Battlegroup (StarFight Series Book 2) (28 page)

One liked this proposal. It promised the chance to do what all Swarmers ached to do, which was to drop larvae Pods on a land newly claimed as a home nest. But the actions of Seven complicated this flight of pretence. “Hunter Prime, what do I say to Support Hunter Seven? His nest is heading for the Soft Skin colony world, there to fly above it and make threat of its destruction.”

“Let Seven fly above that world,” Prime replied in a flow of dominance, trail, aggregation and duplicity pheromones. “But tell him not to shower particle seeds on that world. Instead, let it fly well above the defending nest that hugs the sky of that world. That sends the signal we Swarmers could attack, but we will not, so long as the Soft Skins allow us to reach our new colony world.”

That should smell right, One thought. He could amend the simple imagery signal to show Seven’s nest circling above the fourth world, while the many Swarmer nests flew to the third world. But an image in another perception imager complicated matters. “Hunter Prime, I will do as your direct. The imagery will be prepared. But a Soft Skin nest has left its fellow nests and now flies toward our colony world. The Soft Skins seem to make a threat to our world, similar to what Seven is making to their world.”

The leader’s sharp, jagged mandibles opened and shut with a sharp clacking sound. “True. But that Soft Skin nest moves slowly. It has a damaged propulsive device, much like the damage done to Seven’s nest. Our nests can fly twice as fast as the single Soft Skin nest. We will overtake and pass it. If that nest tries to approach our colony world, we will destroy it!”

“Outstanding!” he said in a flow of aggregation and territorial scents. “We do not lose any more nests. We claim our colony world. We send down our larvae Pods. Then we turn and attack the Soft Skin world with all our might!”

“Just so,” Hunter Prime said with a flutter of his brown wings. “If we lose a few nests in the attack on the Soft Skin world, that is the price we pay for depositing our larvae on their new home! Once our larvae are landed, we do what Swarmers have always done. We fly out to defend that new home from these intruding Soft Skins!”

Hunter One heard the history of the leaders of his caste in the scent-laden words of Hunter Prime. It reminded him that what he and others now did under this new sky light had meaning for future generations of Swarmers. While the earlier simple imagery of both peoples occupying their worlds, then making trade in cold dark space for items needed by each people had been attractive, this way lay certainty. On Nest, no intruder had ever been allowed to live close to one of their ground-dug nests. The same had prevailed on all ten worlds colonized by the Swarm, including the eleventh world of Warmth. Doing otherwise carried a risk. These Soft Skins might stay on their world for a time. But new generations of Soft Skins could choose to attack the Swarmer colony world. Better to extinguish the menace now.

“Your scent carries the wisdom of our caste,” One said in a strong flow of his own dominance pheromones, mixed with a strong aggregation loyalty scent. “I will prepare this new imagery. It will be sent to the Soft Skins flying ahead of us. Then we will shift our flight and make a new path to the colony world!”

“Just so,” Hunter Prime said in an overwhelming flow of his own dominance pheromones. “Act as I have ordered. Then join your Colony nest with mine and let us lead our other nests inward to warmth, to a welcoming sky and to a new land on which we can build homes for our larvae!”

One looked to his Servant for the study of aberrant social behaviors. The older male was watching him. “Prepare the imagery signal as demanded by Hunter Prime! When it is done, send it to these Soft Skins! Once it is sent, our nests will fly away from these intruders and claim our new home!”

♦   ♦   ♦

Jacob watched the new imagery sent from the wounded wasp ship to all Earth ships. His father was doing the same. As were all the captains of the two battle groups. He knew Alicia could help with understanding it, but Lori had the best insight. “Lieutenant Antonova, come forward. I have need of your guidance.”

