“Captain, there is indeed a multi-layered comsat and milspec targeting system of sats in both equatorial and polar orbits. The electro-optical scopes on the four drones report the presence of five major orbital platforms, or space stations,” he said, tapping his control pillar so it added that data to the system graphic. Another tap caused the sensor data to show up on everyone else’s schematic. “While the teardrop shape of our collector pods makes them nearly invisible to normal radar, they can be seen by electro-optical scopes thanks to reflected sunlight. While they might make it down on the night side of the Mok world, their magfield engines cause the hull to glow whitely. Which again can be seen by both people and by milspec scopes. I think we will be lucky if either pod makes it to ground. If they do, I do not expect them to survive a return to us.”
To his right the bare skin of Bright Sparkle flowed in a wild mix of yellow, brown, green, red and purple streaks. “Captain, I agree with Bill. Our world of Harken has systems similar to what appear above the Mok world. Plus we have extensive space-based sensor arrays. Your ship’s passage through our system would almost surely be detected even if we Megun lack neutrino detectors aimed at moving neutrino sources.”
In the holo of her command pedestal Bill saw Jane grip tightly the armrests of her captain’s seat. Then she lifted one hand and waved it down, which made the person high holos surrounding her seat lower to the level of her waist. That allowed her to directly see each crewmember. She looked to her right.
“Navigator Lofty Flyer, plot us a vector track from this spot that takes us down and inward toward the local star.”
What the?
“Order understood,” the flying squirrel said as her brown tail whipped back and forth. “Track computed. Added to all system graphics.”
“Captain Human,” barked Purposeful Guide. “Such a vector track will bring this vessel close to the star’s photosphere. There are several coronal mass ejection flares now happening on the star. It seems unsafe to head for the star.”
Jane’s oval face darkened. She grimaced. “Life Support crewmember, your caution is understood. However, heading toward the local star will mask the neutrino emissions of this ship. They will be lost in the flood of neutrinos from this system’s star. Secondly, planets two and one are airless, cratered worlds similar to our Mercury. The system graphic does not show the presence of any spaceship near either world. Third, I am the one with military tactics and strategy training. You have no such training.”
The thick tail of the kangaroo reptile thudded down in a display of some emotion. “Understood. Captain. You command this ship and its crew. And the return of former captives to their home worlds is a project I endorse. Which is why I volunteered for crew work.”
Jane blinked, her complexion lost its redness and she stopped clenching her armrests. “Thank you, Purposeful Guide. Your willingness to work for the benefit of other lifeforms is appreciated. We can all learn from each other. As I have learned from each of you crewmembers.”
Bill’s drone holo blinked redly. “Captain, the two pods have touched down on the night side of the Mok world. The sleeping bodies of the two Mok have been removed and placed near a mountain stream. The pods are lifting off.”
“Good!” she muttered. “I do not like staying in one place in a war zone. Too many things—”
Bill’s drone holo blinked purple. “One drone is being pursued by an atmospheric craft similar to our X-37B spaceplane. According to pod sensors.” He paused as he scanned datalink reports. “The other pod has reached low orbit and is heading for the moon.” A white glare showed in the electro-optical view of one drone. “First pod destroyed by a missile from the spaceplane.”
“All crew! All residents of the starship Blue Sky!” Jane announced loudly. “We have returned the two Mok to their home world. Which is presently involved in a war over water resources. Shortly we will leave this space, head inward to the star, then outward to the edge of the system’s magnetosphere.” She looked his way, gave a sharp nod as he transferred his drone sensor info to her, then looked directly ahead. “Engineer Time Marker, prepare to depart this location at full magfield power!”
“Captain!” hissed the Slinkeroo walking snake. “Magfield drive engines are ready for transition from orbital maintenance to departure acceleration.”
“Bright Sparkle?” called Jane. “What’s the status of our fusion power plants?”
“All plants report stable plasma confinement and continuous power production from inertial impact of fusion isotopes,” the Megun native said by way of her shoulder speaker/vidcam.
Bill, watching the visual and sensor reports from the four drones, saw purple blinking. “Captain! The second pod was just fired on by an orbital laser platform. It missed. But its vector track points straight at the moon. Which is also where we are located.”
