The Welshman gave his Celtic cousin a dry smile. “Maybe. If I offload him and Matthias to another ship.” Gareth looked at Hideyoshi. “Admiral? You have four fusion reactors on board this whale of a ship. With the help of your giant crew, maybe my guys can build a new accelerator and Combat Nodule just for this Higgs Disruptor. That way you keep your neutral particle beam nose projector, along with your pulse laser pods, torps and railgun launchers. And the fleet gains a second silent killer.” The man looked to Nikola. “Astronomer, it’s going to take a good three weeks in Alcubierre drive to get to this HikHikSot system, right? That should be enough time to build another disruptor on the Bismarck.”
“More like three and a half weeks to get there,” Nikola said. She looked to the admiral.
Hideyoshi sat straight in his Mars red uniform, its cut framing his strong shoulders. The man nodded abruptly. “Yes. We have our own Mech Shop. Plus an extra particle accelerator in case something happened to our nose projector. We have room for your Archibald and Matthias. I can give them private staterooms. My junior ensigns will not complain.”
Jack liked Maureen’s idea, Gareth’s offer and Hideyoshi’s response. Which reminded him of a sad duty. “Admiral, thank you. Gaining a second Higgs Disruptor platform will surely improve our offensive capability.” Jack looked over to where Elaine and Ignacio sat together, their mood attentive but quiet. “My Basque brother, your ship Badger has now lost two of your cousins. Sabino and Milpeades, may their names echo in memory and in history.” The swarthy-skinned man who was always the first to volunteer for any dangerous assignment blinked quickly. “That leaves just you and two other cousins on the Badger. I believe you need a Drive Engineer and also a ComChief. Perhaps Admiral Hideyoshi can loan you a few well-trained ensigns to help bring the Badger to full crew level?”
Ignacio’s lips thinned at the memory of the cousins he had lost in battles against Alien predators. He reached up, grabbed his black boina off his head, held it in his hands and looked up at Jack. “My brother, you took a vow on behalf of my cousin Milpeades. I can do no less. Yes, my cousins Aligarde, Wokirk and I will welcome aboard any ensigns which the admiral sees fit to send us.” He paused, then fixed a determined look on Jack. “My Fleet Captain, I claim gorputz on any HikHikSot ship remains!”
“Bai,” he said in agreement to his brother’s demand that the corpse of the enemy who killed his cousin would belong to Ignacio. Jack scanned the table. “Admiral, we cannot leave here without sharing a meal with you. Will you order for us all?”
Sympathy shone from the eyes of Hideyoshi, a man who knew what it felt like to lose people in battle. “My Admiral’s Mess is just the place to eat, drink, be merry and share good memories.” He looked aside to the crewman who had been standing silent during the entire Tactical Conference. “Ensign O’Hara, please ask the Central Kitchen to prepare meals for fourteen. We need something more satisfying than what that Auto-Chef . . . excretes.”
The crewman, red-headed like Denise, nodded sharply, though Jack saw a brief flicker of humor at the admiral’s description of the automated cooking device. “Immediately, my admiral. I leave to supervise the needed dishes.”
Jack reached down into his backpack and pulled out something he’d been saving for a special day. He put the bottle on the table and looked around. “Anyone up for some champagne? I smell victory approaching!”
Maureen chuckled, Nikola laughed softly and everyone around the table fell to handing around plastic cups. Jack took hold of the cork sealing the bottle, aimed it at the ceiling, twisted and let the remnant of Earth shoot out into a ballistic arc. The foaming white liquid splashed on the table briefly before cups appeared under it.
He felt good in his heart, despite the sadness of losing Milpeades and the damage to five ships. They were all together now. They had the ships they needed, the weapons needed and, most of all, the determination to follow through on his vow to make the cheetah-leopards of the HikHikSot forever regret their attempt to kill humans and to take over Sol system.
Surprises would happen. Injuries would occur. Plans would be disrupted. But human will, when applied with determination, never failed!
