Escape 2: Fight the Aliens (14 page)

A new airman joined the two near the general. She spoke urgently. The black woman grimaced. “Six of our
Lightnings
have gone done from green laser strikes. Damn!” She looked down at her table vid display, then up, her expression command serious. “More launch sites killed. The Collectors have laser zapped Resolute Bay and Fort Churchill in Canada. We’ve lost Nellis, White Sands, Holloman and Tonopah. Those Collector ships are crossing over the Southwest and heading towards the Midwest.”

Bill had seen that development on his own true space holo of Earth with its close-up of the Hawaii to St. Louis area. Bright yellow dots marked the sites of laser strikes on American space launch sites. Jane of course was seeing the same spysat and ship sensor readouts on her own true space holo. His wife’s manner had also gone to command serious from her earlier casual tone. “Please extend my sympathies to the families of the pilots of those
Lightnings
. And to any Air Force ground staff who died at Nellis and Holloman. I liked Holloman. Spent a half year there on detached duty.”

“I know,” replied the woman who commanded the Air Force. “My son is the flight operations officer there. I’m hoping his control tower survived the laser attack.”

Jane stiffened at the news shared by a woman who may have lost more than some. “General! I do hope your son survived. Holloman’s tower was upgraded recently with concrete baffles. Perhaps that sheltered him and the other tower rats.”

Poindexter gave a brief smile at Jane’s use of an archaic term for people who manned guard towers in America and in Europe. “He’s ten years in service so far. I just hope his wife and my grandson, who live in base housing, were not targeted.”

Jane made a reassuring gesture. “The lasers we use are coherent. While very powerful, when they hit there is no collateral damage. Structures are either vaporized or knocked down from the loss of structural elements. I expect the base’s fuel tanks to be gone, but lots else should survive.”

The Air Force general nodded. “That is encouraging info. Thank you. Anyway, we are at war. You are doing your best to subvert the enemy. Those thermonuke barrages really shook up the TV talking heads. They could be seen all across the Pacific.” The woman turned formal. “Carry out Stage Two of your plan and I hope you soon have good news for us.”

Jane saluted the woman. “General Poindexter, this ship and its allies will continue fighting so long as we have weapons, air and the ability to move on the enemy!” She looked to Bill. “Weapons Chief, let me know the moment any of our pods makes entry to a Collector ship!”

Bill saluted her back. “Yes ma’am! Vice Admiral Richardson and I are monitoring the arrival of pods in North America. Once some of them begin returning to the Collector ships above NORAM, I will send our pods up to orbit.”

“I know that,” Jane said with a sigh as the image of Poindexter vanished from the comlink holo, to be replaced with the images of their fellow ship captains. Baraka, Leonard, Learned and Builder had all heard the exchange between Jane and Poindexter. “But that threat from the cockroach worries me. Using an antimatter beam on Chicago or New York City would be way more disastrous than laser strikes! Think of a medium-sized nuke going off in the center of town. Lots would die.”

Bill could almost imagine that. His memory from a prior space battle of a Collector ship half-dissolved by his antimatter beam had impressed him with the deadliness of his ship’s weapons. Plasma fire balls, thermonukes, gas lasers and antimatter beams were far more deadly than mortar rounds,.50 caliber machine guns and sub torpedoes. At least in space they did not have to deal with poison gas and anthrax spores, the other wings of WMD. Thermonukes and antimatter were good enough to get the job done. Well, at least they knew which Collector ship held the cockroach. It was one of the three moving into Asia, thanks to the brown icon identifier their AI had affixed, based on the last neutrino comlink transmission. He would make sure that ship got proper boarding attention.

