Jack leaned forward. “Greetings. Your ships were our meat today. We eat. Leave this planet, or we will attack.”
The eagle-lion Alien blinked. “You claim Meat under the Rules of the Great Dark?” it said in a shrill rasping voice.
The blood pounded in Jack’s ears. This was the moment of truth as he faced down a Hunter of the Great Dark. “Yes! We claim Meat right! This is now our hunting range. In our home system we are the apex predator! We drove away the Rizen, Yiplak, Nasen, Gyklang, Hackmot, Krisot and HikHikSot and made them meat. We now do the same to you. This system is now part of human Hunt territory!”
Behind the speaker hovered three other Krisot, flapping their wings. The four occupied the interior of a high-domed building with clerestory windows that seemed to open directly to the outside air. Touch panels floated nearby on air-cushions, while in the distance stood upright poles with roosting perches on them. Every avian screeched harshly. Then the Krisot who had signaled them by neutrino comlink flapped its wings.
“This planet has been part of our territory for two hundred orbits of this world about its star,” the Krisot shrieked. “Leave! Or we will call in a new attack flock from our home world!”
Jack grinned, unsnapped his seat restraints, then stood up. “We humans enjoy eating the flying creatures of our world. Those we do not eat we have trained to be our servants. Denise! Broadcast an image of a Bedouin with a hunting falcon on his wrist.” He waited a moment, then leaned forward. “We humans now control this system! We are predators more powerful than you or those who came to our system. Leave on your colony ship that is on the nearby moon, or we will fill the air of your island with radioactive dust. Every Krisot will fall from its perch!”
“Noooo!” cried the Krisot, its forearm talons striking the air before it. “We Krisot claim the subject people of this world! They benefit from our rule. They are eager to—”
“Max, launch a thermonuke torp against the northwest coast urbus. I think its lasers are still dead from our EMP blast.”
“Launching,” his friend said in a somber voice.
On screen the Krisot leader looked down at a fifth Krisot who held station above a floating panel. Talk-talk in the Krisot language filled the air. The leader looked back to Jack. “Stop! We will leave! We agree this is now Human Hunt territory!”
Jack waited a moment. “You Krisot will leave the island you now occupy within three local days. Use every space shuttle you have to move your people to your ship on the moon. Which will need your engineers in the first load, since your base there is dead.” He grinned widely. “We ate them too. Any Krisot left on the island after three days will become our meat!”
“Accepted,” rasped the Krisot leader, his wings flapping hurriedly.
“You will also stop hunting the Nuuthot peoples! Any natives in corrals or held elsewhere by you will be released now! If we see any further hunting of these people, we will vaporize the nearest Krisot community. Understood?”
“Understood. By what flight name do we call you?”
“Jack,” he said softly. “Jack Munroe. And be aware. My flock of nine ships is hungry to taste Krisot flesh. But we will allow you to leave this system alive . . . so long as you cause no trouble to us or to the Nuuthot.”
The Alien’s red eyes flashed with anger, but screeches from its aerospace monitoring companion caused it to temper its English. “Your thermonuclear missile is entering the atmosphere above our island. Will you recall it?”
“Yes.” Jack gestured back to his friend. “Max, take the torp into orbit. Or use its onboard self-destruct if it lacks the fuel to make orbit. But try to preserve it.”
“Working on it, Captain Jack.”
Jack met the red eyes of his defeated enemy. “What is your flight name, defeated one?”
The Krisot clenched its talon fingers along with its feet-claws, but stayed in hover mode before the neutrino imager that sent its voice and image to the Uhuru. “My flight call is Sharp Beak of the Wintry Flock.”