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Fifty AU north of the ecliptic plane of Zeta Serpentis, Jack sat at the front of the Pilot Cabin in his usual spot, his Tech station panel activated and showing the status of all ship systems on the Uhuru. Everyone else was at their usual place, with Blodwen seated directly behind Max. Who had held down the ship while everyone else attended the recent Tactical Conference. He’d made sure to transmit a vidrecord of the meeting back to Max’s Drive Engineer post. It was only right to keep share it with the man who’d deciphered the grav-pull drive, reverse-engineered the Alcubierre drive module and in short done engineering miracles the like of which Jack could never hope to achieve. Anyway, he liked being a xenoanthropologist who masqueraded as a Tech expert now and then. And it was better for the fleet to have a real Pilot like Elaine, a young but eager ComChief like Denise, a Drive Engineer like Max, a Combat Commander like Maureen and a Chief Astronomer like his Nikola. Who cleared her throat, prompting him to get a move on.
Jack looked up at the front screen, ignoring its true-light imagery of the Milky Way for the eight captain images that ran across the screen’s top. Every ship captain in the fleet was in laser tight-beam linkage with his ship. While busy with prepping their own ships for Alcubierre departure, they were all attentive to him and the Uhuru. “Elaine, are we oriented?”
“Yup.” The woman who had always seemed more mature than her eight years younger age glanced down at her NavTrack panel on her rightside armrest. Her Sensor panel glowed on the left armrest. “Facing galactic east toward the rotation direction of the galactic arms. Ready to input the coordinates for our target star.”
He decided not to stay silent until his lifemate kicked the back of his seat. “Nikola, tell us what we need to know.”
“Right.” The sound of her fingers tap-tapping on her Astro panel was barely audible. “Target star is Delta Boötis B, a G0V yellow main sequence dwarf star lying 97.295 light years distant from Zeta. Delta lies well above the galactic plane and ahead of our current position. Alcubierre transit time is twenty-four point three days. Coordinates sent to Elaine’s NavTrack.”
“Got them!”
He couldn’t resist. “Why is the star called B?”
“Jack!” Nikola’s tone verged on exasperation. “Stop making me sound like a first year astro student. You know B is part of a binary system. The other star is a G8III yellow giant which lies 3,800 AU out from star B. While the giant will be very bright as seen from the two inhabited planets in B system, there is no interaction with the planets of B system.”
He grinned. “It wasn’t all tease. It occurred to me that this fleet could exit Alcubierre in the A star system, activate our grav-pull drives there, then sneak into the B system from that direction. The stellar emissions of the A giant would mask our own rad emissions.”
Maureen snorted. “That would add weeks to our B system arrival, thanks to just going eighty percent of light.”
“Or about 52 days,” Nikola said, sounding impatient. “The target coordinates I just transmitted to Elaine will deposit us at 50 AU due north of the star itself. We will arrive at a right angle to the local plane of ecliptic. That should reduce our chances of being spotted by maser spysats, laser platforms or Hunter-Killer torps.”
Jack felt good about that last detail. Something he had not known despite their post-loveplay talk the night before. “All ships! Link your Alcubierre drive shell module into the time-lock signal from Max. Drive Engineer, initiate Alcubierre transit!”
“Initiating,” Max said, his tone amused.
The front screen star and people images began to shimmer, then jagged, then shrank as gravitational lensing warped the view outside. Then all such imagery vanished as their space-time bubble enclosed them, shutting them off from the limitations of normal space-time.
To h
is surprise, his stomach growled. “Uh, whose turn is it to cook? And are we eating steaks, eggs or lasagna?”
Blodwen laughed loudly, her happiness at being with Max a joy to hear. “Me, I guess. Heading back. Follow the good smells in fifteen minutes. As for what I put on the Food Refectory table, well, come and find out!”
Jack smiled to himself. This trip was starting out the right way. With humor, amiability and comradeship. Maybe he could win a Scrabble game this time, despite always being outclassed by the brain girls Blodwen and Nikola!
