Humans Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series Book 2)

by T. Jackson King

  “Enough!” Jack called to Gareth. “The March Leaders are gone. And we have a live vidrecord which we will now transmit around this world. And outward.”

  Minna’s image coughed. The blond Finn had pulled her braids behind her ears. She nodded at Jack. “Fleet captain, the Wolverine has decapitated the Drive modules from the three Mikmang ships. The ship fragments are in orbit above the moon Nota. Or Lodz,” she said, looking to Max. Minna gave the man a brief smile. “We have received your AV of the March Leaders death. We are retransmitting it now, with translated words that urge the incoming eleven ships to switch March allegiance to the Rock Marchers.”

  “Excellent,” Jack said as he watched the vidrecord of the Finn’s ship blip jumping around the three Mikmang ships. The woman had been brutally efficient in using her neutral particle beam as a giant scythe to slice through the stern sections of each Mikmang ship. Aside from a brief burst of white air and water, the life occupied section of each ship had survived, thanks to automated pressure hatches. The ship fragments had been captured by the gravity of the moon Nota and now orbited it.

  “We are returning on grav-pull blip jump,” Minna said. “My crewwoman Elie Hämälänen wishes to compete in your Hackmot kill numbers competition.”

  “She is welcome to join the effort!” Jack looked back, catching the eager look of Ignacio. “My brother, son of the Euskaldunak, you may now board the Anneli Korhonen and take her down to the landing field near the cave of the Rock Marchers.” Jack turned back around and caught the attention of the man who had never questioned his leadership. “Admiral Hideyoshi Minamoto, please send your Lander Rudyard Kipling down with our Lander on overwatch hover. With your Lander controlling the local skies, and Ignacio controlled the landing field, I suspect we will shortly have Prime Mother as our guest here on the Uhuru.”

  “It will be done,” said Hideyoshi, his tone matter of fact professional. But the man’s black eyes held a look Jack had not seen before. “Fleet Captain, may I visit you on your ship? These Mikmang fascinate me. I would welcome the opportunity to see one in the flesh, as you Belters say.”

  Behind him came the voices of Blodwen, Archibald, Aashman, Max, Denise, Nikola and everyone else saying they too wanted to see the Prime Mother. Jack welcomed the voices. His worries about a sneak attack from an automated Hackmot device had not come to reality. The eager tones of his crewmates were a wonderful sound to hear. He nodded at the Mars fleet admiral.

  “Hideyoshi, yes! Do come over. Perhaps the Rudyard Kipling can drop you off at our Lander hold before it accompanies the Anneli Korhonen down to meet the Rock Marchers. Oh.” He paused, glanced back at his ComChief, then forward. “Young Denise has prepared some sushi from defrosted salmon which we stocked at Mathilde. And I have a bottle of saké to go with it. Tempted?”

  The man whose receding hairline seemed to retreat more each time Jack saw him in AV mode, smiled in the Belter manner. The way Maureen did, when she was not focused on being deadly. It was a wide, teeth-revealing smile. “Tempted, no. Delighted, yes!”

  Jack felt good. Their conquest of Omicron2 Eridani system had come with severe costs in the damage to two fleet ships. Damages which would take a good week to fix, even with the salvaged fusion drive modules of the Mikmang to supply needed parts. The need to wear EVA suits during most combat within this system had been tiresome. But at least this dissident Mikmang group seemed ready to take control of their world and then reclaim their home star system. And perhaps the combat lessons learned from fighting the Hackmot would be of use when they confronted the HikHikSot in their home star system. But that encounter would come later, after a Trade visit to the Nasen predators. His fleet needed a better understanding of what systems in this part of Orion Arm were claimed by which species, and where the Home Hunt systems lay for each of the species they had encountered at Sedna.

  “Jack,” said Nikola as she stood beside his seat. “I’m thirsty. You got any of that scotch left? Bourbon is good, but scotch is better!”

  The Pilot Cabin filled with the happy laughter of his crewmates and their guests.

  “Yup!” he said. “Got a few bottles left. But I gotta talk to Júlia about the Brazilian version of white lightning. I’ve only read about stills in a one gee grav field. Maybe she can teach me how to build one here on the Uhuru. You could help, you know.”

