StarFight 1: Battlestar (26 page)

“You see clearly, my leader,” she scent cast with a hint of embarrassment. “The radiative emissions are similar to what our propulsive device and our energy nodes emit. That is either a flying nest above that world, or a nest in permanent flight, like those above Nest,” she said. She fluttered her brown wings. “The presence of such emissions on the land of the world suggest there is a Soft Skin colony on that world.”

Hunter understood that. But his view of another imager that gave details on each of the seven worlds that flew about the yellow sky light caused him puzzlement. “Servant for aberrant behaviors, our tools say the fourth world has a pull down strength twice that of Nest. Why would any Soft Skin live there?”

The old male emitted a complex mix of trail, territorial and releaser pheromones, tinged with excitement pheromone. “Hunter One, perhaps these Soft Skins come from a world with such a heavy pull down. If so, that explains why they did not fly down to Warmth. It has not the right pull down for their lives. Have you studied the other life on Nest and how each lifeform requires a certain set of life boundaries to thrive? Perhaps—”

“Enough!” Hunter yelled in a harsh flow of alarm and command pheromones. “I am no fool. The lifeforms of Nest are well known to me. Including the tree-climbing Soft Skins that live in the depths of our forests. These Soft Skins prefer yellow sky lights. They live on a world with twice our pull down strength. It matters not. We will—”

“Leader!” cried the Servant who studied distant sky lights. “Look at the third world! Our imager reveals it. It resembles Nest! Its pull down is what we now live with and its air is high in metabolizing gases and low in waste air,” the Servant said with a rush of excitement, trail, territorial and releaser pheromones. “There are no radiative emissions from it. The Soft Skins do not live on it. It could be our eleventh colony world!”

Hunter saw that. The tools affixed to the hard shell of his flying nest were diverse and complex. They sensed all sorts of emissions. They could tell the mix of gases that filled a world’s air, the type of water on its surface and whether anything artificial was present on a world. His Servants used those tools to build an image of the outer world. His work was to lead a Swarm to a new nesting place, claim it, defend it and send down Pods filled with small ones to grow and thrive on the new world. World number three did indeed resemble Nest. Its discovery alone justified his decision to follow the Soft Skins. Its emptiness called to him. It gave added reason to pursue the Soft Skin flying nests, destroy them and then remove the Soft Skins on world four so no one could harm their younglings.

“Servant for propulsive devices, push us after the fleeing Soft Skins,” he scent cast to the older male. “Speaker To All, direct our other nests to follow in six-group form. Flight Servant, send out the scent path which we must follow to reach these Soft Skin nests!”

Mixed flows of aggregation, trail, territorial and alarm pheromones flowed through the Flight Chamber. And thence outward to the nests flown by his Support Hunters. They would obey. All Swarmers would obey now that a world like Nest had been discovered. Removing pests like the Soft Skins was a task they had done often on Nest, and on other colony worlds. While the web of life might be hurt on world four by the killing of these Soft Skins, he must make certain the web of life on world three stayed intact. It was vital for that web to survive so their offspring would have plentiful food to feed on as they grew to mature Swarmers. While artificial foods were present in each flying nest, no Swarmer enjoyed them. Natural foods were vital for the health of young Swarmers. He would see that the next load of colonizing nests had plenty to eat on world three.

“Hunter One,” scent cast the Matron from behind him. “Remember my judgment from the Challenge? You and your fellow Hunters must find answers before you eliminate all Soft Skins. Where do they come from? Are there more who might come to this sky light? Do they have more colonies like ours? Set your aberrant behaviors Servant to the study of these questions,” she said in a mix of trail, territorial and aggregation pheromones, making clear her demand was for the benefit of all Swarmers.

“Servant of aberrations, do you have answers for the Matron?” he scent cast.

