Aliens Vs. Humans (Aliens Series Book 4) (22 page)

The large female raised her trunk-hand. “You hoot long and complexly. But your words match our . . . our new reality. Perhaps we will join your Freedom Alliance. Our herds have long worked together for the benefit of all.” She paused, laid her trunk-hand atop the back of Ship Guider, who leaned toward her as if it were a welcome touch. “As for trade, you are the powerful Hunter. You use weapons unknown to our Herd Defenders. What can we have that would be of any value to you and yours?”

Jack smiled again. A poke in his butt reminded him of the seniority in his crew. “Our matriarch Maureen reminds me that we have need of fusion isotope fuel. For our ship and for the other eight ships of our fleet. We need fruits of all kinds. We also eat meat, if you Doomat have any wild animals you wish to share. And we all, each of us, enjoy drinking beverages of entertainment!”

“Jack,” called Denise over the intercom, “the
Bismarck
and our other ships have returned. They came out of Alcubierre drive just now. Not far from us.”

He gestured acknowledgment. “Our matriarch in charge of communications tells me our fleet ships have returned from destroying the last Rizen spaceships. Your system is now free of all Hunters of the Great Dark.”

Green Morning blinked quickly. “Except for you Humans.”

“We will leave if requested. We can gather our fuel and other needs at an unpopulated star system.” He stepped back to emphasize his point, being stopped by Maureen’s hand in his back.

She curled up her trunk-hand, its fingers flaring. “No! Stay. Go to our station Mother’s Eye. It has a device that gives all people in it the sense of being on our world. Will your other Humans also visit our station?”

“Yes!” Jack said in a deep voice, hoping it sounded Doomat-like. “Senior female Maureen can offer guidance on these new weapons to your Herd Defenders. Our matriarch Blodwen can assist in discovering new ways of guiding the affairs of the Doomat. Our senior male Max is our Drive Engineer, with great wisdom in the workings of things mechanical and electromagnetic. Senior male Hideyoshi is a great Herd Defender. He too may have knowledge useful to your Herd Defenders. Our other senior males and females will assist as they are able. Will you, Green Morning, travel up to the station to meet with us?”

She hooted long and loudly. “Happily I will do so! You Humans are strange and terrible in your anger, which we are grateful has not been directed at us. But you speak with the wisdom of a Great Mother.” Stomping sounded from behind her. She kicked back, striking two nearby females. “Calmness! Even males can find and share wisdom when they are senior in years.” She looked aside. “Senior Male Ship Guider, will you join me in my journey into the sky above?”

The large male stomped both front feet. “Yes! It has been too long since I visited the vastness above our world. And the spaceships of these Humans are different from ours. I would learn more of their design and function.”

She hooted in a tone that Jack thought meant amusement. “Always an explorer! But you always return to the herd. As you did when my mother allowed you to meet me. Let us together go into the sky!”

Jack smiled at the image of romance among giant elephants. Or Doomats. It seemed romance was a universal among all lifeforms. “Then I end this call for now, Great Mother Green Morning. My lifemate Nikola and I look forward to meeting with you and Ship Guider, and with other Great Mothers, at Mother’s Eye. Until then.”

The Come-Back signal vanished. The true-light image of Green Grass reappeared. It was night below and a spiderweb of city lights sparkled across the landscape of the great continent, resembling an earthly version of the Milky Way. Or so Jack thought. He turned, removed his suit and helmet from the seat and sat in his Tech station. “Denise, connect me with Admiral Hideyoshi and our other ships. We have much to discuss.”

“Connecting,” she said. “Linked. You are live.”

Jack looked up at his fellow ship captains. There was no black smoke in any cabin and every captain was present and looking at him. Several had smiles on their faces from having watched the neutrino transmission of his negotiations with the Doomat. Good. “Well, admiral, if you will send over your Lander
Kipling
with that barrel of
Sharp Roar
beer, I have a yellow diamond to send back to you!”

The man gave a loud laugh. His belly shook. He twisted his helmet and pulled it off with a loud sigh. “Damn it is good to get out of this damn vacsuit! And yes, my Lander will arrive with its barrel of Nasen beer within five minutes. Good enough?”

“Very good,” Jack said.

Later on, after meetings with the Doomat leaders, he and the other captains would have a fleet battle conference. Likely in the Admiral’s Mess of the
Bismarck
, since he wanted his entire crew there with him. There was much to discuss. Such as how to defeat the Isolation Globe that surrounded the Megurk system. The nature of the Megurk Hunters themselves, which he bet would be shared by the Doomat using data from their archives. The next step in their exploration of the threat posed by the Arbitors had to be decided on. Jack did not know all the answers he needed to know. Perhaps his fleet comrades could help him find them. Or some of them. Whatever happened in the conference, he was certain of one thing. There would be charbroiled steaks, great booze and fine cigars to smoke at the end of it!

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jack followed Maureen into the Admiral’s Mess on the
Bismarck
, a room big enough for 30 people. Eight ship captains plus all of his crew sat at the oval table in the middle of the room. At the far end was the large wallscreen, which currently showed the true-light image of Green Grass. To their left, standing beside an AutoChef device, stood Warrant Officer Menami in Mars red. She gave them a quick nod and amiable smile. Hideyoshi was seated at the far end of the table. Jack walked to its near end, where two seats were open between Nikola and Max. He and Maureen sat. The two days since their arrival at Mother’s Eye station had been busy. They had seen each other only upon their return to the
Uhuru
to collapse on their waterbed. She gave him a tender smile, then winked at Maureen. Who lifted her eyebrows, then nodded warmly to Gareth who sat across from her. A glance told him the rest of his crew was already here, leaving his ship uncrewed for once. A choice he thought safe given the fact the other eight ships of the fleet had combat commanders monitoring Sensor feeds.