  The woman who had lost both her parents to an Earth pandemic smiled down at him. Tall, slim, beautiful in a mature way, his Czech lifemate raised her sandy brown eyebrows. “Oh? Well, I learned a few things about programming from the mechbots I used to build my scope on Mathilde. Maybe we can write some software for a mechbot on this ship so it can serve as a waiter. Uh, do mechbots even wear clothes?”

  Jack joined in the laughter that now filled the cabin, and which was shared by his fellow fleet captains. It seemed the human way to celebrate survival after a deadly battle was to joke, tease and get drunk. He was up for that!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Uhuru and the other eight ships of Jack’s fleet left grav-pull blip jump at a position 50 AU north of Keid, or Omicron2 Eridani. There were no Hackmot attack devices in the area, and they were more than 350 AU from the two stars that orbited Keid, a DA4 white dwarf and an M4.5eV red dwarf flare star. Neither star system showed any planets according to their Schmidt scope, nor was either system’s asteroid belt occupied. Jack looked away from the front screen images of his fellow captains and back to his lifemate.

  “Chief Astronomer, it’s your show from here on out.”

  Nikola smiled. “Well, let’s hope these Nasen believe in making beer from the Alien version of hops! Gods, but I want to try something other than your scotch!”

  “We have plenty of water in our hull shielding,” he teased.

  “Ick!” she said, making a face as if someone had suggested she drink cleaning fluid. “I prefer the pure water we use in the Garden hydroponics. Anyway, I might try that ‘fake’ milk in the barrels we got from the Mikmang.”

  In return for the specs on the antimatter and neutral particle beam weapons, and eight salvaged grav-pull drives, the Rock Marcher leaders had paid Jack’s fleet in deuterium and helium-3 fuel, loads of pure water, ten barrels of ‘milk’ produced by their herd animals, three kilos of semi-precious stones, twelve tons of frozen fish from the lakes and seas of Warm Lands, and raw fruits and vegetables from their forests that Elaine said were human eatable . . . according to her medoc instruments. Jack had yet to taste any of the Mikmang food or drink, but the supplies had been a welcome gift after a hard week spent repairing the Badger and the Mongoose.

  His sister Elaine had her attention fixed on her NavTrack panel and Sensor side panel, ready for the inputting of coordinates to the Zeta Serpentis star system of the Nasen Aliens. But her mood was not as happy as it had been.

  “Elaine? Something on your mind?”

  She grimaced, then glanced his way. “Blodwen gets to stay on this ship for sociological consultations with Max! And you have Nikola. But my Ignacio is back on his ship. And it will be days before we drop out of Alcubierre drive!”

  Ah. Already his sister was feeling the absence of Ignacio from her roomsuite in the Rest Area section of the Uhuru. “Well, Blodwen is not a vital crew member for the Dragon.” The subject of Elaine’s complaint was ignoring them as she kneeled beside Max, who seemed happy to ignore Pilot Cabin crew issues. “And you’re not alone in missing someone. Our Maureen has to—”

  “Watch it!” growled their Belfast grandmother from her seat between Jack and Elaine.

  It seemed the budding romance between Gareth and Maureen was not an allowed subject for discussion. “Uh, well, maybe it’s time to head off for Zeta Serpentis. Nikola, how far is it to the Nasen home system? And how long will we spend in Alcubierre space-time folding?”

  She tapped on her Astro panel and nodded at the front screen. “I’ve put up a north pole view of this part of the Milky Way galaxy, showing the positions of Sol, Epsilon Eridani, Omicron2 Eridani
and our target system of Zeta Serpentis.” Jack saw the four systems highlighted in white circles. “This imagery and my coordinates are being shared with the other fleet ships by way of laser Come-Back linkages. Anyway, the answers are simple. The straight-line vector to Zeta is 90.487 light years. Transit time in Alcubierre is about twenty-three days.”

  “But,” called Blodwen from the rear of the cabin, “my sociological research on Zeta Serpentis says it is 75.7 light years from Sol. How can it be so much farther from us?”

  Nikola’s light brown face tensed. “It’s farther because we are not in Sol system, for one thing,” she said in her professor tone. “For another, the system we are leaving from is much farther from Zeta than is Sol. In short, our target system is closer to galactic center, further ahead in the eastward galactic rotation and just above the galactic plane by 11.8 light years. Clear?”

  Blodwen looked up at the galactic plan view, then nodded. “Clear. I know we are moving in three dimensions from the readouts of Elaine’s sensors. As Denise put it, we are a fish in a fish bowl that is a hundred thousand light years across!”

  Jack felt for Blodwen, who’d grown up on Vesta. He and Elaine had spent their lives living in three dimensions while hopping from one asteroid to another. Max and Maureen had lived the same lifeway. And Nikola, despite being born on Earth, had spent her years since losing her parents being engrossed in neutron stars, Dark Matter and the Milky Way. She was used to thinking of a trip through the Orion Arm as equal to visiting relatives on another planet. Just a bit more involved. But petite Denise had grown up either on Earth or out at the Charon base of Pluto. If anyone should be flustered by their star-traveling, it should be her. But the young woman had matured swiftly. She met his gaze with a casual look.

  “Captain Jack?”

  He smiled. “Ready to try out your SETI translation program on the Nasen predators?”

  “Yup. Though I sure hope they are as willing to make Trade with us as you seem to think they are,” Denise said.

  This issue had been a matter of intense discussion during the last week. Every fleet member was tired of deadly fighting. While they understood the need to build Alien allies by defeating the social carnivore predators who controlled subject peoples, still, they needed a break. He had reassured everyone that he had no intention of fighting the Nasen in their home Hunt system.

  “Hilok of the Northern Pack invited us to call on him. When we gave him the warning about our impending thermonuke blast warning to the colony ships orbiting Sedna,” Jack said. “I believe him. And recall that the Nasen were inside the Gathering Hall on Sedna, but they did not attack us when we exited Menoma’s office. Unlike other Aliens whom we had defeated in formal trial-of-strength Challenge combat.”

  “Fleet Captain Jack,” called Hideyoshi from the front screen. “The Bismarck and all other fleet ships are ready to enter Alcubierre drive shell status. Upon receipt of the target coordinates.”

  The Mars admiral was reminding Jack that it was time to head off on another star-spanning trek. There would be plenty of time for sociological debate during their twenty-three days of transit. “Nikola?”

  She looked over to Elaine. “Ready to enter the coordinates for Zeta Serpentis?”

  “Yes.” Elaine rubbed her chin as she sat at her Pilot/Navigator station. “As before, we are all facing east towards the direction of galactic rotation. The other ships are in laser comlink with my station. Give me the numbers.”

  Nikola sat with her seat restraint straps over her shoulders and her hands hovering above the Astro panel she had pulled over her lap. She tapped on the panel as she stared intensely at a sidearm screen that showed stellar coordinates against a galactic coordinate system. She smiled. “For Blodwen’s records, the galactic coordinates for Zeta relative to Sol are plus 68.2 light years further out from the galactic center, plus 30.5 ahead in galactic rotation direction and plus 11.8 light years above the equatorial plane of the galaxy. But as I noted earlier, we are departing from a star other than Sol.” His Czech lifemate began reciting a second series of X, Y and Z coordinates. “There. Arrival at that point will place us at 40 AU above the ecliptic plane of Zeta Serpentis. Only empty space is recorded for that spot. And it gives us some time to orient ourselves before we begin blip jumping. And thereby announce ourselves to the Nasen thanks to our graviton pulses.”

  Elaine waved back at Nikola. “Got them. Inputting now.” She looked up at the front screen. “Admiral Hideyoshi, all other ship captains, the coordinates for our target system have been transmitted by laser link. Drive Engineer Max will initiate Alcubierre drive shell entry. Max?”

  Jack turned his seat so he could face the man who would send nine ships into separate warped space-time bubbles. “Proceed, my friend.”

  Max smiled at Blodwen as the woman stood up and went back to her accel seat. His Polish buddy held his hands above the Alcubierre drive shell Control panel. “Reactor power feed now flowing to the Alcubierre drive module. Synchronizing across the fleet!” Max gave Jack a happy grin. “We’re heading out. Look at the starfield ahead! It’s shrinking!”

