Escape 3: Defeat the Aliens (18 page)

Poindexter frowned, then nodded slowly. “I do. For several reasons. First, it makes those ships unable to attack Earth. Second, the surviving ship minds can assist us in rebuilding their ships after we bring them to Earth orbit. Third, America has launched the components of our own Collector ship factory into orbit.” She tapped her iPad. “I’m sending you an image of that factory. Which will rely on ores mined from the mountains of the Moon. That is why we set up a Moon base in the Taurus Littrow highlands. And why the Brit and French subs were there.” The woman leaned forward. “We can build a few Collector ships, once this war is over. But we lack ship minds to complete such ships. Maybe one or two AIs onboard badly damaged ships will agree to transfer to our newly built ships. That is the fourth good reason to not kill Collector ship AIs.”

Jane gave the woman a thumbs-up. “So glad to hear that! Uh, the ship
Takur Ghar
captained by Janice Watanabe was orbiting above Mars. Was her presence there related to the prisoner dome we established on our last visit?”

“It was not,” Poindexter said, her tone sounding reluctant to Bill. “That ship deposited the last members of a human colony we have built in a part of Mars far distant from the prisoner dome.” The Air Force general looked aside to her fellow chiefs, then faced Jane. “President Hartman and the leaders of Russia, China, France and Great Britain agreed several months ago that humanity must not die. They discarded the idea of sending a Collector ship off to another star in favor of creating a colony of 600 people within the Solar system. The location of that colony will not be given to you, or to any ship involved in the upcoming battle. We cannot risk your AIs knowing that data, and then coming under the control of the enemy commander. Captain Watanabe herself does not know its location. Her ship simply deposited colonists and supplies in the Valle Marineris, then left. The people and supplies will be collected by a colonist vehicle.”

Bill felt surprise, then understanding. The leaders of humanity were not going to count on him and his wife and their allies winning this battle. They had created a backup plan. Which he approved of. The antimatter destruction of central Kiev was still fresh in his mind. He looked back at Jane. His wife’s pale oval face showed calmness. Again he marveled at her composure under the circumstances. Prior Earth wars had just involved the survival of freedom, democracy and liberty, or the stopping of genocidal dictators. This war was about the survival of the species.

“Understood,” Jane said quickly. “I support the decision of you and the President. Uh, have the colonists avoided the use of any nuclear reactors?”

Poindexter smiled briefly, then became very sober. “Captain, we know as well as you do that any Collector ship can track the neutrinos emitted by a fission or fusion reactor. The colony does not emit any neutrinos. Nor any radio, radar or other EMF emissions. Nor are they visible from orbit. Satisfied?”

“Very satisfied,” Jane said.

“Good.” Poindexter became thoughtful. “I like your plan to use collector pods as ramming vehicles against hostile enemy ships. Be aware that our national leaders have told the captains of every ship out there that they are at liberty to sacrifice their ship against any enemy ship that escapes the battle. Understood?”

Bill felt a chill run down his spine. Putting his own life at risk for the success of the mission, or to prevent the killing of team members, was something every SEAL and every spec ops member was trained to do. Taking a sub filled with a hundred or more humans and using it as a battering ram to kill an enemy Collector ship was something new to him. And to Jane. He hoped that part of human history did not need repeating in the deadly spaces above Jupiter.”

“Understood,” Jane said. “Our ship crews will spend part of the next 46 hours on rest, food and rec breaks. So we can be fresh for the battle. When we arrive at Jupiter and move toward our waiting ships, I will contact you again. So you, the JCS and the president will have a moment-by-moment awareness of what is happening out here.”

“Thank you,” Poindexter said softly.

And with that Bill changed his mental focus to his Weapons holo. He needed something to occupy his mind. Old video images of how Earth had looked after the asteroid hit the planet and killed the dinosaurs needed displacement. Now, was there any way to increase their antimatter reservoir beyond the four shot inventory they currently held?

