♦ ♦ ♦
“Exiting grav-pull!” grunted Max. “Higgs Disruptor beam clearing the way.”
True-light filled the front screen. On it Jack saw the shapes of the six Hackmot disk-ships and the long cigar of the colony ship. Their vector line was going to take them under the colony ship with a fifty kilometer clearance. The disk-ships were all arranged in a rough oblong that enclosed the colony ship. No disk-ship lay further than 400 kilometers from the colony ship. Every shape he saw enlarged rapidly as if he were using a telescoping lens. Red explosions and silvery sparkles filled the screen as the yellow Higgs Disruptor beam killed the strong nuclear force that held together the mines, laser platforms and other devices which lay on their inward track. That he expected. He didn’t expect the surprise they ran into.
“Radiation front!” yelled Elaine.
Simultaneous with her warning came the black streaks of seven antimatter beams that lanced out and impacted on the mid-body of the reddish-brown hull of the colony ship. Six blue lances hit out at the disk-ships, cutting through them like one of Denise’s goldfish going for its supper. Green laser slashes hit outward, striking objects too small for him to see. But they had been detected by Maureen’s Battle Module thanks to neutrino emissions from onboard power reactors. Four enemy thermonukes blew up under that laser bombardment. Jack’s feet felt the slight vibration from the launch of their last thermonuke out the nose spysat ejector port.
“Blast filters on!” called Nikola.
“Shifting drive flare to aim at blast!” called Max.
“Firing all beams!” cried Maureen from the holo in front of Jack as she worked the Battle Module’s antimatter and neutral particle beam emitters.
Radiation alarms echoed through the cabin. Jack saw that the hull rad penetration from the Hackmot counter-attack was less than deadly. Not anywhere close to the output of their two thermonuke torps. Which even now were arriving on site.
The front screen and portholes darkened as the yellow-white plasma balls of two deuterium-tritium thermonuclear blasts blossomed against the nose and stern of the colony ship. Those plasma balls of stellar fire reached toward each other faster than he could blink, joining into one massive shell of expanding plasma, neutrons and x-rays, and an infrared heat shell that grew to forty kilometers in width. The joined plasma ball absorbed the matter-to-energy blasts that had begun when the fleet’s seven antimatter beamers had all fired at the middle of the ship. It was clear now to Jack that those beams were unneeded. The pure plasma ball generated by each thermonuke amounted to six kilometers in width. Two of them applied to a target just one kilometer in width meant that every particle of the colony ship was now ionized vapor being pushed outward with the gas and radiation shells of the two thermonukes. Silently he gave thanks for the double-hull design of the Uhuru, Bismarck and five other ships that allowed for a meter-thick shell of water to act as a rad absorber. It made the portholes appear like tunnels. But it was worth the design issues to have such protection from solar flares and from thermonuke rad fronts.
Four green laser beams shot past the line of fleet ships, the Hackmot source ships now dead under particle beam fire.
Jack blinked. While the Hackmot had ejected some kind of radioactive substance along the predicted vector of his fleet’s approach, their offensive ability did not include a Fire Control that could locate, fix coordinates and fire a directed energy beam at them. His fleet had been able to hit their targets only because of prior settings of Fire Control based on true-light scope imagery, thanks to Nikola’s Big Eye. Which was now stowed away inside the hull.
“Blipping!” yelled Max.
The true light image of the Milky Way and solo stars wavered as the grav-pull drive’s gravitational lensing bent the external light around the hull of their ship. The Sensor imagery shimmered, then went jagged as multiple blip jumps took them out of the belt.
Jack licked his lips. “Any damage to the Uhuru?” he asked even as he tapped on his Tech station panel and set it to interrogating the dozens of onboard sensors.
Elaine glanced at him, her amber eyes looking relieved. “None! That rad front which we ran into was shallow and diffuse. Here’s the backward looking scope imagery we got as we dove past the colony ship.”
Jack fixed on the recorded true-light imagery, overlaid with G-band graviton, x-ray, neutron and infrared Sensor scans. He saw a vision of Hades.
