Aliens Vs. Humans (Aliens Series Book 4) (20 page)

“Blodwen,” Jack called. “Do you have a population estimate for that northern urbus?”

“Uh, um, yes.” She paused as she consulted her panel that contained her analyses of the world below. “My data suggest three million inhabitants.”

Jack nodded slowly. It was a start. “Thank you. Now, watch.”

They all watched as five more thermonukes evaporated five major cities of the Rizen. Then what he expected happened.

“Jack!” called Denise. “Incoming AV signal! From the Rizen city with the grav-pull ship. Do I display it?”

He unsnapped his restraint locks, reached down and grabbed his Viking sword Old Roy and stepped to the center of the front row of seats. Standing just in front of Maureen’s seat, he lifted the sword so its point was aimed at the motion-eye above the front screen.

“Display the signal.”

The front screen wavered, lost the image of the east coast of Lush Fields, then solidified into a color image. They all stared.

The six-legged Alien in the image resembled a cross between a lion and a rhinoceros, but one with red-and-black striped skin, sleek body muscles, and talon-toes. The platy hide looked tough as steel. The sextuped’s front leg pair showed manipulative fingers more flexible than a human’s, but stiffer than ropes. The front end supported a dome-skull, below which were two black eyes. The wide-set eyes peered at them without blinking. A tool belt hung from the Alien’s midbody, otherwise it wore no obvious clothes. The Rizen stood within a red-walled Tech room. Elaine’s backtrack of the AV signal said it came from the spaceship landing field on the north side of coastal urbus. To one side of the Rizen stood two other lion-rhinos, though they were in the background. The room they occupied resembled his own Pilot Cabin, a place filled with metallic devices, blinking lights, and touch panels, with the low arch of a exit door off to the right. The Rizen opened wide the slash of its mouth, displaying dozens of razor-sharp teeth, teeth like a shark. A pink tongue moved in sync with its speech.

“You are Humans,” it hooted in a deep voice. “Why do you attack our fleet? Our colony? Our cities cannot harm you. Give us the chance—”

“Shut up.” The Rizen stopped speaking. “I am Jack Munroe, leader of our hunting pack of human ships. We claim this system for our Hunt territory. Today, you and your ships were our meat! Soon, your mates and offspring will be vapor. Or dead from rad burn!”

The Rizen looked down at a control pedestal that stood before it. “Our far-tracker shows a missile headed for this urbus. Do you plan to extinguish it also?”

“Yes. But . . . not until you use your neutrino comlink to send back to your home world the images of our destruction of your fleet.” He gestured back to Denise. “We transmit our own record of that destruction to you now, on your AV frequency. Record it and retransmit.”

“Why must we do this?” the Rizen asked.

Jack smiled wide, showing his teeth. He thrust Old Roy at the motion-eye. “Because
all
Rizen must know the price of attacking any human! Let your home world know that the next time a Rizen ship attacks a human ship, or tries to attack our Sol system, that time will be the date on which our fleet launches for your home system. Your home world will be destroyed. Did you view the record of our destruction of the HikHikSot? We broadcast it on all known neutrino channels.”

“We viewed it,” the Rizen said, his shark teeth clashing together like white ivory cymbals. “The record will be transmitted.” Behind him one of the other Rizen moved to a pedestal and began tapping on it with his front foot-hands. “May this ship depart? To further spread the word to our nearby colony systems? So there will be no misunderstanding if one of our ships—”

“What is your name designation,” Jack interrupted.

The black eyes stared at him, again unblinking. “I am known as Rakonu, Link of Pod Dark Wind.”

Jack moved Old Roy back to rest on his right shoulder vacsuit pad. “Link Rakonu of Pod Dark Wind, your ship may lift and escape the death of your urbus. So long as you do so within two human minutes. After that, the torp will impact your city. I invite you to attack me. There is but one human ship above you.”

The Rizen grunted loudly something that did not translate. But his final words did make sense. “We rise to fight you Humans!” The image signal went blank. The true-light image of the continent below reappeared. The red, yellow and black mushroom pillars rising above six Rizen cities dominated the screen. Briefly he wondered why he had ever thought the Rizen resembled lions crossed with hippos. The platy hides and shark-like head better matched rhinos. He turned, sat in his seat, pulled over his Tech panel and looked at the holo it projected.

