Aliens Vs. Humans (Aliens Series Book 4) (28 page)

“Vocalization allowed?” asked the AI in a sweet tone somehow picked by its algorithms as a tone guaranteed to appeal to human listeners.

He grit his teeth. “Vocalization allowed. Do as instructed.”

“Instructions received. Processed. Functioning as ordered.”

Jack unlocked his restraint straps and stood up. Then stopped. Maureen stood between him and the hatch leading into the cargo hold. She had her revolver out and pointed down the central aisle that ran between the two benches. As if guessing his thoughts, she said “Who knows who could be out there at the top of the ramp? Just being prepared.” The woman stepped forward, moving quickly past Max, Cassie and Nikola. Whose large belly made her look . . . different in her vacsuit than how she normally looked. He followed after their combat veteran, hoping the Belfast native would not point her pistol at every scientist inside the institute ring.

“We’ve got your back covered,” Max said, his tone highly amused.

Jack grit his teeth again. Routine. That was what he needed. As he approached the hold’s airlock chamber, he touch-confirmed he was wearing his two revolvers, hunting knives on both forearms and a grenade launcher pack on his chest. The latter was something new, a thing Maureen had found in an arms market in Tholus. With a start he recalled one more item. Which, fortunately, awaited him on the bench near the inner airlock hatch. Reaching down he grabbed his sword Old Roy and followed Maureen into the airlock. Which, thankfully, was large enough to hold them all. Behind them the inner hatch closed, air was sucked out and, when a red light signifying vacuum flashed on the rim of the hatch leading outside, Maureen pressed the Open touchpad. Slowly the outer hatch swung to one side on silicone-greased hinges, revealing the reddish-brown soil at the bottom of the steep bowl which was the crater Minucia.

“Looks clear to me,” Maureen said over the suit comlink. “Follow. Uh, please.”

Jack and the rest of his crew followed after the woman. Who had both pistols out and pointed in different directions as she walked down the ramp. At the bottom she stopped before a flat metal plate that had a control pedestal on its far end. From the plate there stretched a metal rail that ran to the access tower at the edge of the field. Looking to either side he saw three more such rails that led to other scorched locations. “This place must get lots of visitors,” he said as Maureen stepped onto the maglev transport plate.

“Have no idea,” the woman said. Walking forward five paces she stopped in front of the control pedestal. She pointed the nose of her right revolver at the panel, tapped at two spots, then she resumed aiming the guns outward. “Hang on. We’re heading for the access tower.”

They arrived at the tower within two minutes. Getting off the transport plate they walked through a doorless archway. A spiraling rampway led upward. Jack followed Maureen. Everyone else followed them.

At the top of the tower they stopped before a hatch. Maureen repeated her taps, led them all into a spacious chamber. A wall hatch that faced the outer edge of the torus ring opened slowly. Three ladders led upward to a room above.

“Me first!” Maureen yelled. Holstering one revolver the one-time military historian grabbed a ladder ring and began climbing upward. “Wait to ascend until I send the All Clear!”

“Of course,” Jack said as Cassie, Nikola and Max crowded up behind him.

“Clear,” came Maureen’s voice over the suit comlink tab.

Jack stored Old Roy in a back scabbard and then led their little parade up the ladder rungs. In seconds they came head level with the floor of a room painted in images of a springtime park. As he stepped out of the access shaft and onto the floor of the room, he felt one gee grab him. Opposite them, next to a pressure hatch that led to another room, were wall hooks for hanging vacsuits and helmets, with storage lockers below. Maureen was crouching before the hatch, both pistols pointed at it. The floor hatch closed and a wall light showed Green-Normal air pressure.

“Maureen!” Jack called. “Enough. Let’s take off our vacsuits and helmets, then rack them. It’s not as if any of us are unarmed, you know.”

“Humph,” the woman said, sounding as if she expected an Alien predator to jump through the hatch at any moment. “You four do that. When you can cover this hatch with your weapons, I’ll change.”

