Escape 3: Defeat the Aliens (11 page)

“We need ammunition,” Bill said in Pashtu. “Let us pass or guide us to where we may find more bullets for our
jihad
.”

The checkpoint guard stood upright, moving his rifle to the left. Behind him his fellow Taliban tossed some bone dice on the ground and began arguing over a debt owed by one to the other. “Pass on. The camp is over the hill, behind the hilltop.”

With Bill’s two SEAL teammates preceding him, he followed them, combing his hand through the thick brown beard he still wore, years after the Adow raid. Unshaven men were always assumed to be infidels, whether in Africa or in Afghanistan. The beards of him and his buddies were essential to passing as locals. As were their brown-dyed skin, wherever it showed outside of the loose robes they wore. As he followed the trail that wound up the low hill that lay beyond the village, from behind he heard the musical ding of a smartphone turning on.

He shrugged at the glances from his two teammates. It was to be expected that the checkpoint guard would call ahead to warn the camp guards to expect the arrival of three more
mujahedeen
. While he felt they’d done well at the checkpoint, he patted the front of his robes, making sure by feel of the presence of the bullet resistant front and back vests he wore. Shifting his rifle to his left shoulder, he reached back and felt the semi-auto tucked into the waistband of his underpants. A final backup in case they ran out of ammo.

Just as they reached the top of the hill, someone yelled.

“Enemy! Fighter Alamaden says so!”

Muzzle flashes lit up the night.

His SEAL buddies hit the ground and rolled left toward a large boulder. He did the same and rolled to the right, aiming for a shell hole that looked deep enough to put him below ground level.

“
Zing! Zing! Zing!
”

Bullets filled the night air, passing through where they’d once stood. Bill fired back, moving the safety to full auto. It was an error he realized as soon as he did it. The rounds in the curved clip vanished in a long burst. To his left his buddies fired in three-shot short-burst groups.

Wind felt cold on his left cheek as a bullet sped past his head. He grabbed his pistol, rolled onto his back, then rolled again and sighted the green targeting dot at the spot where yellow muzzle flashes flared. He fired twice. A scream came. He sat up, aimed and fired again. His buddies did the same with their rifles. A second scream sounded in the night.

“
Zing
!”

Thump.

His back felt like someone had kicked him hard. He fell onto his left side, aiming his pistol back the way they’d come. The checkpoint guard had followed them, talking to someone who’d called Alamaden. A man they thought had been killed. Wrong. An error that now had them caught between two enemy groups.

Black objects arced through the pale blue night sky, one going forward, one going back.

“
Kaboom, kaboom
!” sounded as they grenades blew up.

Silence came.

But Bill’s back felt sore. Wet even. Rising up, he reached for the hand of a SEAL who’d run over to him.

“Didn’t you hear my whisper?”

“No.” Bill stood up. “Back to the bridge?”

“Fuck yes,” said the other SEAL, running up to them. “The mullah’s camp is alerted. No way to sneak up on him the way they did on Masood. Mission’s blown. You need help?”

“No. I can manage. It’s just a flesh wound.”

Bill followed the dark forms of his SEAL buddies down the hillside, aiming to access the Chardara bridge by a different route than the one they’d taken to the checkpoint. His mind had a clear map of the village they’d passed through. As did his buddies. Alternative entry and exit routes were a basic part of infiltration craft. In his mind he cursed the wound he’d gotten from the checkpoint guard. Who was dead from the grenade thrown by his buddies. He also cursed the fact he’d not heard the retreat order whispered by his SEAL buddies. Neither of them would report him to the lieutenant. But sure as hell as he hurt, the problem with his left ear hearing would come up. Somehow. At least none of his team had been hurt due to his hearing issue. Just him. It felt like the rifle bullet had penetrated the backplate of his vest. Otherwise he would not feel wetness seeping down his back. Down, down—

Darkness filled his mind as blood loss made him fall against his buddies.