Jane’s long fingers tapped on her armrests. “Long Walker, recall three of the four drones. They are too useful to leave behind. How long before they return to the ship?”
“Three minutes,” the Zipziptoe worm replied. “They have small magfield engines which allow them to be as fast as the pods.”
Bill gave thanks the drones did not leave a drive flare. A flare of yellow-orange gases would surely attract the attention of the single Mok dome below them. More purple blinking set his nerves on edge. “Captain, two spaceships have risen from two domes on the far side of the moon. Clearly they aim to intercept the pod upon its return. Or follow it to us. I suggest we leave. Now.”
“Long Walker?” she called, leaning forward as she also scanned her holos which showed what Bill also saw.
“The three drones are in contact with the ship hull,” the segmented worm said in a series of low moans. “Collector Pods Chamber hull opening. Drones . . . are inside.”
“Engineer, depart now!” she said firmly.
“Departing,” hissed Time Marker.
With no sense of inertia the Blue Sky dropped down below the orbital track of the Mok world and its moon. It moved just as one Mok spaceship streaked out to intercept the pod and the second ship took a right turn and headed for the back side of the moon. At a speed Bill estimated to be five miles per second. Slow by Magfield drive standards.
“Magfield drive is accelerating!” hissed the black-skinned snake.
Bill noticed the yellow electrical discharges above its skin now diminished.
“Captain,” called Bright Sparkle. “Will you alert the Mok authorities to the presence of Collector ships?”
“Yes,” Jane said. She looked Bill’s way, clearly enjoying his surprised reaction. “I had a reason for leaving one drone in orbit.” She paused and sat back. “Long Walker, send a destruction signal to the remaining collector pod, by way of the drone.”
“Signal sent,” it moaned.
Bill saw the yellow flare of the pod’s destruction thanks to the electro-optical scope on the drone. Though there was a slight warping of the vidsignal as the Blue Sky hit one-tenth lightspeed. “Good. Maybe that will distract both Mok ships.”
“It matters not,” chittered their flying squirrel. “The Mok ships have fusion pulse main drives but they are unable to reach more than five percent of the speed of light. And that will take them some time to do.”
Bill stopped clenching his jaws when he realized the brown-furred flyer was correct. Their ship was already a half million miles away from the moon. And putting more distance between the Blue Sky and any possible enemy ship.
“Star Traveler,” Jane called. “Transmit my words to the drone by way of our laser link, for rebroadcast in radio on the five strongest frequencies.”
“Ready to broadcast,” the AI said.
Jane looked his way, a pale smile on her face. “I’m not the only one to know about offset signaling. This way, when the Mok track my broadcast to the orbiting drone, we will be long gone. And in a different direction than they might expect.”
He understood that. From the moment she’d chosen to leave a single
drone in orbit he’d figured there was more to it than the convenience of watching their collector pod die a lonely death. Offset or relay signaling was something the regular Army sometimes did on Middle East battlefields. His SEAL team had relied on portable satcoms. The signal went straight up, with no chance of interception by a local artillery commander who would backtrack the signal and launch an XM982 Excaliber shell at the source. Getting hit by a 155 mm shell was no fun for ground pounders. Getting hit in airless space by a self-guided missile or a carbon dioxide laser was equally unfun. “Captain, understood. Makes it safer to warn the locals about the Collector ships.”
“Quite.” She looked away and composed herself. “Mok planetary authorities, I am—”
Bill kept his attention on the laser feed from the drone. Which showed both Mok spaceships were now heading for the back side of their moon. The drone sat just below the moon’s south pole, which was why the Blue Sky had a direct laser link to it. Soon the two ships would detect the drone. But that would be after it conveyed Jane’s Mok-translated warning about Collector ships, Buyers and Market worlds. He had had mixed feelings on giving a warning after Bright Sparkle spoke up. On the one hand, they owed a warning to every planet whose citizens had been kidnapped by Diligent Taskmaster. On the other hand, this was a war zone and, as Jane had often said, placing the Blue Sky in danger was not to be done. Leastwise, not until they offloaded their two Doman armadillo guests.
