Jack saw the silvery gleam of a dome as large as the Bismarck. “Any sign of a subsurface ocean?”
“Uh . . . nope,” Elaine said. She squinted at her two panel readouts. “Based on the movements of the tiny moons that orbit this place, I read its interior as half rock and half Ice Four. There may be cryovolcanic outgassing now and then, but that depends on the comet’s age and amount of radioactives in its rocky core.”
“Any sign of Sensor sats? Stealthed weapons in orbit? Anything dangerous?”
Elaine threw an infrared overlay atop the front screen image. “Nope. Nothing in orbit. Or within an AU of this place, according to my Sensor suite. The only heat emissions are from that habitat down below. But . . .” she looked aside at her NavTrack panel. “Those nine moving graviton sources are getting closer to us. Estimate their arrival within one minute.” She fixed amber eyes on him. “Our gravitomagnetic sensor will alert us when any ship drops out of grav-pull.”
Jack knew that. He scanned the images of the other eight ship captains. “People, stay alert! Aim your particle beams and antimatter mounts outward. But no shooting! Unless you see the Uhuru firing. If all goes well, my Lander will pick you up for our trip down to the habitat.” He looked to where Maureen sat in her Combat seat. “My mentor, do you need to be in your Battle Module?”
The woman who had known his Grandpa Ephraim in ways beyond sharing combat looked up. Her gray eyes shone brightly under the cabin’s yellow ceiling lights. She lifted one black eyebrow. “Getting antsy now? It’s a bit too late. Look.”
Jack jerked back to face the front screen. On it there now hung nine Nasen ships. Resembling a javelin thrust through a ring that was a weapons mount, their appearance was simultaneous with the sound of the gravitomagnetic sensor going off.
“Alert!” called the pea-brained device. “Alert, alert—”
“Shut up,” Elaine said, beating him to it.
“Ship size?” Jack asked, his gut twisting as he rested his hands on the Tech station panel that he’d pulled over his lap. “Mass? Delta-vee? Any—”
“Data requested?” spoke Autonomous from the ceiling.
“Shut up you bag of electrons!” Elaine said tersely as she checked both the NavTrack data dump and her Sensor suite. “Light-pulse now being processed. Size, half that of Bismarck and twice that of Uhuru. Ship mass estimate is 200,000 metric tons—again, half the mass of Bismarck. Inherent delta-vee . . . about one percent of lightspeed or 3,000 kps. The same as our orbital speed above Hot Blood.”
It all matched their readout records from that first combat above the comet Karla.
“Nikola,” called Maureen. “What’s their hull reflectance spectra? Metal? Ceramic? Some kind of exotic stuff? My lasers—”
“One moment,” Nikola said as she tapped on a preset function of their Schmidt telescope. “Filter spectrophotomery says a steel alloy. Fourier spectroscopy says . . . the alloy is a titanium-steel overlaid with a carborundum coating. Think of diamond-hard body armor. It’s identical to what we saw on their ships at comets Karla and Sedna.”
“Just lovely!” Maureen said, then cursed in Gaelic. “At Karla, it took our neutral particle beam to cut through that stuff!”
“Minna’s HF lasers helped you split that ship in half,” Jack said. Always having an audience of eight other ship commanders to every action carried out in the Pilot Cabin of the Uhuru was not fun. But he had grown used to it. He inspected the scope imagery of the Nasen ships.
The wolves had come. As before, their ships were painted to resemble a leaping carnivore. Just below the slit pupils of a cat ran a line of teeth one-third the length of each ship, backed up by extended legs, an image that resembled the leap of a wolf and yet conveyed a sense of Alienness. Like a pod of killer whales, the nine ships now moved as one in space. But they did not touch ship noses as at Karla. Nor did they try to close the four thousand klicks which lay between them and Jack’s fleet. He licked dry lips.
“Denise! Activate the neutrino comlink. Focus on me.” He unlocked the seat straps and stood up. Old Roy hung from a wide leather belt that Blodwen had dug out of the supply crates. “Hilok of the Northern Pack, we are here. The Human Pack is full of meat. This time we hunger for Trade.”
“Incoming AV signal,” Denise said softly.
The image of Hilok, flanked by four other Nasen on what looked like a Command Bridge, filled the center of the front screen. The Nasen wore his tool straps as before. The Alien fixed two yellow eyes on Jack.
