Earth Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series 1) (31 page)

“Already done, young stripling!”

Ahead, in the screen, the stars began to blur, then jump, then lose their distinctiveness as the drive’s gravitational lensing created a gravity locus on the side toward the comet and pulled ship and people toward it. Again and again and again.

Jack closed his eyes. They had two and a half hours before any new crises entered their lives. He opened them.

“Anyone up for a steak, a cigar and a glass of Johnny Walker Black Label?”

The cheers from his crew filled his ears and did his inner self good. He could lead. They willingly followed. But it was their joint effort, and that of the other captains, that made him believe in a hopeful future for humanity.

The six ships of Jack’s Belter fleet arrived one AU out from comet 1999 DG8 in just under two hours. As before, the bluish object rotated rapidly around its smallest diameter and closely resembled a skinny watermelon. He inspected closely the distant scope image.

“Elaine, your scope. Any infrared or fusion drive neutrino emissions detected?”

She ran fingers across her Astrophysics armrest panel while tapping the left armrest scope controls. “Yes! Check the front screen. I’ve changed its display to show those radiations.”

Jack ignored the vidimages of his five captains at the top of the screen and focused on what it showed in the middle. Against the blackness of space he saw a red oblong blob, with one end pulsing in yellow neutrino emissions. Giving thanks the scope did not have Sol in its view angle, he nodded slowly.

“That’s a ship on fusion pulse drive. Max can you estimate ship speed? Elaine, what’s its vector? And distance from us?”

“Speed is twenty percent of light,” Max said from the rear. “Its exhaust residue of charged particles points back toward the comet.”

Elaine looked at him, her expression intense. “Brother, the vector is aimed straight at Sedna. Distance between us is 500 thousand klicks. And computing its speed versus current distance from the comet against the timelog for our two Sedna explosions, tells me the ship set out for Sedna within five minutes after the last blast.”

Max slapped his armrest. “Elaine, any NavTrack data on Unity warships of this size?”

She looked down at her Astro panel. “Plenty of ship names and reported sizes. My guess is . . . this is another heavy cruiser like the
Bismarck
.”

“Captain Jack!” called Denise. “Could this be the
Bismarck
? Your sister Cassandra said a new admiral had been put in command after its arrival at Deimos Yards.”

Could the Unity have completed repairs to the dorsal and ventral pulse-laser pods of the
Bismarck
by now? Their slagging of the pods had caused internal explosions, in addition to wiping out the pods. Course, it had been months since that encounter.

“Denise, it could be. Or it could be another Unity heavy cruiser that was visiting Europa or Enceladus. Earth would have sent the warship closest to the Kuiper Belt once the rad emissions from our first torp blast reached Geneva.”

“Agreed, Captain Jack,” said Maureen from her holo above his Tech panel. “The Unity had four heavy cruisers, last time I studied the Sol System Naval Records. Any sign they have detected us yet?”

He looked to Elaine. “Sis?”

She tapped on her Astro panel. “No active maser or lidar ranging detected. Since we arrived using grav-pull, we are not fusion visible like they are. But their gravitomagnetic sensors have surely detected our emergence from blip jumping.”

Maureen met his eyes. “Which tells them six spaceships just appeared between them and Sedna. Jack, their neutral particle beamer has a range of ten thousand klicks, their lasers much less. Suggest our fleet do like we did with
Bismarck
. Jump up, above and to the rear of this ship. That shields us from their beamer fire.”

He nodded slowly. “Captain Akemi, my fellow captains, Pilot Elaine will plot our NavTrack to arrive above and behind the ship ahead. Maintain our ring cluster upon emergence! Elaine, bring us to three hundred kilometers out from that ship’s butt-end.”

“Captain Jack!” Júlia called to him. “My ComChief and Drive Engineer have powered up that neutrino comlink pillar! Your orders for it?”

“Set it to monitor any modulated neutrino broadcasts anywhere near us!” he told the petite woman.