The older male lowered his antennae in a sign of regret. “I do not have those answers. I know only what we have observed, and what we can perceive in the trail images they sent to us,” he said in a mix of releaser and stay away pheromones. “These large Soft Skins come in both male and female variations. They are comfortable living in a pull down field twice that of Nest. They have at least one colony, which lies in this sky light system. Their stinger tools are the equal of our own. They have other tools that send messages which we do not understand. And they do not know how to talk by way of pheromones.”

Hunter One briefly wondered how any intelligent sky traveling lifeform could not talk by way of pheromones. All lifeforms on Nest spoke in pheromones, whether a few like the tiny Soft Skins that dug holes in the land, or in many like the tree-climbing Soft Skins that always sought to steal any possession of a Swarmer. What other means of speaking could exist? The image of world three pushed such thoughts out of his attention. Here was a new colony world ideal for Swarmers. Here was a land nest of Soft Skins. The land nest must be removed, or else the Soft Skins would steal food and resources and artificial nests from their new Swarmer colony. While all their larval Pods had gone down to the world of Warmth, more colony Pods would arrive in other Swarmer nests, once he brought word of this sweet-smelling world to his cohort and to the Matrons of Nest. There would be a happy flood of Swarmer flying nests traveling out to this sky light. Now, he must complete what he had begun on the world of Warmth. The final removal of all Soft Skins from the domain of Swarmers must now proceed.

♦   ♦   ♦

“Captain! The wasp ships have arrived,” called Daisy from below.

Jacob looked to his situational holo. It did indeed show the red icons of six ships now appearing at the edge of Kepler 10’s magnetosphere. It was 20 hours since they had arrived. Which meant his ships were in the middle of the system, not yet arrived at the system’s outermost ice ball world. The frigate
Aldertag
was still heading their way. He looked ahead.

“Navigation, what is the speed of the wasp ships?”

Louise looked back to him, her expression concerned. “They are up to one-tenth lightspeed. Our speed inward,” she said.

Which meant that the battle group would arrive at the fourth planet colony just as the wasps reached the outermost world of the system. That world lay at 19 AU out from the star. The wasps were now 45 AU out. Should they orbit the ice world and wait for the wasps? Or should they prepare for a fight closer to the colony world?

“Chief Warrant Officer O’Connor, what is your opinion about the best location to battle these wasps?”

The Marine looked up from his seat. So did Daisy and Branstead, both looking curious.

“Captain, I suggest we fight them out near the moon of the fourth world, which the locals call Valhalla.” He shrugged. “What can I say, most of the colonists hail from Minnesota and are of Scandinavian heritage.”

“Why?” Jacob probed.

The man’s gray eyes fixed on him. “To reduce the chances for a wasp ship to do a swing around attack on Valhalla. If we battle out by planet six or seven, part of the wasp fleet could swing around our battle group and head inward. They could hit the colony with nukes and their plasma lightning bombs.” He gestured at the front wallscreen which now showed Valhalla and its moon. “The local moon is just 300,000 klicks away from Valhalla. If we battle them at the midway point between the moon and the planet, our ships could move sideways just as quickly as the wasps could. And therefore intercept any wasp ship on a missile launch trajectory.”

Jacob mentally played with angles and trajectories based on Archimedes’ triangle. He saw what the Marine was saying. “So, being closer to Valhalla makes it harder for the wasps to swing off to a side vector track that would let them bypass our ships?”

“Exactly,” O’Connor said.

He looked again at the situational holo that showed ships, moons and the system’s seven worlds. The battle group’s inward trajectory would take them by the seventh world as they headed for Valhalla. Worlds one, two, three and five were scattered around the star, on different orbital tracks. Though planet three was just twenty degrees ahead of Valhalla. He looked to Willard.

“Science, why would the wasps attack Valhalla? To date they’ve come after us. Why attack the planet?”

Willard tapped his control pillar. A new image went up on the wallscreen. He pointed. “Because of that world. Planet three is similar in size and vegetation to the fourth world of Kepler 22. Most vitally, its gravity is just a half gee. Like at Kepler 22. Its atmosphere is 30 percent oxygen, with more CO
2
than is normal for Earth. That means planet three is jungle hot, humid, with plenty of oxy. It is the kind of planet these wasps may have evolved on.” Willard paused, then looked his way. “Captain, the wasps may attack our people on Valhalla because they see a perfect wasp colony world in
this
system. They attacked us when we came close to their new colony world. Why shouldn’t they do the same here? And add the colony into the mix so this system would not have anyone in it to be a threat to their colonists?”