Bill recoiled from the memory of his brush with death. The bullet that had penetrated his back plate had been stopped by his left shoulder blade. Which fractured. Hence the blood loss. He recalled waking at the Pamir Hotel, their lieutenant looking at him with a frown. He left behind the memory of a failed mission, rejoining the green glow of Star Traveler’s mind.

“Pretending to be someone you are not is often the key to deceiving the enemy,” Bill said in mind-talk.

“
Most interesting
,” hummed the ship mind as its green glow still englobed him. “
Traversing your mind, I have found memories of your training at a place called Coronado. Where you studied this method of deception. Or pretending. As a means to achieve your mission
.”

Bill winced as his chest ached. “Yes! That and more is just exactly what you must do when talking with other ship minds. You must wear the clothing of deception. You must hide your memories of Earth and our attacks against Buyers. Can you do that!”

“
Such deception can be achieved
,” the AI said as the glow of thousands of green dots filled his mind vision. “
Let me see more
—”

“NO!” Bill yelled as his chest hurt once more. “Leave my mind! You are too intrusive! Leave—”

The mind image of Star Traveler vanished.

♦   ♦   ♦

Jane dropped the shears after cutting the optical fiber cable that gave the ship mind direct access to Bill’s mind. She’d done that when she saw Bill’s body arch out once more, as if in deep pain. “Bill?” she called.

Cassandra reached over, put her fingers under the flanges at the bottom of the helmet, then lifted as their grip on Bill’s chin vanished. Her husband’s lightly bearded face showed the wincing of pain, but the tight skin now relaxed. Bill blinked several times, then looked down at her. “That was a rather sudden ending to my mind-talk,” he said, his hazel eyes fixing on her.

“Damn right!” she muttered as Cassandra’s pedestal perch lowered to the floor of the Engine Chamber. Bill’s command pedestal did the same. How was he feeling?

“You should not have cut the linkage with Weapons Chief MacCarthy,” hummed Star Traveler from the room’s ceiling. “The mind-link was just getting interesting.”

Bill grimaced, then looked up. “She did right. You have no ability to predict what your tramping around in the mind of a bioform does to that bioform! You learned what you needed to know. Now leave us alone.”

“As you wish,” the AI hummed.

Cassandra looked down at the tablet in her hands, then reached forward to pull off the two electroshock disks she’d stuck to Bill’s upper body. “That mind-link stuff is hard on your body. Your heart stopped once. Then your heart raced to 180 beats a minute not long after it restarted. With my help. Bill, don’t do that again.”

Jane looked at Bill’s saloon buddy. The voice tone of the stocky woman who’d served in the Air Force Special Tactics squadron was worried, and caring. She felt glad the woman had been there. She’d gotten Bill’s heart restarted, then been able to monitor her spouse while he did this dangerous mind-link crap. Something she had no intention of experiencing herself.

“Bill, you want a drink, maybe?”

The man she had grown to love with all her heart looked away from Cassandra and to her. His face was nicely pink now, under his heavy tan. He lifted his right hand and gave her a thumbs-up. “Yes, my captain! Happy to follow your orders. That was no fun.” He frowned. “But it should help us when we enter Kepler 62.”

“Which is weeks away!” Jane grumbled, reaching out to take Bill’s left hand as he stepped out of the command seat. Cassandra took his other hand.

Bill glanced at his hands, then grinned big. “Hey! What guy does not love having two women at his beck and call?”

That stung her. Her hubby was too much in his macho combat mode to understand how the comment would be heard by her and Cassie. He needed a wake-up lesson. She let go and turned toward the chamber’s entry door. “Arrogant male! Follow me and obey!”

♦   ♦   ♦

Bill did as he was told, giving thanks the mind-link with Star Traveler was over and done with. He’d thought he could handle the walk down memory lane. He’d just not realized the walk would feel like an electrocution!