“Complying,” Júlia said as her crew moved to set up for their grav-pull blip jump in unison with the rest of the fleet.

“Three seconds to grav-pull accel,” Elaine said, looking up at the images of the five captains. “Laser link time-lock begins now!”

The infrared and neutrino glow of the target ship blurred, moved, blurred again, then disappeared as Elaine shut off the scope’s feed during their blip jump. Which would take only a few minutes given the short distance between them and the Unity vessel.

“Exiting blip jump!” Elaine said loudly.

The green of six laser strikes filled the front screen.

“We’re hit! Two places,” said Maureen. “Returning laser fire!”

“All ships move sideways on thruster power!” Jack said as he realized the Unity ship had studied his attack on the
Bismarck
, anticipated a rearward arrival, and had fired on his fleet the moment their gravitomagnetic sensor had detected his new position and range. “Reverse orientation to aim our Fusion Drive exhausts at the cruiser!”

“Reversing!” cried Minna, Akemi, Júlia, Aashman and Kasun in unison.

“Maureen, take out that dorsal laser pod with your beamer!”

On the front screen there now showed the white whale of a Unity heavy cruiser, which was already beginning a nose-to-tail flip over so it could aim its particle beamer at Jack and his fleet.

“My captains, concentrate your HF laser fire on the ship’s nose! Kill that neutral particle beamer before it can gain a straight-line vector on us! And be ready to blip jump around this thing faster than it can thruster-maneuver.”

A yellow-white explosion blossomed from the top spine of the Unity ship as Maureen’s blue whiptail slashed into the laser pod that had fired on the
Uhuru
. Not on the other ships of his fleet, he noted. Well, their ship design was uniquely distinct from the fat spearheads of the fleet’s other ships.

“Laser pod dead!” said Maureen, her English broken up with Gaelic curses. “That fat bastard is losing air from its spine compartments. Do I cut him in half, Captain Jack?”

His ship could do that. The megawatt power feed of their Compact Fusion Reactor could allow Maureen’s neutral particle beam to cut through even the titanium-steel alloy of the target ship. But this attack with no order to surrender had him worried about more than finishing off the Unity cruiser.

“No! Hold your beamer for strikes against any thermonuke torps.” He looked at his fleet captains. “Minna and everyone, break formation. Each ship must blip jump down either side of the cruiser while maintaining your fusion drive exhaust at them! That will disrupt any laser fire from its ventral laser pod. And keep your lasers firing on that ship’s nose. I want that beamer dead!”

“Blipping,” called Akemi and the other four captains.

“Torps launched!” cried Max as he worked his Main Drive controls that had lowered from the ceiling.

“Maureen! Get them!”

Seven thermonuke torps streaked out from five ejector portals on the cruiser, with two aimed at the
Uhuru
and the rest aimed at different fleet ships. Jack watched as the torps raced against the lightspeed impacts of their HF lasers and neutral particle beamers that each fleet ship possessed.

“Three torps dead!” cried Akemi as her own combat chief used the
Orca’s
blue whiptail to excellent effect.

“Their nose is slagged!” reported Kasun from the
Leopard
and Júlia from the
Caiman
.

“Two torps dead!” yelled Minna from the
Wolverine
.

“Got them!” cried Maureen as her blue whiptail beamer took out the two torps aimed at Jack’s ship.

“Ventral laser slagged,” said Aashman calmly as his
Mongoose
fired multiple green beams.

“Get those portals slagged!” Jack yelled even as his Tech panel said the Food Refectory and the EVA hold each had an air leak from the first laser strikes on his ship. Automatic systems were shutting Spine hatches and little mechbots were rolling toward the hull gaps within each chamber, aiming to spray flexible goop over the gaps. Giving thanks the laser slash gaps were only as wide as his palm, Jack gave the necessary order.

“Maureen, cut off the fusion Drive module of that cruiser! I want it dead in space. Fleet captains, strike all torp portals! Slag them!”

