Freedom Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series Book 3) (31 page)

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 the
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.

“Attack made!” Elaine called hurriedly. “Ignacio is sending AV imagery of their target by way of the neutrino comlink.”

“Denise, put it up on the front screen,” Jack said, his heart beating fast. The time when the fleet would move to battle was fast approaching.

The AV broadcast disappeared. Ignacio’s image of the solo Gyklang ship appeared.

The Alien ship resembled a giant turnip, with its roundish globe sporting a pointy ‘root end’. But it was no vegetable. The root end was actually the nose of a neutral particle beamer, while at its opposite end sprouted four hydrogen-flouride laser projectors, each aimed to cover a different quadrant. They were fixed in position. Jack knew from prior battles in Sol system that the weapons placement gave the Gyklang ship a lot of offensive bite. Fortunately, the root end beamer was melted while the four laser pods were blackened and out of action. Four black slashes across the upper end of the turnip ship were leaking white air and water. Its movement was wobbly but controlled. He had no doubt the attack by Ignacio and Vigdis had caused it to send a neutrino Help! signal. He tapped his armrest’s comlink that connected him to every fleet ship.

“Fellow captains, take a look at our sucker bait,” he said, making sure the front screen vidimage went along with his comments. “Hideyoshi, Gareth, everyone, let’s head for a vector close to NooHik and on the side facing its moon. Let’s arrive in a triangle formation with our base facing the planet. Our apex ship will keep watch outward, just in case some Gyklang ship is at a higher orbital than our arrival vector.” Jack tapped on his Tech panel. “I’m sending you all the ship formation I want us to adopt. Our front line will be six ships deep, followed by five, four, three, two and one ships. Our Higgs Disruptor ships are that front line.
Bismarck, Zhukov, Dragon, Ferocious, MacArthur
and the
Uhuru
are the lead ships.” He looked down at the holo of Maureen at her Battle Module station, then back to the front. “Let’s try to salvage grav-pull drives from whatever ships we find above NooHik. So save your antimatter beams for defense against Hunter-Killer torps, mobile mines, laser platforms and Fire-and-Forget missiles launched by any enemy. Comments?”

“My
shogun
,” Akemi said from the
Orca
. “How do we handle the native fusion ships? If any are orbiting above their home world?”

“We watch them closely in case they make a suicide run against us.” He hoped the ChikHo natives would not attack, but that was up to the leader of each spaceship. “If a ChikHo ship comes at us, slice off their fusion drive module with your particle beam. Other questions? Comments?”

“I do,” called Minna of the blond braids. “When do we use our new Magpulse bombs? There’s only one per ship.”

Jack knew that. While they had the specs for how to build more, that would have to wait for their return to Mathilde. “Captain Minna, everyone, save your Magpulse bomb. Use your beam weapons and torps. We’ve fought these Gyklang before. We know how to handle them and their tactics. But the next system is run by Hunter aliens with the species name Boolean. They are new to us. Let’s save our Magpulse bombs for our invasion of the 55 Cancri system.”

Many captains nodded their understanding. As did Hideyoshi. Who waved at him. “Fleet Captain Jack, may the
Bismarck
have central line position? We are the only ship with both a Higgs emitter and two neutral particle beamers. If your ship
Uhuru
takes position beside us, our Higgs beam can cover anything coming your way.”

Jack liked the admiral’s suggestion. But his Belfast grandma would not. “Admiral of the Mars fleet, thank you. Yes, the
Uhuru
will come along your port side once we exit Alcubierre. But I’m sure our Combat Commander Maureen will do a fine job with our pair of antimatter and particle beamers. It was her idea for our new ship design to include the Battle Module as a mobile turret able to aim in nearly any direction.”

Maureen’s holo image nodded emphatically. He ignored her Belter finger gesture for their Mars ally. Elaine chuckled softly. As did Denise, Nikola, Cassie and Blodwen. They all were seated where they could see his holo of their battle queen.

The neutral expression of Hideyoshi made him wonder if the former Unity admiral had learned Belter finger-talk during his handling of POWs from the First Belter Rebellion. “Your ship’s Battle Module is indeed highly mobile and outstandingly accurate in its targeting,” the man said. He looked to one side of his Command Bridge. “My Weaponry Chief Lieutenant Lopez shares my view. When does the fleet go Alcubierre?”

