StarFight 3: Battlecry

by T. Jackson King

  In the image of Thirteen there was much fluttering of brown wings among its fellows, followed by what their translator software conveyed as yells and screeches from other wasps. Thirteen rose higher in the image from its bridge.

  “Servants obey me! Aggregate with me! Disaster at the new system and disaster here requires we fly together!”

  Daisy noticed the background noise suddenly stopped. It surprised her. Any human Bridge crew would have chattered longer if presented with the news Valhalla had been destroyed along with the admiral’s fleet. Maybe pheromone talk was superior to acoustic speech . . . But the odors made her want to sneeze.

  Thirteen’s image grew larger as it flew toward the imager device on its bridge. “Hunter One your scent rules me. But why should I fly to you? My nest now flies to the outer spot where we can enter the alternate dimension and travel to our colony of Food Enough.”

  Hunter One looked down from the image of Thirteen to the system graphic, then up. “The perception imager of these Soft Skins displays your flight and the flight of your pursuers. They fly faster than you. You will be caught and bitten before you can leave for Food Enough,” the wasp said quickly. “Come toward these Soft Skins. Their weapons are powerful. They will defend you. And attached to the large nest within which I fly is the broken nest of Support Hunter Seven. He and his Swarmers will join us in flying to Food Enough! They have much to share about the terrible battles we fought with the Soft Skins. These humans offer an end to mutual biting. They promise survival for our new colony in their system. We must accept their offer if we are to avenge the loss of our larvae here!”

  Thirteen turned away. “Servant for monitoring external space. Is it real? Will the two pursuers catch us before we reach the edge of the magnetic field?”

  “It is real,” replied a somewhat smaller wasp who hovered before a control panel. “But bending our flight path toward the Soft Skins will be a longer flight. The pursuers will catch us before these humans can bite our pursuers.”

  “Wrong!” cried Hunter One, his brown wings becoming a blur as he rose in the half gee gravity of the Bridge. “This Soft Skin nest flies faster than you or your pursuers. We can reach your nest before the pursuers can bite you.” The wasp looked to Jacob. “Soft Skin leader, this is a true scent?”

  “It is a true scent,” Jacob said. “Our ships will travel at eleven, perhaps twelve percent of lightspeed toward the ship of Thirteen. We will reach it before the pursuers. Then we will battle to save your fellow fliers.”

  Daisy blinked as she realized Jacob was using words that imitated the pheromone language of the wasps, who called themselves Swarmers and their species the Swarm. Would it work?

  Thirteen’s two antennae swung back. “We fly to you! Flight Servant, turn us toward these strange Soft Skins. If we die from their biting, that is no worse than dying from the bite of pursuers. If they join us in attacking the pursuers, we shall avenge our lost larvae!”

  Hunter One’s wing beats slowed. “Thirteen, who are these pursuers? Why did they attack our Pods? And were you able to kill any of them before fleeing?”

  The rush of cinnamon, lemon and dry earth smells filled the Bridge, tempting Daisy to pull on her helmet. But no one else was reaching for their helmet. And Joaquin over at Life Support had not touched his control pillar, telling her the Latino in charge of the room’s air felt no need to change anything. Although Akira now sneezed loudly. Daisy noticed Alicia was tapping on a control patch of her left armrest as she watched one of the holos in front of her. Clearly the Science Deck chief was searching for something.