Jack nodded slowly, still standing and leaning forward. “Sharp Beak, we humans rarely give mercy to defeated enemies. Tell that to your home world, when your colony ship arrives there. If your world tries to attack this system, the human Sol system, or any other system we have added to our Hunt territory, know this. Your Home world will be vaporized by our antimatter beams. Your species will be dust before the galactic wind.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Minutes after ending the neutrino comlink surrender talk with the Krisot leader, Jack noticed their orbital vector was bringing them to a position above the larger of the two continents inhabited by the Nuuthot. Its shape resembled North America. Like most landscapes on this world the continent showed a massive green forest that stretched from the west to the east coast, while a long archipelago stretched south to end right at the equator. The second major continent, smaller than this one, straddled the equator and resembled a tilted over Africa in shape. Massive rivers cut through both continents. Where the rivers forked and where they emptied into the sea were the sites of steel, concrete, brown stone and glass cities. The cities were mostly a grouping of glass-sided spears, as if the Nuuthot sought to imitate the tall trees of their ancestral forests.
“Denise, any data from the Nuuthot AV broadcasts on their population, evolution as a people and remaining land predators?” he asked as his fellow ship captains waited for the next stage in Jack’s effort to build an alliance with an Alien people used to bloody domination by social carnivore predators.
“Yes, Captain Jack,” she said, looking up from her Comlink panel. Her jade green gaze was serious. “Captain Gareth’s onboard Sociologist and I have computed, based on habitation surveys from orbit, that this planet supports about two billion Nuuthot. Their tech base is similar to Earth’s from forty years ago. They have jets, hover ships that traverse the three large oceans, surface transport that seems to rely on long-haul monorails, several hundred fission and fusion reactors for grid power, farmland areas that fill grassy plains, large herds of animals that resemble brown-furred sheep, GPS and communications satellites, the nearby space station and a space fleet of twenty fusion pulse spaceships. No signs of large land predators. Their solid green fur is a sign of cryptic coloration intended to hide them from local predators. However the presence of herd animals suggests they are omnivores, like us. And as I mentioned earlier, they have a three-person ruling group which they call Pack Central,” she summarized. “Some nature-type AV programs indicate they were originally arboreal and they still prefer to spend part of each year in their local forests, gathering fruit and doing whatever giant monkeys with long tails do in an Alien forest!”
He chuckled, then glanced up at the Dragon’s ship master. “Captain Gareth, your scope survey of the Krisot island was very helpful in my negotiations. Any guidance on where this planet’s capital urbus might be? Based on land and aerial traffic patterns? Or on any other data from Denise or other folks?”
The stocky, broad-shouldered man who looked younger than Maureen, grinned amiably. “Well, Blodwen Llywelyn is our Sociologist. She might have some ideas. Shall I bring her into this talk?”
“Yes,” Jack said impatiently. “I wish to contact the Nuuthot leaders before we complete this orbit.”
Gareth gestured to someone off-screen. “Come forward, my flower. Captain Jack does not bite. And he is relatively civilized for someone who never knew Earth.”
Jack swallowed his retort, then focused on the tall, bony-armed woman who came into motion-eye pickup on Gareth’s ship. She had long blond hair that reached her shoulders, dark green eyes like Denise, and a no-nonsense manner. “Captain Jack Munroe,” she said alertly as she rolled up her leotard sleeves to reveal rad-tanned arms. “There are 143 major population centers on the two Nuuthot-occupied continents. What seems to be the largest urbus, which might equate to a planetary capital, is the mountain-slope city that we will pass over in five minutes. Its location is in the center of this continent, similar to t
he Denver of Earth’s Rocky Mountains.”
Damn. He was going to have to hurry. “Thank you, Blodwen, that was exactly what I need to know. Any ideas on the nature of these Nuuthot? Are they omnivore, herbivore or carnivore? Is their social leadership based on patriarchy, matriarchy, corporate CEO, religious dominance or—”
“Captain!” the thirty-something woman said abruptly, her tone sounding amused. “We Sociologists are not mind readers! We will have to use Denise’s translation matrix to find out most of what you mention,” she said, looking past Jack to his ComChief. “While all three food orientations include the eating of plants, flowers, buds and such, I agree with Denise they are likely omnivores. The AV broadcasts captured by Denise and shared with our ships did show the Nuuthot eating raw pieces of these sheep-like creatures, though most meals in the AV broadcasts were dominated by the orange fruit balls, green tubers, things that resembled red grapes, lots of types of nuts, and sometimes a fish-like creature. Also eaten raw. There was no AV imagery of heat-cooking of food.”
