Freedom Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series Book 3) (15 page)

“Look!” yelled Elaine. “There’s a ship, maybe a shuttle, lifting off from that field on the outskirts of the city.”

They all watched as a pyramid-like ship rose up on six yellow-flaming thrusters. It moved slowly, though it seemed to gain speed the longer it was in air. In a minute it passed out of the AV image, heading somewhere. To orbit or perhaps to a place elsewhere on planet five.

“No sign of lasers at that space port,” Maureen said thoughtfully. “But no species becomes the topsuck on a planet without knowing violence of some sort. You all know that.”

Up front many of the fleet captains were nodding their heads, or making gestures of agreement. Pacifist species were the preyed upon, not the rulers of any eco-niche. Hideyoshi caught Jack’s attention. “ Fleet Captain Jack, how do we make First Contact with these people?”

That was an issue he had pondered during their three days of transit in the Alcubierre space-time manifold. This true-light and AV imagery gave him an idea. “Let’s head for planet six, the gas giant with the single fusion pulse ship in orbit above it. That puts us hours away from the Hippo folks’ other ships and any armed ship that might launch from planet five.” He looked at his ComChief. “Denise, your SETI algorithms have done wonders in deciphering these AV broadcasts. Can you do the same for that honking speech that we are hearing?”

Their young redhead pursed her pale lips, then nodded sharply. “Anonymous, resort strong AV images to those with strong acoustic content. Then project the loudest AV image up front.”

“Reviewing.” A brief silence filled the Pilot Cabin. Jack looked up at the ceiling pickup of the ship computer, puzzled. Their ship brain never delayed a response and did most things nearly instantly. “Clarification. Does resort include all frequencies of sound?”

Denise frowned. “Yes. But what frequencies are dominant in these AV broadcasts?”

“Displaying,” said the mech voice of the AI computer. “Infrasound below 20 hertz per second is the dominant vocalization pattern detected within all AV broadcasts.”

“Infrasound?” Jack said, looking beyond Denise to their other Animal Behavior expert. “Max, what the hell is infrasound?”

“Look at this!” said Denise loudly.

Jack refocused on the new front screen image. Which contained a crowd of Hippo folks gathered outside a burning pyramid building. Two tubular vehicles were squirting white foam-like material onto the flaming structure, while six red-robed hippos were guiding building occupants to a safe outdoor area. Some occupants wore yellow robes over their backs, while others wore purple. The escaping hippos were of two sizes, one size being the size of the boulder pushers while the other size was one-third smaller.

“Is that sexual dimorphism we are seeing?” called Blodwen.

Jack heard a wide variety of sound tones and pitches coming from the many Hippo folks gathered before the burning building. A few were stomping the ground. Some tones sounded like the hooting they’d heard earlier. But most of what he heard was low and rumbling in tone. He called back. “Denise, can you activate your SETI translation algorithm?”

“Already done,” she said, sounding exasperated. “It takes a few dozen images with associated sounds before Anonymous can match morphemes to actions and reactions. Ah, here it goes!”

“—three residents of the Dark Shadows home for elderly Melagun were burned to death before our Red Robes arrived,” said a voice-over. “All other residents have been removed with no fall injuries. Mobility is intact among both Red Robes and residents. A personal pet container high in oxygen is thought to be the source of the rapidly spreading fire. It will not endanger other parts of Warm Refuge. Guide Hexamin is on her way to the fire location. We will seek her Long Sound thoughts once she arrives. Meanwhile, the Melagun Protection Force reports it has destroyed an incoming comet that threatened to impact on the Southern Sea of Home, with danger to Melagun lives and property.” The voice-over paused. “Transferring now to the Guide of ship
Polar Ice
, in orbit above the outer world Cold Gases. Guide Benaxis, since your Long Sounds take many moments before we hear them back on Home, please explain what you and your herd have achieved.”

Maureen slapped her armrest. “That has to be the solo ship we detected in orbit above the planet six gas giant! Which they call Cold Gases.”

