclear torpedoes in combat and during a war?”
“No human settlement, colony or habitation will be subjected to thermonuclear attack, in keeping with the Fourth Protocol of the Concord of Mars,” Jack said. The woman’s alertness eased. “My ship and my fleet have used thermonukes in combat, but only against Alien ships and bases in the Kuiper Belt and among Scattered Disk Objects of the distant cometary field. We understand restraint. We did not use our thermonuke torps against the Unity’s fleet even after they launched such weapons against us. However, the Asteroid Belt has access to more such weapons. Along with new weapons we recently developed. We can defend ourselves. And we will continue defending humanity against future Alien attacks.”
The Autarch turned somber. “You expect future Alien attacks? When? Where? And from whom?”
He reached out and touched Maureen’s shoulder. “Allow my combat commander, one Maureen O’Dowd, to answer that.”
“Of course.”
Maureen shook off his hand and leaned forward, her manner blunt and serious. “Madame Autarch, we have fought many battles against these Aliens. Our ships suffered damage and we lost two fine crew people while defending humanity in the frozen Kuiper Belt. Plus a Mars fleet destroyer just now. This Menoma the Manager, whose broadcasts you heard earlier and during our battle, has sent a faster-than-light probe back to his home star system of Delta Boötis B, about 121 light years away. He has told his HikHikSot people that Earth and Sol are now ‘part’ of their territory. Under what he called the Rules of the Great Dark. Or interstellar space.”
“This is new to me, though my assistant said something about one of your broadcasts making such a claim,” she said.
“It is all too real,” Maureen said. “I was there, at Menoma’s base on the comet Sedna, 78 AU from Earth, when he made this statement. To answer your question, when could be a few months to a year from now, depending on the FTL speed of this probe and the incoming starships. From whom has been answered. Where is the entire Sol system. In sum, all humans are at risk of being treated like cattle, with some living humans being chased like live prey and then eaten.”
“Eaten?” the Autarch said, sounding dubious.
“Yes, eaten,” Maureen said. “Our ComChief Denise Rauvin is an expert in Animal Ethology and Behavior Ecology. She could give you the sci-tech verbiage for why only predatory Aliens now travel star to star, while subject peoples are viewed as ‘herbivores’ subject to control, domination and formalized eating rituals. It’s weird. It makes no sense to me. But these Alien predators are much worse than tigers, bears, crocodiles or giant lizards. They are thinking people who know more interstellar tech than we humans know, and they are on the prowl! Either we resist, or we become serfs and appetizers on an Alien dish!”
The Brazilian woman blinked rapidly, then fixed her attention on him. “Captain Jack Munroe, the Brazilian Autarchy of the Moon accepts your offer of protection from predatory Aliens. But how will you protect us from Earth and Geneva?”
Jack grimaced. “The human way. But threatening the Geneva congress and the Brussels bureaucracy with the one thing they fear most—loss of power!”
Viktoria Goncalves laughed musically. “Quite so. But they have now lost control of the solar system. What more can they stand to lose?”
Jack grinned, feeling very wolfish. “Control of Earth and its nine billion people. Frankly, we of the Belt have no wish to invade and take over control of Earth. Let Geneva do that. If the bureaucrats of Brussels will agree to stop sending warships to attack us, we of the Belt will leave Earth alone. Perhaps the people of Earth will rise up and dethrone their rules, once they realize our broadcasts were factual and Geneva’s claims were a pack of lies.”
“Perhaps,” the Autarch said. “What do you need from the Moon? As a token of our acceptance of membership in this . . . this alliance of free worlds?”
“Refueling for our ships,” Jack said. “While we all use the Alien grav-pull space drive to move about the system fast as a bee, we also rely on our fusion pulse drives for weapons and for alternate transport. If my ships can take on frozen deuterium, helium three and tritium fuel pellets, and perhaps recharge our air recycling filters, that will be enough.”
“It will be done!” the Autarch said. “Will your fleet land anytime soon?”
“In a day or so. After we return from visiting the space above Geneva. I have a few words to share with the congress that sits beside Lake Lucerne.”
The woman smiled naturally now, as if political humor were an old friend. “You go have your talk with Geneva. When you return, my medoc will have pills for your stomach. And perhaps you and your captains and the admiral will join
me for a steak, a cigar and a few tankards of beer!”
Jack wondered from where the woman had learned his prime recruiting tool. But it mattered not. “That sounds outstanding! We will take you up on it. But now, I must end this visit. We have work to do above Earth.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ludwig Carsten Berthold Maathias, Dictat of Earth and Assembly Leader of the Unity Congress, stared at Jack from the front screen. The man was German stocky, Swiss dressed and European casual in the manner by which he had responded to Jack’s threat to drop a small asteroid on top of the old League of Nations building, a building that formerly housed the old United Nations and was now the center of Earth’s elected government.
“Such an action would turn all of humanity against you and your Asteroid Belt allies,” Maathias said in a low bass rumble as he leaned back against a simple pinewood chair that was the only furniture in his dressing room. “Now, if you offer to reimburse the Unity for the massive costs of the naval forces which you have damaged and destroyed, I suspect I can convince—”
“Were you born an idiot? Or did you just study hard to gain this level of stupidity?” Jack asked bluntly.
“Our grapples are losing their control of the asteroid, Captain Jack,” said Maureen loudly from her seat beside him.
Elaine smiled to his far right, while behind them Max chuckled, Cassie giggled and Denise hiccupped. It seemed their redhead was a bit stressed by their ship’s position a hundred kilometers above Geneva, with a five hundred meter long cigar of an asteroid held under the Uhuru’s belly with hastily installed mechhand grapples. While Jack knew their ship could blip jump to the nearby Mediterranean Sea, in case grapple failure seemed imminent, he wasn’t worried. Anyway, he figured that holding station above Geneva, with a giant rock that any telescope could see, would focus the attention of the Unity’s Dictat.
Earth Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series 1) Page 28