  “Hunter One, we were three flying nests when Hunter Prime left for the Soft Skin system,” Thirteen said, his pheromones being translated by software created by the xenologists on Alicia’s deck. “Three rest cycles ago there appeared five six-groups of unknown flying nests at the edge of this system’s field. They ignored our warning unit and headed inward. Their arrival location does not match the launch point for any of our colonies.” Behind Thirteen a very large wasp moved into view, making Daisy wonder if this was one of the famed Matrons who were the mothers of new larvae. “When they arrived above Warmth early in this day cycle, they attacked us with balls of blackness similar to the black beams shot forth by your humans. We sent forth sky light and sky bolt beams that had no effect on the balls. When they hit a black ball, nothing happened. Often the balls dodged away from the beams. But when the balls touched a Swarmer nest, giant holes appeared in a burst of sky light unlike anything we have perceived.” The brown wings of Thirteen slowed as it pulled back from its own imager, moving sideways to allow the very large wasp to be part of his broadcast. “Our Matron called down to the Workers, Worker Leaders, Fighters and Servants caring for our newborn larvae, sending the scent of flying away to the wild lands of Warmth. But the warning came too late. The attackers sent down particle disruption seeds that filled the sky with fire and invisible particles my Servant says will kill all life it touches.” Thirteen’s two antennae leaned forward, its whole front looking sad. “We sent out scent calls and even copies of the human acoustic language to the vessels of these attackers. There was no response. After two of our nests died under the touch of these black balls, I ordered my Flight Servant to wing us outward so we could warn Food Enough of these terrible attackers.”

  “Can you still fight?” called Hunter One.

  Thirteen’s wings increased their movement. “We can. We killed three of the attacking nests when they englobed us. But our front ring is dead from the touch of orange beams shot forth by these attackers. The beam tubes still exist but the controls were killed. Our middle and tail rings can still bite, and we have a load of particle disruption seeds we can send after the two pursuers.”

  “Hunter One,” called Richard. “Does Thirteen possess visual imagery of these attackers? We must see how they fight before we meet their vessels.”

  Daisy wanted to smack her forehead. She should have thought of that earlier. The wasps used imagers similar to human flatscreens so they should have video of the attacking aliens. She looked up at Jacob, who was listening to the two wasps. Well, there was work for her to do as his XO.

  “Louise, turn us toward the fleeing wasp ship,” Daisy said. “Akira, activate our thrusters and push us toward them at eleven psol.” She looked right to the woman at Gravity. “Cassandra, reduce gravplate energy draw to a half-gee shipwide. That will cut the draw on our fusion reactors. Maggie, send their extra power to the thruster containment fields. Do it now!”

  “Angling the ship toward the wasp ship,” called Louise.

  “Activating our three thrusters,” said the Bantu woman from South Africa. “Moving out at three-tenths psol. Four-tenths. We will reach eleven psol in four minutes.”

  Green-haired Cassandra Pilotti looked her way from Gravity. “XO, gravplate power draw is reduced. All of Lepanto is now at half gee gravity.”

  “Yes!” called the Jewish woman from the Bronx as she tapped her Power control pillar. “Feeding extra power to the thruster containment fields.”

  “XO, well done,” Jacob said, sounding distracted. “All ships, follow us to rendezvous with the wasp ship.” He looked ahead. “Thirteen, share with us all imagery of these attackers and your battles with them.”

  The wallscreen image of Thirteen showed it twisting within its control chamber. “Servant for perception signals, transmit all nest records of the attackers and our fighting to the human flying nest. Send by way of the alternate dimension particle we use for distant scent-casting.”

  “Casting out the perception signals,” came translated pheromones spoken by a wasp in the background of Thirteen’s bridge. The ship leader looked back to its imager. “We wing your way, Hunter One. Let us fly together to avenge our larvae!”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Richard looked to the front wallscreen as the middle sensor image of planet four changed to a true space color image in response to the transmitted wasp battle imagery. The world’s blue oceans, brown
and purple continents, green forests and white ice caps looked beautiful, almost as wonderful as Earth or Valhalla. But that view now filled with the true light image of a fleet of thirty alien starships. Each attacking ship resembled a manta ray in shape, was silvery in color and had a long tail that emitted yellow-orange flames, which told him the attackers used fusion pulse thrusters just like humans and wasps. Worse yet, the thirty manta rays moved as a unit, much the way a flock of birds or a school of fish move in unison. That unity of movement said something about the aliens. Even the wasps, when moving to englobe human ships, had never been so exactly perfect in their group movement. Three ships at the front of the flock now shot out black balls that sped toward the watching wasps.

  “Tactical, what’s the distance from those ships to the wasp ships?” he called.

  “Three thousand and ninety kilometers, based on comparison to the known wasp ship size and the height at which the wasps attacked us,” Rosemary replied. “The alien attackers slowed to match the orbital speed of the wasp ships.”