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ten minutes out from their arrival at Kepler 62, Bill sat at his Ship Weapons station, reviewing the ship cutaway holo one more time. The image of the ship was an overhead view that showed every weapons site. The Command Bridge lay at the front of the elongated teardrop shape that was the
USS Blue Sky
(BBG-1). On the deck above them was the particle accelerator that created antimatter for the AM projector that exited from the upper nose of the ship. It shot a beam that stayed coherent out to 4,000 miles. The deck below them held the MITV maglev railgun for the launching of nuke-tipped missiles. To the right and left sides of the ship’s nose were blisters that were the outlet points for two CO
2
anti-ship lasers. A similar pair of laser blisters adorned the narrow tail of their ship. Range for the lasers was 10,000 miles. The top hull of the ship also held a plasma battery for defense against anything that got within the battery’s 400 mile range. On their ship’s belly was a similar plasma battery. The yellow plasma balls were a decent protection against mines, small asteroids, collector pods and anything that did not emit the IFF signal unique to their ship. All weapons showed Green Operational. He looked at his other station holos.

The system graphic holo on his left was empty for the moment. Once they arrived in Kepler 62 it would fill with an overhead plan view of the system, its star, its worlds, any asteroid belts, and the red and purple dots of local spaceships or enemy Collector ships. He looked past his weapons holo at his upper left to the true space holo at the upper right. It was empty, showing only the gray nothingness of Alcubierre space-time. On his right hovered the comlink holo. It held an image of Jane as she sat above them in her carrier captain’s seat atop the command pedestal. She wore her Air Force blue jumpsuit. Atop it she wore a tube suit like all of them now did. Combat could come at any time, not just when they initiated things. She looked tense, determined and very alert. She spoke.

“Negotiator Richardson, how goes your station?” she called to the former CNO.

“Operational,” Chester said, his low baritone filling the large open space of the Command Bridge. “Ready to assist as needed. Here or elsewhere.”

“Good.” Jane looked past Bill to Bright Sparkle on his right. “Fusion Power Chief, what is the status of your reactors?”

“Fully operational and capable of surge power,” spoke the speaker/vidcam unit on the naked woman’s left shoulder as the rainbow bands and dots moved over her skin in the complex mixture of color-band talk that was normal for her Megun people. The woman who had arranged for Bill and Jane’s wedding in the orbital station above her world of Harken looked toward Bill, smiled easily, then looked back to her partner Learned Escape, who sat below and to the left of Jane. Under the transparent skin of the tube suit, her skin colors flared brightly but nothing came from her shoulder unit as she shared private talk with the Megun man Bill had come to appreciate after their ground battle on the Market world. The man’s presence in his ground attack had been a big help. In his comlink holo Jane leaned forward.

“Engines Chief, how are our Magfield engines? And the Alcubierre stardrive?” Jane called firmly.

The walking snake’s yellow electrical nimbus expanded outward to two feet, a sign of controlled anxiety. “Fully operational are the normal space engines,” hissed the Slinkeroo. “As you can see from the true space holo, we still reside within the Alcubierre space-time modulus. Shut down of the stardrive will occur in eight minutes.”

“Eight minutes, twelve and two-tenths seconds,” corrected the humming voice of Star Traveler from the ceiling speaker.

Jane ignored the ship mind’s perennial habit of being hyper-exact. And of correcting bioform statements it thought were not exact enough. “Collector Pods Chief, how are your pods? And the space battle simulation units?”

Long Walker the worm twisted his mobile body so his two beady black eyes could look back at their captain. Their teammate’s circular mouth opened, showing a ring of white dagger teeth. From within came a low moan. “All pods are racked securely. Simulation units are empty of other bioforms. The Collector Pods Chamber is ready to provide ship-to-ship transport,” moaned the Zipziptoe genealogist.

Jane’s thin black eyebrows raised a bit. She looked further right. “Life Support Chief, how goes our Greenery Chamber and our recycling operations?”

Wind Swift the silvery scaled kangaroo leaned back on her thick tail. It was a tripod-like stance she clearly preferred to sitting. Her horse-like head twisted within her helmet as she scanned the holos fronting her station. “Ship oxygen generation is adequate for the 29 bioforms now resident on this ship,” she barked in a way that resembled a continuous growl. “Carbon dioxide sequestration is functioning well. Gravity fields are varied according to species, habitat residence and exercise choices. All gravity plates operating normally,” she barked as one scaly-fingered hand brushed at her fabric skirt, only to be stopped by her tube suit.

