Earth Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series 1) (33 page)

“Damn yes they will!” Her gray eyes blazed with emotion. “And if I have to bed some of them to join us, I will! As for 253 Mathilde, I’m sure its entire population will support you. Jack, sending your Mom that AV vidrecord from our time on Sedna, along with our NavTrack records of the Alien ships in orbit about Sedna, will make them understand. And your gal Nikola will spread the word among the science folk, in the Belt and beyond.”

He missed Nikola. Had missed her ever since leaving Mathilde. Now, he would likely be away longer, if his plans for Mars and the Deimos Yards bore fruit. “Grandma, come up here and I’ll let you in on my Grandpa’s other Rebellion secrets that he shared with me.” Jack looked to Elaine, Denise and Max. “My people, I promise you I will do my best to keep us all alive. But there will be hard fighting in the days and weeks ahead.”

Max grinned and pointed at the front screen. “So what else is new? Look! We’re on our way!”

Jack grinned, then turned back to watch as the gravitational lensing of the gravity-pull drive blurred the external starlight until it became a white haze. Elaine shut off the scope feed. He settled back in his seat, thinking about the future. He had ten hours before they arrived above Mars, near its outermost moon Deimos and the Unity Naval shipyards it hosted. What to do first?

Deimos hung above Mars like a gray egg with pale brown streaks. Several craters pockmarked its regolith surface. The entrance to the moon’s internal shipyard showed as a black circle in the center of Crater Swift. In common orbit above the six kilometer wide rocky moon were fifteen spaceships of various sizes and designations. Thanks to Elaine’s cursor highlights on the front screen, he saw that three tiny corvettes, six were small frigates, five were medium-sized destroyers and one was heavy cruiser class, possibly the
Bismarck
. The moon’s constant IFF signal told any ship approaching within a Mars diameter to identify itself and its intentions. He looked up to the top of the front screen where the faces of his five fellow captains had joined him just after they ended their gravity-pull transit.

“Anyone show any detection of us? Any lidar or maser ranging of us?”

“None,” said Akemi, whose
Orca
was always the fastest to respond to any change in circumstances. “Perhaps arriving with the Sun behind us helped mask our gravitomagnetic pulses.”

He hoped so. It was the reason he had specified a specific Mars orbital location. Plus it allowed him to see the daytime side of Mars, including the Tharsis highlands and its Syria Planum plateau where the Chinese had built their mostly underground capital. Other habitat domes and tunnels spotted the Valles Marineris canyons to the east of Syria Planum, and the Nili Fossae graben valleys on the far side of Mars, near the Isidis Basin. These two equatorial locations were where most people lived on Mars. Which put them directly below Deimos’ high noon daytime position.

“Good. Captains, we need to convert the Deimos fleet ships to either allies or neutral in our fight with the Unity politicos in Geneva. To do that, I need to visit retired Fleet Admiral Minamoto at the fleet retirement habitat in the western Valles Marineris, then People’s Minister Ying Lo-pak at Syria Planum Central.” He paused for the shock to recede among his captains, who clearly expected an attack on the Deimos Yards. “If I fail to gain their support, we can still attack Deimos. But those ships below outnumber us, they are trained military and frankly, I prefer to have them on our side whenever any HikHikSot ships come here on Menoma’s invite.”

“Captain Jack,” called Minna, her blue gaze intense. “Going down to Mars risks you, our leader, and your ship, which is the most heavily armed ship in our fleet. If you . . . are lost on Mars, this new rebellion may become stillborn.”

“Exactly, Captain Minna. Which is why I wish to visit these Mars locations aboard your ship, the
Wolverine
. My crew will remain here, in control of the
Uhuru
, and ready to welcome Ignacio when the
Badger
shows up after its Sedna scavenging. Are you willing to be a planetary taxi?”

“But . . . I . . . we lack any fusion drive and—”

“And all you need to land on Mars is the grav-pull drive and attitude thrusters,” Jack said calmly. “The atmosphere is minimal. And blipping down to the Valles Marineris avoids showing up on Syria Planum’s Aerospatial Traffic Control radars. Once near ground level, we can land, locate the admiral, then blip over to the minister’s private home for a similar visit. All without showing up on traffic control. You know that while the Chinese are very efficient, no one wastes resources on building radars to track Hopper traffic between settlements. That is what emergency beacons are for. To speak with GPS satellites in orbit when necessary. So?”