The site of the colony ship was a ten kilometer-wide ball of yellow-white plasma that seemed to pulse as it expanded outward. As that plasma ball expanded the inverse square law would weaken the strength of its radiation fronts. Still, it was a place to escape from, not visit. He switched to the infrared and true-light images of the six disk-ships. They had been sliced in half by his fleet’s particle beams. Now they showed dozens of black spots over their golden-bronze hulls. The places were impacts from the ball bearings shot out by his ship’s dual railguns. White spurts of air and water formed a haze around each fragmented disk-ship. No ship fragment showed any controlled behavior. Although a few yellow-orange explosions showed on two of the ships, perhaps marking spots where volatile gases had been stored. It was a graveyard. A graveyard in space that lacked any tombstone, any intact bodies, any mourners. Jack felt the thudding of his heart ease down to near normal.
“Exiting grav-pull,” Max said over his EVA suit comlink, his words marking five minutes since they had entered the new blip jump.
The front screen filled with the starry white clusters of the Milky Way, making a slash from top to bottom. Across the top of the true-light image came the images of his ship captains. Nothing looked amiss or damaged in the cabins in which the captains sat.
“Captain Kasun,” he called to the Leopard’s captain. “Wish I could promote you. That tactic from your Ashoka was exactly right. If we had taken longer to approach the ship cluster, we would have faced something more deadly than that radioactives rad front.” Jack scanned the other images. “Captains, admiral, it’s time we headed back to the Warm Lands planet. My ComChief Denise has the propaganda vidcast we need to begin undermining these March Leaders.” He glanced over at Elaine. “Pilot, what’s the status of the fourteen Mikmang ships that were incoming from out system? Any of them near the planet?”
His sister’s narrow chin lost its tense clench. She tapped her seat’s NavTrack panel. “Up front now. And the answer is no. The nearest any Mikmang ship was to the home world was at the 20 AU of the inner gas world. Which lay at a diagonal vector relative to their home planet. At their space drive speed of one-fifth light speed, it takes three hours to cross 20 AU. With no decel, at that. As you can see, the closest Mikmang ships are still two hours out from the home world.”
Jack could see that on the split-screen which showed Elaine’s Sensor readings. There were three Mikmang ships within two hours of Warm Lands, while the remaining eleven ships were spaced out at distances of three to seven hours. While it had taken his fleet less than an hour to Alcubierre jump the 42 AU inward to the inner planet, the rad fronts and spysat maser emissions were still incoming. He guessed that the outermost Mikmang ships had been ordered to head inward upon Hackmot detection of their grav pulses from the system’s Kuiper Belt. He could hardly believe they had been in the Omicron2 Eridani system for less than six hours.
“Good. Elaine, set a NavTrack vector that will place us into a polar orbital above the planet Warm Lands. I want us able to cover every meter of that world’s surface with our Sensor scans.” He checked his Tech panel readouts on Uhuru ship systems. All were green functional. He looked up at his fellow captains. “People, no more thermonuke use. If we have to fight these incoming Mikmang ships, we’ll use our beams. After all, we have grav-pull and they don’t. Also, the fact that Mikmang ship tried to kill us with a head-on ramming attack tells me the Hackmot did not allow the Mikmang to place any kind of armaments on their spaceships.” He looked back to Blodwen, who was out of her accel seat and kneeling beside Max’s seat. They were having whisp
ered conversations he could not quite hear over his EVA suit comlink. His Polish buddy had a happy look on his face.
“Hey Max!” called Archibald, his shock of reddish-brown hair flying in every direction. “Your captain is eyeing you!”
“Oh!” Max looked guilty, then he shrugged. “Well, you got Nikola there. Elaine has Ignacio back here. Time for me to learn a bit of sociology, yes?”
Jack smiled. It was so good to see people being other than deadly ferocious. He could leave that mood to Maureen, who was already headed up the Spine to the Pilot Cabin. “Yes, Max, it is time for you to be tutored in sociology.” He fixed on Blodwen’s dark green eyes. “Sociologist, any idea how long it will take for our propaganda vidcast to bring about a new Marcher regime on the Mikmang home world?”