Jacob did not like what Willard was saying. It made too much sense. He looked back to where two of his friends were seated. “Ensign Antonova, Ensign Mendoza, come up here.”

His friends arrived. They saluted him. He saluted them back. Were they happy together, he briefly wondered. They had spent more time together during the rest breaks as the battle group moved in system. Putting that aside, he focused on Lori.

“Ensign Antonova, you had some early insights into the wasp people when we discovered the meeting site attack. What can we do to discourage them from attacking our people?”

She looked over to Branstead, her deck chief. The woman’s tanned face showed a quick smile, followed by a nod. Lori looked back to him.

“Captain, I suggest we create a new cartoon video. This one should show an image of Valhalla with a circle of people around it. Remember the old images of Earth from early this century? During the global warming crisis?” She caught her breath. “Let us create a cartoon that shows humans standing on the surface of Valhalla, then show our nine ships lined up in space above them, to signal we are protecting these people. Next, the cartoon can show the incoming six wasp ships stopping, then turning around and departing. It’s a way of telling the wasps we are defending the world of Valhalla.”

Jacob liked that idea. He looked to Carlos. “Ensign Mendoza, do you agree with chief O’Connor’s reasoning for fighting close to Valhalla, rather than far away?”

He pursed his lips and grew thoughtful. Then he nodded. “I do. Fighting further out does indeed give the wasps better room to maneuver around us. Fighting closer in, say at 200,000 klicks out from Valhalla, lets us spread our ships out and thereby have a broader field of fire. Course, Rosemary and Oliver could say this better than I can.”

Jacob doubted that. The man was not only a world-class chess player, he was able to compose algorithms in his head that set out an ideal navigation vector track. They would need his talents amid the mixed gravity fields of Valhalla and its moon. He looked to Alicia.

“Lieutenant Branstead, can your people create such a cartoon? And do it before the wasps arrive near Valhalla?”

“We can,” Alicia said. “Can we do anything else to assist you?”

“Yes,” Jacob said, thinking ahead to the future. “You and Ensign Antonova both made the point these wasp aliens likely communicate by way of pheromones. So. Can we figure out how to send a radio signal that causes pheromone emissions at the other end?” A memory hit him hard. “Maybe that was what the wasp satellite was trying to do when we first arrived. But we rely on voice modulation and images to communicate. The wasps may not. Can it be done?”

“We can try,” Alicia said, her expression doubtful. “But we lack one of their signaling devices. So we do not know how they use radio waves to evoke a smell at the receiving end. I’ll get my best linguists working on it.”

“Good. Finish the cartoon before the wasps get to four.” Jacob looked up. “AI Melody, open a neutrino comlink with the captain of the ship
Aldertag
.”

“You wish to speak redundantly to more humans?” the AI said, its tone . . . he could swear it sounded amused. “Neutrino comlink established. Image projected.”

The front wallscreen now grew a new inset image. It showed a pale-skinned, older woman who might be hitting 50. Or more. Jacob could not tell. Her face was smooth and showed no wrinkles. Only the creases around her eyes, and the gray streaks in her blond hair betrayed the fact she was older than most ship captains in the battle group. Her pale blue eyes looked at him.

“Captain Renselaer, good to hear from you. I am Captain Joan Sunderland. To my left is my XO, Oscar Abimbola of Nigeria. We are heading your way as fast as we can.”

Jacob looked down at the screen in his right armrest, saw the personnel data on Sunderland, and smiled. “So you hail from Minnesota, Captain Sunderland?”

The woman smiled briefly. “I do. It was one reason Earth Command dispatched me here. My Scandinavian heritage matches the backgrounds of most of the settlers.”