Humans Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series Book 2)

by T. Jackson King

  Hideyoshi gave Jack one of his rare smiles. “Correct. Guess I will have to promote Navigator Lieutenant Zhāng Dingbang to Fleet Commander rank!”

  Elaine tilted her head like a sparrow hunting for a worm. “Will she object? Will the rest of your fleet have a problem?”

  The pudgy Japanese man’s thin black eyebrows rose slightly as he smiled more. “Hardly. She is experienced, she graduated from the South Pole Naval Academy fifteen years ago, and she knows how to build loyalty amongst a crew. Those abilities will allow her to handle a fleet of eighteen ships. Though, Captain Jack, our fleet could use more grav-pull drives, as I am sure Gareth’s fleet also could. How do you plan to allocate the ten grav-pull drives that Captain Aldecoa scavenged from the Second Sedna Battle?”

  “Good question,” Gareth said, his manner professional. “My assistant Helena Antonov can handle the remaining nine ships from the second Belter fleet. Slavs like her are good at command. But we also could use more grav-pull drives for our ships.”

  Jack relaxed in his chair. No one was challenging his decision to leave most of the human ships in Sol system, with the exception of his first Belter fleet augmented by the Bismarck and Dragon. “Hideyoshi, five grav-pulls go to Gareth’s fleet, while five go your Mars fleet. Share and share equally is my plan for any salvaged Alien devices. Which is what we’ve been doing these last two weeks here on Mathilde. Your Bismarck, and one of your destroyers, are now outfitted with antimatter beamers and the Alcubierre FTL drive. The same for Gareth’s Dragon and one of his commerce raider ships. As Matthias has suggested, I’m sure he can convert one or two more ships to carry Higgs Disruptor beamers, albeit at the cost of their neutral particle beamer.”

  Max, who knew Jack from long service with him before the Rizen battle, crossed muscular arms over his broad chest and gave him a wry smile. “So all we little ant workers have to do is polish the ship hallways, refuel our deuterium and helium-3 tanks, stock your favorite Cuban cigars and lay in plenty of steaks, eh Jack?”

  Elaine and Cassie laughed, as did Maureen, Nikola and Denise. Gareth, Matthias, Hideyoshi, Ignacio, Minna, Kasun, Júlia, Akemi and the rest smiled easily at Max’s humor, or waited patiently for Jack’s planning conference to end so they could all get on with eating the steaks that had been delivered to their table five minutes earlier. Jack picked up his fork and poked it into an imported elk steak that had been cooked medium rare. “Well, booze, cigars and steaks did work to recruit you folks and your crews! And Max, the Control software you did for our use of the grav-pull drives has been vital to our survival. And to our use of Alien tech. Your integration of that Rizen Alcubierre drive shell module into the Uhuru was masterful! I can’t wait to try it out!”

  Nikola sighed. “You also can’t wait to get away from scores of people demanding you make their decisions for them, can you Jack?”

  He grimaced. His lifemate knew him too well after the months they had been together, on Charon and now on Mathilde. “Guilty I plead. Let some topsuck politico in the Citizen Council here figure out how to run commerce among independent human settlements!”

  Most everyone nodded sympathetically and bent to their own plates filled with steak, hot potatoes, string beans and large slabs of butter made from the asteroid’s cow herd. But samurai descendant Akemi looked up from her plate of rice and steak, her expression sober. “How long will we be gone from Sol system, Captain Jack? The farthest star you’ve mentioned is 121 light years away, and the rest are scattered across this part of Orion Arm.”

  “Let me,” Nikola said lightly. She looked to the woman whose katana sword had made easy work of killing Aliens in single combat at Sedna’s Gathering Hall. “Based on the fact that it took a bit over two months for Menoma’s FTL probe to get to his system, and for his comrades to come back to Sol system, I calculate that this Alcubierre drive shell system can move us at four light years per day. So getting to the closest subject people at Epsilon Eridani will take almost three days to cover the 10.5 light years to that system.”

  Ignacio frowned and swallowed a chunk of steak. “Uh, Nikola, just how big is our Orion Arm?”

  Jack knew the answer from his Tech studies. But Nikola was their fleet’s Chief Astronomer and the one person who had some clue about how to navigate through interstellar space. “Not too big,” she said with a broad smile as she waved her fork at his Basque brother. “Maybe 8,000 light years long.”