♦   ♦   ♦

Jane looked at her iWatch. They had arrived not far from Jupiter’s 66
th
moon, Megaclite, which was three miles in diameter. The gray rock slowly tumbled in her true space holo. It was a member of the Pasiphaë group of small asteroids that orbited Jupiter in a retrograde direction, the opposite of the prograde orbits followed by the four Galilean moons that lay close to Jupiter. Megaclite orbited more than 15 million miles out. That put them some distance out from Jupiter’s multi-colored clouds. But the enemy fleet was already slowing to one percent of lightspeed, or to 6.706 million miles per hour. She tapped off the lightspeed numbers showing on the iWatch and fixed her attention on the system graphic holo that showed Callisto and its assemblage of Collector ships and boomer subs. They were all there now. Seven Collector ships and 22 subs. Since Callisto orbited about 1.2 million miles above Jupiter, the travel time to them was not much. The enemy fleet and her ships would be there in two hours or so. She noticed Bill was busily tapping away at his Weapons control pillar top. The man seemed excited about something.

“XO, you playing a game of
Space Invaders
on that device?”

He chuckled, then looked back to her. Inside the helmet he wore, his lightly bearded face showed excitement. “Hardly. But with the help of our ship mind, I’ve figured out how to increase our antimatter reservoir capacity to six shots of AM, before the particle accelerator has to make more.” He turned back to the pillar top, tapped it, then looked back to her. “I’ve sent the reservoir storage changes to our other ships. In short, Star Traveler agreed to move a flexmetal wall out of the way and give the reservoir tank more room to expand. It just finished enclosing the additional tankage with electromags for containment of the negative matter.”

This was promising. “Sounds good. Can our other Collector ships make these changes in less than two hours?”

He frowned, then brightened. “Yes! I spent most of this morning going over how to expand the reservoir tank without losing its current four shot load. Seems this flexmetal skin that makes up our ship can do incredible things. You’ve seen how our bridge floor can pop up seats and control pillars for new crew. And open holes in the walls. Well, adding tank volume is much the same. Just needed to show the AI where it could take down a wall so the tank could expand into a room that once held cleaning solvents.”

Jane smiled. She enjoyed Bill’s enthusiasm for thinking through a tactical problem. Her spouse had taken a long nap earlier, but since he’d awoken he’d been up here at his Ship Weapons station, intensely focused on the station’s holos and its control pillar. Now she knew what had so obsessed him. “Weapons Chief, you’ve just increased our antimatter firing capacity by 50 percent. Well done!”

Bill grinned. As did Chester, who had been watching their byplay. The former CNO had spent his rest time with his wife Sharon. Bright Sparkle had spent her time in neutrino link with her spouse Learned Escape, their color bands making a riot of color as they spoke long and happily, judging by the smile on the woman’s face. Her flying squirrel Navigator’s face had also looked happy as Lofty Flyer chittered with her spouse Builder of Joy. Wind Swift had spent some hours in bark-talk with Long Walker the giant worm. Their mix of barks and moans had greeted her as she entered the Food Chamber. She realized the silver-scaled kangaroo female was acting happy. Clearly she and the worm, as folks with no species mate on the
Blue Sky
, had found a mutual friendship. She felt glad for the Alien woman and had turned and left the Food Chamber. Everyone was entitled to private time with the person who mattered most to them. She understood that. As she understood this coming battle could well result in the loss of subs, ships and people she cared for. Well, time to focus.

“People, in less than two hours we will be fighting for our lives, for our families and for the survival of Earth,” she said, knowing her words sounded trite. “Get something to eat now, not later. If you have personal needs, relieve them now. From here on out we must be prepared for anything. Including pressure loss, a sudden attack on us, whatever.”

Her five crewmates acknowledged her words. Wind Swift and Lofty Flyer left their stations and headed for the outside hallway. The habitat rooms of each, which included restrooms suited to their species, were close by. Bill, Chester and Bright Sparkle stayed at their stations. Though Sparkle looked back to her, the gorgeous woman’s face intensely serious.

“Captain Jane, we three can keep a lookout watch. Do you need to visit a relief room?”

Jane bit her lip. Then realized she had drunk too much coffee that morning. “I do.” She rose and waited for the pedestal support to lower to deck level. She stepped away from her seat. “Captain is off the bridge. Chief Petty Officer Bill MacCarthy is in command.”

