Escape 2: Fight the Aliens (13 page)

Ten bright green laser beams shot through their formation as five of the six Collector ships concentrated on their fleet.

“Impact on hull above Waste Recycling Chamber!” called Star Traveler. “Our hull is intact but adaptive optics are dead in that area.”

Bill blinked, hoping against hope that he could make a direct hit on one of the Collector ships. There was no way he or Jane would use the ship’s antimatter projector to kill one or more Collector ships. Not with the chance their sneak attack with pod boarding teams might work. But any damage they could do now would divert Alien crews from fighting the spec ops boarders.

“
Minnesota
is hit!” called Leonard.

“Specify!” yelled Richardson.

“Our bow dome sonar sphere is gone!” the Anglo captain said. “Our topside maneuvering room is breached to space. We lost three operators who were sucked out when the air left through the breach. Equipment is still operational. I’m sending in repair teams with new operators.”

“Richardson,” called Jane, her tone command hard. “Get that sub out of this fight! You only have one Standard missile left and a half dozen Harpoons and ASROCs. I want them intact in case we have to play defense later on!”

“Captain Leonard, remove your ship from this battle. Take it to L4 and await further orders,” Richardson said, his tone that of a carrier captain intent on preserving people and war-fighting capabilities.

“Moving out of orbit,” Leonard said. “Will advise later of repairs and losses.”

“Yes!” Bill yelled as his Weapons holo showed his tail lasers had scored direct hits on two of the Collector ships just as green laser beams from
Talking Skin
and
Tall Trees
hit the same ships. “Ship mind, ask the AIs on those two ships about the damage they just took!”

Bill watched as their three ships closed to within 900 miles of the six Collector ships, one of which was not moving in orbit or firing any weapon. The other five ships were jinking forward and sideways to minimize the direct hit chances from the Earth side laser fire, but none of them showed the fleet cohesion of the Scenario Orion formation.

“Ship minds report hull breaches in both ships,” the AI hummed. “No loss of crew life, but the Transport Exit Chamber of one ship is badly damaged, while the nose lasers of the other ship are gone.”

“Yes!” Bill felt elation at the news even as he kept firing at the three other Collector ships. His Weapons holo showed glancing hits on two of them, with silver sparkles in the true space holo indicating some hull damage. That left one Collector ship with no laser damage from—

“Time to break off this attack!” Jane yelled. “Transports, leave orbit now! Adopt spiraling exit track until out of laser range. Navigator Lofty Flyer, take us up and out in the same mode, but keep us between the transports and the enemy below.”

“Leaving orbit!” the brown squirrel lady chittered.

Their three ships rose suddenly even as green laser beams chased after them. Bill fired back, hoping for a strike on the fifth Collector. A bright sparkle suggested minor damage near that ship’s tail. He stopped as the fleet reached middle Earth orbit level.

“Captain!” called Star Traveler. “Incoming call from Diligent Taskmaster!”

CHAPTER NINE

The giant cockroach filled most of the comlink holo on Bill’s right. While it wore no clothes there were leather straps hanging from its curving shoulders in a criss-cross fashion, while his lower arm pair tapped on two control pillars that were in front of him. As before, four of his Alien crew worked at similar pillars in the rear of his ship’s Command Bridge. Ignoring the other ship’s different layout, Bill wondered why the hell they were getting a call now.

“Human primitive Jane Yamaguchi, your disabling of the crew and captain of ship
Dark Cloud
changes our relationship,” the critter rasped harshly. “Any further use of such x-ray lasers against any Collector ship will result in antimatter bombardment of large Human population centers!”

One corner of the comlink holo showed Jane as she sat atop the command pedestal in the center of their bridge deck. While her vacsuit included air cooling, the stress of the last few minutes had had an effect. Sweat showed on her pale forehead and short lengths of her carbon black hair had come loose from her ponytail clasp. Her reaction to the cockroach’s threat was fury.

“Bastard! Offspring of a diseased egg clutch! Are you so afraid of our spaceships that you must now attack unarmed people?” she yelled.

Bill liked her Alien version of profanity. He made a vow to share the holo of this encounter with his saloon buddies once this battle was all over. The leader of the attack on Earth blinked black compound eyes.

“We do not fear a single Collector ship crewed by primitives,” it rasped, sounding like a file against metal. “But the x-ray laser is a weapon not included in our Library datafile on Human military technology. We allow your ships to escape. We concentrate now on collecting Humans for our containment cells. Anyone who fires on a collector pod or on our ships will be destroyed by our lasers!”

To Bill’s left he saw Richardson give a head shake to Jane as she looked his way, her manner clearly asking whether the two retreating subs contained any more x-ray laser warheads. His No answer understood, she looked to the holo of Diligent Taskmaster.

“Giant insect who pretends to be a fighter, our forces will not again use x-ray lasers against your ships,” she said, her face muscles clenching. “But humanity will
fight
your attempt to capture any human! Be prepared for great losses of your collector pods!”