The Welsh woman smiled at Max, then faced him. “Captain Jack, we Sociologists are not mind readers. The vidcast Denise has prepared will get things started. The death of their Hackmot masters will be a massive culture shock to all Mikmang. No matter how unitary their world government might be, there is no way to block the average Mikmang from hearing our broadcast. And from knowing of our destruction of their masters.” She paused, her expression turning mischievous. “Captain, you could help accelerate this changeover.”
“How?” Jack knew that was a leading question to ask any woman. But he was willing to be skewered by Blodwen. If it advanced the time when they could leave this wretched star system.
Blodwen’s expression turned remarkably innocent. “Oh, by doing your own propaganda vidcast. Live. To the March Leaders themselves. Tell them it is time for the Mikmang to reclaim control of their star system and their world. Tell them we humans are not new masters.” She paused, winked at Denise, then showed Jack a studiously neutral expression. “You could also tell them what you’ve shared with us. And with the Nuuthot. Which is that all species have a ‘right’ to interstellar travel, not just social carnivore predators.”
Jack swallowed hard. This Blodwen already had Max twisted around her slim pinkie. If he did not watch out, she, Nikola and Denise would do the same to him. Calmness. Center yourself. “Blodwen, thank you. Those are good suggestions. Which I will work on during our blip jump flight back to Warm Lands.” He looked up at Hideyoshi, whose thin black eyebrows were raised high even as the man kept a professionally neutral expression on his face. “Admiral, Denise will send out the laser time-lock link for joint grav-pull departure at the same time by every fleet ship. Meanwhile, if you have any ideas on how to speed up the destabilizing of Mikmang society, let me know upon our arrival at Warm Lands!”
“Will do, Fleet Captain Munroe,” Hideyoshi said, perhaps using Jack’s formal title as a mark of sympathy for his exposure to the sling and arrow inputs of Blodwen, Denise and Nikola. Who had been all too quiet since they had exited grav-pull.
“Good. Elaine, now would be a good time to go to grav-pull!”
His sister, who had been watching his ravaging by Denise and Blodwen, chuckled, then looked at her NavTrack panel. “Vector laid in. Distance to Warm Lands planet is four point five AU. Time in blip jump will be forty-five minutes. Polar orbit momentum will be 28,164 kilometers per hour from north to south orbital. All ships, jump!”
The front screen’s true-light images went hazy, then jagged. He had forty-five minutes before he had to give the exactly right orders to other people. A tap on his EVA-suited shoulder diverted him from his morose musing.
“Jack?” murmured Nikola.
“Yes?”
“You owe me and Denise and Blodwen and Maureen steaks, personally cooked by you, plus a liter of your bourbon and one each of your Cuban cigars,” Nikola said in a warm, patient and loving voice.
A voice he knew better than to believe. “Of course. Ladies, your steaks will be ready in the Food Refectory in fifteen minutes.” Jack got up, kept his eyes elevated and headed for the Spine hallway. Doing his duty had been a lesson he’d learned early on, while cleaning his Dad’s EVA suit of loose asteroid dust. Duty was—
“Whap!”
His bottom stung a bit from the whack Maureen had given him as she passed him at the Spine hatch.
No way was he going to give a verbal response. No way. No way at all . . .
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The fleet’s polar orbit above Warm Lands took them from an ice-filled north pole down across a heavily wooded equator, then over the floating sea ice of the south pole, and back around again. The front screen’s true-light image showed them moving across the Keid-illuminated northern coast of the other big continent, the one with a central mountain range like the Rocky Mountains of Earth. It was the home of the Rock Marchers dissident group. The largest continent, home to the March Leaders and half this world’s Mikmang population, lay on the night side of the world. Both continents were larger than the small island-continent below the equator, the place with the peninsula that had been the Hackmot colony site. Until they thermonuked it, Jack recalled.
As before, white clouds covered half the world disk while lightning rippled across the portion about to go into evening. The smallest continent lay below the equator and near the eastern horizon, a location that would soon experience sunset as the planet rotated eastward. The unseen moon Nota still orbited a hundred thousand klicks out from the planet, and faced its night side. Neutrino emission sources were scattered over the rectangular landmass below them. It was a place of silvery-blue rivers, three large lakes and snow-capped mountains. The neutrino sources were stationary and likely marked power reactors. A dozen large population urbi overlapped with the strongest reactor sites. Giving thanks they had racked away their EVA suits during the blip jump to this world, he looked to Maureen, who sat at her Combat seat between him and Elaine.