Interesting. He nodded to Gareth’s expert. “Thank you, Blodwen. Please stay tuned to my upcoming discussions with these Nuuthot leaders.” Jack glanced back to Denise, who was leaning forward eagerly, as if anticipating a question from him. “ComChief Denise, fount of AV wisdom, have you isolated one or more AV broadcast frequencies that are used for official announcements? I want to talk with these Pack Central people. Oh, and can you do an automated translation of my English to spoken Nuuthot?”
Denise gave him an eager nod. Several nods. “Yes, yes and yes! With Nikola’s help and Elaine’s suggestions, I’ve used the algorithm programs of Autonomous to create an automatic translation function. So anything the Nuuthots say will be heard by Autonomous, translated to English and fed to your screen talker. The same will happen in reverse for anything you say to them.” She paused, tapped her right-side armrest panel, then nodded thoughtfully. “There are three primary AV programs used for public announcements. But there is only one AV channel where the three members of Pack Central appear.”
“Perfect.” Jack looked up front. “Admiral Hideyoshi, Captains Minna, Ignacio, Akemi, Júlia, Gareth, Aashman and Kasun, any comments or suggestions before I talk to these Nuuthot? My plan is to wake them up to their control of their own world and their system. And maybe trade them some Tech info for fresh food and fuel.”
The Leopard’s captain waved briefly. “Fleet Captain Jack, my crew and I thank you for allowing the Krisot colonists to live,” Kasun said. “While their predator hunting ways are not the ways of the Buddha, still, allowing them life is in keeping with our Sri Lankan heritage. We thank you.”
Jack nodded slowly, wondering if there was more behind Kasun’s statement. Still, the man had fought bravely during their Gathering Hall battle on Sedna. And since. Perhaps he meant just what he stated. “Thank you, Captain Kasun. You, your ship and your crewmates have all fought bravely during our space battles. I rely on your help in future battles, though I promise there will never be needless conflict.”
Kasun’s brown eyes widened, then the man gave him a slight bow. “Excellent! We are of the Belt, but our people still follow the lifeways of our ancestral home on Earth.”
Jack scanned the other captains. “Anyone else? You all have been loyal and patient in following my lead. But now, we are not in combat. There is time to discuss what happens next.”
Ignacio of the Badger smiled slowly. “My clan-mate who still wears his boina, of course we follow you! You and Max were the first to fight for humanity’s freedom. And you led us all in the battle that freed our worlds from Unity domination.” The man who’d spent years doing hard mining work on a dozen different asteroids leaned forward, his black eyes bright. “Let us make allies of these Nuuthot. I for one am willing to donate the grav-pull drive we salvaged from our dead Krisot ship to these natives. No doubt they will need grav-pull drives to defend their system in the future, when we are not here.”
Jack smiled back at his friend. The man’s suggestion was something he had thought long about during their FTL trip out to the system. He noticed the front screen image now showed them passing above the mountain-slope city that Blodwen thought was their world capital. “Denise! Send an AV signal down to that Nuuthot city. Say the people who have defeated the Krisot wish to speak with Pack Central.”
“Sending,” she said, her tone eager.
He watched the young woman with red braids. Denise had abandoned her parents in order to go spacefaring with him and Max. A stowaway at first, the girl had shown herself to be brave, smart, creative and with initiative to spare. Jack liked how she had spent their FTL trip time working on SETI translation programs with the ship’s Autonomous central computer. It made him feel a bit guilty over his party drinking and romancing of Nikola.
Denise looked up at him, her gaze intense. “We’re getting a Come-Back signal from that city, on the Pack Central AV frequency. Going onto the front screen.”
Jack turned around and faced forward, though his peripheral vision told him that Maureen was pulling up a Tactical Display holo that included the two Nuuthot ships at the space station, while beyond her Elaine had a side screen that showed sensor feeds from the entire star system. Trust his sister to cover his back! He looked below the images of his fellow captains to the incoming AV.
