StarFight 1: Battlestar

by T. Jackson King

  Jacob looked up, his face still as serious as when he’d sat down. His gray eyes fixed on the slidedoor. “Door, admit Spacer Blackbourne.”

  The slidedoor slid into the wall. Quincy scanned them all quickly, nodded and stepped inside. The short, stocky East Londoner, whose ancestry traced back to Kenya, saluted. “Spacer Quincy Blackbourne, laser gunner’s mate, right side outrigger pod, reports as ordered.”

  Daisy and her two friends sat on one side of the antique walnut table, with Quincy standing to the right and Jacob seated to the left. Jacob now saluted Quincy with his right hand as his left held the tablet he’d been studying. “Spacer, take a seat where you wish. When Lieutenant Branstead arrives, I’ll begin this discussion.”

  Quincy looked startled by Jacob’s serious expression and short words. “Sir, thank you,” he said, his bass voice filling the room.

  Lori waved to him. “Quincy, sit here with me. Gotta let the lieutenant have the other side of the table all to herself.”

  Quincy grinned, raised curly black eyebrows as he looked to Jacob for a reaction, then shrugged his thick shoulders when their friend looked back at the tablet in his hand. “Thanks, gal, coming your way.”

  As Quincy sat beside Lori, Daisy looked past a thoughtful Carlos to the slidedoor. It had closed right after Quincy stepped in. She looked back and studied her programmer friend. Was Carlos jealous of Quincy being next to his girlfriend? He shouldn’t. They were all friends first. Romance happened however it happened. Should she bring out her own tablet and study it? She’d downloaded the Lepanto’s deck layout, cross-section, weapons emplacements and the last holo image of the enemy ship cluster. Which now lay 30,000 kilometers out, but still paralleled the battle group as their nine ships headed north of the ecliptic along the track previously taken by the Salamis. The destroyer’s captain had said little since arriving with multiple blasts from his CO2 and proton lasers. His ship had fallen into formation with the other destroyers. Did the man now accept Jacob’s authority? Or was he just covering his butt against any future Star Navy inquiry? Politics. It was a topic she had spent much effort to avoid ever since gaining admission to the academy. Pilots should pilot, not engage in—

  “Acting Captain Renselaer, Lieutenant Branstead requests admission,” came the soprano voice of the Science Deck chief, a woman who hailed from Melbourne and the Sorbonne in Paris.

  Jacob laid down his tablet. He looked up. His expression changed to thoughtful. “Door, admit Lieutenant Branstead.”

  The slidedoor hissed open.

  The woman, dressed in a clear vacsuit over her officer’s dress blues jacket and pants, stepped into the room. She saluted Jacob. “Lieutenant Alicia Branstead reporting as requested.”

  “Thank you for coming,” Jacob said, his baritone sounding firm and determined. He saluted her back. “Please have a seat wherever you wish.”

  Without another word Branstead, who carried her personal tablet in one hand, strode over to the opposite side of the table and sat down on the wooden seat that was fixed to a support pedestal. Like the old Navy ships that traveled the seas, most furniture on the Lepanto was permanently attached to something. The advent of inertial dampers had not changed that tradition. The lightly tanned woman nodded to Lori, a member of her deck staff, then her amber eyes scanned Daisy, and next moved on to Carlos and Quincy, before finally meeting the intense gaze of Jacob.

  “How can I help?” she said, her voice firm, her manner that of a manager of people who did not care for wasting time on minor chatter.

  Jacob’s gaze fixed on her. His clean-shaven face, now exposed thanks to his helmet being pushed back, grew a small smile. That quickly disappeared. “Lieutenant, your Bridge representative CPO Willard Steinmetz and Ensign Lori Antonova of your deck have been of vital help to me as we coped with two attacks from the wasp-like aliens. Earlier I told Ensign Antonova I would put her in for a commendation for her warning about the black hole weapon of the aliens. You have very good staff. Thank you for the loan of them.”

  Branstead blinked. She nodded. “Thank you. Glad they could be of help in these unique circumstances. How can I help?”

  Jacob laid both hands on the table and leaned forward, his expression almost fierce. “You can help by sharing with me, and with my brain trust people, your impressions and analyses of the wasp-like aliens who killed our senior officers and have now attacked us two times.”

