Freedom Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series Book 3) (34 page)

The
Uhuru
shuddered.

Jack’s scan of his Tech panel showed the right laser pod had been sheared off by that beam. Which was better than the Pilot Cabin being decapitated from the rest of his ship.

“Die!” screamed Maureen.

A pair of blue and black beams shot out from the Battle Module, hitting the attacking ship’s root end.

But the two powerful beams did more than just melt the root end beamer. They blasted through the entire south half of the turnip ship in a yellow plasma glow of split open compartments that quickly became ionized vapor as the antimatter beams turned solid steel into white-hot plasma.

The left side ship blew up as the paired beams reached its inner fusion reactor. Tiny fragments spread out from the billowing plasma ball that had been an enemy ship.

The right side ship’s laser mounts now melted under the impact of twenty lasers fired by the rest of the fleet. And by the two ChikHo ships. It tumbled in space, a golden ball of half-melted steel. The bear head image on the ship was discolored by hull ruptures ripped into the ship by green and red lasers.

“Cease-fire,” called Hideyoshi. “All Gyklang ships are dead or disabled.”

Black dots suddenly appeared on the hull of the right side ship as Maureen fired a load of ball bearings at the Gyklang ship that had gotten far too close to the fleet. And to the
Uhuru
.

“Admiral, the
Uhuru
is fully functional,” Jack said as he scanned ship systems readouts on his Tech panel. “We lost our starboard laser pod in that particle beam slash. Pressure hatches closed automatically. We are combat operational in all other portions of our ship.”

Elaine, he noticed, was looking worriedly for the image of Ignacio. Her lover and the man with whom she had finally found the hope of a future life of partnership and love.

Jack saw no image of Ignacio.

“
Badger!
Report in on your neutrino comlink!” he yelled, heart thumping, mouth dry and his heart heavy with the possibility that his fleet had lost an entire ship.

“Incoming neutrino signal,” Denise said sharply. “Going up front.”

The helmeted face of Aligarde Ekaitz took form on the front screen. The man’s swarthy face looked strained. “We all live. But the Pilot Cabin took a hit from two Gyklang lasers. They punched through our Pilot station. Which was empty at the time. But fragments punctured the vacsuit of our brother Ignacio. Cousin Wokirk is tending to him in the ship’s medoc module.”

Elaine gave a gasp, then turned away from the motion-eye, not wanting anyone outside to see her tears.

Jack became all too aware of the black
boina
beret he always wore into any battle. Thanks to the gift of his Basque brother. Now, the man’s cousin and weapons chief was reporting Ignacio to be injured from exposure to vacuum. And maybe the fragments. He nodded slowly. “Good that you all live. Your other cousins, Ibai and Josepe, are they well also?”

Aligarde nodded quickly. “Ibai is in command of our fusion drive and our grav-pull. Josepe is working the NavTrack from his ComChief post. The
Badger
is combat operational.”

Jack licked dry lips. “My brother Ignacio, is he breathing without assistance?”

Aligarde winced. “Breathing, yes. But with pain. His vacsuit was penetrated in the right leg area. All suit pressure was lost. But my cousin held his breath until Wokirk got him into pressure in the medoc. Which is close to our Pilot Cabin.”

Jack knew that. Still, his brother had held his breath while cold vacuum sucked at his body for at least two minutes. And the fragment in his right leg had to hurt like Hades. “I will ask Admiral Hideyoshi to send their lander
Rudyard Kipling
to move your cousin to surgery in the
Bismarck
. They have three surgeons trained to deal with vacuum wounds. Do you have pressure in your main hallway? Can you get Ignacio to the midbody airlock for transfer?”

“Yes,” Aligarde said hurriedly, looking back over this shoulder. “Wokirk will have cousin Ignacio at the airlock within fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, I must surrender this comlink station to cousin Josepe. He aims to repair the AV comlink so we can have normal laser link communications.”

Jack waved agreement. “Understood. My heart is with you. And may all Euskaldunak of the old homeland give honor to you, your cousins and your Ignacio for their bravery in this battle!”