Three green-furred, eight foot tall Nuuthot filled the front screen. The three stood within a stone-walled chamber illuminated by ceiling light globes that cast an orangeish glow on them and the Tech panels that adorned tall pillars to either side of the group. Two were dressed in rainbow-colored chiton outfits while one wore equally colorful short pants. Small Tech devices hung from waist belts worn by each person. Their heads, hands and feet were unadorned. Three pairs of purple eyes fixed on Jack as three sets of long prehensile tails lifted behind these leaders.
“We are Pack Central,” spoke the chiton-clothed Nuuthot who stood at the screen’s left side. In the deep background Jack heard the Alien’s words in the original, a series of barks, shrieks and yelps that were high-toned. The Nuuthot’s yellow pupils grew small as it reacted to the yellow light of the Pilot Cabin. “I am Sot. We observed your battle with our Krisot masters at the moon Nota. And we have watched your broadcast of the order for the Krisot to leave our island Malinda. Why are you . . . why have you Humans come to our star system?”
Jack unlocked his seat restraints and stood up, drawing the visual attention of the three. “I am Jack Munroe, a male human. I am Pack Leader of our group of nine starships. Beside and behind me are my ship crew. They are like family to me,” he said, hoping his guess at the Nuuthot social structure was valid. “We came to your star system to seek a . . . a fellow pack in the climbing of the tree that we have erected against these interstellar carnivores. We expelled the Krisot and other social carnivores from our home system. We have done the same here, in the hope that you and your people will now choose to control your home system.”
The chiton-robed Nuuthot glanced left at the other two members of Pack Central, then looked back at Jack. “We Nuuthot remember when we were the only life in our system. But many years ago we ventured to pass beyond our outermost planet. When we did, the Krisot made Challenge to our ship crew. Our crew died. Our Pack defenders could not make dead the Krisot ships. They bombarded our clan clusters until we accepted their rule. The Krisot became our masters under the Rules of the Great Dark. Do you now rule us?”
“No!” Jack said loudly, then took a deep breath. “We will leave your star system in several days. This system is yours once again, to defend it or not as you choose. Are there any Pack defenders left?”
The left-side Nuuthot tilted its head to one side, then gestured at the middle Nuuthot. “Beside me stands Pack Defender Tok, a female. Beyond her stands Mikah, a male, who is our Pack Teacher. My task is Pack Home, guider of families, clans and packs across our world. I too am female. Do you speak now to Tok?”
“Yes, by your guidance,” Jack said, hoping h
is phrasing came somewhat close to the social relationships he was hearing for the first time.
Tok the female Pack Defender gripped both hands together in front of Jack. “Hunter Jack Munroe, I preserve the knowledge of how we once defended our Packs. What do you intend?”
Jack gripped both his hands together. “I intend to help you once more defend the Nuuthot from the Hunters of the Great Dark. We will deliver to your space station three grav-pull space drives, which allow negation of inertia and permit normal space travel up to eighty percent of the speed common to light.” The white-tipped tails of all three Nuuthot shot up behind them. “Also, my Drive Engineer Max Piakowski, a male, will provide you with the control language to work these devices. He will also provide you with the construction plans for a faster-than-light stardrive, so you may visit our human system if you wish. And another male engineer of our Pack, one Archibald Wheeler, will teach your spaceship engineers how to build a device that emits antimatter. It is a weapon more powerful than lasers or rockets or nuclear detonations. With it you can defeat any new Hunters of the Great Dark that may visit your system.”
Tok gripped her chiton robe at the two points where it crossed her shoulders as her tail startlement gave way to sinuous movement. “Those are . . . valuable offerings. Will you require the lives of our people in exchange, in the Krisot way?”
“Never!” Jack said loudly, then mentally kicked himself at his emotional reaction to how these Nuuthot saw him and his people through the lens of the Krisot. Who were the only Aliens they had ever known. “Understand this. While we humans are social predators like the Krisot and the Hunters of the Great Dark, we do not seek to rule your lives, or eat your people. We do seek an alliance of your Pack with our Pack so that our two peoples, in common tree effort, can defend our families, clans and packs against future attacks by these Hunters.”
Humans Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series Book 2) Page 9