“Pack Leader Jack Munroe of the Human Pack, we accept your offer of Trade.” Hilok looked aside as a Nasen crewman flowed up to him on long legs and handed him a datapad. The Alien glanced at it, then looked at Jack. “Our Trade tradition is that each species visits the habitat with equal numbers of visitors. How many Humans will you bring for Trade?”
“Thirteen,” Jack said. “Two of them are young females. They hunt by the names of Denise and Blodwen. One is my lifemate, an astronomer who Hunts by the name of Nikola. The other members you know from our visit to the Gathering Hall on Sedna.”
Black eyelashes blinked quickly. “Acceptable. Thirteen will also be our number. My eldest son and daughter will be among the party. My daughter is my ship’s astronomer. She has the Hunter domain data you desire.” Hilok paused, gestured to someone off-screen, then spoke in a throaty snarl. “As you can see, the habitat lies below. Its atmosphere is Nasen and Human normal. Gravity inside is maintained at ninety percent Earth level. Water and rest areas are available. However, each visitor brings their own food as needed. Along with their Trade items.” Hilok paused. “Only one Nasen transport will travel to the surface. You Humans will do the same. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Jack said. He grinned, showing his teeth. “We will join you at the habitat within one-fiftieth of a rotation of the Nasen home world.”
Two Nasen crew flared their tails at Jack’s mention of their home world. But Hilok whinnied loudly. “We call our home world Hunt Forever. We too will arrive within your time interval. Departing.”
The AV image blinked out, to be replaced by the true-light scope image of Hot Blood. Between the comet and Jack’s fleet there orbited the nine Nasen ships. They glinted in the yellow-white light of Zeta Serpentis. He looked up at his fellow ship captains.
“My allies, the Anneli Korhonen will pick up each of you,” Jack said. “Bring any specialty items which you think may entice the hunger of the Nasen. Bring your personal weapons. Wear your Kevlar vests. And be ready for surprises.” He turned to head for the Lander hold.
“Surprises?” Elaine asked, her expression worried.
“Hey sister! Be at ease.” Jack gestured for Nikola, Denise and Blodwen to follow him and Maureen. “Surprises are normal in space. Routine is worrisome. Too much normalcy and folks stop being in shape to handle surprises.” He stopped at the Spine hatch and looked back to her. “You can watch everything that happens from our personal vidcams. We’ll set the Lander videye to uplink our imagery and sound. Okay?”
“Okay.” Elaine reached down beside her Pilot seat and pulled out a ball of yarn. She resumed knitting a yellow wool shawl she had begun when they’d left Sol system.
Max caught his attention. “Jack, don’t forget your boina! And I’ll keep every system ready for any surprises. I’ve told Maureen’s Battle Module to crosslink to my Drive station. Me and the Combat Commanders on the other ships will be ready to antimatter zap every ship out there. If needed.”
Jack nodded, smiled reassurance and entered the Spine hallway, with the boots of Nikola, Denise, Maureen and Blodwen echoing behind him. He had no doubt their fleet could defeat any Nasen fleet. No other Hunt predator species had their antimatter and Higgs Disruptor weapons. He planned to keep it that way. But he also planned to get a comprehensive data brief on the three thousand year-old Hunters of the Great Dark social system, and the star systems they controlled. It was time for an old system to change. And Jack knew just the people to make that change!
♦ ♦ ♦
Jack brought the Anneli Korhonen down on its chemfuel thrusters, setting the boxy contraption down not far from the silvery habitat dome. He unlocked his seat restraints and stood up. He grabbed the seat to keep from bounding upward in the light gravity.
“Shogun Jack, we are all ready,” said Akemi from behind, where she like the others sat on benches that ran along both sides of the Lander interior. “Your orders?”
“We move together,” he said over his EVA suit’s comlink. “Like a pack of hungry wolves.”
“Exactly right,” growled Maureen as she stood up from her Navigator seat next to Jack. She low grav slow-walked back to the cargo hold of the Lander.