  Branstead’s serious expression did not change. Her brown eyebrows lifted. “From the imagery and words shared over the All Ship vidcom, I gather that Ensign Antonova has already made some basic analyses about these insect-like aliens. I support what she has said,” Branstead said, nodding to Lori. “I would add these insect aliens are remarkably similar to the yellow jacket wasps of Earth. Similar to our wasps, these aliens have hard shell bodies adorned with red and black stripes on a yellow exoskeleton. They have both compound and simple eyes, again like our wasps and spiders. The aliens may see well in ultraviolet, unlike us humans. They have mandibles and antennae, but unlike our wasps the midbody or thorax of these aliens is upright. That allows their upper limb pair to work as arms and hands do on us. Since they are planting a colony, they are likely to have perennial life patterns like the vespula squamata species in the south of the wasp range on Earth. There is no way an alien wasp species could develop high tech with every generation dying each winter, like some wasp species do on Earth.” The woman sat back, though her posture remained stiffly upright and almost formal. “What issues matter most to you?”

  “My issues are four,” Jacob said quickly. “Will these wasps follow us all the way out to the magnetosphere? Will they follow us to Kepler 10? Will they attack us again? And can you suggest any means for communicating with them?”

  Branstead pursed her lips, her oval face going thoughtful. “As Antonova said earlier, these aliens are predators, the bright colors of their body indicate an aposematic warning to other lifeforms to stay away, they are eusocial and it is highly likely they communicate using pheromones,” she said, her light tone sounding almost musical to Daisy. “They have chosen to fight us, they have at least one primary leader, along with leaders on each starship, and they are in this system to plant a colony on planet four. All of those characteristics are background to my estimate of their intentions.”

  She licked her lips. “As for your questions, the wasps are now following us out to the magnetosphere. Their behavior to date shows a consistent purpose. Which is to attack and defeat us. So yes, I believe they will follow us out to the magnetosphere. I suspect they will follow us to Kepler 10, if only out of curiosity, which they must have in order to have developed spaceships, beam energy weapons and the remarkable black hole weapon. As for attacking us again, yes, I think that will happen. But not soon. Losing half their attacking force while we lost only a single ship has clearly caused their prime leader to pull back and assess her or his options. It is likely they are trying to figure us out, much as we are trying to figure them out.”

  Jacob nodded slowly. “How do we communicate with them?”

  Branstead frowned. “By using the image frequency which they used to propose the meeting of our two peoples down at the meeting site. My people, despite applying the Topol linguistic analysis algorithms, have been unable to make sense of whatever signal was being sent by the satellite we encountered upon first arrival. The signal contained polarized emissions. Beyond that, we know nothing.”

  “I had hoped you might think of some other means to communicate,” Jacob said, sounding distracted. “Lieutenant, will you please use your top people to develop a cartoon-like video that depicts the six wasp ships turning back to planet four, landing, being greeted by wasps on the planet, while our nine ships travel to the magnetosphere edge, then disappear, with some kind of dotted path or arrow or whatever indicating we are leaving this system, never to return?”

  “I can do that,” the woman said. “What’s our timeline?”

  “Get it done well before we re
ach the magnetosphere,” Jacob said. “We are 29 hours out from reaching it. I am concerned the wasp aliens may attack us again right at the boundary. And do you really think the wasps can figure out which star we are jumping to?”

  Branstead chuckled dryly. “Acting captain, people who figured out how to create an artificial black hole can surely figure out what star we are heading for. At a minimum, with their six ships spread out, they can perform triangulation sensor analyses to get our exact heading. Since they know we came here, to a yellow G-type star, they will look for all G-type stars along that outbound track. Kepler 10 is the closest such G-type star. They will follow us.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Jacob said, sounding tired to Daisy. “Lieutenant, what do these aliens care about? Losing two ships, then three, then a final one has not stopped them from pursuing us. How can we dissuade them from attacking us? And will this First Contact disaster lead to perennial interstellar war between our two species?”