Jack fixed on Elaine. “What does your Sensor panel show?”

She looked away from the Maureen holo to her own Pilot station panels. “Graviton emissions from the Gyklang ships near the ChikHo home world show ten are heading out on grav-pull for the outer cometary disk. As are the five ships above planet four, or ScreeHik. That leaves just five above NooHik against our fleet.”

Jack liked odds of four to one in his favor. “Admiral, everyone, we FTL jump in-system once the outgoing Gyklang ships reach the inner cometary disk at 15 AU. That will give us nearly two hours to kill the home world ships and make our AV appeal to the Flock Leaders of the ChikHo.” He looked right, past Maureen’s empty station, to his pilot. “Elaine, give us and the fleet a laser comlink alert once the Gyklang ships reach that line.”

“Will do,” she said. Though she no doubt worried about Ignacio’s position as sucker bait for the outgoing Gyklang ships, she knew as well as Jack did that his Basque brother and their Icelandic battle maiden could FTL jump in-system if too many Gyklang ships arrived at the site of the wounded turnip ship.

“Good.” He faced his fellow captains. “Fleet, load your launcher tubes with Fire-and-Forget missiles. Keep your thermonuke torps at the ready. And save your geo-penetrators for use against any base on the moon. Uh, Denise, do we know the ChikHo name for their moon?”

“Yes,” she said, her tone assured. “Anonymous has been scanning the incoming AV broadcasts. He found one that showed a fusion ship heading for the moon. Which the ChikHo call Sotop. Elaine’s Sensor panel shows a neutrino source on that moon. So there is a base there, but it could be either a ChikHo base or a Gyklang base.”

Well, they would arrive far from the moon base. It should not be a threat unless it sent a grav-pull ship their way. Which did not match Elaine’s Sensor data. “Show us that image. The one of the ChikHo ship headed for their moon Sotop.”

“Going up front,” Denise said.

A new split-screen image appeared.

Against the blackness of space Jack saw a long tube of silvery color. It had a small globe at one end while its stern showed the yellow-orange flames of a fusion pulse drive. Just above the flames were a series of tubes that spiraled up from the base. Clearly they were the magfield generators for the fusion drive. At the ship’s slim midbody were two small domes, each with a tube projecting. They looked like laser projectors, though whether they were HF or carbon dioxide or some other gas laser variant he could not tell. Interesting that the local people had armed their fusion ships despite their domination by the Gyklang.

Jack looked up at the images of his allies. “People, it will be a few hours before we head in-system. Give your crew a meal break and necessities break. Once we are in-system, our activities will be anything but routine!”

He heard the acknowledgments from the twenty other ships. That was reassuring. But his gut was churning, his sweat had drenched his jumpsuit and he was thirsty. For more than water. That corral scene of captive ostriches had hit him hard. Unsnapping his seat restraint locks, he stood up, turned and headed for the hatch to the Spine hallway.

“You going to empty that bottle of scotch?” Max asked as Jack came to the back row of function seats.

He grinned. His battle mate knew him too well. Better even than Nikola, who, though, was gaining in her ability to read his moods. “Nope. Hard stuff is for later. I’m aiming to pull out a bottle of Europa Light Ale from the cold locker in the Refectory. Want one?”

“Of course.” Max unlocked his own straps and stood up. “And I need a break from that grav-pull drive panel. Alien tech, though logical in its operational parameters, is still weird. Too many queries of ‘do you really want to do this’ type!”

Jack chose not to remind his Polish buddy that he had been the one to write the operational software for the grav-pull drive. Right after they had stolen it from the Rizen ship hulk that was orbiting above Charon. Max had done wonders with deciphering that Alien tech. Just as he and Archibald had later done with figuring out the Alcubierre drive pedestal they’d salvaged from a Hackmot ship in Sol system. If his buddy could not figure out an Alien tech device, well, then, it would take five Nobel Prize winners in physics to do any better!

“So tell me, Max, how do you cope with a woman like Blodwen who is as smart as you?”

The man choked, then slapped Jack’s back. “The same way you cope with Nikola! The woman is always right. Right?”

Their mutual laughter echoed down the hallway.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN