Earth Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series 1) (21 page)

Elaine nodded slowly. “Okay. But why are all four ships in varying orbits? And why do they have these ice blocks affixed to their hulls? Makes it hard to see the underlying predator image.”

“They
expect
us,” Denise said, her tone concerned. She looked his way. “That is why none of their ships are on the comet surface. And why they are jacketed with ice blocks. To make detection of them from a distance not easy.” She paused, then lifted an eyebrow at him. “Captain Jack, these Aliens got word of our attack on the Gyklang Aliens and the fact of our vector this way, toward Sedna. But how? I did not detect any radio broadcasts or coherent maser emissions from the Gyklang ships.”

He sat back in his seat, then relocked his restraint straps. “My guess is the Aliens have some kind of fast or instant comlink that does not depend on masers, radio or long distance laserfax. Maybe one of Aashman’s engineers can figure out which piece of Gyklang bridge debris is their comlink. For now, though, we have to act as if every Alien we meet knows our entire Kuiper Belt combat history. Like that grizzly said to me, this Menoma leader guy sells that info to other Aliens. Denise, you sending this stuff to the rest of the fleet?”

“Yes, along with our discussion,” she said softly, looking fatigued.

He was tired too. Rotating duty station alerts helped somewhat in that his crew got at least six hours of sleep every twenty-four. But the need to always be on Alert in case they ran into new Aliens on the Hunt while they traveled between comets had worn them down. Whatever happened at this new comet, Jack knew they all had to do intensive R and R before they arrived at Sedna. But now, they faced a new battle. A battle against opponents who expected them.

“Maureen,” he spoke to the woman’s holo. “You got any ideas on how best to attack this four-ship group? They never cluster, and every side of the comet is covered by at least one ship, all the time.”

Their Belfast granny scratched her head, then snapped her fingers. “Got it! We shoot a thermonuke torp at the blockhouse, loaded with E-and-E software so it is hard to hit with a laser or neutral particle beam shot. The disk-ships will pick up its rad profile and know it’s a thermonuke. So they will cluster to combine their shots in the hope one of their laser shots will get through to the torp. While they are clustering we blip jump in, surround them and destroy their ships. Once the ships are dead we can knock out the blockhouse.”

Jack admired the clarity and simplicity of Maureen’s plan. But their last attack had taught him the value of input from other commanders. “Excellent tactic! Let’s see what thoughts Minna has on that attack plan.” He looked back to Denise. “Gal, send a Come-Back to Minna so we are in laser comlink with her, with a full AV feed of our recent chat to the other ships.”

“Complying,” Denise said, her attitude very focused for a nineteen year-old person.

Maureen fixed him with her gray eyes, then nodded abruptly. “Agreed. Minna’s a sharp raider. Maybe she can improve on this plan. In the meantime, I’m setting up the software for my scorpion-tail whipsnap!”

“Thanks.” Jack looked to the front screen where a vidbox now took shape above the comet imagery. Minna’s steely blue gaze fixed on him.

“Captain Jack? You called—oh, I see the reason. Let me look at Maureen’s plan.” She glanced to one side of her own ship screen, turned thoughtful, then faced him again. “I like very much the idea of tossing the thermonuke at the blockhouse, thereby forcing the defending ships to cluster. I volunteer
Wolverine
as the lead ship to blip jump in and release one of our thermonukes.”

“Incoming AV signals from all ships,” Denise said breathlessly.

At the top of the
Uhuru’s
front screen there now appeared side-by-side images of his five other captains, with Ignacio waving as his black mustache wiggled with his shouting.

“Me! Me!” Ignacio bellowed. “The Basque have always excelled at sneak attacks.”

Jack waved acknowledgment to Captains Akemi, Kasun, Aashman and Júlia, then addressed his first allies.

“Minna will lead the attack by being first to blip jump in on a vector different from our Sol approach,” Jack said firmly. “She launches a thermonuke torp with E-and-E software. Set the warhead to alternate options of either contact detonation, or ship vicinity detonation if any disk-ship gets within ten klicks of the torp.”

Minna smiled briefly. Ignacio, who had pulled his
boina
off, crumpled the small beret in his hands, his look anxious. “And we on the
Badger
?”

Jack smiled big at the stocky man. “You and your cousins will launch a railgun barrage of ball bearings on a vector to intersect the cluster of disk-ships. Your belly railgun is operational, isn’t it?”

“Yes!” cried Ignacio happily. “We added the railgun after the repairs from the Yiplak laser strikes. It’s a single barrel, unlike your double barrel mount. But it will get the job done.”