  “That question frustrates me,” Branstead said, her tone giving life to that feeling. “The fact they planted a colony using dozens of landing pods says they care for their young. Whether larvae or hatched from eggs or even live births like with mammals, their children matter to them. The reason they attacked us may be as simple as their effort to protect their young from an invading species. It’s what we would do. It is what we will do in order to protect the colonists at Kepler 10.”

  “And my second point?”

  She blinked, muscles tightening on the high cheeks of her face. “I hope to hell we do not get into perennial war with a species we know almost nothing about! How many wasps are there in the galaxy? How many colonies do they have? Where is their home star? Do they have starships more powerful than this Battlestar? While we have won the equivalent of the Battle of Trafalgar, where the British faced a larger French and Spanish fleet, we have no assurance future battles will work out as well.” She fixed on Jacob. “Acting captain, I am amazed that the battle group has done so well. With new acting captains, with most crews never having seen true battles in space, and facing an unknown enemy possessed of ships as powerful as our destroyers and cruisers, we survived, we prevailed and you have saved the lives of more than a thousand people. Your choices of battle formation, the mix of weapons and your use of the cruisers and the Lepanto to shield our more vulnerable ships from concentrated beam attack, those actions were inspired. I’m glad I was not in your place.”

  Jacob’s eyes grew large. His somber mood seemed to lift for a moment. He let out a deep sigh. “Lieutenant, thank you. Nothing in my academy studies prepared me for today’s events.” He waved toward Daisy and the others. “I had a lot of help. Good help from folks who are my friends and who are good at what they do.” Jacob licked his lips. “I thank you and the other deck chiefs for showing loyalty to me, to my XO Acting Lieutenant Stewart and to the other people on the Bridge.”

  What! She was now a lieutenant? That was a normal rank for an XO. But still . . .

  Branstead shrugged. “You had the initiative to change the ship status, to declare the Alert Unknown Enemy condition and then send the Cloud Skimmer to give us facts about the silence from our officers. No one on any other ship did that. To me, those actions earned you the right to lead us. The battles since then have justified my belief.”

  Daisy could tell Jacob was trying hard not to smile. Which would be normal for a person as young as him, her or any of the other folks in the room. Even Branstead, with a Ph. D. in molecular synthesis of biological polymers, looked as if she was trying hard to be command proper. She was the leader of a deck with 51 staff, but she was also the mom of three girls, the keeper of two Chihuahuas and the wife of American fighter pilot. Or so Daisy had heard from Lori, during one of their beer and pretzel breaks on the trip out to Kepler 22. It sounded as if Branstead was fully on Jacob’s side as the leader of their ship. But how did the other deck chiefs feel about a new ensign taking over the Lepanto?

  “Thank you,” Jacob said, his voice measured. “Please advise me of anything your deck needs for your people to do their jobs. And let me know the moment the wasp cartoon project is done. I want to send it ASAP and maybe save lives on the wasp side and on our side.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Branstead said, seeming to relax in her seat. But her gaze grew intense. “Acting captain, when we get to Kepler 10 you will make a neutrino report to the Star Base captain about these aliens, what happened, why you took control of the Battlestar and so forth. The base captain is a Star Navy Command rank captain. He could order you to give up control of the Lepanto to him, to one of his officers or to someone on this ship.” She slapped her chest. “For myself, I plan to send a signal to the base captain saying I strongly support your continued captaincy of the Lepanto and your leadership of the battle group. So long as these aliens follow us, they may attack us. You are the only person who has demonstrated the ability to withstand those attacks, then lead us to victory.”

  Daisy looked to Jacob. How would he react to the woman’s blunt assessment of future options? She had known things could change once they got to Kepler 10. But if the wasps attack right after following the fleet to the nearby star, a change in command would be disastrous. Disastrous for the Lepanto and for the other eight ships in the battle group.

  Her friend, who now acted years older than his 24 years chono age, lifted black eyebrows. “Lieutenant, thank you for that endorsement. I appreciate it, more than you can know.” He paused, looked over to her, Carlos, Lori and Quincy, then back to Branstead. The muscles in his face stiffened. “My first duty is to preserve this ship and the battle group and the lives of the people on our ships. To that end, I will fight any enemy, alien or domestic. As for the Star Navy base captain, yes, he might theoretically outrank me. But it will take 52 hours to travel the 45 AU from the system’s magnetosphere inward to the planet the base orbits. Until we all arrive at the base, I plan to be in command.”

