Earth Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series 1) (36 page)

Jack nodded formally to the man who, he suspected, still had to remind his crew and that of the destroyers just why they had switched allegiance from the Unity to the Belt. “Welcome Fleet Admiral Hideyoshi Minamoto! Your ship formation is excellent. My Belter ally, Captain Akemi Hagiwara of the
Orca
will communicate with your Pilot station on how we use laser link to make a time-lock for simultaneous grav-pull drive ignition. Is that suitable for your command? Or do you wish an alternative method of convoying with us?”

These issues had been fixed earlier, just after Minamoto took control of the Deimos Yards. But Jack knew that using official Naval comlink format would allow the man’s crew to more easily integrate with his fleet. Minamoto’s thin black eyebrows creased slightly.

“We will follow what has worked well for your fleet, Captain Munroe.” The Asian looked aside to an out of view Bridge post. “Navigator Lieutenant Zhāng Dingbang, advise Captain Hagiwara of your comlink frequency and direct fiber optic modulation link to our grav-pull drive!”

“
Hai
, my admiral,” came a woman’s voice.

Minamoto looked up at an overhead screen, then back to Jack. “I see that your fleet is arranged in a circle with your ship as the pearl in the center. I can arrange our six ships in a similar formation, with the
Bismarck
lying below and opposite the position of the
Uhuru
. At a separation distance of twenty kilometers. Or do you require our ships to orient differently?”

Jack smiled, both to himself and for the motion-eye that was conveying his image and that of his Pilot cabin crew to every ship in Minamoto’s fleet. “Excellent suggestion, Fleet Admiral! That will allow us to have maximum defensive coverage of all vectors upon blip jump arrival above Copernicus Crater. Please arrange your fleet as you suggest.”

Elaine looked over at him. “The Unity fleet is moving as one unit to place themselves below us and parallel to the ecliptic plane.”

“Pilot, refer to them as Mars fleet,” he said firmly. Minamoto’s expression showed restrained approval. “As for our Moon arrival tactics, you and I have discussed them earlier. However, just so my Belt ships and crews can be aware, along with your Mars fleet ships and crew, I will summarize.”

Denise moved behind him. “Captain Jack, my panel shows laser link time-lock among our thirteen ships, as initiated by Captain Akemi.”

He ignored the important but minor interruption. “You and I are agreed that our joint fleet objectives are threefold. First, defeat the Unity fleet in orbit about the Moon and remove it as an effective fighting force. Second, during combat our thirteen ships will blip jump as a unit at first, then split into three ship groups if needed to pursue Unity warships. Third, if the ship of Menoma the Manager makes an appearance during the battle, you will leave the
Uhuru
to combat it. Though feel free to use your railgun and neutral particle beam weapon against any gravity probes the Alien ship may launch!”

“Agreed,” Minamoto said, reaching to snap his seat restraints into their locks. “Our Mars fleet is ready to engage the grav-pull drive upon the command of Captain Hagiwara. May you and your crew lead us all to victory!”

Jack smiled with restraint. The man’s acknowledgment that final battle command rested with him and the
Uhuru
was also previously agreed. But restating it now made the parameters of the upcoming space battle clear to all ships and crews.

“Thank you, Fleet Admiral! The same wish to you, your ships and your crews. We will depart shortly after I speak with Captains Ignacio Aldecoa and Júlia Araujo. Off AV.”

The man’s image vanished to be replaced by Elaine’s live light scope image of a distant Mars and the black space that surrounded them all. Across the top glowed the six images of his Belter captains. He gestured to them.

“Ignacio, my brother, welcome back! And congratulations on salvaging those fifteen grav-pull drives at Sedna!”

The swarthy man grinned back, his black mustache curling to either side of his mouth. The man, who wore a new black
boina
beret, pointed at Jack. “My brother, you wear your own
boina
! Happy are we who go hunting together!”

“Very true,” Jack said. “Did you lay to rest your cousin Sabino Ibaiguren?”