On screen Minna frowned. “My Basque ally, you realize the railgun targeting vector will be uncertain until the disk-ships begin to cluster?”

“Of course,” Ignacio said, gesturing to the side at a cousin out of view of the motion-eye that showed his bridge. “But we Basque grew up taking rifle shots from horseback, as we raced through the Spanish king’s private forests. And the
Badger
got plenty of practice with Unity cargo ships as they sought to hide among our asteroids.”

Maureen, who had been listening and watching the interplay from her Combat post, clapped hands to gain everyone’s attention. “Ignacio, of course you and yours are fine shots. But I recommend your railgun make multiple shots at variant vectors. That way we increase the chances of hitting one or more of the disk-ships.”

On the front screen Minna smiled briefly, then turned deadly serious. “Captain Jack,
Wolverine
will coordinate our blip jump arrival with
Badger
. We’ll send you a laser comlink signal just before we jump out of our current vector. Acceptable?”

“Very acceptable, Minna. And you too, Ignacio. Now, we spend the next two hours prepping for a fight against an enemy who expects us!”

Jack focused on the four other ship captains as Minna and Ignacio dropped from the front screen. “My allies, we will attack these Alien ships as a pod of killer whales might attack. Captain Akemi, you have the scope imagery, spectrum data and the shape of the first stage in our attack. Will you prepare a five-ship attack plan that makes best use of our weapons and abilities?”

Maureen’s holo image looked surprised, then she shrugged. “Jack, I’ve already done a basic surround-and-attack simulation. Shall I send it to Captain Akemi?”

“Yes, do so.”

“
Arigato, shogun-san
,” said the Japanese ship captain. “The thermonuke torp first stage is very promising. I will work with your esteemed Commander Maureen to develop a second stage ensemble attack plan. Yes?”

“
Hai
,” he said, using the little Japanese he knew. “Please proceed ladies. I am sure that Captains Júlia, Kasun, Aashman, Ignacio and myself will eagerly welcome whatever you come up with.”

The other ship captains concurred with Jack’s plan, then the front screen returned to its scope image of the comet with a separate enlargement of the orbiting disk-ships. Maureen’s holo blinked out. Around him came the breathing of Elaine, Denise and Max. His crew. His family. His battle comrades. Feeling the need for reassurance, he mentally visualized the new
Uhuru
, as seen from space.

Atop the ship’s spine rose the dual-barrel railgun launchers, to the right and left of their ‘stretched diamond’ hull whirred the hydrogen-fluorine laser pods with adaptive optics focusing, while their tail sported the deadly Battle Module, the domain of Maureen and her neutral particle beam whiptail. The ship’s underbelly housed the funnel of the backup fusion Main Drive. But the thing that pleased him most was their hull painting, which had been done inside Mathilde at the Dock Cavern. The
Uhuru
resembled a leaping Jaguar. Snarling white teeth framed the Pilot cabin, dark Egyptian-style eyes loomed above, long claws curled about the ship’s midbody lasers, and a tufted tail ran into the Battle Module. Gold and black jaguar spots covered the rest of the hull.

Jack felt his inner self become like the jungle jaguar. A stealthy, deadly killer who announced its presence only when the prey felt the jaguar’s teeth on its neck!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Minna’s and Akemi’s attack plan involved all seven ships entering grav-pull blip jump at the same time, but with two different vectors. They now lay within 100,000 kilometers of the comet, coming in very fast at twenty percent lightspeed. A factor that would change once they entered grav-pull. As Maureen’s holo image took shape above his Tech panel, Jack looked back at Max.

“Hey guy. Keep that Main Drive hot at Pinch Mode! We may need your drive flare to disrupt their laser fire.”

Maureen looked up from her Weapons panel in the distant Battle Module. She smiled. “Redundant orders, my Captain. We three gals have already told Max, and our other Drive Engineers, to stay at Pinch Mode. Just in case these four ships pull something funny.”

He should have known. Akemi, Minna and Maureen were like mother wolves protecting their pups. “Acknowledged.” Jack took a deep breath and waited for Elaine and Max to make their moves. He and Denise were the odd crew out, at least until the attacks began.

“NavTrack vector for blip jump laid in,” Elaine announced to both Max and to the other six ships, all of whom were in laser link with each other and with
Uhuru
.

“Blipping,” Max sang out, his thick black eyebrows becoming one as he squinted up at the Drive module that had lowered down from the ceiling. “Pinch Mode! Ready to eject plasma on command!”

