“Combat Commander, what do you think we are facing here?”
She tapped at her panel, gave a nod, then looked to him. “Everything we’ve ever faced elsewhere. While there is no way for any species to put weapons in a shell around their entire system, I expect to find them at the outer edge of the cometary disk, about planets three and four and wherever there is mining in the asteroid belt. I would expect to find Hunter-Killer torps on random-walk vectors that patrol the travel lines between each planet and the belt. The Earth-like planet at the third orbital will have layered defenses that include laser platforms, stealthed spysats, sensors, thermonuke Hunter-Killer torps and mobile mine fields.” She shrugged. “While our Higgs Disruptor beams can clear anything material from our vector path, still, some of these weapons operate at light speeds. Like our lasers, particle beams and antimatter emitters. We could be hit before we even know there is an enemy nearby.”
“Jack,” called Elaine from her Pilot seat, “there’s another danger we could face.”
Interesting. His sister was not a tactician in the combat sense, unlike Hideyoshi and the captains of the other ships. But she was smart. And had worked years as the owner and pilot of a Belter cargo transport. “Yes? What is that danger?”
She tapped on her Sensor panel. “There could be gravitomagnetic sensors dispersed in a cloud about this system. Not just in the ecliptic plane. The sensors are small, not complex and easy to make. Which is why every Earth ship and most Alien ships carry them. We could have been detected already.”
Jack licked his dry lips. While such sensors detected the FTL passage of graviton waves emitted by their grav-pull drives, they communicated by radio or maser signals. They were not big enough to power a neutrino comlink for FTL alerting of their owner. And even though the fleet had not used its grav-pull drives yet, still, every fleet ship emitted graviton waves on the low-G band. Waves that would be detected by a gravitomagnetic sensor. “Thank you, Pilot, for that warning. I agree. Such sensors could be widely dispersed about any star system. And while it would take five hours for their signal to reach the inner planets of this system, still, it means the Gyklang will know we are here. Sooner than later.” He looked up at his Mars allies. “Admiral Hideyoshi, what are your thoughts on how we should enter this system?”
The man who controlled their largest combat ship folded his hands together and frowned thoughtfully. “I too had not thought of the dispersion of cheap gravitomagnetic sensors through this system. But if it were me defending this star, I would do it. In a heartbeat.” His black eyes fixed on Jack. “We should use our Alcubierre drives to move faster than the word of our arrival is received. Either we head for planet three and take on the 15 ships clustered there, before the five ships at planet four and those in the cometary disk can arrive, or, we attack a solo ship on the edge of the disk, go silent and wait for the bulk of the Gyklang fleet to come to the aid of its wounded ship. Then we englobe those ships and kill them all.”
Jack liked both options. The Sucker Bait approach appealed to his sneaky nature. The sudden overwhelming attack at planet three made sense to his logical side. “Admiral, I like both options. Let us employ both tactics.” He caught the gaze of his Basque brother. “Captain Ignacio, please take your Badger and attack one of the solo Gyklang ships. Captain Vigdis, would you go with my brother? Your Hawk has a Higgs Disruptor which could be a vital defensive asset if the Gyklang ship comes after Ignacio.”
“Yes! We Euskaldunak will lead the charge!” called Ignacio loudly, his black beret sitting atop his head. To the right Elaine winced as she realized the result of her warning would put her lover once more into danger.
The Icelandic ship captain gave him a smile. “My people have long taken solo voyages into the wild seas. It will make a fine saga for us to tell.”
Good. He focused on Hideyoshi. “Admiral, that allows the rest of the fleet to head in-system for a sneak attack on those Gyklang ships orbiting planet three. Which will be fewer than the 15 now there. The attack on the solo ship will draw ships from the inner planets out to the cometary disk. Once we see those ships moving across the system, we will FTL jump to planet three.” He gave Elaine a thumbs-up gesture, which she ignored, not wishing to have others think her less than capable of doing her duty. “That also gives us time to demolish the automated defenses around the planet. And to find local leaders willing to revolt.”