♦ ♦ ♦
Twenty-four days later the Uhuru and eight other fleet ships exited the Alcubierre space-time bubble and rejoined normal space-time. There were no attacks, no sign of any enemy and, best of all, every ship arrived within a hundred kilometers of each other. Jack thought such a tight fleet formation after a 97 light year journey was remarkable. Wishing his EVA suit felt less tight, he scanned the true-light image of space in this part of the Orion Arm. Orange, red, white, yellow and red stars glowed across the viewfield, while the white swath of the Milky Way ran across the bottom of the front screen. The helmeted images of his fellow ship captains popped into being at the top.
“All ships! Go to stealth mode! No grav-pull drive activation. No fusion drive use. No use of the neutrino talker. No radio, maser, lidar or other intentional EMF emissions. We communicate only by way of laser tight-beam.” He paused, trying to be sure he’d said all that was needed. “Verify that all ship systems are in green operational mode. All Combat Nodes and offensive weapons are to be staffed continuously. If you have an emergency, talk to me. Otherwise, let’s hear what Elaine’s Sensor panel and Nikola’s Big Eye scope can tell us about the target system.”
His sister nodded at his handoff. “Activating UV, infrared, microwave, neutrino, G-band graviton, gravitomagnetic and kinetic sensors. All input shared with all ships.” She paused. “Autonomous, transfer reflector telescope imagery to the front screen. Also, overlay my local system Sensor feed. Locate fleet ships as red spots. Show other grav-pull ships as yellow spots. Fusion pulse drive ships are to be green. Neutrino sources are white. Process!”
“Processing. Completed.”
Jack saw the yellow star of Delta Boötis B appear in the middle of the screen. Then the true-light image of the system suddenly expanded as the adaptive optics of the 30 meter reflector fed photons to the CCD receiver array. The bright crescents of eight planets showed in various orbital vectors. Elaine’s Sensor data suddenly appeared in overlay.
“Fuck!” cursed Max from the rear.
“Anws blewog!” cried Blodwen.
“Damnú ort!” cursed Maureen, a phrase he recognized.
“Oh no!” moaned Denise.
Jack felt his heart beating too fast. The number of yellow spots were too many for him to count. It looked like hundreds of grav-pull ships were stationary or moving within the system. A good two dozen fusion drive ships were green dots transiting inward from the four outer gas giants. The hundreds of white neutrino dots were a near one-to-one match with the yellow grav-pull dots. The nine red dots of their fleet looked very lonely.
“Elaine, what’s the count?” he asked, needing to know but dreading the answer.
“Four hundred thirty-seven grav-pull ships presently operate within the HikHikSot system,” she said briskly. “Several dozen stationary neutrino sources are present on planets three and four, in the asteroid belt and next to all four gas giants.” She paused, looking down at her Sensor panel. “Maser, lidar and UHF emissions are scattered across the system. As with the Nasen system, the maser signal pattern suggests a system-wide diginet.”
Denise leaned forward. “Look at that planet eight! There’s a dozen grav-pull ships out there, plus thirty more beyond that scattered over what seems to be their Kuiper Belt. Why?”
“Obvious,” Maureen muttered as she looked up from a Tactical holo above her lap. “They are outer system boundary ships tasked with detecting any incoming grav-pull ships. Good thing we did not enter along the plane of the ecliptic.”
Jack agreed wholeheartedly. “Denise, see how many AV channels you can pick up on UHF and VHF emission wavelengths. Might as well get your SETI system started on translating HikHikSot talk-talk.” He paused, then looked to his right. “Maureen, you see any juicy targets within that system? Beyond the inhabited planets?”
The woman sat back, looked up and scanned the front screen through her helmet. “If I see things accurately, there is a single moon circling planet three and two moons circling planet four. Both planets show the blueness of water, as in oceans and seas. If we could deorbit one of those moons, it would surely wake up those critters.”
“Tempting. But hard to do. Anything else?”
“Hmmm.” The woman leaned forward. “Elaine, can you give me some megawatt levels on those neutrino emission sources in the asteroid belt? See the two clusters? Maybe they are mining centers, like Ceres and Vesta. Maybe something else.”