The front screen showed multiple side-by-side images. The scope’s normal light image that showed the skinny watermelon shape of the comet held center place. To the right was the enlargement that showed two of the four disk-ships on their side of the comet, moving in a steady orbital track. At left was a NavTrack graphic that depicted the comet and its nearby space from an overhead ecliptic view. Their seven ships showed as red dots, while the four enemy ships showed as yellow dots, with two disk-ship locations marked as uncertain, since his fleet had no spysat imagery for the far side of the comet. Across the top of the screen ran six live images of the other ship captains. In the Pilot cabin the air had become warm as people grew tense, breathed fast and hunched over their armrest control panels that now swung over their laps.

The Alien surprise happened when they least expected it.

“Spysat to our starboard!” cried Denise as she tapped her comlink panel. “Emitting maser signal back to the comet!”

Maureen looked at him from her holo. “Jack, they not only expect us, but they seeded nearby space with spysats in case we arrived without a fusion flare or a gravity-pull blip jump!” She tapped at her Targeting panel. “I’m taking it out with our starboard HF laser!”

A yellow-white flare briefly lit the darkness of space beyond the Kuiper Belt. Jack felt his stomach clench. These Aliens were not about to be surprised by attackers. And his seven ship fleet could not afford to lose people, let alone ships. “Maureen! Do we break off? Keep on blip jumping past the comet and just head for Sedna?”

“Minna? Akemi?” Maureen called. “We’re spotted!”

On the screen space blurred once, twice, then multiple times as the gravity-pull drive moved
Uhuru
to its cluster position just above the near-side equator of the comet. Minna’s
Wolverine
had already blip jumped to a vector above the north pole and coming in from the heliopause direction. As was Ignacio’s
Badger
. On the front screen the positions of the two ships changed. As did
Uhuru
and their other four ship allies.

“Irrelevant!” called Akemi over the time-lagged laser link. “Cluster about me! We will become a hollow spiral! The way an orca pod swims on the hunt, opening up a central area as they encircle the prey!”

“Torp fired” came the words of Minna as her ship blipped to a stop ten thousand klicks out from the north polar blockhouse.

“Railgun firing!” barked Ignacio as his ship blip jumped sideways, aiming at one likely Alien ship cluster point.

But there were no disk-ships where Ignacio had fired. Where were they?

“Disk-ships clustering!” cried Elaine as she pointed at the scope’s live light image. “But . . . but why are they stacking up like that, above the blockhouse?”

Jack’s mouth turned dry.

On the front screen he saw the result of the early warning of their approach, and the advance planning these Aliens had done upon hearing of their attack against the Gyklang.

In the space between the blockhouse and Minna’s
Wolverine
there now took form a vertical assemblage of the four disk-ships. The top ship spun horizontally, with its top neutral particle beam projector pointing upward, toward Minna’s approach. Below it a disk-ship had flipped onto its side so its north and south pole beam projectors were pointing sideways, toward anyone approaching from the planetary horizon. A third disk-ship assumed the same sideways position below the second ship, but with its beam projectors angled ninety degrees off from the ship above it. And at bottom ship four copied the topmost ship, with its south pole neutral particle beam projector pointing downward toward the blockhouse, and toward anyone coming at them from below. The enemy formation covered every angle of approach! Whether his fleet approached from the top, side or below, the Earth ships would be exposed to the deadly blue whips of neutral particle beams!

“All ships! Point your Drive plasma flares toward the Alien disk-ships!” Jack yelled over the laser comlink, hoping Minna and Ignacio would see the danger and act before they heard his order.

The maneuver he’d ordered was not part of Akemi’s attack plan. But it was survival essential. Only the sun-hot plasma of a fusion drive flare could disrupt the blue whip of a coherent neutral particle beam!

“She’s hit!” cried Elaine.

The
Wolverine
, diving head down toward the blockhouse, had begun turning for a horizontal vector to drive away from the four ship cluster. She had ventral and dorsal laser mounts that had begun firing at the Alien disk-ships as soon as they began clustering into stacked formation. Her neutral particle beamer was tail-mounted, like
Uhuru’s
, and not able to shoot through its ship to target the disk-ships below. It was her years spent doing thrust-gee maneuvering that brought her trouble. If she had just blip jumped sideways the Alien beam would have missed her.

Instead it impacted her ship’s Drive module at the tail, shearing off the rear third of the
Wolverine
. The Drive module and her beam weapon went tumbling away through space.

“Minna!” cried Ignacio from the nearby
Badger
. “Blip away! Blip away!”

In space it is easy to die. Living is harder.

