The lanky woman crossed bony arms over her black leotard. She fixed pale green eyes on him, her lips lifting in a half-smile. “My professors always said I could verbally tie them in knots. I’ll work on this. We have seven days before we go face-to-face with that ugly T-rex dino.”
“Good.”
Maureen gave him a sour look. “And if fancy words don’t work? How do we defeat this Arbitor and his ship?”
Jack smiled at the woman who never let a battle opponent have an even chance. “Well, then I kick the butts of Archibald and Max. This shield thingie sounds like something up their line of work.”
“But Jack,” called Elaine from her Pilot station, her look concerned. “If these Arbitors have been running things for 3,000 years, it sounds as if no one has figured out how to defeat this protective shield.”
“True.” He headed for the back wall hatch leading to the Spine hallway of Uhuru, pulling along Nikola. “But humans are problem solvers. Look how far we’ve come in the year since First Contact with the Rizen. The difficult we do today. The impossible we manage tomorrow. Anyway, I’m thirsty. Nikola, you want a Europa Light Ale? Or a glass of cabernet sauvignon wine?”
His lifemate’s chuckle as she followed him into the hallway said she might claim both types of drink. In limited quantity, considering the baby she carried.
Behind them restraint strap locks unsnapped and Jack knew his fellow crewmates were following his lead.
His prime recruiting tool had been the offer of steaks, cigars and good booze. It seemed those three items were equally good for raising the morale of his fellow humans. Plus he was hungry and thirsty and not willing to wait for tonight’s dinner with Hideyoshi and the other fleet captains in the Admiral’s Mess on the Bismarck. Anyway, his new motto was eat now, booze now, pass out for a few hours, then get up and take on the universe!
CHAPTER THREE
“And that is what we face,” Jack said as his allies finished watching his neutrino chats with Benaxis and Hilok. He looked aside to the crewwoman dressed in Mars red who stood beside an AutoChef device in the Admiral’s Mess. “You got any booze? I got a feeling we’ll all need some before we eat dinner.”
The trim Asian woman, who showed the shoulder patch of a chief warrant officer, gave him an easy smile. “We do, Fleet Captain Jack. I will return with beer, wine and some of your Johnny Walker Black Label scotch.” The woman exited through the slidedoor into the larger Mess Hall of the Bismarck.
He looked back to the eighteen people gathered at the oval table in the middle of the room. At the far end was the large wallscreen which they had been watching. It now showed the busy interior of the Dock Cavern. Nikola sat to his left while Maureen sat to his right. At the far end of the table was Admiral Hideyoshi Minamoto, leader of the Mars fleet. Between them and on the left side of the black granite table were Elaine, Ignacio, Denise, Max, Blodwen, Archibald, Cassie, Captain Zhāng Dingbang of the Nimitz and, coming up the right side of the table, were Belter ship captains Minna Kekkonen, Akemi Hagiwara, Júlia Araujo, Aashman Dasgupta, Kasun Guardiya, Helena Antonov, Vigdis Sturludottir and Gareth Davies, the Welshman who was romancing Maureen. Or being romanced by her. It was hard to tell, given the woman’s ‘take-charge’ manner for all things in life. Jack fixed on the elderly admiral.
“Hideyoshi, while I am a skeptic when it comes to second-hand information, I am worried by the threat posed by this Arbitor. Your thoughts?”
The Japanese native rubbed his clean-shaven chin, then showed his trademark stern look. “We resist, of course. But with subtlety and much advance planning. As Sun Tzu said, ‘Secret operations are essential in war, upon them the army relies to make its every move’.” The veteran of the First Belter War scanned the table, then fixed back on Jack. “I like your idea of meeting this Arbitor with ships from our Alien allies. Seeing other species involved may cause this Alien to be more restrained.”
Jack nodded, then fixed on Maureen. The woman’s expression would have scared a pit viper. “Yes, Combat Commander?”
“Kill the dino bastards,” she said in Gaelic-accented English. She pushed up the sleeves of her black leotard and clenched both fists. The hair fine wrinkles on her rad-tanned face grew deeper as she frowned. She gestured at the wallscreen. “We go to Tau Ceti. We meet and make talk-talk with this reptile abomination. We lie to it, as you, young man, have suggested. Then we kill it with an antimatter beam. Or with Archibald’s Higgs Disruptor beam. The belly nodule that the Mathilde engineers added to the Uhuru gives us the Higgs option.”