Jack agreed, based on the translated words of the voice-over broadcaster. And he agreed with Blodwen that the Hippo folks, who called themselves Melagun, were indeed sexually dimorphic with size differentials between male and female. Which size was which gender, though, only the future could tell.

The front screen, which still showed the true-light image of the outer Tau Ceti system and its debris disk, plus the magnified image of its seven planets and Elaine’s sensor emissions image of the system, now showed a fourth image. One of a Melagun hippo that faced the AV vidcam directly.

“Station Twelve of Warm Refuge city, I greet you in the name of the Melagun Protection Forces,” said the large-sized hippo who wore a red robe over its blocky body. And went by the name Benaxis. “The herd of
Polar Ice
detected the approach of a cometary body twenty times the size of our ship. We used our primary beam weapon to vaporize it. Observe this image recording we made.”

The solo hippo image was replaced by one of black space with a small white object centered in it. The object was oblong, with dark areas that could be encrusted dust and rock. Overall, though, the object met his definition of a comet like those that occupied the Kuiper Belt of Sol system. Suddenly a black thread shot out from the ship to the comet, hitting it in the middle. A yellow-white flare of violent plasma filled the middle of the comet, then expanded rapidly to cover it completely. A second later that plasma globe expanded suddenly.

“Fuck!” yelled Maureen. “These hippos have antimatter beamers!”

Jack felt his heart speed up. A chill ran down his back. Suddenly he wondered if they should all put on their vacsuits in case the fleet found itself battling Aliens who possessed a weapon that only humans had. Until now. “True,” he said loudly as his fellow captains looked shocked and worried. “But there is no sign they possess Higgs Disruptor beams.”

“Wishful thinking,” Maureen said darkly. “If they have coherent antimatter beams, for certain they have lasers. And likely neutral particle beamers. Or the ability to build them. I don’t give a damn whether these Aliens are herbivores, carnivores or omnivores. They just jumped to the top of my Danger list!”

“—was an outstanding protection of Home,” cried the voice-over announcer. “Guide Benaxis, you protected many mothers and children! You and your herd must be proud. When will you return to Home and to your female?”

The solo hippo image remained silent as the voice-over announcer’s words took long minutes to travel 3.7 AU out to the sixth world, then the same time to arrive back at Home. Where it was then broadcast worldwide. Which broadcast they were only now receiving. Jack looked over at Maureen who was fiddling with her combat simulation holo. “Well, that answers one matter. The bigger Melagun hippos are male while the smaller ones are female.”

“So it seems,” said Denise. “Which makes them similar to Earth’s mammals and birds, but very different from other animals. Females are larger than males among the giant seadevil, octopi, reptiles, amphibians and spiders. Leastwise according to evolutionary biologist Daphne J. Fairbairn, who wrote about this early this century. She made the point, after reviewing 73 classes within 26 animal phyla, that females are more often larger and more flamboyant than males.”

Jack winced. He was not about to step into the debate over which human gender was more flamboyant! “Thank you, Denise. Other insights? Anyone?”

“Well,” rumbled Max, “this infrasound way of speaking makes them similar to lots of Earth animals. Like whales, hippopotamuses, elephants, rhinoceroses, giraffes, okapi and alligators. The rumble speech of elephants can reach other elephants over a space of 300 square kilometers. When the time of day and heat inversion are just right.”

Jack blinked. He had studied Earth lifeforms on Vesta and in his Remote Tutor classes, but that was part of his General Ecology studies. The niceties of how life and genders varied among Earth’s critters was not something he had known until recently. He looked up at the front screen images of his allies. “Admiral Hideyoshi, you have any thoughts about this Melagun species?”

The man looked surprised, then thoughtful. “Well, our academy training included evolutionary biology. Along with the behavior patterns of pack-hunting social predators like wolves, hyenas, hunting dogs, lions and killer whales or orcas. We learned how humans have more in common with such predators than with our primate relatives like the great apes and chimpanzees.” Hideyoshi paused, looked aside as a red-suited crewman brought him a yellow datapad, then looked back. “Of course there was no study of sociobiology. That was forbidden. But students gather in their off times and talk.” The man’s black eyebrows creased. “Based on those studies and the prior analyses by your ComChief, I would label these Melagun people as competitive omnivores. In short, folks like us humans.”