  “Eight thousand!” cried Ignacio, his mustache moving erratically. “It will take forever for us to travel anywhere!”

  “Not really,” Nikola said, putting down her fork and leaning forward as if the table folks were a grad school class. “The Milky Way galaxy is bigger. About 100,000 light years from edge to edge. Sol system lies about 27,200 light years out from the giant black hole at the center of our galaxy. But yes, traveling to other arms of the galaxy would take a good while, even with this Alcubierre drive shell.”

  His ComChief Denise looked up from cutting into her steak. “Captain Jack, when do we board our ships and head out of Sol system? There are supplies we need to—”

  “Three days,” Jack interrupted. “That gives us time to haul in plenty of elk and deer steaks for Trade with friendly Aliens, plus food, water, beer, wine and fusion drive fuel. And that includes the plant restocking for each ship’s Garden section so we have maximum oxy output and carbon dioxide uptake.” He paused, then grinned at Denise. “Uh yes, you can bring along your little globe of goldfish! They don’t compete with us for oxygen.”

  The nineteen year-old grinned big, her red freckles showing bright against her pale white face. “Great!”

  Archibald looked at white-bearded Matthias, then to Jack. “Uh, guess that means he and I need to cancel any student classes for later than three days from now? And why three days?”

  Nikola chuckled. “Guys, you do not know how much my Jack hates politics! Mathilde’s Citizen Council meets in four days. Jack wants to be gone before they can try to give us orders to do something.”

  Everyone laughed.

  Jack felt bemused by Nikola’s swift reading of his likes and dislikes. She was becoming a unique lifemate. And a woman to be reckoned with. He just hoped she did her gyrojet handgun practice outside of the asteroid’s torus habitat. Air leaks were not something he wished to explain to anyone!

  Hideyoshi fixed sympathetic black eyes on him. “My sister is like your Nikola. She knows me too well. Is always insisting I show up for a sushi and saké formal meal at her place on Mars. Which is one reason I am happy to go star-to-star traveling!”

  Jack grinned at the man, and at the knowing looks of his fellow ship captains and crewmates. These were people who had risked their lives in battle with him, or to do spy work like Cassie. They were loyal. They were more than competent. And they would be the first humans to go traveling star-to-star. In three days time.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Fifty AU above Sol’s ecliptic the nine ships of Jack’s fleet clustered together as the first humans to attempt interstellar travel. The fact that FTL travel was normal to the social carnivore predators who roamed the millions of stars in Orion Arm meant nothing to Jack, his crewmates and his fellow captains. They had just exited their grav-pull drives, rejoining normal space-time, something Jack had heard Nikola refer to as Riemannian manifold space. A term that had something to do with Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. His head began to ache.

  Turning from the front screen that carried the images of his eight other captains and the purple velvet of deep space, where rainbow colored stars shone with no twinkle against the depths of eternity, Jack looked back to Nikola. Who sat at her Chief Astronomer’s station, restraint straps over her shoulders and her hands hovering above the Astro panel she had pulled over her lap. She tapped on the panel as she stared intensely at a sidearm screen that showed stellar locations as within a galactic coordinate system. Beyond her sat Denise, with Max seated beyond at his Drive Engineer post. His Polish friend also held his hands above
the newly installed Alcubierre drive shell Control panel.

  Nikola looked over to Elaine at her Pilot station. “Ready to enter the coordinates for Epsilon Eridani?”

  “Yes.” Elaine rubbed her narrow chin as she sat at her Pilot/Navigator station. “We are all facing east towards the direction of galactic rotation. The other ships are in laser comlink with my station. Give me the numbers.”

  Nikola looked back down at her Astro panel. “Galactic coordinates for Epsilon relative to Sol are minus 6.820 light years away from galactic center, minus 1.966 away from galactic rotation and minus 7.733 below the equatorial plane of the galaxy. Straight-line distance is 10.50 light years. Relative to Sol’s position.” She tap-tapped on her panel. “These numbers will bring us to the outer edge of the Epsilon Eridani system, beyond the outermost dust rings.”

  Denise pursed her lips, her expression puzzled. “Uh, what do all those numbers mean, Nikola? I understand the distance. Not the rest.”