Jack tapped the NavTrack panel to engine shutdown and ecofield-maintenance. The control module’s display screens shut off, leaving only a few manual buttons and switches to say the metal block did anything. The Lander videye and uplink function he left on. Through the cabin’s front window of clear quartz he saw a geodesic dome as big as the Bismarck. He looked back at his fellow captains and Maureen as she walked into their midst. As on prior comet visits, everyone wore transparent bubble helmets, along with backpacks carrying their personal weapons, vidcams, comlinks to each ship and enough food and drink for a day. With a grin he slow-walked toward his friends and fellow fighters.
Captain Aashman lifted a yellow and red-striped arm that matched the colors of his suit. “Captain Jack, what weapons do your Nikola, Blodwen and Denise carry?”
“A Roman short sword for each of them. Elaine has been training them in sword fighting,” he said to the swarthy Hindu. “Though Blodwen and Denise also carry slings. They said it was more sporting.” He scanned the faces of everyone present. “Maureen, Hideyoshi, Gareth, Minna, Ignacio, Akemi, Júlia, Aashman and Kasun, we are a wolf pack visiting a new Hunt territory. We move as a unit. We act as a unit. And Maureen and I are the alpha female and male leaders of this pack. Yes, we are all captains in our own right. But today, and for every moment we are in or near Hot Blood, we are Hunters on the Hunt!”
Petite Akemi bowed to him. “My shogun, our allegiance is complete. When you give orders, we obey.”
Jack appreciated Akemi’s simple statement. It was an allegiance they had all shown in earlier battles, both in Sol system and at the two Alien systems. It made them different from the actions of the Hunters of the Great Dark, who pursued an ‘every species for its own gain’ approach to claiming subject peoples. He tapped his suit chest in acknowledgment.
“Captain Akemi Hagiwara, you bring honor to your clan.” He gestured. “Let’s exit. Me first, followed by Maureen and Ignacio. Blodwen and Denise will haul our meat locker. Nikola?”
His lifemate looked to him from where she stood among the other EVA suits. Her suit showed orange and green stripes. “Yes?”
“You . . . please help your neighbors in their buddy checks of EVA suit functions.” Jack pulled his attention away from the woman he loved. Bringing her along had not been his wish. But she was the ship’s Chief Astronomer. Only she could make sense of the Nasen stellar data that would show the locations of other Hunters of the Great Dark. “Uh, the rest of you come after us.”
Jack turned, pulled open the Lander airlock hatch, entered with Maureen, Nikola, Ignacio, Blodwen, Denise and the locker, then shut the hatch so they could open the outer hatch.
Walking down the extruded ramp to the reddish-brown soil of Hot Blood, Jack felt light. Light in both weight and in mind. He had a feel for what might happen during the upcoming Trade meeting. While First Contact was always dangerous, Hilok seemed in control of his people.
A slow walk of fifty meters took the thirteen of them to the entrance to the habitat dome. A lighted graphic showed how to open and enter the dome’s airlock. It was identical to their dome entry on Sedna. A metal slab moved sideways into the curving wall of the dome. A yellow-white light illuminated the roomy interior of the airlock. Maureen, Nikola, Ignacio, Blodwen, Denise and his fellow captains followed him into the chamber. At the far side of the room, where a similar hatch was outlined in red, he touched the contact panel. Behind him the entry slab closed tight, separating them from the Lander and from the icy surface of the comet.
When his suit sensors reported full Earth-normal air pressure, the inner hatch slid open. Beyond lay another empty room, twice as large as the airlock. As on Sedna, hooks and shelves lined the walls of the square room. Jack gestured at them.
“Take off your EVA suits. Rack them. Then put on your personal arms and packs. And vidcams.”
Jack opened his backpack and pulled out Old Roy, then leaned the Viking long sword against the cold metal of the room’s silvery-white wall. Next he pulled a Kevlar vest over his jumpsuit, slipped his feet into soft shoes with a sucker-grip sole like they wore at home in the Belt, then belted his Smith and Wesson .45 caliber six-shot revolver about his waist. Speedloader clips of bullets hung from his left hip. After tying his pack to his waist, he strapped thin steel throwing knives to each shin. Then he picked up Old Roy and lifted it up and over his head so it slid point-first into a cross-back scabbard built into his sleeveless vest. Turning, he scanned his friends.
Redheaded Denise wore her black leotard under her Kevlar vest. A Bowie knife hung from one slim hip while a Roman short sword hung from a wide belt. She slung a small pack over her back, then noticed his look. She smiled shyly.