Nikola leaned forward. “But what if the Arbitor ship really does have a field able to resist lasers and beams? What then?”
Maureen shrugged. “The shield can’t stay up forever. My guess is that so long as we can see starlight reflecting from its hull, then its shield is not up. Photons going out mean photons and other stuff can go in. So, while young Jack here makes talk-talk, I put on my vacsuit, load up with contact explosives, and then launch myself through space to the Arbitor ship. I plant the charges and blow a hole in its hull. Let the bastards suck vacuum!”
“But Maureen!” cried Elaine. “You could die from the explosion! Or from this shield if it activates.”
“Let me do this!” cried Akemi of the Orca. “My ancestors understood the need for one person to sometimes perform hara-kiri for the benefit of all.”
Jack did not like the way things were going. “Maureen! You have grown kids and grandkids who need you here on Mathilde. Anyway, the Uhuru would be toothless without you in the Combat Module. And Akemi, your Belter Academy students would miss you. And I would miss your katana blade.” He looked to Archibald. “Physicist, is this shield thing possible? And is this Isolation Globe just a version of the weapons shield?”
The man who had invented the Higgs Disruptor that could disintegrate all matter it contacted, and who had worked with Max to reverse-engineer the Alcubierre stardrive pedestal they had salvaged from the first Alien ship to contact humanity, frowned thoughtfully.
“This shield cannot be a function of the electromagnetic spectrum nor something subatomic,” the middle-aged Brit said. He reached up and pushed back a shock of unruly reddish-brown hair. “For this shield to resist all forms of directed energy weapons and all solid matter weaponry means it is something else. What, I don’t know.” Archibald smiled at Jack. “Take me with you to Tau Ceti so I can see this shield in action. My guess is this Arbitor will give you a demo of it since this is the first time it has dealt with humanity. This T-rex Alien surely knows a new predator species will only believe a threat that is real, versus theoretical. As for the Isolation Globe, I don’t know. But if we can figure out a way to kill this shield, then no Arbitor ship will ever make it into Sol system to put such a device next to the Sun.”
Jack planned to do just that. The trip to Tau Ceti was as much a trip to gain covert intelligence as it was a trip to lie to this Alien. Or to talk it into believing his contact with juvenile species Aliens did comply with the Rules of Engagement. He looked around the table. “Other thoughts? Worries? Suggestions?”
“Me,” said Cassandra.
Jack focused on the narrow face and hazel eyes of his younger sister Cassie. Who had pulled her thick black hair into a topknot similar to how Denise had arranged her own thick red hair. “Yes?”
“This Arbitor ship arrived four months after we killed the Boolean ship captain,” she said thoughtfully. “That tells me the T-rex dino heard the FTL neutrino complaint when it was 480 light years distant from Tau Ceti.” She fixed on his lifemate. “Nikola, can you project that star holo you got from the Nasen? So we can see what Hunters of the Great Dark exist at that distance? It seems to me that these Arbitor people may be a listed Hunt predator, but they refuse to admit they are species X or Y. After all, my Spy side tells me it makes sense for these Arbitors to fly under a false flag identity.”
“Yes I can,” Nikola said from Jack’s left. She pulled out her yellow datapad and pointed it at the center of t
he table. A person-high holo took form. The base of the holo linked to Sagittarius-Carina Arm while the top ended in the darkness between Sagittarius and Perseus arms. Within it shone millions of stars in a rainbow of colors. Globular clusters were distinct, as were nebulas like the Orion Nebula. Sol blinked one-fourth the way up the holo, which covered the 8,000 light year length of the Orion Arm. The holo imagery now moved inward so they could see the stars lying closer to Sol. “I’ve adjusted the projection to show just those stars lying within a 500 light year radius of Sol and Tau Ceti. Which makes for a thousand light year expanse in this new holo image.”
Jack saw so many stars even in this limited area that the holo resembled a tornado of stars. But there was black space between them. Hunter systems numbered 27 out of the 113 in the arm. Juvenile star systems looked to be in the thousands. Subject people systems were in the hundreds. All of them were marked by coded colors. “Chief Astronomer, can you remind us what the color IDs mean?”