“Yes, I will welcome you aboard the
Wolverine
.” Minna paused, looked aside at her two remaining crewmen of Alaric and Elie, then nodded slowly. “There is room for you here in our Pilot cabin. And we have a spare stateroom.”

Jack appreciated how Minna did not mention their dead crew-woman Anneli Korhonen in relation to the empty seat and stateroom. “Thank you, my Suomen princess! Please send—”

“Jack, I’m going with you!” called Maureen from her holo. “Period. No debate. Tell her to set up two seats in the Pilot cabin!”

Minna had heard Maureen’s insubordinate statement. The Finn managed to avoid smiling. She knew as well as Jack that no one in the fleet dared argue with their only veteran of the first Belter Rebellion. Especially not if she sat at her Weapons Controls in the Battle Module. Instead, she picked up where he had left off.

“I will send our Lander
Kalevala
to pick up you and Ms. O’Dowd within ten minutes. Will that allow you the time needed to gather your EVA suit and other belongings?”

“Yes!” yelled Maureen. She fixed her gray eyes on him. “And Captain Jack,
we
will travel fully armed. Like we did at Sedna. This time with laser handguns! If someone wants to take you captive, they will find me in the way!”

He blinked several times. No member of the fleet had ever said quite so simply how they were willing to sacrifice their life in order to preserve his. Anyway, it likely made sense to have a security guard along during his two visits. He had planned on invisible transport and swift movement to preserve his security. Well, Maureen now provided a third guarantee.

“Captain Minna, yes, ten minutes is plenty of time for Maureen and I to gather our things.” He switched his attention to the other ships. “Captains, maintain a rotating combat alert in my absence. We are three planetary diameters out, with the sun behind us and obscuring any EMF emissions we make. And Menoma’s ship is likely at or near the Moon, already talking with Geneva. Still, the Unity Naval people are good at stealth maneuvers. Stay alert for moving neutrino sources that could be shipboard reactors. And please monitor the Deimos arrival and departure traffic. I wish to know if there is a sudden return of vacationing crews to their ships at Deimos.”

“Yes, my
shogun
,” said Akemi, bowing deeply.

“You have our good wishes,” called Júlia.

“May Shiva guard you!” yelled Aashman.

“And may the Lord Buddha bring wisdom to the men you meet,” murmured Kasun.

He turned to Denise. “ComChief, send a message to my sister Cassandra. Ask if she is on her way to Mars. Also ask what she knows about the crew status aboard
Bismarck
. Are they the same crew as when Minamoto commanded? Or has there been a major crew change?” He focused on Max. “My friend, coordinate with Júlia over the use of that modulated neutrino comlink that she has working. See if that gives you any insights into Alien tech and how this Alcubierre drive shell might be generated.” Next came Elaine. “Sister, I love you. This trip must be done. Admiral Minamoto will only respond to me, the man who let his crew live when we could have killed them all. And if I can get Minamoto on my side, I think the People’s Minister will seriously consider withdrawing from the Unity. Understand?”

His sister, just eight years younger than he, stood up, walked over, waited for him to stand, then gave him a tight hug. “I understand, brother Jack. You scheme a lot, but you always insist on putting yourself first in line when danger approaches. You did it when Cassie and I were small. You did it for Cassie when that rockrat tried to grab her during our move to a new asteroid hab. And you are doing it now. Thank you.” She kissed him on the cheek, then turned and headed back to her Pilot station.

Leaving him standing amidst the best friends he had known since he’d left his family to attend Tech school on Vesta. He turned and headed through the hatch and down the Spine hallway.

“Maureen!” he called to the voice-activated ship intercom. “I’m coming! I’ll meet you at the Lander hold.”

The ghost of his grandfather Ephraim followed along with him, whispering friendly words, talking about domino games they had played together, and sharing jokes that only guys understood. Or so it felt to Jack as he walked the quiet Spine hallway.

The
Wolverine
hovered just beside the green garden dome that lay above the underground tunnels and rooms of Gibraltar Residence, the Unity Naval Command’s retirement community on Mars for its retired veterans. Thrusters flaring, Minna looked to Jack from her seat at the Drive controls.

“My captain, what next? How do we contact this Minamoto?”

“Land in the shadow of the cliff that overlooks the dome. Atop that rocky outcrop so the surface powder does not clog our thrusters. While there is no one walking the garden pathways, it is best to be out of easy sight.” Jack glanced at Alaric Virtanen, the ship’s ComChief as Elie Hämälänen, their Pilot and Astro person, handled the ship’s spatial orientation controls. Then he looked back to Maureen, who bristled with her javelin, sword and two laser guns in place of her revolvers. “You tell him.”

Maureen nodded. “ComChief, tune into the habitat’s internal intercom on Channel 83.1. Scan its Directory for the admiral’s personal quarters. Once you have that code entry, set up an AV link to Minamoto’s home communicator.”

Alaric, a tall Swede with a taste for ribald humor, lifted his blond eyebrows. “Ah. Thank you.” He looked down to his Comlink panel, tapped several sequences, then sighed. “There it is. One Hideyoshi Minamoto. No spouse listed. Signaling.”

“Thank you. Put the man’s AV reply on the front screen where the motion-eye can see us all.”

On the screen appeared a sleepy looking Asian whose thin black eyebrows rose sharply as he recognized his callers. “You! Don’t you know the arrest and seizure order is still—”

“Fleet Admiral Hideyoshi Minamoto, the heavy cruiser
Mao Tse-tung
is dead, at my hand. In order to save humanity from Alien slavery.” Jack paused, gesturing to Alaric. “Will you look at this AV excerpt from just before a major battle that happened on the comet Sedna? The Alien you will see, who calls himself Menoma the Manager, is behind all of the violent attacks on my ships.”

Brushing back his receding hairline, Minamoto frowned, looked to either side out of habit, then focused on Jack. “Is this signal encrypted?”

“It can be. You can make everything you say to us from henceforth encrypted by activating the recognition algorithm Omega 1432.”

“Good.” The man’s image looked down as he manipulated an out of sight companel.

“He’s encrypted now,” Alaric said softly as Minna, Elie and Maureen watched.

“Send me this AV excerpt,” the pudgy Japanese said, his tone one of command used to obedience.

“Transmitting,” said Alaric.

Jack sat patiently in a cushioned seat, restraint straps over his Kevlar vest. His fannypack lay next to his seat, filled with Old Roy, his revolver gun belt and a few other items. Behind him Maureen had stood up in the ship’s one gee grav-pull, clearly eager to debark, enter the dome, get the admiral, and then get the Hades away from being a sitting target.

Minamoto looked up from watching the AV excerpt. His black eyes bored into Jack. “Why did you kill the
Mao Tse-tung
? And why are you here, somewhere near Mars, talking to me?”

Jack told him, making clear Menoma’s duplicity and the Alien’s effort to talk the Geneva world congress into a supposed alliance with the HikHikSot. “When Admiral Yamagata agreed to board Menoma’s ship for a trip to Earth in order to cement this supposed alliance, I had to act. Regrettably, Menoma had already transmitted the entire negotiation chat by FTL comlink to his stealthed probe in Moon orbit. Our fleet could not destroy him. So I am here, to seek your help in . . . replacing the Unity with a human structure that will choose to resist these Alien predators.”

The man lifted a sip-tube of green tea. Then he pulled tight the cotton belt of his black and white checkered
yukata
robe He sniffed. “You want me to violate my oath of allegiance. Even if this AV record is not fabricated, I have lived my whole life—”

“Trying to protect human society from those who would harm humanity,” Jack interrupted. “I understand, Admiral Minamoto. That dedication to your cause is exactly why I am here, in a ship, next to your garden dome. My objective, now that my fleet has destroyed or chased away the dozen Alien species that sought to claim Sol system through their Rules of Engagement, which required a new species to assert its right of survival through personal combat, is simple. I aim to prevent the conquest of Sol system by this HikHikSot group of Aliens under the pretense of a friendly alliance. Will you come up to the garden dome? I will meet you there, in person.”