“Got my translator datapad in there. It uplinks to Autonomous. It can also take input from the personal comlinks and vidcams we each wear. Okay?”
“More than okay. Did you pack that Cretan perfume that’s been so popular on Mathilde lately?”
She blushed. Then nodded. “Uh huh. Think it will work as a Trade item?”
“Who knows? These Nasen seem to like more than eating bloody raw steaks.” He smiled encouragement. “And maybe Hilok’s daughter will value something with such a . . . a different scent. Given these people’s predator heritage, I have no doubt their sense of smell is outstanding.”
An elbow jabbed his ribs. He turned to see Nikola pulling her long brown hair into a pony tail. She gave him an innocent look. “Yes?” he said.
She frowned. “Dammit! Are all men such one track-minded types? Smell anything?”
Oh. He had noticed a minty odor but thought it the result of some machinery inside the inner airlock. “Yes. And, oh my, you do smell delicious my dear!” He scanned her outfit. “And that sword does look nice on your hips. Why, you could scare any Alien into the sixth dimension!”
Nikola rolled her eyes up, then looked past him at Blodwen. “Hey girl, good luck on training Max to look beyond his Alcubierre drive modules!”
The Welsh girl wore a green leotard with a Kevlar vest on top. At her waist hung a slim steel sword of Roman design. But her leotard showed the bright red of a dragon. Her eyes lit up when she noticed his look. “It’s the Welsh battle dragon, or the Y Ddraig Goch. It is the symbol of we Cymry. Which is what we call ourselves.”
Black-bearded Gareth, standing beside Blodwen, smiled at her comments. “She is a true lass of the rocky lands. I am proud to have her among my crew.”
Jack noticed that Gareth, while dressed in a brown shipsuit with Kevlar vest fitted to his wide chest, had a slim steel sword hanging from his hip that did not look Roman. “Your sword? Is it Welsh?”
The man’s brown eyes lit up. “Oh yes! It is modeled after the Dyrnwyn, the magical flaming sword of our great hero Rhydderch Hael. I make sure to only use it in a worthy cause!”
Blodwen nodded sagely, as if Gareth’s statement had some deeper meaning. Jack nodded slowly. “A beautiful weapon it is.” He looked beyond the two natives of Cymry, fixing on his other battle mates.
Hideyoshi, short, pudgy and barrel-chested, had just finished pulling a Kevlar vest over the bullet-resistant pad that fronted his red bodysuit. He wore shoulder pads, knee pads and shin guards, but none of them resembled the American football sports gear. These were painted black and shone steel bright. Jack recalled a
ncient Japanese wood block prints that portrayed daimyo lords dressed similarly. He grinned.
“Getting ready to claim this comet for Nihon? Or Mars?”
The man’s thin black eyebrows lifted, his expression tolerant. “Are all Belters devotees of those ancient samurai Western vids? My ancestors were cloth merchants in Osaka. Not provincial royalty. We carried that practicality to Mars.”
Jack sobered. The admiral with forty years of battles in space was reminding him that they faced serious business. He scanned the rest of his Trade crew.
Akemi wore a black ninja-style bodystocking. Like him and everyone else she wore a Kevlar vest to protect against claws and knives. Her katana sword hung at her left side, secured by a cotton belt that supported a dozen throwing stars. Her black eyes noticed his look and she rested one hand on the hilt of the katana.
“My sword, my clan and I are ready.”
“I see that. I honor you and your clan.” Turning away he checked out the personal arms of his other captains.
Ignacio wore short pants and a red wool shirt under his Kevlar vest. A Roman short sword hung from his revolver gun belt. The man now donned his boina. His clan brother grinned as he saw Jack’s own boina on his head. The man gave him a thumbs-up.
Aashman, his lanky frame covered in a short dhoti and a black Kevlar vest over his white cotton overshirt, wore spike-gloves on both hands. The steel spikes reached out a good five centimeters. Like Ignacio, the Hindu also wore a gun belt with a Teflon-coated revolver.
Júlia, dressed in loose pants and a brown wool overshirt under her Kevlar vest, wore soft capybara skin boots. She carried a scythe-sword. She seemed preoccupied with inspecting the insides of her backpack.
Humans Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series Book 2) Page 20