Earth Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series 1) (24 page)

Jack ignored Maureen’s silent waving at him. “What are your protocols for visiting your Gathering Hall?”

The look in Howler’s eyes grew intense. “Reasonable. In the eyes of my Manager. Personal energy weapons must be left on your Lander conveyance. Portable explosives are forbidden in occupied habitats. Other items of body adornment matter not to us. Bring the cold box and your other trade items. Bring your own food and drink as desired. The Gathering Hall is open to all competitors at all hours. It never closes.”

“You and your fellow competitors will never defeat humanity,” Jack said abruptly. In the small holo Maureen nodded sharply. “We are the apex predators of this star system. Any Alien species that seeks to contest our control will be meat to us! Understood?”

The Alien with the name Howler licked his pale brown lips slowly. “You are free to share your opinions with the Manager. And with any visiting competitor who cares to listen to you. Every lifeform here understands your English. How you will be received is up to each competitor lifeform.”

“So someone may try to kill me?”

The triangular ears of Howler moved backward, as if in a wind. “Life may try to kill you. The Manager tolerates all social predator behaviors, so long as they do not endanger the Gathering Hall or the HikHikSot habitat below this world’s surface. What happens to you when you visit is up to you. And to the other visiting competitors. You may face personal combat challenges to your species’ right to independence, as happened with the Rizen. Understood?”

“Fully,” Jack said, leaning forward to fix in his mind the image of an Alien who acted like a trader but behaved like the sneakiest corporate CEO he had ever studied. “We humans will arrive ready for any behavior. Friendly. Unfriendly. Deadly. Stupid. Survival will be up to those who choose to visit with us. Will your Manager be available to meet with me?”

“Yes,” Howler said, one forearm moving to a touch panel. “Assuming you survive your arrival at the Gathering Hall. Until then, obey the rules I have shared with you.”

The Alien’s image vanished, to be replaced by a live light image of Sedna.

“Jack!” yelled Maureen from her holo. “I don’t like entering any place without a laser at my side.”

He smiled at her, then waved to the watching ship captains. “My allies, I invite each ship captain to join me and Maureen in our Lander for the trip down to this Gathering Hall. Bring your personal arms, as we discussed earlier. And leave your ships ready to attack, leave or change orbit on a moment’s notice.”

Elaine looked at him. “Jack, just you and Maureen are going down there? What should Max, Denise and I do if something happens?”

“Use your judgment. Use any weapon needed to preserve this ship and to protect our fellow humans. Good enough?”

His sister smiled winningly. “I will! And tell Ignacio hello for me!”

“I will. And he may come visit you on our return.”

“I hope so,” Elaine said softly.

Jack unlocked his straps, stood and headed for the Spine corridor to meet with Maureen. Aside from donning their EVA suits and grabbing personal weapons, they had a cold locker to fill and trade goods to collect. Then would come a trip in the Lander as they visited each ship, took on board the captain, and then headed down to Sedna. He wondered if the Gathering Hall had live music. Or was it simply a location where social carnivores just ripped and clawed at each other? In an hour they would know. Whistling to himself and pushing away the memory face of Nikola, he set about doing his duty.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Alien entry point was a metal dome the size of a normal office habitat on Ceres Central. Jack brought the Lander down on chemfuel thrusters, setting the boxy contraption down among fifteen other landers. The Alien landers included some with chemfuel thrusters like their Eight Pack, but most had none, which Jack took to mean they used grav-pull drives to move about. A back part of his mind counted up the likely number of grav-pulls he could scavenge, including the ships in orbit. And maybe one of the orbiting ships would have an FTL drive they could understand. The Rizen ship hulk he’d left in Charon Base orbit had defeated the best efforts of Max and Archibald to decipher how its FTL drive worked, let alone how to detach it from the ship body. Perhaps here, at Sedna, he and his allies would have another opportunity.

“
Shogun
Jack, we are all ready,” said Captain Akemi from behind, where she like the others sat on benches that ran along both sides of the Lander interior. “How do we depart and approach?”

“Together,” he said abruptly over his EVA suit’s comlink. “Like a pod of killer whales. Or a pack of hungry wolves.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Maureen as she stood up from her seat next to Jack, and low grav slow-walked to the cargo hold of the Lander.

Jack tapped the Navpanel 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. Tearing his eyes away from the front window of clear quartz, he unlocked his seat’s restraint straps and stood up slowly in the low gravity of Sedna. He looked back at his fellow captains and Maureen as she walked into their midst. Everyone wore transparent bubble helmets, along with backpacks carrying their personal weapons, 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, do we leave someone aboard this Lander? To guarantee our ride home?”

Maureen guffawed openly, her short black curls lifting slightly in the microgee environment of the Lander’s hold. “Aashy! If someone damages our Lander we’ll simply take over someone else’s lander. Right Jack?”

