Aliens Vs. Humans (Aliens Series Book 4)

by T. Jackson King

  “It was,” Elaine said softly. “Radiative byproducts yield says the Lander died with the force of a three megaton thermonuke.”

  Fuck.

  “But,” Nikola called from behind him, “the explosion could not be the result of contact with Dark Energy. That energy fills the entire cosmos to a density of 10−30 grams per cubic centimeter. If it caused explosions every time normal matter encountered it, there would be nothing solid in the universe.” Her look was Woman Superior certain. He frowned at Archie, then Max.

  “Well, you two are the number crunching brains in this crew! What the fuck caused that explosion?”

  Max crossed hairy arms over his flat belly. A move that almost made his rad-tanned arms disappear against the black of his leotard. He was focused on his armrest Drive panel. As if the simple equations of deuterium/helium-3 fusion might explain what had just happened. He looked up with a grimace.

  “Nikola is right. Archibald was just flapping his yap. He knows exactly what your Astro gal said.” The man took a deep breath when Blodwen put a hand on his shoulder. “We have never seen two Alcubierre space-time fields collide. Just solo fields for solo ships heading off in various directions. Maybe the explosion is a simple function of manifold incompatibility between one Alcubierre field and the warped space-time of another Alcubierre field.” His buddy gave a shrug. “Let’s see what happens when you shoot a torp at that boundary. Will be interesting to see if it acts the way the Arbitor field did. As in translating any incoming energy and matter to Elsewhere-Elsewhen.”

  Jack didn’t like the answer. But he recalled a saying of his grandpa Ephraim to the effect that ‘honest ignorance can be remedied by facts or data. Stupidity cannot be removed since it is a choice of the person who chooses to ignore reality’. “Thank you, Max. And you too, Archibald.” He turned back and faced the front screen and the faces of his fellow ship captains. “This is why we came out here. To test this Isolation Globe. To see what happens. To figure out why it happens. All to the point of discovering a way to kill this Isolation thingie.” He tapped his Tech panel and called up the Weapons status reports. Including the geo-penetrators with explosive warheads that lay below the cabin in the ejection chamber. Then realized they were ten AU distant from the object of his anger. He looked up. “Captain Minna, please fire one of your torps at that globe. Disable its warhead. Let’s see if normal matter can pass that boundary.”

  The Finn waved agreement. “Elie, do as the Fleet Captain says.” She looked down at her own Pilot panel, then up. She raised a blond eyebrow. “Torp fired. At 12 kilometers per second. It will take a bit before it arrives at the edge of the zone.”

  Jack knew that. He reached down to the side of his seat and grabbed a squeeze bottle. Lifting it, he put the feeder nipple against the intake tube of his helmet ring. Mouthing the sip tube, he sucked. Cool booze filled his mouth. Europa Light Ale! His seat shook from a boot kicking it.

  “No boozing on Combat Alert!” Nikola said over the comlink that connected every vacsuit to everyone else. And to Nikola’s neutrino comlink. “Your rule. Which you set before the First Sedna Battle. Right?”

  “Right.” He held out the bottle of beer, then let it drop to the flood of the Pilot Cabin. “As my lifemate reminds me, we need sobriety for this job.”

  The images of his fellow captains ranged from surprise among a few to smiles or chuckles among most. Hideyoshi, military professional that he was, only lifted a thin black eyebrow and looked to the side as a crewwoman brought him a yellow datapad.

  Damn. Being on stage was no fun. He focused on his Tech panel, tapping on a space combat simulation game. One of the favorites of Maureen. She was better at it than he was. But the game did reward non-standard choices. Which he was good at. Hmmm.

  Minutes later a voice sounded in his helmet.

  “Torp is within a hundred kilometers of the Isolation Globe zone,” Minna said tartly.

  Was her tone a reproof? Well, the woman was a veteran drinker of akvavit. Maybe she was just jealous. “Observing,” Jack said. “Elaine, are your sensors tracking all EMF emissions from that neutrino AV link?”

  She snorted. “Of course. As usual. And you still owe me and Ignacio a box of Cuban cigars!”

  True. It was the wedding gift he had promised her. But not yet delivered. He had been overwhelmed during the four months since their return to Sol system. Still, a promise was a—

  “Impact!” called Minna.