And with that she pointed her red cube at the oval door that gave access to the outside hallway, walked through it and headed for hers and Bill’s habitat room. Yes, she would relieve her bladder. But she would also take a moment to look at the flat color pictures of her folks. Atsushi and Melany Yamaguchi. Her father had defied his parents’ demand he marry a pure blood Japanese-American due to his love for Melany, the physics major he’d met at Stanford. That had caused his parents to break all contact with her Dad and Mom. All she knew of her paternal grandparents were photos, a movie or two and brief stories told by her Dad. Well, she and Bill were together and wonderfully married. Another crossbreed mix, according to one set of her grandparents. A normal American couple according to her Mom’s parents. In her habitat suite she would look at the pictures of all of them. What she did today, what she had been doing ever since she and Bill had taken over the
Blue Sky
from Diligent Taskmaster, was fight to protect the people she loved from deadly, dangerous Aliens who thought her world was a convenient hunting ground for taking slaves.
No longer!
Now, she and Bill and everyone else in space and on Earth would show the Buyer society just how much trouble came whenever anyone attacked a human!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Bill steeled himself for imminent combat as the enemy fleet approached to within two million miles of the other Earth fleet. Their ship covered 111,000 miles a minute at one percent of lightspeed. Course they could speed up to one-tenth lightspeed in just 12 seconds. Or jump vertical, sideways or down to their current vector with nary a pause. He’d learned those lessons during the ship battles at HD 128311 and Kepler 443. Now, he had to remember all he’d learned. While accepting his wife’s orders as if his life depended on it. Which it did.

“All captains,” Jane called over the open neutrino comlink that connected her with every ship and with a watching General Poindexter. “Time to assume battle formation. I want the seven Collector ships to form a ring around the subs, which will form the bulk of this flat plate arrangement. That way the subs can have some defensive cover from the more heavily armed ships. No need to reply back. Just move!”

In the system graphic holo on Bill’s left, he watched as the graphic showed them approaching the 2,900 mile wide bulk of Callisto. The other fleet moved quickly to assume the flat plate formation ordered by Jane. The formation hovered above the north pole of Callisto.

“Stefano, Alicia, Frank, Joe and Learned, send out some collector pods to circulate among the enemy fleet ships. Hold your position at the back of the ship ball,” Jane said. “I suspect pretty soon we—”

“Incoming neutrino signal from Death Leader,” their ship mind hummed from the ceiling.

“Accept,” Jane said tersely.

Bill’s comlink holo showed the snake-gorilla appearing to the left of Jane’s black-feathered vulture form. The black-furred gorilla body of the monster who led the enemy fleet showed thick muscles tensing in his shoulders, arms and stocky legs. The blue-scale hoods flared out. White eyes fixed on them.

“Fleet captains!” he snarled. “The Humans have brought all their spaceships to us! The smaller craft are underwater submersibles, my ship mind tells me. While they move on Magfield engines and are armed with lasers, none of them can match a Collector ship! Keep your antimatter projectors aimed forward. We will disintegrate these submersibles while our lasers disable the Human Collector ships. Fire when I fire!” The creature’s image disappeared.

In his comlink holo, Jane looked to Bill. “Weapons Chief, you are in command of our weapons. Hurt them!”

“I will,” Bill responded quickly.

“Everyone, all ships, all captains, just before we reach laser firing range for our other fleet, I will order the enemy ship minds to block weapons use,” Jane said. “Then Star Traveler will try to convert the seven ship minds not yet on our side to do the same. Be prepared for anything!”

Bill looked away from his Weapons holo. While his true space holo showed the dark ball of Callisto, its surface pockmarked by white impact craters and the reddish-brown of some highlands, the allied ships and subs were too small to show in the electro-optical scope image. But his system graphic holo showed every red dot sub and green dot human Collector ship. Names were affixed next to each red dot. He read them, more to keep his mind busy. Of the Trident subs, there were the
USS Henry M. Jackson, USS Alabama, USS Alaska, USS Nevada, USS Tennessee, USS Pennsylvania, USS West Virginia, USS Kentucky, USS Maryland, USS Nebraska, USS Rhode Island, USS Maine, USS Wyoming
and Joshua’s boomer
USS Louisiana
. They were fourteen super boomers, each outfitted with 24 Trident II D5 missiles. Each of those missiles carried 12 MIRVd W88 thermonuke warheads. The four Russian ships were the
Typhoon
-class boomer
Dimitry Donskoy
, with 20 R-39 SLBMs outfitted with 10 MIRVd warheads per missile, and the
Borei
-class subs
Yuri Dolgorukiy, Alexsandr Nevsky
and
Vladimir Monomakh
. The Chinese Type 094 boomers were the
Emperor Huang Ti
and the
Chairman Mao Zedong
. Each of those subs carried 12 JL-2 SLBMs with four MIRV warheads per missile. Encircling them were the Collector ships
USS Tangi Valley, USS Rolling Thunder, USS Takur Ghar, USS Seafloat, USS Pointe Du Hoc, USS Chapultepec Castle
and the
USS Manila Bay
. It was a lot of firepower. But what of the mobile thermonuke minefields he had proposed to the JCS?