Aligarde smiled briefly. “Thank you.
Badger
shutting off for the moment.”

The man’s image disappeared.

“Fleet Captain Jack,” called Hideyoshi from the group of ship captain images at the top of the screen. “I am sending the
Kipling
over to our sister ship now. Our flight surgeons are of the highest caliber. They will repair Captain Ignacio’s leg wound and make sure he is fully functional.”

Jack sat back in his seat, sweat drenching his neck. “Admiral, thank you.” He fixed on the leader of the Second Belter Fleet. “Captain Gareth, will you and your ships send out your landers to salvage grav-pull drives from any intact Gyklang ship fragments? We won this battle and part of winning is the gaining of more grav-pulls for our Belter volunteers back home.”

The wide-shouldered Welshman nodded, his full black beard filling half of his helmet. His manner was serious. “The
Dragon
and our sister ships will launch landers to do as you order. My Sensor chief says he detects nine operational grav-pulls, based on low G-band emissions. Can your Sensor chief confirm that?”

Jack looked to his sister. Whose rad-tanned face was now stiff and formal. She glanced down at her Sensor panel, then up to the leader of the
Dragon
.

“Captain Gareth, my Sensor panel shows the same. There are nine surviving grav-pull drives, based on the low G-band graviton emissions put out by their ship gravity function.” She paused, looked down again, then glanced his way. “Captain Jack, there are only six operational grav-pull ships in this system. All are on the outer comet disk at the site of the sucker bait Gyklang ship.”

Did her tone suggest disapproval of his decision to fight a two front war? His oldest sister had long been the tough one in the family, able to stand up to being bullied by Earth-born youths on Ceres when she attended the Navigators Academy there. Being a member of the Belter minority that attended the academy had not been easy. But she had earned her rockets and then joined the leading Belter shipping company that ran cargo transports to every part of the Asteroid Belt. He hoped she understood the pain he felt every time any fleet member was hurt, let alone killed. But fighting battles in space, even with more ships than your enemy, was never safe. Three dimensions gave plenty of room for ships that moved like bumblebees to dart here, dart there and fire on you before your own lasers achieved lock-on. He turned from her to face his fleet allies.

“Admiral, captains, let us tend to our ships and crew,” Jack said as calmly as he could. “Later we will seek refueling at the moon Sotop. And do some trading with the Flock Leaders of the ChikHo. If the outlying grav-pull ships do not leave within the next few hours, then I will take the
Uhuru
out to fight them!”

His allies gave him a wave, a smile, a nod, a thumbs-up, every gesture and reaction meaning one thing. They supported him. Now, if only his sisters and his lifemate felt the same way. That was something he was about to discover. He looked back to Denise.

“ComChief, shut off our laser AV link with the other ships. It’s time for this crew to do as I suggested just now. Who wants a steak, a cigar and a glass of booze?”

Nikola gave him a wide smile, her long brown hair curling atop her shoulders. “Me! Cooked rare. By our captain!”

He felt relief flood through him.

Cassie fixed her hazel eyes on him, her rad-tanned face showing love and sympathy. As if she understood his worries. “Brother, cook  mine medium. And I lay claim to a bottle of Europa Pale Ale!”

Archibald, Blodwen, Max and Denise all raised their hands to signal they too wanted the same as Cassie and Nikola. He turned to his sister Elaine.

Who was wiping wetness from her eyes. Clearly the news of Ignacio’s wounding had struck her deep. She looked up, gave him a tired look, then a thumbs-up. With a weak smile.

“You saved us all, my brother. Yes, I hurt for my Ignacio. But I insisted on joining this wild crazy trek through the stars! Which brought me the surprising love of a wonderful man.” She shrugged her slim shoulders, her black leotard stretching. “Love among the starways. Amazing!” She turned back and faced her NavTrack and Sensor panels, pretending to be absorbed in work.

“Well, I’ll bring you a rare steak, a cigar and a shot glass of Johnny Walker Black Label! Okay?”

She smiled as she looked down. “Sure. Just be sure to put plenty of butter inside my baked potato!”