  Nothing happened.

  No explosion.

  “Anonymous, are you still receiving the datastream signal from that torp?”

  “No.”

  Tart AIs are a bitch. “Explain. Beginning with datastream you received as of the verbal alert from Captain Minna, to the present.”

  “Multiplex datastream was present before and during verbal alert from Captain Minna. Content was normal. Status of chemfuel engine, fuel levels, relative velocity—”

  “Expedite. Describe function of datastream without details of content.”

  “Hmmph.” Did he just hear an AI imitate Archibald’s favorite mode of reaction to lesser minds? “Datastream was steady and constant before, up to and after Captain Minna verbal alert. Signal persisted for 8.3271 seconds after her alert. At which point signal ceased. Torp function at present is unknown.”

  Interesting. “Well, people, it seems normal matter just disappears into the globe. The same way our beams and torps disappeared into the Arbitor ship protection field.” He looked over his shoulder. “Nikola, how far is it to the nearest subject people star system once controlled by the Megurk, which is now controlled by the Rizen predators?”

  “We’re going predator hunting? Good!” She paused. Tap-tapping sounded. “The nearest star system is HD 1461. Which our Long Baseline Stellar Interferometer says is a G0V main sequence yellow star with six planets, two of them super-Earths in size. The super-Earths orbit close to the star and are in tidal lock. The other four orbit further out. Two are in the liquid water habitable zone.” She hummed softly. “Distance from the Megurk system to HD 1461 is 10.783 light years. From Sol the distance is about 76 light years. Like Megurk, it is located in the Cetus constellation.”

  “Good.” He scanned the images of his fellow captains. “My fleet comrades, we have some of the data we needed to learn about this Isolated system. Now, I want to talk to Aliens who were once ruled by the Megurk Hunters. Plus, Max and I owe a real kick in the butt to the Rizen Hunters who killed our crewmates! Nikola, send Elaine the galactic coordinates for the HD 1461 system. Set us up for arrival at 50 AU north of the star’s ecliptic plane. So we can have an easy view of the system’s planets and can see what ships are where. Plus pick up some AV signals from the locals.”

  “Elaine, have you received the coordinates from my panel?” Nikola called.

  “Yes Elaine, are you ready?” For some reason Jack could not resist bugging his oldest sister. Maybe cause she and Ignacio were playing Surprise with him. No way was he jealous that someone else now had claim to his older sister . . .

  “Twit,” she said while looking down at her NavTrack panel. His narrow-chinned and thoughtful sister gave him a thumbs-up signal. Like from when they had been kids and loved to outmaneuver their parents without use of the vacsuit comlinks. “Received. Transmitted to all other fleet ships. Max, take us out whenever you are ready.”

  “Been ready,” his buddy said from the rear, his voice sounding almost American Southern in its affected drawl. “In laser time-lock with the drives of all other ships. Activating our Alcubierre drive pedestal. On our way!”

  The neutrino AV link from the Wolverine vanished, as did the laser AV images of his captains. No matter. The laser time-lock made certain each ship’s star drive activated at the same time as Max’s Alcubierre drive pedestal shifted them into a bubble of warped space-time. As a result, they moved as a pack through the stars and radiative energies of the cosmos. And a pack they needed to be when entering a system dominated by the lion-rhinos of the
Rizen!

  CHAPTER NINE

  Two and a half days later the fleet exited their Alcubierre space-time bubbles at 50 AU north of the ecliptic plane of the star HD 1461. Jack immediately checked the front screen’s true-light imagery, including the faces of the eight other captains. Thanks to atomic timing crystals, each ship had arrived within 100 kilometers of the other ships. He saw Hideyoshi, Gareth, Minna, Ignacio, Akemi, Júlia, Aashman and Kasun. Each captain waved at him, nodded or looked attentive as was their personal manner. And everyone wore vacsuit and helmet as part of the automatic Combat Alert the fleet went to upon arriving at a known carnivore predator star system.

  “Nikola,” he called back over his shoulder, “deploy your Big Eye. Then tell us what it says about this system and its planets.” He looked to Elaine. “Pilot, put up a Sensor image of the system that shows all the emissions we track.”