  Nikola grinned, then looked up from her Astro panel. “Denise, the simple answer is that the star we are heading for is located nearly seven light years closer to the galactic center than our Sol, nearly two light years further behind Sol in its orbit about galactic center, and nearly eight light years below the galactic ecliptic or equator. In short, Epsilon Eridani is behind us and lower as it orbits the galaxy, by reference to our Sol star. Clear?”

  Denise blinked jade green eyes, squinted at the front screen which showed the fat spearhead bodies of the eight other fleet ships, with predator images painted on their hulls, then sighed. “Yeah, I think so. Guess it’s like when you go scuba swimming in a globular pool at Mathilde. There are swimmers above you, below you, behind you and in front of the direction you are swimming. Right?”

  Nikola gave their teen a brilliant smile. “Yes! That’s a good analogy. Now, let me and Elaine finish up here and then good Max will start the Alcubierre drive and send us on our way.”

  Denise smiled, happy to be taken seriously, then looked to him. “Captain Jack, you are lucky to have Nikola. She’s really patient with folks not as smart as her.”

  Max chuckled, Elaine smiled, Maureen gave a long sigh as their combat veteran peered at a combat holo simulation that floated above her Combat station, Nikola looked down at her panel, and Jack nodded slowly. “Yup. Nikola is brilliant. And patient with everyone. But you, Denise, are very sharp too. You explained to us about Müllerian mimicry, the aposematic coloration of predators and the territorial acquisition impulse when we had our first Alien battles. Which data we have shared with our other captains, including battle vids for the various Aliens we fought. So, relax.”

  The young woman, dressed in a black leotard like all of them, sat back in her cushioned seat, a happy look on her face. “Thank you Captain Jack! I’ll try. Relax, I mean.”

  He looked to his sister Elaine who had been following the talk-talk. “See? I’m not the only one who overtalks stuff.”

  Elaine grinned broadly, shook her head, then pulled on her headband to control her long brown curls. “Nikola, I’ve entered those numbers and laserfaxed them to the other ships. My NavTrack computer says we are properly oriented. Time for Max to activate our stardrive?”

  “Sis,” Jack called to Elaine. “Are we in laser time-lock link with our fleet ships?”

  “Of course! Though that will disappear once we enter our own Alcubierre space-time manifold.” She looked back at Max, whose fingers were tap-tapping on his Alcubierre drive panel. “Max, any time now.”

  “Alcubierre stardrive activated. Main reactor is feeding power to its module.” Max looked Jack’s way and grinned widely. “We’re heading out. Look at the starfield ahead! It’s shrinking!”

  Jack turned back to watch the front screen with its image of local space. The images of his other fleet captains disappeared as the laser link bent due to the gravitational lensing that was one part of an Alcubierre stardrive. Max and Archibald had explained to him that the Alcubierre drive squeezed space in front of them and expanded it to their rear, causing their ship, lying within a drive shell bubble, to jump forward at a speed that quickly exceeded classical light speed. But since their ship existed in a warped space-time bubble, they were not subject to the usual gravitational, time and length distortions that Einstein’s Special Relativity said happened when a physical object came close to the speed of light. True, they could not see beyond the bubble shell. But in return for being cut off from normal space-time their ship Uhuru, and the eight other ships of the fleet, were traveling at a speed equal to four light years per day. Instead of taking twenty years to go four light years by fusion pulse drive, or five years by way of a gravity-pull drive, they would be at their target star in less than three days.

  “Anyone want a beer?” Jack asked.

  Elaine looked quickly his way. “You got micro-brews on this boat? Is there any Europa Pale Ale in the cold lockers?”

  “Yes,” Jack said, grinning at his crewmates. He unlocked his seat’s restraint straps and stood up in the one gee gravity provided by the operation of the ship’s grav-pull generator. “Last one to the Refectory has to clean up after us!” He took off at a run, barely clearing the pressure hatch as it opened onto the Spine hallway.

  “Jaaaack!” wailed Nikola. “That’s not fair!”