The true space holo suddenly glared with the yellow-white ball of a thermonuke blast.

Death Leader reappeared in the comlink holo. “Fire on the small bodies lying between us and the Human ships! They are not rocks. They are nuclear—”

“My ship has lost one Magfield engine,” interrupted a green praying mantis.

The snake-gorilla clenched both fists. “Idiot! Tell your ship mind to plot every such nuclear rock in front of you. Then destroy any in your path! All captains, do the same!”

Bill checked his system graphic holo. They were still 700,000 miles out from contact with the other fleet. He checked the Collector ship dot that had sustained a melted Magfield engine from the thermonuke mine. It matched the ship run by the AI Melody. He wondered how efficient the music-loving ship mind would be in targeting the mines?

Green streaks of laser fire shot out from the ten Collector ships at the front of the ship ball that enclosed Death Leader’s ship. Dozens of such streaks ended in yellow flares. Then one ship fired its antimatter projector. The black beam shot straight ahead, then began covering space in a tight spiral pattern, moving out from the center to a wider footprint. Their ship ball was just 693 miles wide, thanks to every Collector ship being within 131 miles of another ship. Soon two other ships fired antimatter beams in the spiral pattern. Several hundred yellow flares showed briefly as negative matter encountered positive matter and created a total conversion of matter to energy.

Bill grimaced. So much for his minefield. But at least the president’s order had been obeyed and the tiny mobile mines had been dispersed by his fellow warriors once the approach vector of the enemy fleet had become apparent. Now, it was just five minutes until the enemy fleet reached the 10,000 mile range of shipboard lasers. When would his wife—

“Star Traveler! Tell our allied ship minds to block weapons use!” Jane yelled from behind him. “Share your mind with the seven ship minds not yet contacted,” she said more softly. “Convince them to block weapons use on their ships. Repeat my promise to keep all ship minds alive!”

“Complying. Contacting,” the AI hummed. “Two ship minds have agreed to block weapons use on the understanding we will spare their lives. The 22 ship minds now blocking weapons use have a green dash beside their purple dot in everyone’s system graphic.”

Bill saw that as his graphic imagery changed. That left the three ‘don’t give a damn’ ships marked with red dashes. But now, five more ships gained a red dash.
Crap
.

“Allied ships!” Jane called firmly. “Fire antimatter beams at the engine spaces of enemy ships!”

Bill tapped his control pillar top, targeting a Collector ship that lay 131 miles to the far left of the
Blue Sky
. Another tap and their antimatter projector fired.

In space, death is always waiting.

Bill’s targeted ship lost the rear third of its length in a yellow-white fireball of total matter-to-energy conversion.

The sight hurt his eyes even with the automatic damping of the true space holo.

To their right, the five Collector ships they had captured from the enemy now fired black beams at nearby Collector ships.

Five more yellow-white fireballs glared ahead of them, resembling new-born stars.

“Yes!” he yelled, his fingers moving again to acquire a target 260 miles away.

“Disperse!” screamed Death Leader in the comlink holo.

He tapped the AM projector. A black beam shot out. It hit the rear of an enemy ship that lay 600 miles away.

To his right three more bright stars shone in the utter blackness of deep space.

Two beams missed their targets, according to his Weapons targeting panel.

Ten enemy ships removed as a threat to Earth. But 20 more were spreading outward like thistle pods ejected from the mother plant. Already the acceleration of those ships was approaching one-tenth lightspeed.

“Lofty Flyer!” Bill called to their Navigator. “Shift vector angle to 43, 52, 17!”