“New pods can be built by our Factory Chamber, as you surely know,” the Alien rasped in a low tone. His upper arm pair spread wide. “Any future attacks on our ships will result in antimatter destruction of your primitive Human craft. Your ship is damaged. So are two of the four smaller craft you call allies. I will allow you to keep your Collector ship, since there will be no Human space launch site left functioning after we leave with hundreds of Humans!”

Jane made a foul gesture at him. “Crèche Master Diligent Taskmaster, can you not count? This ship has only 20 containment cells. There are at most 120 containment cells on your six ships. You do not have confinement room for hundreds of Humans!”

The creature’s two brown antennae leaned forward. “We do if we store three Humans per cell. It is only a two day journey back to HD 128311. Our captives will survive that long. And our Market world merchants will welcome such a flood of primitives!”

Jane changed her manner from angry Mom to commander formal. “I am pleased to hear you endorse prisoner crowding. We will so crowd you and your fellow Collector crews in that dome on Mars I spoke of earlier. We will see if any
primitive
Alien is willing to be a cannibal.”

The giant cockroach’s mouth palps clacked together loudly. “Primitive! Stay away from us and live. We move now to take captives and to destroy your space launch sites!”

The Alien’s image vanished from the comlink holo.

Bill acted. “Star Traveler! Can you tell which Collector ship that neutrino signal came from? I want to know which ship contains that bastard!”

“I can,” the AI hummed quickly. “I’ve marked the ship carrying Diligent Taskmaster with a brown icon to one side of its purple dot on the system graphic.”

“Captain Yamaguchi,” called Lofty Flyer as her long brown tail whipped from side to side. “My Navigation sensors and the spysats report the enemy fleet is ejecting dozens of collector pods. Pods are even exiting from the ship
Dark Cloud
.” The flying squirrel who had taught flight dynamics and flying on her home world scanned the holos in front of her. She tapped her control pillar with a claw-finger. “The Collector ships are separating! Three are heading west toward your provinces of Japan and China. Two are heading east toward your provinces of British Columbia and California. The dead ship
Dark Cloud
is not moving.”

“Captain!” called Richardson, his tone excited. “Peterson has just told me they are launching Standard 2 missiles against the descending collector pods. The missiles come from the
Ticonderoga
-class cruiser
USS Port Royal
and the
Zumwalt
-class guided missile destroyer
USS Zumwalt
, both based in Pearl Harbor. Uh, there’s also been an ASAT missile launch from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Hawaii. It’s known as Barking Sands. The Navy has used it to test Aegis BMD and the Army’s THAD.”

Bill licked his lips. “Vice admiral, I do hope the
Port Royal
and the
Zumwalt
are stealthy. Otherwise, they’re gonna be dead ducks very soon.”

The man to his left looked his way, his expression tense but determined. “The
Zumwalt
is very stealthy by its design. The
Port Royal
not so much.”

“Got my fingers crossed,” Bill said he watched the spysats image of the central Pacific and the Hawaiian islands.

“Well, both ships use the AN/SPY-1 phased array radar for targeting. Their Standards, Harpoons and Evolved Sea Sparrows should take out the pods they are aimed at,” Richardson said, his tone hopeful.

“Star Traveler,” called Jane from behind Bill. “Link me into that Peterson signal. Tell them I want to talk to General Poindexter.”

“Linking in. Message sent. Reply incoming,” the AI hummed as it spoke in laconic mode.

Poindexter’s black face and upper body mostly filled the comlink holo to Bill’s right. As it did the comlink holos before Jane, Richardson and his crewmates. He liked that Jane’s policy was to share all outside communications with everyone on the crew. After all, the five Aliens had volunteered to serve as crew when they could have chosen a return to their home world, like a dozen other captive Aliens had done. The JCS chief fixed on her display image of Jane.

“Captain Yamaguchi, you heard about our anti-pod missile launches?”

“I did,” his wife said in a calm, almost conversational tone. “Firing on the incoming pods was part of our Stage Two strategy, but Hawaii is heavily populated. I’m also wondering at the survivability of the two ships involved.”

The Air Force general blinked quickly. “We are wondering too. And we figured firing off an ASAT from Barking Sands would not hurt and might help. After all, if these Aliens are going after our space launch sites, we might as well use them before we lose them.”

Bill felt his pulse race. He’d often heard the Use It Or Lose It rationale from senior Navy officers, usually coming from people safely bedded inside the concrete walls of the Pentagon or inside Cheyenne Mountain when it was on active status. That NORAD work had been moved to Building Two at Peterson, just across the street from the Building One that housed the Space Command and the spacious room where the Joint Chiefs had gathered a few days ago. That room looked as busy now as earlier, with two dozen airmen and a few officers working orbital displays and communications modules. A man wearing the eagle shoulder tab of a colonel hurried over to Poindexter, bent down and whispered in her ear. The woman winced.