  That gave him the range of the black antimatter balls weapon. Which was less than the range of their antimatter cannon or the gravity field of the wasp black hole weapon. But as he watched the three black balls moved apart, each aiming for one of the wasp ships.

  “Fly apart!” came the pheromone order from Thirteen to the other two wasp ships.

  In seconds the imagery became filled with yellow lightning bolts that snaked out from the front weapons rings of the three wasp ships. Joining the bolts were green carbon dioxide laser beams. Both lightspeed weapons had a range of 11,000 klicks. A dozen beams and bolts hit each black ball. Nothing happened. The imagery changed as Thirteen’s ship moved up and outward, trying to flank the oncoming attackers. Those thirty manta ray ships flowed forward like a school of deadly sharks, clearly intent on closing in on the three wasp ships. As green laser beams and yellow lightning bolts now struck some of the manta ships, damage showed as black spots. Using the combined targeting the wasps had learned during their fight against human ships, the three wasp ships kept firing as they fled from the pursuing black balls. A yellow-white star filled the spot where one manta ship had moved. Then the imagery changed to show the log-like shapes of the other two wasp ships as they lined up to hit the outer flank of the attacking ships. A second manta ray ship died in a starburst as the combined rays and bolts cut through the metal of the ship’s hull. Then a third died under the combined fire. But three of the manta ray ships turned toward the wasp ships. Out from the nose of each manta ray ship sped a single black ball. Two more black balls quickly followed from each enemy ship. Those balls sped forward quickly, moving without visible thrust. The balls swirled in wild spirals as they sped toward the wasp ships, avoiding most impacts by wasp weapons. What the hell powered those balls, he wondered?

  White starlight replaced the spot where once a wasp log-ship had existed. Three of the balls had joined to hit one ship. Richard noticed how the black balls lost their confined shape once a ball edge touched the ship hull. Blackness spread sideways in a white flare of total matter to energy conversion. As the other two balls of antimatter spread wide and joined, the ship became white starlight.

  “Look!” yelled Oliver. “There’s another group of balls heading for that other wasp ship!”

  A second flare of white starlight filled the wasp imagery.

  Thirteen’s ship was the last one left alive. It jinked and jerked and avoided a new cluster of three black balls. Green laser beams shot out from its three weapons rings, along with yellow lightning bolts. The weapons fire created black holes on two manta ray ships. Those ships fired back with coherent orange beams, one beam coming from each wing of its manta ray shape. The orange beams struck the front weapons ring of Thirteen’s ship. The front weapons tubes went silent.

  “Leave these terrible attackers!” cried Thirteen to his bridge crew. “Flight Servant, take us out to the launch spot for Food Enough. We must warn the Primes of this terrible enemy and the death of our larvae!”

  As the wasp ship turned and fled away from the fourth planet, its electro-optical scope kept watch on the manta ray fleet. That fleet moved as a single organism, resuming its oval shape. But two manta ray ships left the group organism and flew toward the fleeing wasp ship. Although both ships fired orange beams at Thirteen’s ship, those beams died out before they reached Thirteen.

  The middle wallscreen imagery went black, then was replaced by the current sensor imagery of the spreading tops of nuclear mushrooms as the 21 blasts spread over the equatorial continent. Richard hated the thought of people, even wasp people, who were even now being irradiated by the gamma rays, neutrons and x-rays of those powerful blasts. He looked up at Jacob. Who was looking down at him.

  “Chief Warrant Officer O’Connor, what is your analysis of that imagery?”

  Richard sucked in his breath. “Good and bad news. The good is that the alien attackers are not invulnerable to coherent laser and lightning bolt beams. Put enough together and the hull is cut through to vital spots. Like any ship with fusion power reactors, once they lose containment the ship becomes a mini-star. As we just saw.” He noticed how Alicia was watching him closely. “The bad news is those black balls of antimatter. They are mobile, they can dodge in any direction and once they touch a ship’s hull their containment field or whatever goes off and the negative antimatter joins with the normal hull matter to destroy a good third of a log ship. The slight good news is that each manta ray ship fires from a single nose ejector spot, similar to the exit hole for our AM cannon. Perhaps if we and the wasps focus on targeting the noses of those manta ray ships we can reduce their deadliness.”