“Excellent tactics and overall strategy,” Hideyoshi said, his tone clearly approving. “The Badger and the Hawk can both jump in-system before they are outnumbered. Later, the entire fleet can jump out-system to take on the clustered Gyklang ships. Thanks to our Alcubierre drives.”
Jack thought the same. Eventually some Hunters of the Great Dark would copy the human tactic of using FTL transport within a star system as a battle tactic. But for now the Hunters seemed stuck in their ancient behavior pattern of only using Alcubierre for star-to-star travel, with the grav-pull drives used only in-system. He guessed that something that had worked for 3,000 years would become a cultural habit. Thankfully, he, his people and his fleet were not stuck in such a behavioral rut.
“Ignacio my brother, Captain Vigdis, please go to the attack now, using your Alcubierre drives. Maintain contact with us by way of your neutrino comlink.”
“To the attack!” called Ignacio, his black mustache spreading wide in a happy grin.
“Sailing off!” called Vigdis as she gestured offscreen to her ship pilot.
The Sensor screen image lost two red dots. Shortly they would reappear near one of the solo Gyklang ships. The other ship captains turned to speaking with their bridge crews, preparing for combat. Like Jack and his people, they all wore vacsuits and helmets. Combat ready they were. Now, all he had to do was wait awhile. But he was not so good at waiting.
Feeling the need for reassurance, he mentally visualized the Uhuru, as seen from space.
At the nose, just in front of the Pilot Cabin, was the torp ejector tube. Atop the ship’s spine rose the two side-by-side railgun launchers, while on the right and left sides of their long hull were the hydrogen-fluorine laser pods with their adaptive optics focusing. At the rear was the deadly Battle Module, domain of Maureen and her whiptail emitters of antimatter and neutral particle beams. The ship’s underbelly housed the funnel of the fusion Main Drive. But the thing that pleased him most was their hull painting. The Uhuru resembled a leaping Jaguar. Snarling white teeth framed the Pilot Cabin, dark Egyptian-style eyes loomed above the teeth, long claws curled about the ship’s midbody lasers, and a tufted tail ran into the Battle Module. Gold and black jaguar spots covered the rest of the hull.
Jack felt his inner self become like the jungle jaguar. A stealthy, deadly killer who announced its presence only when the prey felt the jaguar’s teeth on its neck!
♦ ♦ ♦
“AV signals received,” called Denise alertly. “Putting the strongest one up front. Anonymous is fast-track decoding their language.”
Jack blinked, pulling his mind back from meandering thoughts of jaguars to his ship and crewmates. And the other fleet ships who would be receiving Denise’s AV commentary by way of laser tight-beam. “ComChief, thank you. Let’s see what the local folks look like.”
The true-light system imagery and the Sensor ecliptic plane data moved to either side of the screen as a new image took center place.
A daylight image of giant ostriches took form. They wore necklaces adorned with shiny Tech devices, which said these were the dominant sapients on planet three rather than some kind of wild game that happened to resemble the largest land bird of Earth. The ostrich bipeds were watching the operation of a drilling rig as it dug into the brown sand of a desert region. He looked closer at the bird-like Aliens. They had long upright necks with an oval head adorned with two eyes and a flat beak-like mouth. That mouth showed a few small teeth in it. While the two legs were yellow-skinned and free of covering, the rest of the bird was covered in black feathers. The front wings, which on Ea
rth birds were short and close to the body, in this case were located closer the flat chest of the creatures. Three small talon-fingers spouted from each wing, giving the Alien full manipulatory ability. One tall ostrich pulled a globular device off the necklace that hung from its neck and, using its wing-hand, pointed it at the steel scaffolding of the drilling rig. A squawking chirp sounded.
“Father Leader, the ChikHo on this rig are working at peak efficiency,” said the device holder. “This unit should strike the water aquifer within moments.”
The tallest of the three ostriches scratched at the sandy soil with his three-toed talon feet. “Good. We need to build a new roost here for those ChikHo displaced by the arrival of Gyklang colonists at Dutop. Though why our masters so love that cold northern island I have little understanding.”
The third ostrich, the shortest of the three, moved its head back and forth, as if nervous. “They are animals from another star system. And they birth their young alive! We Mothers do it properly with eggs properly placed to absorb the light of Daystar. Our people on Dutop were having a hard time coping with the frigid temperatures of that place. Let the Gyklang have that miserable roost!”
The first ostrich, who must be a male by comparison to the female, rehung his globe device, then looked aside at the two other ostrich people. “Even better for the Gyklang to move to the outer world of ScreeHik! Their body covering is better suited for that cold, poorly aired place.”
“If only they had chosen to do that,” Father Leader said, his short wing-hands fluttering. “But they chose to colonize Dutop. And to eat their ChikHo captives there. I wish I had been among the crew that fought that first Challenge to Combat! There are leg kick moves I learned as a youngling that would have ripped apart those furry bellies!”
The female ostrich bent her head down. “That was eighty cycles ago, before you were born. Before any of us were alive. We must cope with how life is now.”
The first male looked up at the blue sky. “So we are told by the Flock Leaders. If we had ships able to jump around without regard for inertia— ”
“You would still be meat for their sharp teeth!” chirped the female. “You males are too eager to mount a kick-fight challenge. You forget the danger to our home nests, our flocks, our elderly here on NooHik. The Gyklang possess bombs that can vaporize whole roosts! Be sensible.”
The two males flapped their wing-hands, wove their long necks from side to side, then stopped. “Well, we can run faster than these occupiers!” said the younger male. “Father Leader, Mother Leader, can you catch me? I will be first to the drill rig roost!”
Jack watched as the young male ChikHo took off in a blur of running legs. The two other ChikHo quickly followed him, brown sand kicking up from their churning legs.
“Damn fast bird people!” called Cassie.
“And sexually dimorphic,” Max said thoughtfully.
“Denise,” he called to their ComChief, “how fast do you think those ChikHo people are moving?” He kept his eyes on the three racing ostrich people, wondering if the AV broadcast was being done by a floating automated vidcam.
“The ostriches of Earth can hit 70 kilometers an hour in a fast sprint,” she said. “They can maintain 50 klicks an hour for as long as they need to, if they are escaping from a lion. And that’s for birds who weigh twice an average human!”
“Impressive,” Jack said. “Denise, how similar are these ChikHo people to the ostriches of Earth? Based on your Animal Ethology studies.”
She laughed easily. “Captain Jack, we are seeing an intelligent avian lifeform adapted to its own semi-arid habitat that includes deserts and savannah grasslands. That has led to an evolutionary convergence between our ostriches and these ChikHo. And while Earth ostriches are mainly plant-eating herbivores, these people may be omnivores. We all saw those sharp teeth in their mouths.” She paused, tapping her Comlink panel. “That said, judging from that drilling rig, their legs are as long as those of Earth ostriches and so are their necks. So, their head is close to three meters above the ground. And their eyes are very large. Both adaptations give them the ability to spot a predator from far away. On Earth, only a cheetah could keep up with an adult ostrich.”
“Captain Jack,” called Archibald, “while these bioshapes are interesting, what I got from that AV was the fact these ChikHo have been colonized just recently. Eighty years ago, from what the female said. To me, that suggests we might have luck in finding locals who are rebels. Or rebels in waiting.”
Jack had thought the same when he heard the female’s comment. And while the ChikHo species was cooperating with the Gyklang occupation, this AV showed they were not happy with it. Nor were those Flock Leaders in charge of AV programming. Otherwise this broadcast would not have been sent out on the worldwide diginet.
“Captain Jack,” called Denise, “here’s the second strongest AV broadcast from the ostrich world.”
A daylight image of a corral made of metal poles and wire took form in the front screen. It was filled with several dozen ostrich people, their heads hanging limply on their long necks, seemingly unable to rise to their normal alertness. Brown dirt made small puffs of dust when their bird-feet scuffed it. Surrounding the corral were a dozen Gyklang panda-grizzlies. At two meters tall, the grizzly bear Hunters were shorter than the ostrich people. But their black-furred arms had paw-hands that ended in four finger-claws. The crowd was snarl-talking to each other.