♦   ♦   ♦

An hour later, as all four Earth ships hovered in the L4 orbital parking lot, Bill watched his true space holo. It showed the American East Coast, the Atlantic and Europe as far as the Ural Mountains. The two Collector ships that had begun crossing California earlier were now above Maryland after having laser zapped the launch sites of Wallops Island, Fort Greely, Fort Sherman, Gibson Butte, Fort Wingate and Sheboygan in America. Fortunately the Florida launch sites were beyond direct line of sight lasering. Canada had lost minor launch sites at Red Lake, Primrose Lake, Gillam and Cold Lake. Over Eurasia, Japan had lost launch sites at Tanegashima, Uchinoura and Ryori, while China had lost all four of its rocket launch facilities. In Russia the sites of Yasny Cosmodrome, Okhotsk, Svobodny Cosmodrome, Kapustin Yar, Plesetsk and Baikonur were blasted landscapes. India had lost Sriharikota, Vikram, Satish Dhawan and Balasore, while Pakistan lost its sites at Tilla and Sonmiani. The three Collector ships on that side of Earth were now hovering above the Ukraine as collector pods began returning with humans captured from Eurasia. Five minutes earlier nine pods had lifted from the Great Basin states in the western US and were now moving eastward and up to orbital rendezvous with the ships above America. Now, he watched as ten more pods lifted from various parts of NORAM and headed upward.
Time to act
. He touched his pillar’s comlink to change helmet comlink frequencies.

“Alicia, Frank, Stefano, Janice, Mack and Jake, I’m sending your pods up to orbit. Good luck to all of you and I’ll treat you all to ribeye steaks once you capture those ships!”

Chuckles came over his helmet frequency. “Sounds good,” called Jake from his pod. “Add some Bacardi rum to that steak and we will be the first to reach L4!”

The five other boarding team leaders made similar comments. Bill looked over his shoulder to Jane, who looked tired as she sat in her seat atop the command pedestal. “They are on their way up to orbit,” he said, knowing Jane and everyone else on the bridge had heard his words. The ship AI had converted the pod comlink frequency to the standard vacsuit frequency, which all had heard at their duty station. Bright Sparkle’s bare skin showed a rainbow of colors that he knew indicated happiness even before her shoulder speaker/vidcam unit spoke her words. Wind Swift at Life Support turned her horse-like head his way and gave him a silver-scaled hand gesture that was her attempt at a thumbs-up. Time Marker the walking snake hissed his pleasure, while Long Walker the giant worm groaned his encouragement. At Navigation, Lofty Flyer chittered excitedly.

“Soon we will have neighbors!”

Jane looked pleased. “Good to hear, Weapons Chief. Just wish the hull breaches in the subs were fully sealed.”

Bill had listened over the last hour as vacsuited machinist mates on the
Minnesota
had used parts of disassembled cabinets to close up the hull opening above their topside maneuvering room. Welding in vacuum had not been easy. Now the sub was airtight. But the breach of the hull above auxiliary machinery room two on the
Louisiana
was much bigger than the
Minnesota
opening. It required laying roof cross-beams to support new hull plating. Its machinist mates were doing amazing work as they hovered in space above the sub’s gaping wound. But it had required the sending of a
Blue Sky
collector pod with its grappling arms loaded with hull plates for that sub’s repairs to make progress. They still had a half hour to go before all of
Louisiana
would be airtight. Bill nodded agreement.

“Captain, me too. But using the collector pod to help out like we used it at the fuel globes above that gas giant in HD 128311 has made the difference,” he said, his gaze moving back to the true space holo image of North America. “The
Louisiana
will be hull tight soon. Meanwhile, it looks like Jake’s pod is going to be the first to rejoin a Collector ship. It’s entering the hull of one of the two ships above Maryland.”

Jane’s holo image leaned forward, showing anxious interest. “What’s the status of the other boarding pods?”

“Well, Frank’s pod is getting close to the second East Coast ship. Alicia’s pod is most of the way to the
Dark Cloud
above Hawaii.” He checked the true space holo for the green dots of his boarding pods. “The pods of Stefano, Janice and Mack are halfway across the Atlantic, on their way to the three ships above the Ukraine.”

The woman who had been captured in the Rockies while fishing for trout tapped her comlink control pillar. “General Poindexter, I believe you heard that pod status report. We’ll hear soon from Jake Slowzenski.” She paused, licking her lips behind the clear plastic of her helmet. “Any word on your son and his family?”