  Jacob nodded abruptly. “Manta ray ships? I’ll go with that. But I saw orange beams coming from each defending manta ray. One beam from the right wing and one from the left wing of each ship. They shot forward, not backward. So it seems the enemy ships are built to attack forward, not sideways like we are with our proton laser nodes and our railguns. Chief, what are those orange beams?”

  “Captain, I have no idea. They are not lightning bolts, nor do they show the green of our CO2 lasers or the red of our proton lasers. Nor do they show the yellow of our plasma batteries.”

  Jacob grimaced.

  “Captain,” called Alicia from next to Richard. “I think I can identify what those orange beams are. Thanks to our spysat sensor records of that battle.”

  His captain looked surprised, then intent. “Commander, what are they?”

  “Grasers,” she said. “The beams are coherent gamma rays. Their penetrating power is easily ten times that of coherent x-rays from our thermonukes. Which means the gamma rays can penetrate deep. Unless stopped by water or lead shielding. Those graser beams fried the electronics of the wasp weapons ring. But while they are powerful, they cannot melt metal or burn through a ship’s hull.” Alicia looked to Richard. “But any human, or Marine, who is hit by a graser beam will die very soon from massive irradiation of their body cells. So it would be very smart to stay beyond the range of both these orange beams and the black antimatter balls.”

  “I concur,” Richard said, looking up to Jacob. “But at least all our ships have a water layer between the outer and inner hulls. The hull metal will slow these gamma rays and the water may stop them. I suspect a half meter of hull metal will stop these grasers from hurting people inside a ship.”

  Jacob nodded slowly. “Which means only our cruiser and destroyer can stand up to a graser hit. The frigate’s hull armor is just ten centimeters thick. Even with a water layer below, people could be hurt on the Aldertag.” He looked ahead. “Captain Sunderland, that means you need to keep one of us between you and any orange beams.”

  Richard looked at the wallscreen image of the older woman. Her blue eyes glanced his way, then up to Jacob. “Fleet captain, I understand. The Aldertag will lend our lasers and our missiles to the upcoming fight, but we will not fully expose ourselves.”

  “Good,” Jacob said. “
Comments anyone else?”

  “Sir,” called Rosemary. “The manta ray ships are big. By comparison to the wasp fighter ships, I compute they are 450 meters long and wide. Just a bit bigger than a destroyer.”

  Jacob nodded. “Anyone else?”

  Rebecca raised her coal black hand. “The Chesapeake will offer shelter to the Aldertag during combat maneuvers,” she said from her wallscreen image. “And our meter of hull armor should keep out those graser beams.”

  “Same here,” called young Joy, looking eager for a fight. “The wasp video showed the attacker hull can be penetrated by lasers. And maybe by coherent x-rays from our missile thermonukes. We have two such missiles within the armory of the Philippine Sea. And our half meter of hull armor should hold out these graser beams.”

  “Fleet captain,” called Rebecca, her expression concerned. “Should we send the Aldertag back to Kepler 10 to warn Admiral Renselaer about these deadly new aliens?”

  “Not until we’ve taken out those two chase ships,” Jacob said, his tone musing. “I want to see how our weapons do against those ships. And how these aliens maneuver. The admiral will want our combat video in addition to the wasp video.”

  Richard twisted in his seat and looked up at Jacob. “Sir, we have five hours before we rendezvous with the fleeing wasp ship and its two pursuers. How do you wish to fight the enemy?”

  Jacob sat back, his expression determined. He waved to the three women and wasp who looked at him from above the wallscreen, with its terrible imagery of hours-old nuke blasts. “At speed. Forget about slowing down to expand our engagement time. We will shoot past the wasp ship at one-tenth lightspeed and take aim at the enemy. We will combine the lasers from our four ships on one manta ray ship. I believe we will have time to make a single antimatter shot. That beam will be aimed at the other enemy ship. With luck and talent we will kill both ships before their graser beams and black balls can intersect our vector track.”