“Well, that’s that,” Jane said. “Navigator, take us toward the local sun.”
“Vector track change done,” Lofty Flyer said, raising her two arms so the skin flaps below them stretched out. “Once we arrive near the local star, which vector track does our captain prefer? Up, down or sideways?”
“Down,” Jane said softly. “Down until we hit the edge of the system’s magnetosphere and can go FTL. Which raises the issue of our next target system. Star Traveler, what is the home star of the Doman people? How far away is it? And how long will our voyage be?”
A low hum sounded through the Command Bridge. “The Doman occupy a rocky planet that orbits the star EPIC 201367065,” the AI said. “The star is a red dwarf of class M0.2V. Which is half the size and mass of your Sol. There are six known planets orbiting the star. The Doman home is planet three and orbits at 0.2076 AU, with an orbital year of 44.5631 days. The world is 1.5 times the size of Earth. The planet’s illumination is slightly more than Earth receives from Sol.”
“Distance?” Jane prodded.
“EPIC 201367065 lies 147 light years from your Sol. The distance to it from the Mok star of HD 27631 is 229.319 light years.” The ship mind paused. “Which translates to a transit time of 9.17276 days.”
“So exact,” murmured Jane, a grin showing. Her reaction pleased Bill. He cared for her and thought she had come to care for him. Her safety was his first priority. Meanwhile, he would continue watching for hidden enemy ships until they went into the Alcubierre space-time modulus.
He returned his attention to the holos around him. The system graphic, the ship weapons holo, the holo of Jane and—
Nothing showed in the drone holo. He tapped on his control pedestal, reorienting the infrared and UV sensors of the Blue Sky. Damn!
“Captain, the drone is gone. Ship sensors document it was fired on by a Mok ship laser. Guess the Mok backtracked the radio signal to that spot and fired,” he said. Bill tapped on more energy sensors. “I’m scanning space out to a million miles from us for any kind of stealth or passive vehicle. Nothing shows. I’ll keep watching.”
“Thank you, Weapons Chief. I expected to lose the drone. Though it would have been nice to have the Mok say Thank You.”
He scowled. From his experience with the two Mok cougar people he had not expected anything from the planetary Mok beyond immediate, deadly violence. If they were willing to exterminate their own species members when a surrender plea was offered, he had no doubt they would be just as deadly to strangers. Well, they were heading south into deep space, out of the system’s plane of ecliptic occupied by its seven worlds. While a war-making species might place passive sensors on predictable vectors between planets, there was no way any species would waste resources on empty vacuum far from any planet. Still, the performance of their stealthed drones had been perfect. The drones had allowed them to monitor the space between the moon and the world without the Blue Sky having to be in that space. Relay locating of their space assets was something he needed to think about for the future. He had no doubt that when they arrived at the Market world home system of Kepler 443 there would be a formidable lineup of milspec defenses. Getting by them to a vulnerable spot, like the shipyard that built the Collector ships, would take some doing.
Then again, Bill had spent his evening free time reading up on the exploits of Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson before and during the Battle of Trafalgar off the Spanish coast. While the Blue Sky was no HMS Victory, it had some unique assets. Invisibility was one. Being run by a multi-species crew was another. Being led by an Air Force captain who spent her nights watching the stars and her days tracking orbital objects meant they were being led by someone who understood the field of battle. Which was dark space, vacuum and the delayed reaction times of bioform crews. She was their third and principle asset. Their fourth was something Bill had discovered during their FTL travel out from the Market world system. The two transport ships in the Transport Exit Chamber were armed with a bow laser and a belly missile launcher. He liked the idea of three ships in formation going after interstellar slave traders!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They arrived in the Doman star system just beyond the orbit of its sixth planet. Which orbited at seven AU out from the red dwarf sun. Thanks to the Nokten crystal and its memory of normal space-time coordinates, the Blue Sky had arrived within sight of the outermost planet. Like Uranus and Neptune, it was an ‘ice giant’ gas world of mostly hydrogen and helium, though the methane level was notable in its upper air. Like Neptune it had a Great Dark Spot in the southern half of the globe. It also had multiple rings of ice fragments similar to the rings orbiting Uranus. Bill learned all the details thanks to multi-spectral sensors and the ship’s electro-optical scope, which fed a true space image into the holo ahead of him, next to the ship’s weapons holo that located all rooms, hallways and weapon sites in a cutaway view. To his left the system graphic holo showed the orbital tracks of the star’s six worlds. To his right floated the holo of Jane at her command pedestal seat. Beyond Jane’s holo sat or stood the five other crew posts occupied by their Alien volunteers.