As his friend walked up from the room’s back row of seats, where Carlos had sat with Lori during the battles, he looked down. Daisy was watching a holo version of the wallscreen imagery, while Richard looked over at Alicia’s holo of the same. Up front, all the function post people were either watching the big image or a repeat in one of their holos. The top of the wallscreen still carried the images of the other seventeen Earth ship captains, including his father’s Bridge. On the left side of the wallscreen hung a situational image that showed all space from the local star out to their current position. The graphic made clear the distance to the seventh world was almost 25 AU. The system’s Kuiper Belt of comets lay between the magnetosphere at 45 AU and the 19 AU position of the Pluto-like world. He glanced at the true space holo on the right side of the screen. The
Lepanto’s
electro-optical scope carried an image showing the cluster of surviving wasp ships. Two giant ships plus thirteen destroyer-sized ships were following the Earth ships, but someone in command among the wasps had allowed the separation between the two fleets to become nearly 100,000 klicks. Then again, ships traveling at ten percent of lightspeed could cover such a distance very quickly. If the enemy increased their engine speed to eleven or twelves psol, they could overtake the Earth fleet.

“Lieutenant JG Antonova reporting.”

Jacob looked away from the cartoon imagery that was concluding with images of the wasp ships sending down larvae pods to the third world, while Earth ships returned to Valhalla. Lori looked tired. Her long hours working with Alicia’s xenolinguist to compile a basic conversational guide of English-to-wasp smells had kept her from sleep, from dates with Carlos, even from the Dance Night event all ships had enjoyed on the way out to meet his father’s fleet. Her pale blue eyes fixed on him.

“Antonova, you’ve seen this new cartoon and its proposal. What do you make of it?”

“Yes,” called his father from the wallscreen. “Should we reply to it?”

Lori stood stiffly in her vacsuit, helmet thrown onto her back. Allowing folks to breath ship air was the one adjustment Jacob had allowed from full combat readiness. She gestured at the wallscreen cartoon video. “They want to do what this species has always focused on doing. They want to put down their larvae pods on this system’s third world, which they know by now is very welcoming to their kind of flying arthropod. Bear in mind the wounded wasp ship has been there for some weeks. Surely it has sent lots of signals to these new wasps.” She paused, licked her lips, then looked aside to Alicia, who gave her an encouraging nod. “Note the cartoon does not display the wasp ship now heading to Valhalla. Which, even with the loss of one engine, will make it to Valhalla way before any fleet ship can get there to stop it. My
guess
is they will accept the idea of the
Inchon
watching them at the third world while their wounded ship watches us at Valhalla.”

Jacob nodded. That all made sense. “But can we trust them to stay around the third world?”

Lori put arms behind her back. Her face grew tense. A vein on her forehead pulsed visibly. “Trust may not be in the scent speech of this alien species. Last century a pollie said ‘Trust but verify’ when the Russian Federation was posing a threat to America and other nations. Fortunately, after the Putin Era, my nation became more world friendly.” She paused. “I suggest we not trust anything they say. If we allow them to come into the Kepler 22 system, follow them all the way to the third world. Watch them deposit their larvae pods. Keep watching them until we see wasps on their hulls in spacesuits doing repair work. Then leave the
Inchon
on watch and pull back to Valhalla. We can keep most ships orbiting out beyond its moon, as a front-line defense ready to head off any wasp movement toward Valhalla. Meanwhile, we can do hull repairs as needed. But allowing them into this system puts them within two AU of Valhalla. Captain, that is up to you and the admiral.”

“Exactly,” said his father from the Bridge of the
Midway
. “Lieutenant Antonova, what is next most important to these wasps, to Earth wasps, beyond depositing young larvae at a new nest?”

She turned and faced the wallscreen image of his father. “Sir, admiral, on Earth what is next most important to wasps, whether social or solitary, is to protect the Queen wasp that is the mother of all wasp castes in the nest.” She looked aside to Alicia, then back. “Beyond the Queen might be the Fighter in charge of all the nest’s fighting adults, which could be both sexes or a single sex. We have observed one captive Worker wasp having sex in flight with two of the other Worker captives. The wasp who initiated the sex was the Worker leader among the captives.”

His father nodded quickly, then looked away from Lori. “Commander Branstead, your people developed the English-to-wasp guide. Is there a single Queen wasp in these ships, or several?”