“Very right,” he said, grinning at the swarthy Hindu to take away any sting from Maureen’s blunt reaction. He scanned the faces of everyone present. “Maureen, Minna, Ignacio, Akemi, Júlia, Aashman and Kasun,
we
are a wolf pack visiting a new Hunt territory. Which means we move as a unit. We act as a unit. It also means Maureen and I are the alpha female and male leaders of this pack. Yes, we are all captains and crew bosses in our own right. But today, and for every moment we are in or near Sedna, we are a pack of humans on the Hunt!”

Akemi bowed to him. “My
shogun
, no one here will take unilateral action. You lead. If you fight, we fight. If you talk, we await your command. If you give orders, we obey.”

Jack appreciated Akemi’s simple statement of allegiance. It was an allegiance they had all earned in recent battles, and a relationship that made them different from the actions of the Aliens, who pursued an ‘every species for its own gain’ approach to claiming Sol system. He tapped his suit chest in acknowledgment.

“Captain Akemi Hagiwara, you bring honor to your clan. As you did in our last battle and in battles earlier.” He gestured. “Let’s exit. Me first, followed by Maureen and Ignacio hauling our cold locker. The rest of you come after us.”

Jack turned, pulled open the Lander airlock hatch, entered with Maureen, Ignacio 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 Sedna, Jack felt light. Light in both weight and in mind. He had a feel for what might happen. And a hope that he could gain information from the Menoma guy before he had to kill him. And everyone else in the Gathering Hall. Or not.

A slow-walk of a hundred meters took the eight of them to the entrance archway to the Entry Dome. A lighted graphic showed how to open and enter the dome’s own airlock. Jack tapped three times on the contact panel. Before him the archway metal slid sideways into the curving wall of the dome. A yellow-orange light illuminated the broad interior of the airlock. Maureen, Ignacio and his fellow captains followed him into the chamber. At the far side of the room, where a similar archway was outlined in red, he double-tapped the contact panel. Behind him the entry archway closed tight, separating them from the Lander and from the icy surface of Sedna. Around him gathered his captains, ready to protect him if someone tried to attack them once the inner archway opened.

When his suit sensors reported full Earth-normal air pressure, the archway slid open. Beyond lay another empty room, twice as large as the airlock. Hooks and shelves lined the circular walls of the room. On them lay helmets and suits that belonged to many different Alien bodyforms. Jack gestured to an empty shelf and attachment hooks.

“Take off your EVA suits. Rack them over there. Then don your personal arms.”

Jack opened his backpack and pulled out Old Roy, then leaned the two-handed Viking long sword against the cold metal of the change room 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. Clips of speedloader bullets were velcroed to his left hip. After tying his pack to his waist so it rode like a fanny pack, he snapped 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 allies.

Captain Akemi wore a black
ninja
-style bodystocking. Like him and everyone else she wore a Kevlar vest to protect against claws, talons 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
.

“Like it?”

“Yes. How old is it? And does it have a maker’s mark?”

Akemi pulled the
katana
partly out of its wooden sheath, letting him see its matte finish on the curved edge. “It is ancient. A
koto
sword made by Masamune himself. From the late 1300s, the early Muromachi period. Its gold inscription was dictated by him. It measures 70 centimeters in length. I usually practice with a
shinsakuto
modern sword, but this fight against Aliens demanded my best. I brought it.”

Jack bowed slightly to her, to honor the sword she wore and the respect she showed to her ancestors. Straightening, 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
, a sign he was ready for formality or fighting.

Aashman, his lanky frame covered in short
dhoti
and a white cotton overshirt, wore spike-gloves on both hands. The steel spikes reached out a good five centimeters. He too wore a gun belt with a Teflon-coated revolver.

Júlia, dressed in loose pants and a brown wool overshirt under her vest, went barefoot. She carried a scythe-sword similar to that used by ancient Egyptians, perhaps in memorial to the farmers who fed her homeland.

Kasun wore classical Sinhala clothing of a white cotton long shirt with a
sarong
below his waist. Open-toed slippers buffered his feet from the cold of the metal floor. His personal weapon was a stave with a curved steel blade on the upper end. He smiled at Jack.

“My family taught me the traditional
angampora
fighting style of kicks, pressure point paralization and hand weapons use. I learned some
karate
from a fellow miner, whose family came from Okinawa,” the tall, black-haired man said calmly.

Jack saluted him with both hands held palms together, then looked to Minna.

The woman’s two blond braids were tied to the back of her head. Petite and pale despite her rad-tan, she wore a fluffy blouse embroidered with colorful flowers, many of which were covered by her Kevlar vest. Her long pants were of brown cotton with lacing at the shins. At her waist hung a long steel sword with wide blood runnel, both edges sharpened, a curved crossbar and a round pommel. It resembled some of the early Viking swords that Jack had researched. She noticed his look, then gave him one of her rare smiles.

“It’s a modern replica of a blade found in Suontaka, Suomen, in the grave of a noblewoman,” she said. “The original length was 78 centimeters. It cuts well.”

He could believe that. Jack slapped his chest in the old military salute well-known to Minna.

“You gonna check me out, youngling?”

He turned to face his elder and mentor, Ms. Maureen O’Dowd of Belfast, the Asteroid Belt and Hell in Space. Jack grinned.