“Exactly!” growled Maureen. “Which makes them just as dangerous as humans. We should assume they will fight us before they talk with us.”

That was exactly the issue Jack was pondering. When the fleet used grav-pull to blip-jump deep into the Tau Ceti system to planet six, or Cold Gases, would they be met with violence? Or with talk? He looked back at Blodwen. She sat with her bony arms crossed over her black leotard, her lanky form hunched forward in her seat. The woman, like all of them, had been watching the newscast. Now she met his gaze, her blond eyebrows lifted. “Yes?”

“You’re our Sociologist. What is your bet on how we will be received when we show up suddenly at planet six?”

She bit her lip, smiled when Max gave her up thumbs-up encouragement, then shrugged. “Combat Commander Maureen is correct. If these Aliens are indeed omnivore mammals like us humans, they
could
be as dangerous as humans. However, leaving the Unity Space Force aside, when a Martian rice farmer negotiates with an Asteroid Belt transport ship captain, they don’t begin with a fight. They talk. Sometimes they lie. Each tries to get the best side of any deal. Eventually they agree.” She smiled. “I think these Melagun people will do just that with us. Though I suggest we arrive on the opposite side of planet six from the orbital position of
Polar Ice
. That way they will have warning of our approach from their spysats. Though I admit seeing twenty-three spaceships that are clearly not Melagun may make them nervous.”

“Thank you for your insight.” Jack turned around. “Nikola, pull in your Big Eye reflector. And what is our AU distance to planet six?”

His brown-haired lifemate pursed her lips and looked distracted. “Planet six is five AU out from Tau Ceti. It orbits directly across from planet five, or Home, at 1.35 AU. Which is why they can talk to each other with just a half hour lag time each way,” she said, tapping on her panel. “But we arrived one-tenth of the way around the system from planets five and six. Which puts us about 60 AU out from planet six. Time in blip jump will be 9.7 hours at eighty percent lightspeed.”

Well, that gave everyone time to eat a meal, rest and prepare for First Contact with people who had never met another intelligent species. “Fleet captains and admiral, we will enter this system and emerge from grav-pull at planet six, on the side opposite the orbital vector of the Melagun ship
Polar Ice
. Put on your vacsuits and helmets prior to arrival,” he said, in answer to Maureen’s glare. “Go to Combat Alert upon arrival. While I agree with Blodwen that this Alien ship will likely have spysats deployed around planet six, and thereby know of our arrival as soon as we leave grav-pull, we must prepare for a violent reception.” He ignored Maureen’s clenched fist air thumping. “But I refuse to expose the entire fleet to unknown responses. The
Uhuru
will leave the fleet and move toward the gas giant, allowing these Melagun to see that we are offering a ship-to-ship parley, rather than an attack. Which they might conclude based on the many ships in our fleet.”

“Brother,” called Cassie from the back of the cabin, “basic spycraft says to always hide your full strength and full knowledge from the subject of your spying. While these Melagun will see our ship numbers, they will not know our intentions. Except for what we signal by our behavior. Your solo ship approach is just the right signal to send them.”

Elaine nodded, her expression worried but hopeful. Jack did not look back at his other cabin mates. They had supported him during their first interstellar trip. He had no doubt they supported him now. “Thank you, Spy Cassie.” He looked to Maureen. “Combat Commander, please have your Battle Module ready for combat before our grav-pull exit. And Pilot Elaine,” he said looking to his other sister, “monitor the NavTrack of the Alien vessel. I want to keep at least 10,000 kilometers between them and us. That’s the range of our antimatter beam and I have to assume their beam has similar reach.”

“A reasonable precaution,” said Captain Gareth of the
Dragon
. “But will there be any face-to-face meeting with these Melagun people?”

Jack held both hands out in the sign of Who Knows? “We can meet each other by a rendezvous of landers in open space. Or perhaps we can visit them above their world of Home. If they possess a space station in orbit. It all depends on this first meeting.”