Jacob looked to his Science chief. Like him she was still strapped into her seat. She looked up. “Fleet Admiral Renselaer, I don’t know. We do know what Lieutenant Antonova has shared. The captives in our Forest Room include both sexes. There is a hierarchy present. Their terms for each other are Worker and Worker Leader. We did catch rare scent talk of a Matron and a Hunter. Those must be wasps at a higher level than Workers. They did not mention Fighter, although our Marines encountered such specialized wasps during their ship boarding.”

His father frowned. “Let us assume these wasps would refuse a demand to give us their Queen, or Queens, as hostages for good behavior by them. Commander, prepare a cartoon video showing the wasp ships heading to the third world, with our fleet following, their arrival, their dropping of these pod babies as we watch, then our return to Valhalla with the
Inchon
remaining on watch.” The man who had dominated Jacob’s life since he was able to walk now looked to him. “Captain Renselaer, I will take the lead in this negotiation. I am willing to allow these wasps to go to the world they want for a colony, but
only
if they give me a high-ranking hostage as a guarantee of their peaceful behavior in the future.” He looked to Lori. “Lieutenant, can your language guide provide the right smells to convey what I’ve just said?”

Lori winced. “Maybe. We do have the smell pattern for the phrase Hunter Who Leads. And also the smell pattern for Mother Who Births All. I can provide you with a smell guide for transmittal along with the cartoon video. The vocabulary guide we transmitted to your Communications person will translate any pheromone reply the wasps send to you. While you do not have a modified pheromone signaler like we do, you are not talking in person, which would require such a device. Sending the correct polarized radio signals should allow basic talk with the wasps.”

The admiral pursed his lips. “Good. Branstead, Antonova, make it happen. Fast. I want to send this reply before that wounded wasp ship makes it to Valhalla.”

Alicia unlocked her straps and stood up. “Sir, Lieutenant Antonova and I will prepare the cartoon and smell talk recording that says what you have said.”

Jacob thought this was going too fast. “Fleet admiral, I have a hunch there is more happening on the wasp side than simple desire to put baby wasps down on the third world. May I pursue this further with my experts?”

His father looked briefly surprised. “You may. There is no new attack. We have time. At least until the wasp ship gets to Valhalla.”

Jacob looked to where Alicia and Lori were about to depart. “Lieutenant Antonova, hold a moment.”

“Sir?” she said, turning to face him, with Alicia behind her.

“What
else
should we know about these alien wasps? Based on what you know of Earth wasps.”

She grimaced. “I could spend hours talking about the similarities between Earth wasps and these alien wasps, and their differences.”

“Be succinct. Hit what is most important for the fleet admiral to know. He will be the one on the front line of negotiation.”

Lori turned thoughtful, then faced Jacob’s father. “Fleet admiral, the wasps of Earth have been around longer than any mammal species dead or living. They first appeared during the Jurassic period, when the biggest dinosaurs ruled the Earth. That means our wasps showed up at least 145 million years ago, perhaps as far back as 200 million years ago.” She paused, then continued. “There are more than 100,000 species of wasps now living on Earth. They have specialized into many ecozones. Earth’s wasps have a complex social structure that consists of Queen, workers, fighters and non-fertile males. Social wasp species meet the definition of eusocial creatures as defined by the biologist Edward O. Wilson. A eusocial species is one that has a reproductive division of labor, overlapping generations and cooperative care of the young.” She gestured at the true space holo of the wasp spaceships. “Every image we’ve seen of these wasps, from Kepler 22 to here, show their ships built with six sides, and moving in groups of six, which surely must be the basis of their math and of their city or nest construction down on a planet. They can fight solo or as a group. They will sacrifice themselves for the greater good, as one did to save the giant ship that led the attack in Kepler 22. Earth wasps are determined breeders and colonizers of new territories. They build nests in the ground, in rock walls and in tree hollows.” His father began tapping his armrest, a sure sign of impatience. Lori must have seen it too. She stiffened her posture. “Fleet admiral, these alien wasps match many of the behavior and culture patterns of Earth wasps. I would not share a planet with them. But they may,
might
just allow us to live on Valhalla while they occupy the third world. There are hundreds of millions of kilometers between the two worlds now and more when three is on the far side of the local star. That may be enough separation distance for this alien wasp species to feel safe.”