  Branstead looked relieved. “Good. But be alert for politics and game-playing by Lieutenant Commander Bannerjee. He has twice complained to me that he should have been the one to take command of the Lepanto, since he is the senior surviving officer on the ship.”

  Jacob did not look surprised. She wondered if his matter-of-fact manner was also something he’d inherited from his father. “Understood. But you are the next senior officer by rank, followed by Lieutenant JG Jane Yamamoto of Life Support Deck. With the support of you two, and of the warrant and petty officers in command on the other decks, I am confident Bannerjee will remain where he is now. As chief of the Navigation Deck. No more.”

  “Agreed.” Branstead waved at the pitcher of water in the middle of the table. “I’m a bit thirsty. May I?”

  “Of course!” Jacob said quickly. “Help yourself.”

  “Acting captain,” Daisy said quickly. “I recall there are some cans of beer in the fridge behind you. Perhaps the lieutenant would prefer a beer?”

  Surprise showed briefly, then an almost relaxed smile filled Jacob’s face. “Excellent idea. And from this group’s past history, I suspect none of you would turn down a beer. Right?” he said, looking from Daisy to Lori, Carlos and Quincy.

  “Sounds fine to me,” Lori said, her soprano sounding cautious.

  “Right-o with me,” Carlos said, his manner turning relaxed as the formality of Jacob’s talk with Branstead moved to a relaxed mood.

  “Exactly a fine idea,” Quincy said, his deep voice filling the space between them all. The man stood up. “I’ll get us six cans.”

  “Thank you . . . Quincy,” Jacob said.

  Daisy liked that Jacob seemed to be relaxing a bit from the worry load of nasty aliens and the surprise of having to become the ship’s acting captain. His use of Quincy’s first name now, versus his Spacer title, said a lot to her. She gave Quincy a smile as she took the beer her Brit friend offered, then she focused back on Jacob. Would there be any time for the two of them to . . . to get more personal? At the academy she had learned
quickly one did not date the instructors, and most of the young men cadets were alpha types who always treated women as an afterthought. Not Jacob. While intensely focused on his studies, Jacob had always given her the impression of someone who looked beyond himself. That was why she had taken the time to visit with him at the orbital station when they all gathered for the group photo of Lepanto officers, then later on the long cruise out to Kepler 22. Now, seeing the new command side of him, along with his humility in inviting to the Bridge the Marine boss Richard O’Connor, she wanted to spend personal time with him. Group time was fine. But personal one-on-one time was the only way to get to really know someone. Would Jacob like the red and white carp fish she kept in her quarters? Would he understand what it had been like to grow up in a single parent family? Did he even understand the idea of a tight family budget, in view of his father’s family fortune and fine retirement income from the Star Navy? And what were Jacob’s personal joys, the things he did for fun, versus work? Or duty? She wanted to know the answers.

  Jacob met her gaze, gave her a wink, then he looked to their beer distributor. Who had just sat down beside Lori. “Quincy, what was the mood like on your post? What did your buddies think of the alien counterfire using laser and lightning bolt strikes? How did your right front laser node hold up to the enemy strikes?”

  The young black dude put down the beer he’d been sipping. “Well, we were all focused on getting as many repeat laser strikes going out from our node as we could. Plus, my CWO was always adjusting the node’s angle to bring as many wasp targets into our hit zone as possible. Until we joined with other ships on a single target.” Quincy paused, looked around, and saw Daisy, Branstead, Lori and Carlos all watching him. Being the center of attention seemed to surprise him. Her friend looked back to Jacob. “Uh, our mood was good. And when our laser fire joined with the lasers of other ships to strike a single wasp ship, we really felt good! It was clear they had tough hulls. But putting multiple laser beams on a single wasp ship meant we cut deep into their hulls. Or so my CWO told me as he monitored the electro-optical scope at our node.” Her friend paused, took a sip of beer, then shrugged. “Some wasp lasers hit the upper end of the right outrigger pod. The adaptive optics lenses and the ablative hull coating reflected or absorbed most of the incoming energy. We had no punch throughs on our hull, unlike the nose and belly of this ship.”