Jack knew by now there was no point in challenging Maureen when she was in Combat Alert mode. He walked to the rack wall, unscrewed his helmet, enjoyed the smell of fresh air, opened his vacsuit with a touch at one side, stepped out, and hung the vac items on wall hooks. He pulled the scabbard over his head, lifted Old Roy and stored it in the scabbard, then attached the hunting knives to his forearms and his pistol belt to his waist. They all wore black ship leotards, with Kevlar vests on their chests. Including Nikola. Who carried a Roman short sword on her left hip and a gyrojet gun on her right hip. Max wore a waist belt that supported two laser pistols. And Cassie wore a garrote wire as a necklace, with a .45 caliber Smith and Wesson pistol on her right hip. Her left hip showed a hunting knife. Turning around he replaced Maureen at hatch watch. “Well? You can change now.”

She frowned, then walked over to the wall hook area. Faster than he had seen in the past, the woman divested herself of the vacsuit and redressed for total combat. She wore a green leotard. Atop it was the Kevlar chest panel. She also wore a Roman short sword and javelin criss-crossed over her back, a revolver on each hip and hunting knives strapped to each thigh. Plus a laser rifle was slung from her right shoulder, a weapon she must have somehow fitted inside her vacsuit since he’d not seen it on her inside the Lander. Looking to him, she said “Get out of my way!”

Jack stepped to one side as his dedicated protector stepped in front of him, pulled her sword with one hand and a revolver with the other, pointed both at the hatch, and touched the Open patch with the sword tip.

A stocky woman stood just inside the hatch door. She was talking to someone on a smart-talker phone. At the sound of the hatch opening she turned and faced them. Her brown eyes opened wide.

“Don’t shoot! The only gold we have is in our accelerator magfield coils!”

Jack stepped around Maureen and gave the brown-haired, jumpsuited woman a smile. “Director Agnes Cumberland? I’m Jack Munroe and these folks are part of my crew. Archibald has spoken so warmly of you.”

The woman slowly lowered her arms, which had jerked upright at the sight of Maureen. While her face and bare arms were rad-tanned, her features were North European. Whether from Denmark or Britain or somewhere else, Jack did not know. She gave him a slow nod. “Uh, your sister Elaine called us to say you were coming down. So I came to welcome you to the institute.” She looked again at Maureen, who had not changed her predatory crouch one iota, then sighed. “I guess after the attack on you at the send-off event you have to have a guardian.”

Jack stepped forward, catching the woman’s elbow and turning to face his crew. “Director, you are correct. May I introduce you to our Combat Commander? She’s the mother wolf standing before you. When off duty she goes by the name Maureen O’Dowd, ex-veteran of the First Belter Rebellion in 2072, now a grandma.” His protector gave him a scorching look. “Uh, she presently mans the Battle Module of our starship
Uhuru
. She has personally dispatched many carnivore predator spaceships.”

“Pleased to meet you, Madame O’Dowd,” Cumberland said, holding out her bare hand.

Maureen looked at the hand, saw it was empty, swiftly stored her sword on her back and shifted the revolver to her left hand. Stepping forward she gripped the director’s right hand with her right hand. “Pleased to meet you. How many people are here? Any Earth types? Any personal arms worn by anyone? Any military types roaming around here?”

Agnes Cumberland, who looked to be in her fifties, let go Maureen’s hand. She lifted her eyebrows, then pursed her lips. “Will you join me as I guide this group to Conference Room Gamma Rho? Three levels up? I believe your crewmate Professor Archibald Wheeler is waiting there for you. Along with Fleet Commander Zhāng Dingbang. Whose presence here surprises me. I am eager to learn the meaning of your arrival, her arrival and why you want to steal my accelerator.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“And that is why we are here, Director Cumberland,” Jack said as he stood beside the large holo that moments before had depicted their discussions with MakMakGor the Arbitor and Archie’s conference talk on producing Dark Energy using the Vesta accelerator. And its stock of newly made Dark Matter.

The director, who sat in a plush black leather chair at the far end of an oval table that occupied a third of Conference Room Gamma Rho, frowned at nearby Archibald, then looked to her left. To the slim Asian woman who sat stiffly upright, her black eyes fixed on Jack. “Uh, thank you. I think. Still seems to me you are stealing my particle accelerator. Which has done wonders in producing enough WIMP Dark Matter to build a dozen grav-pull drives.” She looked back to Jack. “If I agree to loan you my accelerator, what happens then?”