“Admiral Hideyoshi, please advise me on the status of yours and Maureen’s talks with the Doomat Herd Defenders. Have you armed their ships and are they able and willing to mount a defense of this system?” he said, locking his hands together to stop the shakes that he always felt before a big gathering of people.

The man with the most combat experience of any of them pursed his lips. “Fleet Captain Jack, with the help of Ship Guider, Combat Commander Maureen and I have had six meetings with the senior males of the six ships now at this station.” He nodded to the rear wallscreen, which showed the world Green Grass, the giant red globe of the station plus the nine fleet ships and six bumblebee-shaped Doomat ships. “Your Max and my Mech Shop engineers have helped them mount neutral particle beam accelerators and HF gas lasers. Their ships are larger than an Earth frigate but smaller than your
Uhuru
. They had enough room for the second fusion reactor needed to power these weapons.”

“Good news! Thank you for your efforts.” Jack fixed on Blodwen, who sat to his right. She was holding hands with Max. Who seemed both very happy and eager to spill something. “Blodwen, were you and Denise able to get data on the Megurk Hunters? Any data on what the Megurk did for them to be put under an Isolation Globe?”

The woman looked down at a yellow datapad, similar to the ones brought to the table by most of the folks in attendance. She looked up and gave him a nod. “Yes.” She tapped her datapad. “I’m putting up a holo image of a Megurk in the middle of this table.”

A person-high holo swirled and then solidified above the table.

“Shit!” cried Max. “The
Smok Wawelski
!”

“That reminds me of our Hindu demon
Vritra
,” Aashman said from the far end of the table where he sat next to Hideyoshi.

Slim, petite Akemi winced. “Or a Himalayan Buddhist demon,” she murmured. “Our
Ryū
is very different.”

Júlia looked fascinated. “That resembles our
Coca
.”

“A
wyvern
,” Archibald grunted, his expression bothered.

Ignacio, wearing his black
boina
, was wide-eyed. “Our
Herensurge
!”

“That resembles
Neak
,” Kasun said, sounding surprised.

“A
lohikäärme
!” Minna gasped, looking shocked.

Gareth frowned. “A black
Y Ddraig Goch
!”

A dragon stood before them. At least Jack thought it resembled the antique images he had seen of such creatures from Nordic, Welsh, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Japanese and Hindu mythology. It was black-scaled, reptilian long, had two black wings, and stood on two giant legs with two smaller front legs that had talon-tipped fingers. Its long head was filled with knife-like teeth that resembled those of a crocodile. From its head to the end of it long tail there ran a line of triangular plates the size of Jack’s hand. Which made this creature easily as large as the T-rex dino of the Arbitor culture. Two shiny black eyes were fixed on him. He wondered if these Megurk dragons breathed fire, as the Western dragon motif claimed they did.

“Well, it sure looks like an apex carnivore!” he muttered. Pulling his gaze away he fixed on Denise, who sat next to Blodwen. “ComChief, guess there is no textbook on the Animal Ethology of dragons?”

She grinned, then put her elbows on the table and leaned forward, as if she now enjoyed being the center of group attention. “True. But this is a real creature, a thinking Tech-capable species that had FTL stardrive, ship weapons and a Hunt territory that included twelve subject people star systems. Until the Arbitors shut them down.” She paused, glanced down at her own datapad, then up. “As reptiles, one can assume a society in which most adult Megurk were solitary in their social behavior, but clearly they cooperated to build a deadly Tech civilization. If the Megurk had clans, then perhaps each subject people system was the domain of a separate clan.” She looked to their Sociologist. “But I’m guessing about that. Blodwen, what did the Doomat archives say about Megurk culture?”

Their Welsh lass crossed bony arms atop the table. Her behavior, which earlier had been affectionate with Max, now showed her trademark no-nonsense manner. She scanned the people around the table. “Denise’s guess is accurate, based on the Doomat records. This system was controlled by the Hakmodo clan of the Megurk Imperiate. They dominated the Doomat for 900 years. Then they vanished within a few days. Shortly thereafter the Rizen lion-rhinos arrived, defeated a Doomat ship crew in Challenge to Combat, and took control of this system.” She glanced down at her datapad, then up. She pointed at the holo. “Megurk dragons like that one first appeared as a Hunter of the Great Dark 1,500 years ago. According to Doomat records, the Megurk did share some Tech with the Doomat, and while they too ate young calves on an annual offering basis, their colony in this system was small. Just a million Megurk. Who lived on an island in the southern ocean, in its tropical zone.”

Jack nodded. “That’s a start. What did the Megurk do to get themselves Isolated?”

Blodwen’s look turned sour. “They ate the young of two fellow Hunter cultures. Whom they defeated in the process of gaining their Hunt territory subject peoples.”

Jack frowned. “I don’t understand. That is something only done with subject peoples.”

“True.” Blodwen nodded at the holo. “Here’s a clearer example. What would you call it if the Nasen conquered our seven Freedom Alliance systems, came to Sol, beat our fleets, and landed on Earth, then proceeded to eat human offerings?”

“An abomination.”

She tapped her datapad. The dragon holo vanished to be replaced by the Isolated system data given them by Nalik. The holo was focused on the Megurk system, its twelve subject systems and how those systems were now controlled by the Rizen, Yiplak and Gyklang Hunters. “So thought an Arbitor 300 years ago. In short, the Megurk violated a prime rule of the Hunters system. You do not treat other Hunters as if they are subject peoples to be munched on.”