Ignacio’s levity softened as his black eyes glistened. “Yes. My cousin rests among the snows of Sedna. Where once the Entry Dome stood and the Gathering Hall hid. I thought it right to place him atop the site where we all fought together.”

“Exactly right,” Jack said, turning to focus on his Brazilian captain. “Júlia, when we exit grav-pull above the Moon, can you contact your fellow countrymen at Copernicus Crater and ask them to not use their anti-space lasers against us? Let them know how Mars has joined us, with the reward of being free from central control. There is no reason the Brazilians on the Moon cannot likewise  claim independence, once we cut the Unity back to an Earth-only base.”

“Of course,” Júlia said, her brown face spreading into an infectious smile. “I will do my  utmost. While also spreading havoc among the Unity ships!”

Jack grinned at her and at all his allies. One last detail. He looked past his sister Cassie, who kept quiet since she was not involved in ship operations. He fixed on Max. “Is the antimatter beamer installed and ready to use?”

“Thirty minutes ago!” said Max with a happy look. “Maureen has already tested out its movement. Its emitter is parallel with the neutral particle beam emitter so we can zap a ship with both beams at the same time if desired!”

That explained why Maureen was missing from the combat station seat between him and Elaine. Just as well. He nodded at his oldest sister, then looked up at Akemi. “Captain of the
Orca
, initiate our unified grav-pull departure!”

“As you command, my
shogun
!”

Before Jack the red-brown of Mars blurred, blurred again, then vanished among a gravity-distorted mix of light images. Across from him Elaine spoke.

“Earth and the Moon are nearly opposite from Mars, close to solar conjunction. Distance to target is about two point five AU. Time to target, twenty-two minutes!”

Jack tapped his Tech panel to set up the HikHikSot trick he had planned earlier. Whenever Menoma appeared, he would be ready. And so would his fleet and the
Uhuru
!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The blur of blip jumping stopped. In a flash Jack perceived the vitals of their spatial relationships.

The Moon lay below them with Copernicus Crater located just north their equatorial orbit.

Between the Moon and Jack’s fleet moved five GPS satellites put up by the Brazilian Autarchy.

More seriously, Elaine’s Search-and-Detect NavTrack sensors threw up on the right side panel an overhead plan view of the Moon, his fleet’s thirteen ships and other neutrino-emitting ships. Twenty yellow spots showed up in a cluster toward the Moon’s eastern horizon, while the red spots of Jack’s fleet showed in high noon position. At an angle behind them lay distant Earth. Minamoto’s
Bismarck
and his five destroyers hung just below Jack’s fleet in the same arrangement as when they’d left Mars.

He saw no sign of Menoma’s ship.

Jack pointed. “They’re ahead of us in orbit but lower by three thousand klicks, in station-keeping mode near the light-dark divider arc. We’re both moving east toward the dark side. Vector distance is—”

“Four thousand six hundred forty-two kilometers and closing,” Elaine said. “Our grav-pull vector speed is overtaking them. Though they will alert to our gravitomagnetic pulses at any moment.”

No doubt about that. “All ships! Fire HF lasers on ships ahead! Maureen, zap the closest heavy cruiser with your neutral particle whiptail! Now! Before it changes vectors!”

“Target locked. Firing!” called the woman who had fought ship-to-ship during their first rebellion. “Our side laser pods are also firing.”

Jack liked that Maureen now fired the first shot of the Second Belter Rebellion.

On the live light scope image he saw the lightspeed snap of the blue particle beam as it reached out, found the moving Unity cruiser, and sliced through the midbody of the enemy craft.

“Yes!” cried Cassie.

The front screen also showed two dozen green laser slashes striking among the ten closest ships. “Hits!” Elaine yelled. “Four other ships destroyed by the fleet’s combined laser fire!”

“AV signal from Admiral Minamoto!” called Denise.

“Put it up front!” Jack said, noting that the other heavy cruiser, the only Unity ship outfitted with a neutral particle beam like that carried by the
Uhuru
and
Bismarck
, had its nose pointed toward the Moon’s eastern horizon. The ship would have to do a nose-to-tail flip in order to bring its weapon to bear on Jack and his fleet.

“Captain Munroe,” called Minamoto from his purple-lighted Command Bridge. “My staff have reminded me that the Articles of War as cited in the Seventh Protocol of the Concord of Mars require opposing ships to give each other an opportunity to surrender. Can that be done now without imperiling our joint fleet?”

Jack had thought the need to strike first was obvious in view of how the
Mao Tse-tung
had fired on him without AV parley. But Minamoto’s crew likely saw the people on the Unity ships as hapless captives caught between two political groups.

“Yes! Do you know the name of the surviving heavy cruiser’s admiral? And the ship name? Maureen, hold fire unless you see the cruiser starting to pinwheel. If you do, fire immediately!”

“Yes my captain,” said her holo image above his Tech panel.

Minamoto’s intense expression told Jack he had done right to offer parley. “The ship is the
Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell
, under the command of Admiral Renée Courtmanche. She graduated from the academy three years after I did.”

“Denise, open an AV line on Unity Fleet Channel Six.”

“Open.”

On the live light image of the Unity naval fleet the fifteen survivors had gone to fusion pulse thrust with an up vector to reach the same orbital arc occupied by Jack’s ships. The four closest ships now fired HF lasers at his fleet, missing them by several hundred meters.

“Admiral Renée Courtmanche of the ship
Cromwell
,” Jack called. “You have ten seconds to surrender your ship and your fleet to the combined Belter and Mars fleets under the command of Jack Munroe, with the support of Fleet Admiral Hideyoshi Minamoto. Respond or die quickly.”

Three seconds passed before the image of an older European woman appeared on the front screen just below Minamoto’s. She wore Unity Naval blues with an assemblage of golden stars and service ribbons. Her Command Bridge showed the flashing purple lights of Thrust-Gee. Her expression was one of anger mixed with disgust.

“Amateur! If you surrender to me instantly I will allow your crews to survive in the lithium mines of Moon’s south pole!”

“Jack!” called Elaine. “The Unity ships are all starting a flip-over so they can decel and end up behind us at a higher orbital!”

He looked to Minamoto’s image above the screen, which had been joined by the images of his six Belter captains. “Hideyoshi, I tried. One of us has to take her out before her nose particle emitter comes to bear on us. Your decision?”

The man who had spent nearly forty years in the Unity Naval Command bit his pale lips, then nodded abruptly. He looked to his left. “Weapons! Fire our neutral particle beam at the front end of the
Oliver Cromwell
. Quickly! Before we eat vacuum!”

On the live light portion of the front screen Jack saw a blue beam flare out from the
Bismarck’s
nose emitter and impact on the
Cromwell’s
nose.

“Target slagged,” called someone on Minamoto’s bridge.

“Elaine,” Jack called. “What are the classes of the remaining ships? Any with a particle beam?”

“No!” she said, tapping her Astro panel. On the overhead plan view panel of the Moon and the two fleets, a vertical column suddenly appeared with numbers and class names. “The fifteen ships include the heavy cruiser
Oliver Cromwell
, which is still under power, plus four destroyers, eight frigates and two corvettes.”

“Incoming AV signal!” cried Denise.

Admiral Renée Courtmanche appeared, her short blond curls sweat-soaked and red spots of blood showing on her blue dress uniform as someone else’s blood droplets sped past her. Black smoke and the flash of power circuits sparking filled her purple-lighted bridge. Her bridge crew not in seats were moving about under the Thrust Gee her ship had gone to in order to come in behind and higher than Jack’s fleet. A classic orbital ploy . . . which was pointless when used against ships with grav-pull drives.

“Bastard!” she cried. “Everyone past my bridge is dead. But we have power. And lasers. And Menoma the Manager is coming to our aid!” Her AV image disappeared.