Jack stood up and turned for the Spine hallway. The entry of Maureen, wearing her black leotard and her sucker-grip shoes, blocked him. She fixed him with a stern look.

“Lost one of my laser pods, did you? Well, you did kill that other ship with the lasers. Before you lost it. So I forgive you.” She walked past him to sit in her Combat station seat. “Oh. Since you are taking food orders, make mine rare, with
two
cigars and a
full
bottle of Wild Turkey! Gotta stay here and see if Lieutenant Lopez has a spare laser pod in that whale of a heavy cruiser! I refuse to allow us to head out of this system with only one working laser pod!”

Jack walked through the hatch and into the long, echoing length of the Spine hallway.

His crew was behind him. His sisters, his lifemate and the rest of them. They all supported him.

With that kind of devotion he would take on the entire Orion Arm any day of the year!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“That’s a really
alien
Alien!” Max muttered.

Jack agreed. He stared at the AV image coming in from the occupied world that orbited the yellow main sequence star of 55 Cancri. The fleet had arrived at 40 AU north of the star’s ecliptic plane, keeping to stealth mode and silent in all EMF frequencies except for their laser tight-beam comlink.

The front screen showed one Alien beating up another Alien. Both were weird, strange or just normal for the fifth world that orbited within the star’s liquid water habitable zone.

The beater Alien resembled a bipedal gray seal whose conical head was encircled by a ring of octopus-like tentacles studded with suckers. Small hooks shone inside each sucker. The eight tentacles were swinging a thick wooden pole against a six-limbed arthropod that lay on its side on a sandy beach, its thick forearms uplifted to protect its triangular head. Two compound eyes that were mobile watched the amphibian Alien as it swung the pole against the arthropod’s brown exoskeleton.

“Denise, guess we know what Boolean Hunters look like,” he said musingly.

“Yes. A mix of a walking seal with an octopus with a mouth filled with canines,” she said, her tone distracted. “This was the strongest AV signal among the 243 AV broadcasts received by my antenna.”

“Understood. But if the seal-octopus is the Boolean, then what the hell is that critter on the ground? It has six limbs in three pairs, a head, thorax and abdomen, and two compound eyes. That makes it an arthropod, according to my Tech studies on Vesta and on Charon. But it sure as hell does not resemble any Earth insect I ever saw.”

Denise laughed softly. “You need to watch more Earth wildlife shows. The coconut land crab,
Birgus latro
, can reach a meter in width. It gets its name from using its front claws to crack open green coconuts.” She paused, tapping on her computer panel. “But the land crab is a crustacean while this arthropod Alien on the ground resembles a praying mantis of giant size. It runs two meters in length, from head to end of abdomen. Plus it’s brown instead of green.”

Jack could see that. Which meant the Boolean seal-octopus Alien was at least two meters in height. “What do the other AV channels show?”

“Looking. Scanning for metal content. Ah! Here goes,” she said, sounding happy with her signal analysis algorithm.

A new image took form.

It was a distant view of some kind of habitation. Or city. Or nest. Or whatever the hell was occupied by thousands of these brown-skinned arthropods. Jack peered at a landscape filled with conical buildings that had the look of mud but were clearly made of rock and steel. Elevated walkways ran between some of the cone places, while flatbed vehicles similar to the long trucks of Earth ran down major roadways. No dust rose from the oversize wheels of the flatbeds, so the roadway was coated in something. In the center of the ‘city’ was a hill topped with a giant cone building. Winding tubes circled the sides of the cone. Small figures of arthropods were walking along the top of the tubes as if they were artificial branches. Or ropes. Or whatever the winding elevated pathways were called by the local sapients. On the horizon beyond the city there rose a spaceship that looked like a fat cone. It rose on yellow chemical rockets. The hull was smooth as the exterior of the many cone buildings. Either the arthropods did not need portholes to see out, or their engineers had argued against inserting such a weakness into a structure that had to withstand the aerodynamic pressures of passage through the upper atmosphere. A voice could be heard talking, as if in narration. But that voice was a mix of squeaks, saw-sounds, buzzes and thumps.