The Air Force general’s face came live in Bill’s comlink holo. Her table at Peterson was surrounded by three of her fellow chiefs, two colonels, two majors and four captains, all of whom fell silent as she replied. “Good news on the pods. Regarding my family members, all are safe. The flight control tower at Holloman was scorched on one side as the green lasers took out the hangars and other buildings. No residential areas were hit, thank God!”

Jean smiled big, looking the happiest he’d seen her look in the days since they’d returned home to Sol and Earth. “Excellent news. I hope there were also many survivors from the sinking of the Port Royal.”

“There were,” the woman said, looking aside to a rear admiral who was filling in for the absent CNO. “My friend tells me half the ship’s crew are alive. And our CONUS air defense has taken down five more pods with no loss of
Lightnings
. Our pilots decided to go to close terrain following after firing on the pods. That tactic seems to confuse the laser targeting of the ships above CONUS.”

“Good to hear,” Jane said. “We hope—”

“Wait!” yelled Bill as his helmet comlink speaker hummed as it switched frequencies.

“Jake reporting,” came the MacDill SEAL’s bass voice. “It’s going like clockwork. We taser zapped some kind of bat-like Alien when it came to our pod. Got its red cube. Alonzo is sealing the Weapons Chamber door with his laser while Francis and I have opened the hatch to the hallway that leads to the Command Bridge. We’re just outside this ship’s Greenery Chamber. The hallway curves ahead of us.”

Bill felt his heart speed up and his mouth go dry as he visualized the team’s position on the duplicate of the
Blue Sky
. “Excellent. Move out quickly. The ship’s captain and crew have surely heard your report. Were you able to see a ship holo to show you where the rest of the crew are located?”

“We have our holo,” Jake said, his voice sounding a bit hurried as the man resumed running down the hallway of the enemy ship. “Four bioforms are all clustered in the Command Bridge. You know who is helping us locate them.”

Bill gave thanks his fellow SEAL had not mentioned the enemy ship’s AI as the source of that holo. No need to motivate the Alien ship captain to start giving contrary orders, the way Diligent did when he and Jane had neared the bridge. “Stay alert for the repair robots! And consider blasting entries to the bridge in two spots using your demolition balls. That might be faster than going in by the hallway door.”

“Understood!” the man said loudly. “Out for now!”

Brief seconds passed in the silence. Bill saw Frank’s pod making contact with the hull of the second enemy ship above Maryland. He held up a hand to forestall questions from anyone on the bridge. Crackling came over his helmet’s speaker.

“We’re out!” called Frank as the former Marine reported. “Chris taser zapped a black-furred bear Alien the size of a Kodiak! Joe and I are moving through the chamber’s airlock to the hallway. We’ll be wrapping things up soon.”

Bill did not ask if the big man had yet seen a cross-section holo that showed where the ship’s crew and the captain were located. That service was something that Star Traveler had arranged with the Collector ship AIs to do once his teams exited their pods. How much to talk to the ship AI was up to each team. Knowing where Aliens were on each ship was vital to a swift takeover. Whether a team used the magnetic disruptor boxes or some of the ball explosives to access the Command Bridge did not matter to him. Accomplishing the mission by whatever means it took was all that mattered. Which was why he had high hopes his 18 special operations folks would turn his sneak attack scheme into a rapid reversal of fortunes for the giant cockroach and his greedy ship captains.

“Bill?” called Jane over her helmet’s comlink, which now moved back to their within ship frequency. “Two ships are boarded. The other four?”

He did not move his gaze from the true space holo that showed the green dots of his boarding pods. The three eastern ones were now crossing over France on their way to the space above the Ukraine. Alicia’s pod now hovered above Hawaii. The space between it and the stationary
Dark Cloud
starship shrank, shrank again, then disappeared.

“Alicia’s pod has entered the radiated ship,” he called, trying not to tap his fingers on his seat armrest, the way Jane did when she was anxious over something. His training told him to always be combat alert and to be aware in all conditions and directions. A SEAL never let anyone or anything sneak up on them, no matter what part of the world they were in. UAVs were nice to help give advance views of the target compound, when they were available. Otherwise, the team made do with smartphone screen images from Google World, hand-drawn maps and eyes and ears that watched in all directions. He—