“Checking.” Elaine reached to push back her sweat-soaked curls. Her hand bounced off her helmet. “Yes! The neutrino emissions from those two sources suggest one or more fusion reactors with an output of six thousand megawatts. That seems very strong for just a mining camp. Or a processing factory.”
Maureen looked to him, her gray eyes sparkling. “Young Jack, those two neutrino clusters could be colony ships. Either being built or already built and being readied for departure. To star systems targeted for subject people domination. Losing them would quite upset the folks in charge, don’t you think?”
Jack agreed. Especially if the colony ships were full of Cold Sleep capsules. Losing thirty or forty thousand trained colonists on each colony ship would more than hurt. It would impede any effort to expand the Hunt territory of the HikHikSot. Which was one of his objectives. “Agreed. Nikola, see if you can gain any kind of true-light or infrared imagery for those sources. Please?”
“Working on it.”
Jack looked back to Max. “Drive Engineer, if we use our Alcubierre drives to jump into that system, how close to its star can we get? Without killing our ships?”
Max moved one muscular arm to tap on an armrest panel. “This star is about the same size as Keid, or Omicron2. It’s smaller than Sol, but a bit warmer. My panel says two-tenths AU is the closest we can get.” He looked forward. “Nikola’s scope imagery says planet one is one-tenth AU out in a Mercury type orbit. Planet two is four-tenths AU out and resembles Venus. Then there’s the asteroid belt at one-half AU. Next is planet three at eight-tenths AU out. It’s right in the middle of the habitable zone for this star.” Max gave Jack a sardonic look. “Too bad we can’t deorbit planet three and push it into the local sun! That for sure would make for a massive operant conditioning impact on the HikHikSot!”
Jack smiled. “Tech has its limits. Even with the wonders of the two Higgs Disruptors and our antimatter beams, we cannot manipulate whole star systems. For which I’m glad.” He looked up at the faces of his fellow captains. “Hideyoshi, Gareth, Kasun, Akemi, Minna, Ignacio, Júlia and Aashman, what do you folks think about a repeat of Kasun’s Ashoka ploy? Do an Alcubierre jump to near the local star, then head outward toward the colony ships in the asteroid belt. From the neutrino cluster positions, there are no planets between them and the star. We could arrive with the stellar radiation front behind us, masking the gravitons of our grav-pull drive. And our neutrino emissions.”
Hideyoshi nodded from his Command Bridge. “Good plan. No enemy grav-pull dots show around either of the two inner planets. Only when you get to the asteroid belt. Which makes sense if they are transporting in colonists and preparing a guard fleet to accompany the colony ships. Assuming there are colony ships there.”
“There are,” Nikola said excitedly. “Look! My Big Eye has managed to resolve the infrared emissions from those two clusters. You can see the low rad signals from the various asteroids out there. But there are two elongated IR glows. While my CCD pixel size is pretty good, the best I ca
n say about those two glows is that they each measure about a kilometer long. Or slightly longer.”
Jack could see the two infrared glow clusters in the side split-screen that Nikola had added to the system true-light imagery. While there were twenty or more single pixel IR glows that co-matched with the yellow dots of grav-pull, the two bigger glows were much larger than any standard HikHikSot ship. He felt relief. His vow to attack the HikHikSot home system was sincere. But he had not had any idea of what opposition they might face until they arrived here. Now, with the true-light and Sensor inputs that they were receiving, while keeping their own arrival a stealth secret, Jack began feeling hopeful. Even encouraged. He looked up at the captains.
“Hideyoshi, those two colony ships look close on this screen. But they are easily a hundred thousand klicks apart. Which means a single grav-pull speed run will not take out both at one time.” The admiral nodded in agreement with his point. “You willing to take the Bismarck plus four ships and attack one of them, while I take the Uhuru and three ships to attack the other? That way each subfleet has a Higgs beamer for protection. If we use two thermonukes for each colony ship, that leaves us with five thermonukes for other combat here.”
Humans Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series Book 2) Page 24