“Anything from the spysats we launched on arrival?”
The elderly woman shook her head, short black curls flying as she turned her finely wrinkled and rad-tanned face to him. Her expression was preoccupied even as she fixed gray eyes on him. “Nothing offensive. The usual comsats and GPS sats are in geo-sync orbits. No space station anywhere. No launch of rockets against us. These Mikmang seem unusually passive. At the moment.”
Jack fixed on Elaine. “Your Sensor scans show anything worrisome? Or unusual?”
His sister’s narrow chin lifted from her Pilot seat’s armrest panel. She fixed amber eyes on him, her expression patient. As it should be after the steak meal he had fixed! “Just the usual microwave, radio, AV and diginet emissions to be expected on a planet with four billion Mikmang.” She smiled at his surprised reaction. “Yup. Four billion. According to the population analysis done by Blodwen and Denise, during our trip back here. We did more than eat your steaks and drink your booze!” His sister looked back down at her armrest panel. She tapped its control surface, then gestured forward. “I’ve overlaid the microwave, radio and diginet activity sources onto that landscape. Seems the biggest urbus by both population and computer server links is the one we will shortly pass over. It’s on flatlands east of the north-south mountain chain. At the juncture of those two big rivers.” She paused, then put up another split-screen image. “Here’s our Omicron2 Eridani system scan. You can see the three incoming Mikmang spaceships. They’ll arrive at Warm Lands within an hour. The other moving neutrino sources are from the eleven other spaceships. They are hours away from the planet. Oh. There are no G-band emissions from any grav-pull source anywhere in the system, or down-planet.”
“Good. All good news.” Jack felt the tenseness of his shoulders ease at that news. Whatever Hackmot still lived, they had to be somewhere on the planet. Most likely colony survivors on the smallest continent south of the equator. And the lack of offensive rocket fire from the six different space launch fields they had recorded during their earlier visit was encouraging. Whatever the attitudes of the March Leaders, the thermonuke incineration of the Hackmot colony seemed to have given them reason to not attack his fleet ships. He looked back to Denise of the red braids.
“ComChief, t
ransmit your AV broadcast to these Rock Marchers. And be sure to swamp their global diginet system with imagery of our destruction of the Hackmot fleets. Including the colony ship.” He smiled at her and Blodwen, who sat behind Max. “I will transmit my own live AV talk once we reach the night side and the continent of the March Leaders.”
Denise grinned, then began tapping her Comlink panel. “AV transmission outgoing on all one hundred forty-three AV channels.”
Jack blinked at that. “What the hell are these centipede-lobsters transmitting on that many channels? It can’t all be the love lives of invertebrates!”
Denise giggled, then turned serious as she finished tapping on her Comlink panel. “Hardly. Some channels show Mikmang swimming in the surf of their seas. But most of the channels seem devoted to marching technique programs. Recall how, on the continental shelf of old Earth, the lobsters would form a marching line as they headed away from the coast and out to the drop-offs that gave them deep ocean safety?” She gestured. “Here’s one of those channels. These people seem very obsessed with doing their marching exactly right.”
The front screen images of the planet’s surface, orbital sats and the outsystem Sensor scan were now joined by a fourth split-screen. It showed dozens of centipede-lobster beings arranged in a long, convoluted line on an open field flanked by rampways on which huddled other Mikmang. With soft skin segments that shone dirt brown under the orange-red light of Keid, each Mikmang moved on a dozen leg pairs. Two pincer arms projected from the front body segment, while a blocky head sat atop the front segment, its cranial bulge protected by black plates that resembled hard shell. Two pink eyes adorned the front of the head, while two pairs of antennae flared out from where ears might be on a human. Jack counted thirty-six Mikmang, all marching in a sinuous pattern that involved curves, sharp angles and doubling back. A sound like chanting accompanied the rhythmic movement of the Aliens. Similar chanting sounded from the thousands of Mikmang gathered on either side of the wide field. Were they cheering?
Humans Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series Book 2) Page 16