Akemi’s ship, Jack’s ship and the other three allied ships flipped their ship angle to place their fusion plasma pulse toward the clustered Alien ships. The samurai ancestry of Akemi now came into play.

“Pod ships! Blip jump
toward
the disk-ships even as we maintain our tail-first orientation!”

Uhuru’s
screen image blurred. Steadied. Blurred. Steadied. Then blurred almost continuously as their five ships headed across the fifty thousand klicks which separated them from the Alien ship cluster.

But after the first blip-blur, on the live light screen, Jack saw Minna’s ship blur, then blip jump away. The arrowhead shape of the
Wolverine
lacked a continuous presence. Blip. Image. Blip. Image. Blip. Image.

He sighed as it became clear the Finn was taking her ship upward and away from the north pole blockhouse. But Ignacio was doing the opposite.

“Hey-yo!” the Basque captain yelled at the disk-ship cluster. “Try to hit me! Just try!”

Ahead of them, death visited.

Badger’s
blip jumping prevented the Aliens from tagging her again with a neutral particle beam. Instead, the topmost disk-ship swung its blue whip-tail beam at the incoming thermonuke torp. The torp died on the third whip-crack of the Alien ship.

Badger’s
hull brightened from the impact of multiple HF lasers as the lower disk-ships fired at the general area of his blip jumps, counting on some of their green laser strikes to connect.

They did. Three black furrows showed on the ship’s hull.

Badger
staggered in its blip jumps, then held steady for a brief moment. It fired one of its torps down toward the blockhouse and the ship cluster above it, then resumed blip jumping, this time clawing for altitude while also moving sideways in random walks guided by the ship’s onboard NavTrack computer. Moving a spaceship in three dimensions in space is not easy when you have to rely on chemfuel attitude thrusters. Moving it when you have power for blip jumping is easier. But it still requires luck when you are the target of a four-ship laser volley.

An orange-yellow thermonuclear sun blossomed into being in space.

It was the torp that Ignacio had loosed. Then set it to blow once his ship had blipped upward, beyond the worst of the neutron rad output that happens when a ten megaton thermonuke explodes in space.

The topmost disk-ship brightened from the light and rad impact of the thermonuke, just ten klicks above it, then tilted over and spun out of formation. Its fall toward the surface of comet 1999 DG8 was leisurely. Its impact with the comet was not. Blue-white fire blossomed where the Alien ship met the comet, not far from the blockhouse.

“Look!” cried Elaine, pointing at the death-glow of the fallen disk-ship.

“The other three ships are starting to blur!” cried Denise

Jack thought the live light image, coming in between blip jump blurs, had become incredibly sharp. That was because the blurring had stopped.

“All ships!” cried Akemi. “Tighten your magfields and fry those three ships!”

Behind him sounded a loud thump as Max slammed one fist on his armrest, even as his other hand tapped in the magfield focusing of
Uhuru’s
plasma drive flare as ordered by their samurai fighter.

On screen, the fusion drive flares of five Earth ships reached out fifty kilometers and impacted on the three Alien disk-ships just as their gravitational lensing blur neared the level where they could blip jump. And escape.

The attempt failed.

The three disk-ships had spread out but not far enough to escape the drive flare impacts.

A white gas cloud came from each disk-ship as the ice block hull cladding instantly vaporized.

Reddish-gold blemishes spread across the tops of each disk, as hulls began melting. Neutron irradiation of the interiors did not show a hull effect. But any living organic inside the three ships would shortly be dead from rad-burn.

“Stop!” cried Akemi over the laser link. “Leave the hulls intact for our salvaging!”

The gravitomagnetic sensor at Elaine’s station gave a beep, then went silent. Jack scanned the sensor imagery but saw no other ship on their sensors. Like their battle with the Nasen and earlier, a stealthy grav-pull event had occurred.

He swallowed as the suddenness of battle in space eased back from death to life. Jack glanced at Maureen in her holo. Then he grabbed a tube from its armrest grip holder. He waved it at the Belter grandma.

“You up for a sip of Scotch? I am. Damned thirsty I am!”

“Damn sure am ready!” yelled Maureen in her hearty Belfast accent. “Let me get my chest of black ale and we’ll all have one fine party!”

“Jack,” called Elaine softly.

He looked to his slim, brown-haired sister. His oldest sister at thirty years of age who had no children and no life partner. It had worried him once. Her look now was one he had never before seen.

“Yes?”

“This man Ignacio Aldecoa. Is he . . . is he partnered to Minna Kekkonen?”