“Sure.” Nikola gave him a smile, then gestured at the starry holo. “Predator stars are purple and marked by a black claw. Subject people stars show a blood-red slash. Juvenile people stars carry a yellow bar. The Nasen star Zeta Serpentis glows white. The HikHikSot star Delta Boötis B glows blue. Sol is blinking yellow. And the Hunt territory boundaries are purple.” She leaned forward, squinting. “Of the 27 Hunter stars showing, I see only two that lie close to the 480 light year boundary.”
Cassie nodded eagerly. “What are the names of those two systems? And their exact distance from Sol?”
Nikola looked down at her datapad’s screen. “The Hunter system that lies uparm from Sol belongs to the species named Dakto, while the downarm system is the home of the Usulungun species. There is no species imagery for any Hunter system. Though we can be sure these two Hunter peoples are social carnivore predators, like the Hunters we’ve fought.”
“Distances?” Jack reminded her.
She brushed back her brown bangs and squinted down at the datapad. “The Dakto Hunt star lies 489 light years from Sol, while the Usulungun Hunt star is 478 light years from Sol.” Nikola fixed pale blue eyes on him. “Jack, this is the best I can get from this holo data.”
He gave her a thumbs-up. “You did fine, just fine.” Jack scanned the Hunt territory stars and boundary for each species. “The Dakto Hunters control only nine subject people stars, while the Usulungun Hunters control 23 stars. Plus their star is closer to the center of Orion Arm.” He fixed on his Spy sister. “Cassie, you think one of these two Hunt stars is the home for the Arbitors?”
She raised both hands in a Who Knows? gesture. “Hard to say. If we accept the 3,000 year age for this Hunters of the Great Dark system, then it makes sense the oldest members might be in the center of Orion Arm. With a large number of subject people stars under their control. Like these Usulungun carnivores. But it could be either species.”
“Or neither species,” said Gareth from his seat next to Maureen. The trim, broad-shouldered man looked around. “My friends, my combat allies, it could be this Arbitor ship was tending to a dispute at a distance of 480 light years. Its home system could be anywhere in Orion Arm. Especially if multiple Arbitor ships are roaming through space, on the alert to respond to dispute calls.” The black-bearded Welshman looked to Jack. “Fleet Captain, I’m sorry. But there are many unknowns and few facts about this Arbitor threat.”
Behind Jack the Asian crewwoman entered with a large carton of booze. When she pulled out a bottle of Europa Light Ale, he reached out for it, beating Nikola by a few milliseconds. “Mine!”
“Of course.” The woman handed him the bottle, then walked down to Hideyoshi. “Fleet Admiral, please take charge of allocating who among your guests receives which liquid refreshment.”
They all laughed at the woman’s pleading tone.
Jack popped the cap off the bottle, inhaled the aroma of hops, and took a long drink of the brew. Licking his lips, he looked around the table. “People, I do not pretend to have all the answers to something this serious. Just some hunches. And a determination to resist this Arbitor. Anybody else?”
“I do. An observation I mean,” said Zhāng, whose destroyer Admiral Chester M. Nimitz was holding station in open space near the tunnel entry to the Dock Cavern. The middle-aged captain, who had fought well in their second star venture, was dressed in the red uniform of Hideyoshi’s Mars fleet. She fixed black eyes on him. “Fleet Captain Jack, if this Arbitor threat is real, and its ship as powerful as these Nasen say, then we must look at the possibility of failure.”
“Shit no!” yelled Maureen, lifting a clenched fist.
Jack gripped Maureen’s left hand. “Patience, Combat Commander. Let us hear what Fleet Commander Zhāng has to say.”
The Belfast native gave him a sour look, pulled her hand from his with an abrupt jerk and scowled at Gareth when he tried to hold her other hand. “Talk. Then we kill the bastards!”
Zhāng looked around the table, her manner professionally calm, drawing in the attention of everyone. “Our three fleets have won every space battle to date and we have defeated every Hunter of the Great Dark who has challenged us, or who controlled a star system we chose to liberate. Thanks to the leadership of Fleet Captain Jack, Fleet Admiral Hideyoshi and the wondrous weapons of Professor Archibald and Engineer Max. But . . . ” she grimaced. “But any combat veteran will tell you that past successes do not guarantee future success.” Zhāng fixed on Maureen. “Combat Commander, I respect your battle experience from the First Belter Rebellion and your fighting achievements since then. But I ask my failure question for a specific reason.” The Chinese woman fixed on Jack. “If we cannot defeat this Arbitor and his ship, and the Arbitor decides to surround Sol system with an Isolation Globe, then humanity must already have a colony ship on the way to a colony world at another star system. Just in case. In my opinion.”