“Maureen! Take out the two laser mounts on that field. I do not want our torp shot down.”

Their grandma looked up, her expression Irish somber. “Will do. Our HF lasers are strong enough to make it through the atmosphere. Anything else you want me to do? Now that you have invited the sole surviving Rizen ship to attack us?”

Jack grinned. At least she had not called his action stupid. “Thank you. And no. I can handle this opponent.” He reached down to his panel and tapped on the Fire dot for the two railguns that rode the top spine of their ship. The
Uhuru
shook briefly with the ejection of a barrel load of steel bearings. Their vector was to the east. Toward the approach line he expected the Rizen ship to take. He tapped the launch button twice more. The ship quivered twice. Then he tapped the Higgs Disruptor nodule to aim its beamer to the east. The ball bearings were a guess. The Higgs was certainty. He was, after all, not stupid when it came to deadly combat.

Denise coughed from behind him. “Captain Jack, I am recording the thermonuke blasts below us. Do I also transmit this imagery to the oncoming Rizen ship? Which Elaine’s Sensor says has now launched on grav-pull?”

“Yes, do that. And also send it out on all known neutrino channels. So other Hunters of the Great Dark can see how dangerous it is to harm humans.” He sat back in his chair, hands resting on the Tech panel. Which now worked as a Fire Control input similar to what Maureen used in her Battle Module. “Blodwen, what is your death toll estimate now? For the six cities and nearby areas.”

A low hum came over the comlink. “My data suggest 40 million Rizen have been vaporized, rad-burned and crushed under collapsing buildings,” she said matter-of-factly. “The hurricane now moving to the coast has a projected track that will move it up the coastline. From south to north. Which means the rad fallout from the, the
seven
nuked cities will spread inland. Until stopped by the eastern mountain range. That should kill the 50 million living in dispersed settlements.”

“Good.” He tracked the sudden rising rush of the Rizen ship as shown on Elaine’s Sensor image to the right side of the front screen. “Elaine, when this oncoming ship is dead, give Max the coordinates for relocation to just above the Doomat capital city. Soon it will be time to see how people dominated by Alien predators for a millennia react to their disappearance.”

“Will do,” his sister said, her tone sounding professional normal over the comlink.

Jack waited, eager for the oncoming battle. While much of the combat his ship and his fleet did could have been handled by automated systems, there was nothing like the feel of driving a sword into the guts of your enemy. Like he’d done to the Belter rockrat who had tried to rape Cassie, long years ago. Personal vengeance had a good feel to it. And he had four dead crewmates to memorialize in this final battle with the Rizen ship. He hoped the spirits of Monique d’Auberge, Gail Winston, Hortense Mbasa and Hercule Arcy de Mamét would rest easier after he ventilated the Rizen ship with a cloud of ball bearings. Finishing the job with the Higgs beam was merely cleanup.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The
Uhuru
orbited above the thousands of white domes that made up the capital of the Doomat elephants. It was daylight, though it would soon be evening as the planet orbited eastward, with the setting sun of HD 1461 going low on the western horizon. Jack felt eager to give the good news of their liberation to the Doomat leaders. But the acquiescence of the herd to the corralling of their young calves left him worried. Would these Aliens even understand the concept of personal liberty? Of freedom? Of a release from domination? He looked back to Denise. The red-freckled young woman looked up from her Comlink panel. Her emerald green eyes fixed on him.

“Yes? Captain Jack, you need something?”

“I do. These Doomat resemble the elephants of Earth. But they evolved on this world of Green Grass. While they are clearly herbivores, they are also tool users.” He paused as Elaine, Blodwen, newly arrived Maureen, Nikola, Max, Cassie and Archibald focused on the two of them. “Once they were space-going people who explored this system. Then they lost the Challenge to Combat, first to the Megurk predators, then to the Rizen. What do they have in common with Earth’s elephants? And how do they differ?”