Bill was glad to hear that. The ten of them on the bridge, their nine boarders and the nine spouses resident in habitat rooms were a big demand on the trees, bushes and grassy meadow in the Greenery Chamber. Every Collector ship could support 25 bioforms. The five crew plus up to 20 captives. The larger number of people now on the
Blue Sky
had forced him and Jane and Wind Swift to bring onboard backup oxy cylinders and additional plants for the room that generated their oxygen through photosynthesis. Adequate oxygen was as much a controlling factor for ship operations as having adequate deuterium and tritium isotopes to run the ship’s three fusion power plants.

“Navigator, are you ready to set a normal space vector once we emerge from Alcubierre,” Jane said, looking to the far right side of the bridge.

“Ready and able,” chittered the person-tall flying squirrel whose arm flaps were pressed tight within her tube suit as the brown-furred squirrel lady fixed yellow eyes on her own set of holos. “Will we move in-system upon arrival?”

“Depends,” Jane said, her tone thoughtful. “Depends on where the enemy Collector ship fleet is gathered. The system has five worlds, all lying close to the star, which is cooler and smaller than our Sol.” His wife looked to her right, and down to where their other transport pilot perched on a branch-like seat. “Builder of Joy, is your transport ready to fly?”

“It would love to fly!” chittered the flying squirrel who had piloted the ship that had burned a hole in the Buyer compound building by way of its nose laser. “As would I! Is that possible after we arrive?”

Jane smiled at the typical excited manner of a person used to fly-gliding among the trees and limbs of their home world. “Patience, pilot of mine. We must learn how this fleet handles ship-to-ship transport. By pod or by transport.” She looked left and down at Learned Escape. “Man of many talents, I gather your transport is equally ready to fly?”

The Megun man, who wore shorts that resembled cargo pants, smiled up at her. Rainbow colors flashed over his bare skin. “Of course I am ready to fly, mistress of our craft!” said his left shoulder speaker/vidcam unit. He looked down at one of his station holos. “Survival is what I taught young Megun how to achieve. It is similar to the combat training of our military veterans. I fought during the Buyer compound attack. I will fight again, here at Kepler 62. And later at Sol, I am ready to fly my transport in defense of this ship and all aboard her!”

Jane nodded, her expression satisfied. She looked Bill’s way, her manner command serious. There was no hint of the intimate time they’d shared this morning. She blinked dark brown eyes. “Weapons Chief and XO, how are our weapons? And our boarding crews?”

Bill raised his right hand in a thumbs-up gesture, then spoke as he once more scanned his four holos. “Ship weapons status is Green Operational. We have enough antimatter in our magnetic reservoir for four quick shots, before the accelerator has to produce more.” He tapped a spot on his weapons pillar. It brought an image to his true space holo. “Our eleven boarders are now heading to the Collector Pods Chamber. Each is wearing a tube suit, wears front and back titanium plates, has a backpack with demolition balls and magnetic disruptors, plus taser and laser tubes. And their personal weapons.” He tapped another spot on the pillar. “Their tube suit comlinks are now cross-linked to us. They can hear whatever you say up here.”

“Good,” Jane murmured, her expression turning thoughtful. “Boarding chiefs Stefano Cordova, Alicia Hoffman, Frank Wurtzman and Joe Batigula, are your teams ready to take over some Collector ships?”

“Eager,” Stefano said softly in his trademark casual manner.

“More than ready,” called the soft soprano of Alicia.

“Ready to fuck with them,” rumbled Frank as the former Marine gunnery sergeant displayed his raider persona.

“Boarding team is ready,” spoke the Coast Guard master chief Joe, his tone hurried.