“These necks are easy to break!” called a grizzly whose black fur had thick white stripes across it.
Jack’s gut churned. He had expected to see AV imagery of the dominant Hunters. But he’d forgotten that Anonymous had collated the English spoken by them in Sol system with their own native snarl-speech.
“Their feathers come out so easily!” snarled another Gyklang as it grabbed an ostrich by the neck, bent the neck in half and then began ripping out the bird person’s black feathers with its finger-claws. Gray skin showed beneath the plucked feathers, red blood welling up from the long slashes made by the grizzly’s claws. It pulled the dead ostrich out of the corral and tossed it to other Gyklang waiting behind it. “Take this one! It is an elderly one. Too bony for my taste. Come here young one!”
An ostrich that was a female judging by its shortness chirped loudly. “Nooo! Do not pluck my feathers! Do not eat—”
Its plea died as the grizzly broke her long neck.
Denise choked. Cassie moaned low. Blodwen cursed in Welsh. Nikola and Elaine cursed in Belter jargon. Maureen growled in her holo.
“Bloody bastards!” Max and Archibald said angrily.
Jack felt the acidity of vomit that wanted to rise up his throat. He swallowed once, twice, then reached for his bottle of water. He needed it.
The scene changed to one of an indoor room. Frost showed on its walls. No Gyklang was present. But several dozen ChikHo were present.
Only these ChikHo had been plucked of their feathers, their necks broken and their bellies ripped open. They hung from metal hooks attached to the room’s ceiling, suspended by their broken necks. A voice-over spoke in Gyklang snarl-speech.
“The annual donation of living ChikHo has filled our freezers full!” the voice said loudly. “All Gyklang cubs and mates are invited to visit these freezers and make their selection for the annual celebration of our colony’s founding on this world. The Hunt territory of the Gyklang collective expands and expands! And as we expand, we eat those subject peoples who are too weak to survive. A lesson is thereby taught to cubs and to subject peoples that—”
“Shut it off!”
The imagery disappeared, to be replaced by the Sensor map of system emissions and the true-light imagery of 54 Piscium’s six worlds and orange star. Jack looked back to Denise, whose face was paler than normal, making her freckles stand out even more. “No more AVs with Gyklang in them!”
“Understood.” The redhead swallowed hard.
“Captain Jack,” called Elaine, “my sensors show the Badger and th
e Hawk have arrived near a solo Gyklang ship. They will attack it shortly.”
His pilot’s Sensor alert reminded him there were multiple parts to this entry into the Piscium system. “Pilot, thank you. Sociologist, what else can you tell about these ChikHo from these AV images and their similarity to Earth ostriches?”
“Limited analysis is possible,” Blodwen said from the rear, her tone thoughtful. “Earth ostriches do pair up as a couple, and during breeding season they can group into as many as 100 birds. They are diurnal, able to be active both in day and in the night. And Earth ostriches live up to 45 years. Based on the comments of these three ChikHo, it’s clear they have a complex society with different social grouping levels. And it’s also clear their rulers make an annual donation of living ostrich people to the Gyklang. Which is a standard element of domination by these social carnivore Hunters.”
“Thank you.” Jack looked to his ComChief, who seemed to have recovered from the bloody AV imagery. “Denise, scan the other incoming AV broadcasts for imagery of their world and their spaceships. I want to see what things are like around this world of theirs.”
She nodded quickly, perhaps glad to have a task. “Searching.”
“Well, their world of NooHik has a moon,” Nikola said from behind him. “Got a good image of their world-moon pair from the Big Eye. Their moon is nearly the size of Earth’s moon. Its distance from NooHik is about 300,000 kilometers.”
“Good to know!” He scanned an image of the planet-moon pair as Nikola put it up on the front screen. “Give Elaine the coordinates for that moon-planet pair. I want the fleet to FTL jump in between NooHik and the moon for our attack on the Gyklang guardian ships.”
“Transferring them,” Nikola said, her tone intent.
Freedom Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series Book 3) Page 23