“Bad news,” she said. “Two of the Collector ships fired lasers at Hawaii. The buildings at Barking Sands are gone as is the launch tower. And the Navy people at Pearl say a powerful green beam hit the middle of the
Port Royal
, breaking her in half. Search and rescue inflatables are heading to her remains.”

Jane winced. “And the
Zumwalt
?”

Poindexter shook her head. “The Navy says it moved away from its firing location. A green laser beam hit that spot. Boiled a lot of water. Nothing hit the
Zumwalt
. It’s moving out to sea to conduct more anti-pod missile launches.”

Bill felt a chill at the news of the death of 340 enlisted folks, 27 petty officers and 33 officers. Hopefully less depending on whether any part of the hull was still floating and was watertight. He knew those numbers thanks to a SEAL team mission that had involved them riding on and then off-shipping from the
Port Royal
off the eastern coast of North Korea. Two of the ship’s petty officers had treated his team to a keg of iced beer upon their return from a successful mission.

“Sorry for the loss,” Jane said, her manner calm and thoughtful. “You’ve heard our ship-to-ship com chatter during our missile launches and our strafing run. We’ve lost a few folks on the two subs, but they are operational. We are moving to join them now.”

The black woman nodded acceptance. “Sounds sensible. No point in risking more lives until we know the results of the boarding pod infiltration. Uh, NORAD’s radar reports your six pods are putting out their IFF transponder signals. They are now crossing over Kansas. When will they go up to orbit?”

“After a few dozen pods have entered American air space and landed, they’ll go up,” Jane said. “Our spysats are monitoring each enemy pod. Shoot down whatever pods you can kill. But there are 144 heading out across the world. I’m sure plenty of them will survive.”

“You’re probably right,” Poindexter said, looking aside as an airwoman showed her a smartphone screen. “Our F-22
Raptors
have launched from Hawaii but aren’t fast enough to catch a pod. But those jets are stealthy and will fire on any pod they can get within missile range.”

Jane shrugged. “Maybe your F-35
Lightnings
will have a better chance as the pods hit CONUS.”

“Maybe,” Poindexter said, looking down at her desk display. “Damn! We just lost Vandenberg, Edwards, Kodiak Launch Complex, Mojave Space Port, Point Mugu and Eglin on the west coast. Looks like your Aliens are serious about killing our space launch sites.”

Jane frowned. “Our sensors are reporting the same. Canada can expect to lose its sites too. Hope you’ve got people evacuated or in bunkers.”

“We do. Anyone at our launch sites is a combat veteran who volunteered,” Poindexter said. The colonel came over a second time and spoke to her. She winced again. “Bad news from the Pacific. The Russians have lost a
Borei
-class missile sub while the Chinese have lost three missile destroyers, two
Luda
-class and one
Luhu
-class.”

“Damn,” muttered Jane. “It’s getting costly to take on these collector pods.”

Poindexter nodded, then looked at the smartphone in her hand. “Uh, the President will be announcing a state of war now exists between the United States and the Collector Aliens. In three minutes. I expect the Congress will vote a formal declaration.”

Bill felt another chill. America was at war again, after the wrap-up of the long long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He and Jane knew they were not the cause of Collector ships attacking Earth. Collectors had been coming and kidnapping people ever since the end of World War II. Still, they had hoped their destruction of the Kepler 443 Collector ship factory, its Market world Traffic Control station and four Collector ships would have taught the Aliens to stay away from Sol and Earth. Whatever happened with the ship boardings, he wondered if the
Blue Sky
should return to the nearest Market World and knock out its slave buying sites. HD 128311 was just two days away by Alcubierre modulus stardrive. Would that protect Earth from future Collector attacks? He didn’t know. But Jane had given America and the JCS chiefs the specs and designs for FTL stardrives, artificial gravity plates, the Magfield spacedrives and plenty of other Alien high tech. Earth could soon build its own versions of Collector ships, even if the ship boarding teams failed to capture the six enemy ships. Though it seemed America would possess at least one enemy ship when Alicia’s team arrived at the
Dark Cloud
starship. The immobility of the ship as the other Collectors moved out across Earth said its crew were either dead or unconscious from rad exposure. The ship’s launching of collector pods was likely an action the ship’s AI took knowing it was needed to camouflage the arrival of Alicia’s pod.

“Understood,” Jane told the Air Force chief. “My ship and the subs will work on making repairs while we wait at L4 for the results of the pod boardings. I will advise you what we hear from the team leaders.”

“Very good,” Poindexter said, her tone distracted as two other airmen came up to her shoulder, showing smartphone images and whispering to her. The woman’s face brightened. “Yes!” She looked at Jane. “Captain, 39 pods have entered North American air space. My team tells me our
Lightnings
have shot down 12 of them by use of AMRAAMs and Sidewinders.”