Fifteen green lasers arced out from the five fleet ships and hit the five torp ejector portals. In a second all five portals were slagged metal.

“Striking!” called Maureen.

On screen the blue whiptail of the
Uhuru’s
Battle Module reached out to the rear of the cruiser, where its hull showed a series of magfield rings for focusing of the plasma flare. The blue beam sliced across the tail of the ship, separating its fusion drive module from the body of the white-painted whale. The Unity cruiser, still swinging nose-to-tail to bring its slagged nose on point to the
Uhuru’s
position, spit out a white cloud of oxy-nitro air before automated hatches closed the ship corridors leading to the cruiser’s rear.

“Elaine, blip jump us to just above the nose of the cruiser, range three hundred klicks.” Jack looked at the top of the front screen which showed the Unity cruiser swinging toward them. “My captains, blip jump out to a thousand klicks and aim your weapons outward. Be prepared for other enemy ships!”

Lightspeed weapons were what allowed Jack’s fleet to survive the sudden all-out offensive fire from the Unity ship. That and the three hundred kilometer distance at which they had emerged from blip jump. If they had been closer, like within twenty kilometers, one or more of the torps would have detonated on a fleet ship. The torps’ solid fuel thrust at Earth escape velocity made them able to cover combat ranges at eleven klicks per second. And with a thermonuke plasma ball diameter of five or more klicks, contact with an opposing ship was not essential. Now, that threat was ended with the ejector portals slagging. The fleet blipped outward. Their own gravitational lensing distortion stopped with the
Uhuru
just above the Unity ship’s nose. Which was where the Bridge was located on all Unity ships. Time to get some answers.

“Denise, give me Charon Standard Channel Four. With full AV from the screen’s motion-eye.”

“You have it, Captain Jack.”

The calm tone of their youngest crew member reassured him that their redhead was growing used to sudden violence punctuated by hours of steaks, cigars and boredom. Looking up from Maureen’s holo from the Battle Module, he gave the motion-eye a grim look.

“Unity cruiser, give us a reason to let your crew live.”

Twenty seconds passed. “Incoming AV signal,” Denise said.

The front screen, now showing the live light image of the Unity cruiser’s white whale body, split in half. A man in blue Unity Naval dress looked at Jack.

“This is Unity Heavy Cruiser
Mao Tse-tung
, under the command of Fleet Admiral Atsushi Yamagata. Ship
Uhuru
you are ordered—”

“Are you Fleet Admiral Yamagata?” Jack interrupted.

The man, who looked Scandinavian, turned pink. “No. I am Bridge Lieutenant Malcolm—”

“Get Yamagata on this AV now! Or learn to breath vacuum in five seconds.”

The underling went silent, his pink lips opening, closing, and opening as if trying to say the words he had been ordered to say. Finally he nodded abruptly. “Switching to Fleet Admiral Atsushi Yamagata’s personal AV.”

The young man disappeared, to be replaced by an Asian man who resembled the few Japanese people Jack had met in the Belt. The man’s Unity Naval uniform showed several golden stars on his left chest, a strip of colorful service bars, and a Siamese cat that rested in the man’s left elbow. The elderly Asian squinted at Jack.

“You are Jack Munroe of the Asteroid Belt? In command of the pirate ship
Uhuru
?”

“Yes. I am in command of the Belter Rebellion fleet ship
Uhuru
, which just cut off your Drive module, slagged your lasers, particle beamer and torp ejector portals. Tell me, Admiral Yamagata, why did you violate the Concord of Mars, Fourth Protocol that prohibits use of thermonuclear weapons against Sol citizens?”

The man’s thin black eyebrows showed creases as he frowned. “Orders. And your ship
Uhuru
is surely the source of thermonuclear explosions near the Scattered Disk comet Sedna. So you violated the protocol first. We are sent to restore order, make First Contact with friendly Aliens, and to recover or destroy any gravity-pull ship drives which you and your fellow pirates have obtained through attacks on various Alien ships.”