  “Right. The star is a G0V main sequence yellow.” He heard the tapping of Nikola’s fingers on her Astro and giant reflector scope panels. “The inner planet ‘b’ is located at 0.0634 AUs out from the star. It’s a superterran planet with a mass 7.6 times that of Earth. Its atmosphere is thin and mostly made up of nitrogen. Similar to a giant Mercury. No moons. It is tidally locked with one face always fixed on its star. The year of planet ‘b’ is 5.7 days.” She paused, tapped her Astro panel and a true-light image of the six planets in the system now occupied the center of the screen. “Planet ‘c’ is located at 0.117 AUs. It is also a superterran world with a mass of 5.91 Earths. Atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, so it is a Venus copy. No moons. Its year is 13.505 days and it too is tidally locked. Both of the inner planets are super-hot, rocky planets.” She paused, then gave a loud hum. “The third planet out is ‘f’ which the Long Baseline Stellar Interferometer located in 2034. It’s a near duplicate of Earth, with oxy-nitro air and, as we can now see from its blueness, has oceans. Its distance is 1.096 AUs, right in the middle of the habitable zone. Its year is 409 days.” She paused as each tiny white crescent was computer-marked by the letter designation assigned them by earlier astronomers. “Next out is planet ‘d’, which is a gas giant like Neptune and is located at 1.16 AUs. Its mass is 27.9 Earths with a diameter at least four times that of Earth. Its year is 446 days. While the liquid water habitable zone goes out to 1.55 AUs, there are no other planets located in it. But there is a thick asteroid belt located at three AU.” Jack liked that. It seemed most stars with planets had both asteroid belts and Kuiper-like collections of icy comets. “Planet five or ‘e’ is located at five AU out from the star and resembles Saturn in size. Its mass is 87.1 times that of Earth. It orbits the star in 13.7 years.” She paused, tap-tapped on her Astro panel. “Planet six or ‘g’ was located by the interferometer fifty years ago. It’s similar to our Pluto, has a high albedo, is covered in methane ice and orbits its star at 40 AU. Like the other systems we’ve visited, there is a large Kuiper Belt of comets that runs from 35 to 55 AU out from the star.” He heard the sound of a hand slapping an armrest. “Oh, the Earth-like planet at the third orbital slot has three moons circling it. The innermost one is half the size of our Moon. My Big Eye imagery shows an icy north pole and icy south pole on planet three. Plus the oceans that help make it blue-white. We have to get closer for more planetary details.” She paused, tapped more, and Jack saw the images of the three outer planets start blinking. “The two gas giants each have a group of satellites, while the outer Pluto-type world has two moons. All based on the infrared spectrum from my scope.”

  “My turn?” called Elaine, sounding impatient.

  “Of course,” Jack said, keeping his focus on the front screen imagery that was being shared with other fleet ships by way of a laser Come-Signal sent out by Denise.

  His sister looked up. “Autonomous, overlay my Sensor feed atop the reflector image of the system. Display non-fleet grav-pull ships as yellow spots. Fusion pulse ships are green. Neutrino sources are white. Process!”

  “Processing,” said the dry voice of the Uhuru’s snippy AI. “Completed.”

  “Most interesting,” rumbled Max.

  “Similar to what we’ve seen elsewhere,” Blodwen said in her no-nonsense tone.

  “Not good,” Maureen growled. “I count 31 grav-pull ships in that system.”

  Jack felt relief. While the grav-pull ships were to be expected since this was a system long dominated by the Rizen predators, the presence of nine green spots said the local Aliens were still in space doing what Tech cultures usually do. Which is extract resources to support the home planet population. He counted four green fusion pulse ships in the asteroid belt, three green spots in orbit about planet ‘e’ beyond the belt, and two green dots moving between the Earth-like planet and its large moon. Traffic similar to what had been the norm in Sol system during most of the current century. Until the Hunters of the Great Dark arrived! In the person of Destanu, Link of Pod Victorious, who spoke in a slick British Midlands accent as he invited Jack’s former captain Monique to send a team down to the surface of the comet 1992 QB1 for a ‘talk’ about the Rules of Engagement. Which had been in truth a chance for the Rizen to attack and eat his fellow crewmates. Part of a Challenge to Combat offered to every juvenile species when it reached its outermost planet. Which meant, either defeat the challenging Alien or be eaten, both as a culture and as a person. He gave a jerk and focused on the white spots indicating neutrino emissions. Several dozen spotted planet three, clearly the marker of fusion power reactors. Three white spots on the large moon suggested a base there. The 40 other white spots overlapped with the fusion and grav-pull ships. Which made sense as every space-going culture used fusion reactors to power their ships. A Sensor split-screen showed UV, infrared, far infrared, gamma ray, x-ray, neutron, graviton and neutrino emissions. All from natural sources. What was artificial were the maser and lidar emissions from planet three and the moving fusion drive ships.