Jack felt his body sweat despite the air cooling of the Admiral’s Mess. And the fast beating of his heart was not something he cared for. He nodded slowly. “Fleet Commander Zhāng, you make a good point. So. While my Belter fleet is heading out to Tau Ceti with the Bismarck and the Dragon, will you take the lead in convincing our friends on Mars, the Moon and in the outer solar system to begin construction of a colony ship? The Mathilde engineers can provide you with the fusion reactors, a grav-pull drive and the Alcubierre stardrive needed to move such a ship.”
“I can,” Zhāng said softly. “I will.”
“Good.” Jack fixed on the man who had led the Second Belter Fleet in the last interstellar trip. “Gareth, can your Vigdis take her ship Hawk out on a four month trip to this Dakto Hunter star? With two allies from the third Belter fleet that has been abuilding since our return? Hawk now has a Higgs Disruptor in addition to an antimatter beamer. She and a few allies could pose a threat to the home planet of these Hunters. If they are the T-rex dinos we saw in the Arbitor ship.”
“I’m willing,” said the Icelandic native.
“She can.” Gareth pulled at his full black beard, glanced hopefully at Maureen who continued to ignore him as she worked on a combat simulation using the datapad she carried everywhere, then fixed on Jack. “But what about the Usulungun people? They could be the home star of these Arbitors. Do we send some ships downarm to check them out?”
Jack ground his teeth. He didn’t like the idea of pulling combat ships from Sol system, but most of the ships assigned to these two Hunter systems were coming from the volunteer ships that had received the seven salvaged grav-pull drives. “We do,” he said slowly, thinking fast. “Captain Helena, are you willing to take the Grizzly and two of the new fleet ships out to check on these Usulungun Hunters?”
The mixed race woman sat forward and laid her long arms on the table. She gripped a glass of his favorite scotch. She fixed slanted eyes on him. “Yes, I will do so. I know the captains who came in response to our call for volunteer fighters. Two of the new ships are outfitted with Higgs Disruptors. They also carry antimatter beam,
neutral particle beam and HF lasers. Like every ship in our three fleets, thanks to the recent upgrades by Mathilde dock engineers. We will be cautious and careful whenever we arrive at this Usulungun system.”
Jack gave the lanky woman an appreciative grin. “Excellent! Keep in touch with us by neutrino comlink. We will let you, and everyone else here in Sol and elsewhere, know what happens at Tau Ceti.”
“Captain Jack,” called Júlia of the Caiman. “Our ship and the rest of the First Belter Fleet are willing to support you in this confrontation with the Arbitor.” The Afro-Hispanic woman’s dark skin showed no wrinkles despite being the mother of three high school age sons. “But what is your plan for when we arrive? Do we attack its ship? Do we try to capture this Arbitor? Or something else?”
“All of that and more.” Jack sat back in his seat, holding his bottle of ale close to his chest. He scanned those at the table, particularly the captains who made up his First Belter Fleet. “Like I said earlier, I have some hunches. First, I do not believe in invulnerable ships. Anything built by living beings has flaws, has a weakness. Somewhere. This Arbitor ship has to have a flaw. I’m counting on Max and Archibald to discover that flaw.” He nodded at his two crewmates, gave a thumbs-up to a glowering Maureen, then fixed back on Júlia. “Second, I want to see if this Arbitor ship automatically shields against antimatter particles. Antimatter is a normal part of the universe. Like light, baryonic matter and Dark Matter. The true-light image of the Arbitor ship showed it illuminated by the light of Tau Ceti. As Maureen noted. That means random photons are allowed to impact on the hull of this ship. Without setting off this shield. What else is ignored?”
Maureen thumped the table with a fist. “Near lightspeed rocks could kill that ship. And these dino bastards!”
“True,” Jack said. “But the approach of such a superfast rock might set off this shield. If the shield sets up before a laser hits it, then the Arbitor ship has some kind of new sensor that picks up a laser getting ready to fire. If so, we need to understand how that sensor works.”
Aliens Vs. Humans (Aliens Series Book 4) Page 3