“No!” He laughed, then took a short sip of Scotch. His sister’s hair looked sweaty and her slim fingers now gripped tight her Pilot seat armrests. “Why? Do you like him?”

Elaine blinked fast, her amber eyes looking back at the top of the front screen, which still showed the images of their six other captains. “I like him. I like his choice to save Minna by attacking head-on with his ship. That took . . . guts.”

Jack agreed. And apparently so did Denise, who reached forward to pat Elaine on the shoulder. But Jack had to know just how much this attack had cost. “Com Chief, send a Come-Back to both Minna and Ignacio. I want to find out how badly hurt their ships are.”

“Yes, Captain!”

Minna Kekkonen’s pale-skinned face took center position in the front screen. Like Maureen and Elaine, her blond braids looked sweat-soaked. Behind her moved two of her crew, a man and a woman. They were putting on EVA suits.

“Captain Jack, you called?”

“Yes. How is your ship? Any injuries? And why the EVA suits?”

The woman showed him her steely blue gaze, refusing to show any emotion over how close she had come to losing her ship and her people. “Our Main Drive module is gone. My Drive Engineer Anneli Korhonen is missing. She was in the missing module. Alarik and Elie are going to look for her.”

He did not ask whether the missing woman was likely to be found. The neutral particle beam whip had vaporized several meters of Minna’s hull. The Drive module portion that had been sheared off was now a crumpled mass resting on the surface of the comet, thanks to its downward momentum when hit by the beam.

“Our hopes go with you and your crew,” Jack said somberly.

Denise sniffled. “Minna, Anneli was good to me. Patient with me. I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry I cannot be there to help.”

For one of the rare times since Jack had come to know Minna Kalevic Kekkonen, the commerce raider showed emotion. She blinked her blue eyes rapidly. As if something was in them.

“Denise, thank you.” Minna paused, drew a deep breath, then focused on Jack. “My captain, give us three hours and
Wolverine
will be ready to join the fleet in our assault on Sedna! And . . . thank you for your hopes.”

“Minna!” called Max from the rear of the cabin. “Regarding Anneli . . . I admired her too. If she is not found, well . . . Monique’s loss was hard for me. Give me a call if you need to.”

The Finn woman nodded abruptly, then raised one hand. “I will advise you of our search results. And repair completion. Until later.”

The woman’s image vanished from the front screen. In its place came the face of Ignacio.

“We are intact, Captain Jack,” the man said somberly.

He noticed the man’s
boina
now rested on the NavTrack panel in front of the Basque man. Behind him, two of his cousins were hugging each other. The sound of weeping could be heard.

“Ignacio? The laser strikes? Did they—”

“Killed my cousin Sabino Ibaiguren,” the man said softly, without anger, as if he had known this day would come. “We will celebrate his life the Basque way. During our drive to Sedna.” The man paused, looked uncertain, then seemed to gather inner strength. “My Captain, will it be possible to bury Sabino on this Sedna? His family . . . his family would sleep better knowing their son had taken our ship to its final target.”

Jack nodded slowly. Two humans lost during this battle. A battle that had had its own surprises. Thanks to the information selling practiced by one Menoma of the HikHikSot. One more reason to seek out this Alien and then destroy him and all the Aliens who had invaded Sol space. Outnumbered they would be, just seven ships against who knew how many Alien ships now orbited this Sedna. But battling against long odds was the human way.

“Yes, my Ignacio. I give you my pledge that your son of Earth will be laid to rest in the red snows of Sedna. And when I am done with these Alien predators, with Sedna and with this Menoma, the very stars will fear your cousin’s name!”

Ignacio’s black mustache lifted in a slight smile. “You have begun to sound Basque, my captain. Thank you. If we can have three hours to make our interior air-tight, we will be able to join you on the Hunt to Sedna.”

“You have those hours, my friend and ally.
Allez avec dieu
.”

The man’s image followed Minna’s into darkness. The other ship captains, having listened in on his talks with Minna and Ignacio, expressed their own words of sympathy for the loss of a good woman and a good man. Captain Akemi bowed deeply to him.

“My
shogun
, this daughter of a samurai will follow you into the depths of Hades, be they fiery or ice cold. Our other ships will enter the three disk-ships, recover their gravity-pull drives, record and recover Alien bodies, and then send them down to the snows of this comet. Yes?”

“Yes, good captain of the
Orca
. You do that. I am sure your crew, and the crews of
Leopard
,
Mongoose
and
Caiman
will find what is worth finding on those floating hulks. And yes, once you are done, deorbit them. I have no desire to see them bespoiling my space.”