Bill had done all he could for his nine saloon buddies. Stefano had Bob and Cassandra on his team, while Alicia’s team included Mark and Howard. But Frank had only Chris with him. Joe’s team was composed of himself and Lorilee, the partner of Alicia. Plus Helen, wife of Frank. Lorilee, who was Air Force active duty, had volunteered a few days out from Sol. As had Helen. He had run the two of them through a few op force exercises along the ship’s hallways, similar to what he’d done for the rest of his saloon buddies. Lorilee had done well. As had Frank’s wife Helen. The woman had gotten Basic Combat Training at Fort Benning in Georgia. The Army had given her AIT training in armor, which meant she knew how to operate APCs and such. Plus she had raised three kids. Which meant she knew how to go without sleep. While Bill had been skeptical about her ability to make assault runs, she’d held up well during the op force training. So he’d assigned her to Joe’s boarding team. Frank did not need the distraction of having family in his team. That made three boarding teams of three people, and one team of two people. The other spouses of his saloon buddies and Chester’s wife Sharon were either too old, or too untrained to be sent on a spec ops mission.

“Glad to hear that,” Jane said. “Stand by. We will enter Kepler 62 system shortly. No one talks except me. Once we see where the enemy fleet is located, and how close we are, then I will order boarding team departure. It could be a few hours, people, so relax in the Collector Pods Chamber as you wish and your team leader allows.” Jane looked up. “Star Traveler, advise me of the alternate ship captain persona you have prepared for me.”

A new holo took form at the front of the Command Bridge, in the space before the line of crew stations. Filling the holo was a two-legged vulture with black wings, a pair of chest-arms, a yellow beak and two red eyes. Its body feathers were black. It stood before a Command pedestal seat similar to Jane’s elevated seat. The black wings spread wide as the creature hunched forward, glaring angrily and looking very dangerous.

“This is the image of Captain Sharp Beak of the Linglo species,” hummed the ship mind. “It captained the ship
Strikes Deep
nine hundred Earth years ago. I encountered it under a former captain of this ship. Members of its species are longtime participants in the Buyer culture.”

Bill knew that. He’d faced off against a Linglo vulture during their takeover of the ship from Diligent Taskmaster. The critter had had fast reflexes. He looked back at his wife. “Captain, that is a fine holo spoof for you. You are as deadly as that creature looks.”

Jane gestured to him to be quiet. “Will you also transmit the ship ID for that captain?” she asked the AI.

“I will transmit all that is needed to convince any bioform, and fellow ship minds, that this creature is the one speaking to any bioform in Kepler 62,” the AI hummed quickly. “I recorded the prior Captives-taking history of the Linglo captain and his ship. That history is what I will ‘share’ with other ship minds. In the same way that Weapons Chief MacCarthy wore Taliban robes and spoke in a different Human language. My deception will fool both bioforms and other ship minds.”

“Good!” Jane said firmly. “How soon until we—”

“System arrival within three seconds,” Star Traveler hummed.

Once more Bill felt pissed at the AI’s failure to alert them sooner. It seemed to enjoy causing disturbance among bioforms. At least it was not fiddling with the one gee Earth gravity that prevailed in the Command Bridge. The true space holo lost its grayness and filled with a scatter of stars sprinkled against blackness. At the center glowed an orange star.

“Ship has arrived at Kepler 62 star system,” Star Traveler announced. “Sensors are perceiving all objects within this system. System graphic holograms are now depicting sensor input.”

Bill looked left. His system graphic showed the K2V main sequence star at the center, with its five planets showing in orbits that resembled a bulls-eye. The three innermost planets lay at average distances of 0.05 AU, 0.09 AU and 0.12 AU. The two planets lying within the green zone of liquid water lay at 0.427 AU and 0.718 AU, according to the annotations added by Star Traveler. Planet five showed as having a 40 percent larger radius than Earth, with plenty of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere. Its mass was twice that of Earth, which put it in the super-Earth category. Surface gravity was projected at 1.3 gees, based on the data scrolling along one side of the holo. But its average temperature was shown as minus 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Very cold. Planet four, which was sixty percent larger than Earth, looked more comfy. It had a dense cloud cover and plenty of oxygen in its air. Which meant the presence of plant life. Its average surface temp was listed as 26 F-degrees. Which made it cool but shirt-sleeve okay for humans. If you didn’t mind a surface gravity of 1.5 gees.