She gave him a pale-faced smile. “Oh. Just ask me for knowledge that I don’t have? Which forces me to speculate.” She tossed her head in the helmet, forcing her red braids to clear her face. “Well, I’m used to speculating.” She gestured at the world below them as it rolled by under the ship’s eastward orbital vector. “It’s clear these Doomat evolved as grazers upon the widespread grasslands of this world. They evolved further, as shown by their occupation of the cold arctic tundra vegetation on the northern continent and the semi-arid wastelands of the southern continent.” She tapped her Comlink panel, which like Jack’s had multi-function access to the ship’s Library computer. To the left of the screen there appeared an image of an African elephant. “Earth’s elephants are known tool users, as in breaking off branches to swat flies, digging waterholes and using logs to break down fences. The elephant brain is the largest of any land animal on Earth at five kilos. The brain convolutions are more complex than any other animal except for whales, and their hippocampus region gives them more emotional and spatial awareness ability than any other Earth animal. Including humans.” She paused, tapped her panel and new images appeared. “As a result, elephants have shown emotions such as grief, humor, compassion, cooperation, altruism, playfulness, and the ability to recognize themselves in a mirror. In short, elephants have an individual awareness that does not involve instinct. They also conduct funeral rites for dead elephants. And bury dead humans. Some elephants have imitated a few words of Korean speech, while they talk among themselves using infrasound. Which is fine for long distance coordination among herd members. Uh . . . ” she looked down at her panel, then back up. “The elephant’s trunk has up to 100,000 muscles in it and inside the trunk are millions of sensitive nerve endings. Which makes their trunk their primary appendage for manipulating their environment.” She smiled. “Blodwen can give you the sociology of Earth’s elephants.”

Their lanky Welsh woman gave a quick nod to Denise, then fixed on Jack. “Captain, elephant society is a matriarchy run by senior females. Young males leave the natal herd at the age of 12 and join bachelor herds until they can manage solo life. Members of any herd are all related to each other, as in sisters, daughters and aunts.” She looked at the front screen image of the central plateau of Lush Fields continent and its capital city cluster of white domes. “The AV broadcasts referred to matriarchs as the persons contacted by Rizen dominants. My guess is the Doomat society is indeed a matriarchy run by senior females. Male Doomats, if similar to Earth elephants, may have been this species’ first explorers of distant lands. And maybe the first to make complex tools. But that’s a guess.” She looked away from the front screen and fixed on Jack. The Vesta native shook her head inside her helmet, causing her long blond curls to spread out. She pointed a slim hand at the screen. “You know we are analogizing to Earth’s animal lifeforms. Which works for things like carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, territoriality, gender size differentials and such for Alien lifeforms. But Alien cultures and evolutionary patterns are not the
same
as those of Earth. Similar, yes. But as we saw with the Mikmang invertebrates, they do what they do for their own evolutionary reasons. So. To find out more we need to make contact with the Doomat. You could signal them and ask to speak to the senior matriarch. That might work.”

Jack gave Blodwen a thumbs-up thank you, then turned back around. With a touch he unsnapped the restraint locks. Standing up, he moved to the center of the front row. In front of Maureen. Then he realized something. “Anonymous, are there any non-human spaceships within 50,000 kilometers of the
Uhuru
?”

“No spaceship is detected within those parameters,” said the dry voice of the AI.

Sheesh
. “Remove my limiting parameters. What spaceships are present in our part of this system, beginning with our orbital location and expanding outward by intervals of 100,000 klicks?”

“Tracking. Sensors report the presence of three fusion pulse spaceships on the surface of the planet, one of which is located in the urbus below. The spysat ejected earlier by this ship documents one ship on the opposite side of this world. Next interval contains no ships. At 300,000 kilometers this unit detects a single fusion pulse ship orbiting the local moon. At 400,000 kilometers this unit—”

“Enough. Answer sufficient,” Jack said. He reached up, gripped his helmet and twisted to the left. It clicked loose with a loud sound.

“Jack!” cried Nikola. “We are still in Combat Alert! Why are you removing your vacsuit?”