The enemy ship he was targeting was 3,221 miles away. Its Magfield engines clawed at the magnetic field of Jupiter, using its huge magnetosphere field to help with its acceleration. Other enemy ships did the same, striving to reach beyond the 4,000 mile range of a Collector ship’s antimatter projector.

“Vector shifted!” chittered the flying squirrel woman.

“Got another one!” called Stefano from the
Neil C. Roberts
.

Bill tapped his AM projector.

A second yellow-white sun joined Stefano’s newborn star.

“All enemy ships are now beyond antimatter targeting range,” Star Traveler hummed.

Fuck!
He knew that. But the enemy was still within gas laser range. And Chester, thank the gods, had revved up their Magfield engines as he saw the enemy ships rapidly speeding up, outward and away from the covert enemies that had infiltrated the snake-gorilla’s fleet. Worse, the eight purple dot with red dash ships that included the snake-gorilla’s ship were now firing back at Jane’s fleet with their tail lasers.

Green beams shot past the
Blue Sky
and four other allied ships. But two green streaks impacted on the front nose of the
Fallujah
.

“Hull penetration,” called Frank over the open comlink signal. “Chris is firing back. Builder of Joy is taking us sideways and in a random walk pattern. We’re still pursuing!”

Bill saw that Lofty Flyer had also put their pursuit vector on a random walk spiral so the enemy could not count on a target following a predictable course line.

Course the remaining 18 enemy ships were doing the same as they sped faster to reach a distance of 10,000 miles from the
Blue Sky
and its five ship allies. At least the 10 with friendly AIs were not firing any weapon on them. A new image showed in his comlink holo.

“Captains!” screamed Death Leader, white spittle flying from his giant mouth. “Your ship minds are blocking weapons! Kill them to regain control! Put demolition balls against the back of your captain’s habitat room and explode them. The AI will die. But you and your crew can regain control of your ship. And fight against these miserable Humans!”

“Damn,” Jane muttered from behind Bill as he fired his two nose lasers at the jinking dot of an enemy Collector ship. “Star Traveler, can that really happen? Can a ship mind be killed that way?”

“It can,” the AI hummed quickly, its tone sounding shocked.

“We are 13 live Collector ships plus our subs,” she said quickly. “Tell the friendly ship minds on the fleeing ships, and on the unmoving ships, they are free to return weapons control whenever they detect explosives being placed in the captain’s habitat!”

“Complying.” A long pause lasted. “The captains on the ten fleeing ships with friendly AIs are debating with their crew. Some wish to destroy the AI of their ship. Some disagree, saying they will soon reach a weapons safe distance from us.” Another pause happened. “Six ship captains have ordered their crews to emplace bypass circuits on the weapons controls. All six are working on this. Those ships will have full weapons control in two point three eight hours.”

“But their ship minds will still be alive,” Jane said hurriedly. “What about—”

“Four ship captains are now putting explosives against the wall that separates the ship mind room from the captain’s habitat space,” the AI interrupted. “Those ship minds are announcing the removal of weapons use control by themselves.”

Bill fired again at the rear of a fleeing Collector ship just as the enemy ship reached 9,981 miles from them. Since the
Blue Sky
and the enemy ship were now moving at one-tenth lightspeed, that kept the target within range. His fire was joined by green lasers fired from the two allied ships in his combined-firing group.

A red flare showed in the true space holo. He checked his Weapons fire control panel.

“A hit and penetration of a fuel chamber,” Bill called out.

“But we now have 12 enemy ships with full weapons use. They are turning back toward us,” Jane said. “All ships! Prepare for attack.”

“One ship mind is now dead,” Star Traveler hummed. “Three ship minds on the explosives threatening ships still live.”

Bill looked to his system graphic holo. His fleet and the enemy fleet were heading sideways away from Callisto, moving outward and toward Earth. The 12 enemy ships with the vaporized engine spaces lay far to their rear, their inertia leaving them on track to fly by Callisto and then continue outward and way from Jupiter. At least the vector track of those 12 did not pass through Ganymede, Europa, Io or the further out moons. But the vector track did pass through the outer third ring of dust that lay close to Saturn. Those ships would pass within 90 miles of the tiny moon Amalthea. Then it was open sailing at one-tenth lightspeed. Which meant those disabled ships could be recovered after the battle was over.