  Elaine looked at him. “That’s the total Sensor feed. Folks are busy running between planet three, the asteroid belt and the innermost gas giant. Plus chattering on planet three. No ship or neutrino emissions from any other planet. That’s it.”

  “Thank you Pilot.” Jack looked back to his SETI translator and specialist in Animal Ethology. “Denise, what do you pick up for AV channel broadcasts? Maser traffic? Radioastronomy emissions? Any other active EMF sources in HD 1461?”

  His linguist genius looked down at her Comlink panel, then at him, her expression thoughtful. “Captain Jack, my instruments are showing 298 AV channels at signal strengths from 5 kilohertz up to 300 gigahertz. Other EMF emissions at 1,100 gigahertz are likely microwaves. There are maser emissions from planet three that are suggestive of a worldwide diginet.” She looked back down at her Comlink panel. “There are also radio wave emissions from planets four and five which are natural. Uh, I’m setting Autonomous to scanning these AV channels for signal strength and imagery as a means of locating ‘popular’ AV channels.” She began chewing on one red braid despite her helmet. Her red freckles were dark against her pale skin, which said she was emotionally charged over something.

  Jack looked at the modulated neutrino comlink pedestal that stood next to Denise’s seat. It was quiet. Which only meant they had yet to discover the Rizen vibechat channel. He looked at Maureen.

  “Combat Commander, do you see any threats to the fleet?”

  Maureen, wearing helmet and vacsuit like the rest of them, looked his way. Her expression was patient. As if she were dealing with a young boy. “Fleet Captain Jack, you wanted to come here. While I always support zapping any apex carnivore Alien, we now face combat with an Alien force that is three times our number.” She looked down at the holo combat simulation that floated above her Combat panel. It showed the system Sensor data reported by Elaine. “Of the 31 grav-pull ships, I count three on the outer edge of the cometary ring, at 120 degree intervals. Clearly they are sentinel ships on alert for the intrusion of other Hunters of the Great Dark.” She paused, tapped on her lap panel,
then nodded slowly. “Twenty grav-pull ships are in orbit between planet three and its large moon. The eight remaining ships are scattered through the asteroid belt and around planets four and five. Likely to watch the movement of the local spaceships.” She looked up, fixing gray eyes on him. The fine wrinkles on her narrow face were bunched up, as if she were ready for battle. Her look was that of a hunter hungry for prey. “Which ships do we kill first? And where?”

  That was indeed the question. While his fleet had three ships outfitted with Higgs Disruptors, still, they were not invulnerable. Unlike the Arbitor ship. More data. He needed to know—

  “Jack, you may want to see this AV broadcast,” called Denise, her tone sounding worried over the vacsuit comlink.

  “From planet three?”

  “Yes,” their ComChief said hurriedly. “It is the strongest AV channel of all that is being emitted from planet three. There are others with ships in them, cities and so forth. This signal is disturbing.”

  “Put it up front. And share it with the fleet.”

  “As you command. Going out to the fleet on our laser Come-Back signal,” Denise murmured.

  The imagery of the star, its planets and Elaine’s Sensor data vanished. To be replaced by a daylight image of a flat grassland bordered in the distance by tall green trees. The middle and foreground were filled with elephants. At least they resembled Earth’s Asian and African elephants. Each possessed four thick legs, a large head, two dark eyes, big ears and a short black tail. Each elephant’s hide was reddish-brown, though whether it was a natural color or the result of dirt thrown up to shield the herd from harsh sunlight was not clear. What was most Alien was a long proboscis or nose that had four finger-like growths at the end of the trunk. A tool belt hung from each thick neck so silvery tech devices could be reached by the finger-trunk. The herd of forty or so were gathered in a crescent, their attention focused on the events happening in the foreground center.