  Jack turned his seat around to watch the front screen with its image of local space. The local stars and the Milky Way were indeed shrinking as his ship moved through normal space-time inside a warped space-time bubble. As before, space was squeezed in front of them and expanded behind them. They now existed in a warped space-time bubble that was not subject to the usual gravitational, time and length distortions that Einstein’s Special Relativity said happened when a physical object came close to the speed of light. The screen now went black as the bubble finished forming. In return for being cut off from normal space-time, their nine ships were now traveling at a speed equal to four light years per day. Instead of taking four hundred plus years to travel the 90 light years to Zeta Serpentis by their fusion pulse Main Drives, they would be at their target star in about three weeks.

  A touch on his right arm pulled him away from pondering the exotica of quantum gravity. Maureen pulled her hand back. “You may believe this Nasen critter is willing to do Trade. Not me. Not until I see it myself. So. I’m spending the next eight days developing Threat Assessments for those nasty-looking javelin through a ring ships!”

  Jack felt his neck tense, his back tighten up and the burden of leading the men and women aboard nine ships come full bore onto him. “Good. I believe in actions more than words. Which is why Nikola is having us exit north of the system’s ecliptic plane. The Alcubierre drive emergence does not emit any detectable emission. So we will go stealth . . . until we can gain a full true-light and Sensor readout on this system. And the Nasen.”

  Maureen gave him a sharp nod. “Good. My Military Historian side says approaching the home system of interstellar carnivores is best done in stealth mode!”

  Jack gave the woman an antique thumbs-up gesture. He knew it only due to his studies under his grandpa. “Right! Together we will prevail over any opponent!”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Three weeks later the fleet exited the Alcubierre space-time bubble at 40 AU north of the ecliptic plane of the star Zeta Serpentis. Jack immediately checked the front screen’s true-light imagery, including the faces of his eight other ship captains. Thanks to atomic timing crystals, each ship had arrived within 50 kilometers of the other ships. He saw the faces of Hideyoshi of the Bismarck, Gareth of the Dragon, Minna of the Wolverine, Ignacio of the repaired Badger, Akemi of the Orca, Júlia of the Caiman, Aashman of the rebuilt Mongoose and Kasun of the Leopard. Each captain waved at him, nodded or looked attentive as was their personal manner.

  “Nikola,” he called back over his shoulder, “tell us what we need to know about this system.”

  “Right.” He heard the tapping of her fingers on her Astro and giant reflector scope panels. “Zeta Serpentis is an F3 main sequence dwarf star, age about two billion years, with a color of yellow-white. While its diameter is just 1.3 times that of Sol, its brightness is six times that of Sol. Which
is why the habitable comfort zone begins at 2.58 AU out from the star.” She paused as the numbers she cited showed up in a table to the far left side of the screen. “It presently lies 24,062 light years out from the galactic center. It is unusual in its very fast equatorial rotation of 73 kilometers per second versus Sol’s rotation speed of two klicks per second. In other respects it is a normal main sequence star.”

  “Planets?” Jack prodded.

  More tapping and Jack saw an overhead plan view of the system appear in a split-screen depiction. “There are seven planets orbiting the star, with two asteroid belts. One belt is between planets two and three, while the second belt lies between planets five and six.” A second split-screen took shape. It showed the half-illuminated disk of a planet, with the silvery white of a large moon lying near it. “This is the inhabited planet two. It is located at three AU, well inside the liquid water ecozone. No other planet is inside that zone, while the three outer worlds are gas giants of various sizes. Spectroscopic analysis of the atmosphere says it is an oxy-nitro mix similar to Earth’s, but with fewer pollutants. My Big Eye scope imagery shows an icy north pole and icy south pole. We have to get closer for more planetary details.”

  Jack looked to his right. “Elaine, what do your Sensor scans show for neutrino sources and grav-pull pulses?”

  His sister looked up and spoke to the sound-activated software of the ceiling speaker. “Autonomous, overlay my system Sensor feed atop the reflector image of the system. Display fleet ships as red spots. Show other grav-pull ships as yellow spots. Fusion pulse drive ships are to be green. Process!”

  “Processing,” said the dry voice of the Uhuru’s primary computer. “Completed.”

  “Damn!” cursed Max.