  He grinned, running along the Spine. The Refectory was the closest section of the ship. Beyond it lay the Med Station, Rest Area with its private cabins, the EVA Hold with their Lander, the Garden and finally Max’s Mech Shop. Beyond the Shop lay the fuel tanks, reactors and fusion pulse drive module. No doubt the six of them would visit every air-filled inch of the Uhuru over the next two and a half days. And maybe young Denise would make some headway in translating the HikHikSot talk chatter that they had recorded during the Second Sedna Battle. He didn’t care. He aimed to drink plenty of beer, eat a few steaks, get nicely buzzed and then seduce Nikola into their cabin for some loveplay.

  “I’m gaining on you!” cried Nikola from behind him as four other pairs of feet pounded the Spine’s metal floor.

  Jack hoped so.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The Uhuru and the other eight ships of the fleet dropped out of their Alcubierre drive shells just two point six days after entering the altered space-time. Jack looked at the front screen’s image of Epsilon Eridani, an orange K2V main sequence star. In the foreground shimmered the golden brown dust of an asymmetric dust ring that circled the star at about 60 AU out. The images of his other ship captains popped on at the top of the screen. Then the screen split into two side-by-side images as Nikola focused the adaptive optics of the ship’s new 30 meter reflector telescope on the space ahead. She had named it the Big Eye. Three half disks of varying sizes showed faintly against the velvet black of space.

  “Nikola? Are those planets?” Jack asked, trying to remember the data he’d studied on the trip out, in between booze bouts.

  “They are,” she said, tapping her Astro panel behind him. “Denise, send this imagery and my comments to the other ships via our tight-beam laser link.” She held silent a moment. “Okay, I think I know what we are seeing. See my orange cursor point?”

  “Yes,” “Yes”, “Yes”, said Jack, Maureen, Elaine, Denise and Max simultaneously.

  “Wow. An attentive audience,” Nikola said, her tone amused. “Well, we knew that this system had a gas giant planet just a bit larger than Jupiter. That’s the middle one, or planet two. It now lies about five AU out from that orange star. The first planet, closest in, is a small Earth-like world lying in the liquid water ecozone. Its orbit is about one-half AU from the star with an orbital year of 157 days. And there’s a small moon circling it.” She paused. “Planet three is the outermost world, at around 7.7 AU distance. Its orbital period is about 25 years. And it seems to be a super-Jupiter gas giant.”

  “Nikola,” called Elaine. “My infrared sensors show that dust ring to be elongated, or asymmetric. Why? Another planet we can’t see yet?”

  “Hmmm
,” murmured his lifemate. “Yeah, could be. The Earth researchers earlier this century thought another planet could lie at about 30 AU out from the star. If it is a planet, it’s on the far side of the system and hidden by the star’s radiance.”

  “Damn!” cried Elaine as she looked aside at her armrest Sensor panel. “Picking up a dozen gravitomagnetic pulse signatures! From the system ahead, scattered all across the inner part of the system. From planet two inward to planet one,” she said, her tone tense. “Aliens or locals?”

  Maureen tapped her Combat panel into three dee simulation mode. “Loading those sensor readings now, along with the orbital tracks Nikola described. Plus the data from our UV, gamma ray, x-ray, neutrino, graviton, EMF and other sensors,” she said, her voice calm. “Ah! There are twenty neutrino emission sources moving around that inner system, in addition to the grav-pull drives registered by Elaine. That tells me someone is using fusion pulse drives like our Main Drives, while other folks are using grav-pull drives. Maybe the Aliens who control this system didn’t give the grav-pull specs to the ‘herbivore’ folks, unlike what the HikHikSot did in Sol system.”

  Jack tapped on his left armrest Weapons panel, which allowed him to back up Maureen’s Combat Module. “So maybe there are twelve Alien ships running around the system, while the locals have twenty ships doing slow runs?” he said. “Perhaps the locals are bringing in deuterium and helium-3 isotopes from mining the atmosphere of that Jupiter planet.”

  “Maybe, Captain Jack,” said Denise thoughtfully, then touched a speaker bud in her ear. “My neutrino comlink is picking up Alien talk-talk that is not HikHikSot language nor any other Alien language we recorded at Sedna. Can’t match the signals to any particular ship emission. And we don’t have any ship imagery to compare with our Sedna records.”

  He looked screenward to the thoughtful face of Hideyoshi. “Admiral, how do you read these emissions? And these motion tracks?”