“That leads us to stage two of this operation,” Jack said. He nodded to the red uniformed, middle-aged woman whom he and Hideyoshi had left behind to handle the ‘failure’ option by getting a colony ship built. “Fleet Commander Zhāng, your ship
Nimitz
is the only destroyer not yet outfitted with a Higgs Disruptor. But it does have a third fusion reactor which will be required to power the Vesta accelerator. Once we wrap it around your ship’s hull. Will you allow us to modify your ship?”

The woman looked around the table, giving short nods to Cassie, Nikola, Maureen and Max before locking on him. “Fleet Captain Jack, you command me and my ship, by way of Admiral Hideyoshi. You have led us in many successful battles. While I dislike messing with the clean lines of the
Nimitz
, necessity rules here. If we cannot collapse the Megurk system Isolation Globe, then we cannot prevent Sol from being Isolated. Which means any effort to contact juvenile species systems must stop.” Zhāng grimaced. “I watched at the departure event as you went to the podium despite your severe wound and declared our effort was in support of the principle of . . . universal freedom to explore the universe. Conquest for conquest’s sake I oppose. Fighting for personal liberty, freedom of choice and a universal principle, those are objectives I support. As will my crew.” She gave him a quick smile. “The
Nimitz
will accept this modification. May I join you on the next trip to the Megurk system? And take part in any battles you and the fleet face?”

“Of course you may!” Jack felt awkward as he stood in the brightly lighted room. It was roomy and too empty for his taste. Tapestries and paintings on the wall did nothing to make it feel like the
Uhuru
. “You worked a miracle in the two months of our absence, getting that colony ship built, stuffed with colonists and finding a good crew. If it were up to me, I would promote you to admiral rank!”

Zhāng’s expression brightened. Then her professional demeanor returned quickly, just like it did whenever Hideyoshi was commanding a ship. “Fleet Commander rank is sufficient. It gave me the authority to negotiate with Earth national leaders and our allies on the Moon, Mars and the outer moons.” The woman’s oval face relaxed. “Anyway, as you often say, the ‘topsuck politicos’ need a project so they can appear to be doing something. While the regular folks actually do the work. This was a project they all welcomed.”

Jack had no doubt of that. He looked back to Cumberland. “Director, we will need the help of your engineers in safely dismantling your accelerator. And we will need every ounce of Dark Matter you have produced so far. So Archibald can inject it into your accelerator as a means of producing Dark Energy.”

The woman shrugged. “Of course my people will help your people. Including your Drive Engineer Max Piakowski. His work in providing operational algorithms for the first grav-pull drives was marvelous. His new work on how to upgrade the Alcubierre stardrives is amazing.” The woman smiled at Max. Then she fixed on Jack’s particle physics guru. “Professor Archibald Wheeler, your time here has been a source of excitement for my researchers. First you bring us the news of what makes up Dark Matter. Then you show us how to produce Weakly Interacting Massive Particles using our accelerator. But,” her expression became puzzled, “just how do you expect to produce this Dark Energy? Let alone use it in this projector device you have spoken of.”

Archie gave the woman a quick nod. He also blushed, though so lightly most might not notice. Except for Agnes, who clearly seemed able to follow the man’s emotions. “Uh, Director Cumberland, you raise solid issues. Since we now know that WIMP particles are supersymmetric and are in conformity with the Cold Dark Matter hypothesis of the universe’s formation through nucleosynthesis after the Big Bang, we can predict that accelerating Dark Matter to lightspeed using your peta-electron volt accelerator will cause it to undergo mutual annihilation upon impact with other Dark Matter.” Jack’s brain began to hurt at all the physics talk-talk. He just wanted a working weapon that would kill the Isolation Globe in the Megurk system. Which meant negotiating with people like Cumberland who lived for the opportunity to explore mind-numbing stuff like that now being discussed. He tuned back into Archie’s excited rush of words. “—which means the way your accelerator produces Dark Matter, and then contains it in the Thorne globes, is perfect for our needs. You and your people have taken something with no electric charge, no ability to interact with electromagnetic forces and made it confinable.”