“Weapons Chief,” Jane said, her tone command firm. “I see no sensor tracks for any kind of spaceships in this system. Do your sensors confirm the absence of spaceships?”
Bill looked at the bottom of the ship weapons holo where readouts from ten sensors showed. “My sensors confirm the absence of neutrino-emitting spaceships. Or any ship with a fission or fusion reactor on it. Chemical thrust ships are also absent, according to the electro-optical scope. And nothing shows on the system schematic.” He paused, tracked on the kilohertz and megahertz radio sensor, and figured out what he was seeing. “Natural radio emissions are coming from planets four, five and six, all of which are ‘ice giant’ gas worlds similar to Uranus and Neptune. Uh, I am picking up some very weak radio signals from the Doman home world. My sensor compares those signals to the early radio transmissions from the old-style spark gap transmitters. Like what Marconi put out. Or so my memory of ancient history tells me.”
Jane looked his way, her expression thoughtful. “That sounds like someone on the Doman world knows something about electricity and electromagnetic waves. Maybe we’re hearing a broadcast from their Heinrich Hertz. Which tells me the Doman culture is far beyond a Neolithic level. Wonder why Old Woman and Fast Runner acted so aboriginal?”
He scanned his crewmates but no one seemed interested in speculating. “Captain, my guess is that Diligent Taskmaster raided a remote part of the Doman world where aboriginal types live.
On Earth we have Australian abos and South African Bushmen still living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.”
“True.” Jane caused the holos surrounding her elevated captain’s seat to drop down to her waist level. She looked out at Bill and the other crew folks. “Navigator, set a vector track for planet three. The system graphic says it is on our side of the red star, but lagging behind our orbital position. Make the route as direct as possible.”
“Vector track laid in,” chittered Lofty Flyer. “No planets, asteroids or comets are present along the track. Transmitted to the Engineer.”
“Good,” Jane said calmly. “Engineer Time Marker, bring our Magfield drive engines to full power. Move us out on that vector.”
“Understood,” the black-skinned snake hissed as it stood on four stubby legs. “Engines moving to full power. One-tenth lightspeed velocity will be achieved within twenty seconds.”
“Long Walker, activate power to two collector pods,” Jane said.
The eight-legged worm looked back, his two black eyes fixing on her. “Captain, two pods are powering up,” it moaned deeply. “Normal ship air is being delivered to the Collector Pods Chamber.”
“Also good.” In the holo to his right, Jane looked his way. “Weapons Chief Bill MacCarthy, put your station on automatic and follow me to the Containment Unit Chamber? We need to knock out our two Doman, then load them into two collector pods. Which, this time, we should get back in one piece!”
Bill tapped on the control pillar in front of him. “Captain, my station is on automatic. Anything that approaches this ship will be reported over my ear buds.” He stood up, saw the color bands on Bright Sparkle’s skin move into a pattern he knew signaled passion, and met her gaze. Her look was an open invitation. He’d always had a weakness for green eyes. While the captain was his long-term hope, he was not about to turn down another frolic time in the Water Pool! With a nod to her, he turned and headed to the Command Bridge exit door. Where Jane already stood, her dark brown eyes glancing from him to Bright Sparkle and back to him. One thin black eyebrow lifted. Whether in comment on the failings of the male gender, or impatience with his brief delay to acknowledge Bright Sparkle’s invitation, he knew not. Coming up to her he gave her a three-finger Boy Scout salute. “Captain? Weapons Chief MacCarthy reports for duty.”
Escape 1: Escape From Aliens Page 22
