Escape 2: Fight the Aliens (24 page)

“Accept it,” Jane said quickly. “Display me as Diligent Taskmaster on any of my audiovid replies.”

As Jane began speaking with a creature that looked like a two-legged anteater, the other ship captains also turned their attention to incoming calls from shuttles. Based on what he was overhearing, none of the shuttles included the Buyer himself, or itself. A compound manager was present on the shuttle and now arguing with Jane over the price in Nokten crystals for some of his ship’s 60 Captives. Briefly, the appearance of a Nordic looking woman in the comlink holo distracted him as the ship AI added random human images as examples of the Captives the
Blue Sky
supposedly had available for sale. The true space holo counter of approaching shuttles now reached 54. He tapped the Fire Control portion of his control pillar, then spoke over a neutrino frequency reserved to him and the Weapons Chiefs on the three other ships.

“Chris, Mark and Cassandra, you got the targeting data I sent your bosses?”

“Yes!” called Cassandra faster than fast.

“Received,” said Mark.

“Ready to aim lasers,” Chris said.

Bill watched the true space holo on his upper right. In it was the silver and gray metal form of the Traffic Control station. Arrival Bay Three now opened its ship entry door, the massive slice of metal moving smoothly and, of course, soundlessly in the vacuum of space. Stefano’s transport slid into the brightly lighted arrival bay. The entry door began lowering down to seal the arrival space. Then would come a normal oxy-nitro atmosphere at an air pressure adequate for humans. He’d discussed this with Star Traveler, who had walked him through the mostly automated process of transport ship arrival at the station. Shortly air pressure would be achieved. At which point waiting station staff would expect bioforms to exit hurriedly, eager to sample the food and entertainment options of the station.

“Arrival Bay Three is now fully pressurized,” Star Traveler said from a speaker on his flexmetal seat. “Passengers departing.”

Now!

He fired his ship’s nose lasers at the strong magnetic field spot on the upper hull of the station. Other taps fired his belly plasma battery at two shuttles coming up from below which were just 290 miles away.

“Everyone, fire!” Bill yelled. “Fire on any target within your zone!”

In his system graphic holo, the shuttle icons began disappearing as Cassandra, Chris and Mark fired both their nose and tail lasers, since shuttles were approaching from all directions.

His graphic holo showed a heat glow blossoming from the upper hull of the station. The strong magnetic field emissions vanished. He tapped his Fire Control patch again, aiming the
Blue Sky’s
two tail lasers at two shuttles approaching from the south. They were 2,000 miles away, but that distance was crossed by his coherent gas lasers in less than the blink of an eye. Green beams shot to the south even as the three other ships of their fleet fired lasers at shuttle targets.

“Firing antimatter,” called Mark from the
Pointe Du Hoc
.

In Bill’s system graphic holo, a cluster of nine shuttle icons suddenly disappeared as a black beam of antimatter shot to the east.

He tapped his nose lasers again. A heat bloom appeared at the top of the station where its two laser mounts had once been. His nose laser Readiness light went green. He tapped it to Fire once more. The two belly lasers burst apart in a yellow and orange ball of flame as electronics, air and coolant gases burst out from the south pole of the station.

“All distance weapons on station now eliminated,” he said aloud, knowing Jane would hear his words in one ear even as she put the ship into a stationary roll. That allowed the four lasers of the
Blue Sky
to fire in any part of a 360 degree circle. But it limited the aiming options for his antimatter projector.

“Star Traveler!” he yelled. “What are the transport’s passengers now doing?”

“Forty-two hover bots are now dispersed through the station,” the AI said. “Station’s broadcast power center is now down, due to impact from three bots. Two of three station fusion reactors are also offline. Third reactor is sufficient to provide artificial gravity, light, air and other survival needs of persons on the station.”

“Good.” Bill was glad he had not had to use the thermonuke torp that was buried in the back of the cargohold of the transport. He’d added the torp as a backup, in case the station weapons systems survived the beginning of their attack.

“Alert!” the ship mind called to him over their private comlink. “Collector ship with full crew has now removed ship’s artificial mind from any control of ship weapons!”

“Lofty Flyer!” he yelled to the flying squirrel at Navigation. “Change ship orientation by 31 degrees. Turn us so we are nose-on at the Collector ship that is now firing plasma batteries at us.”

“Change made!”

Seconds in space can be too long for some lifeforms to survive.

Just as the
Blue Sky
came into the angle for direct laser fire, the enemy ship fired a green beam at them.

“Hull punctured above Containment Cell Chamber!” cried Star Traveler.

Bill fired his nose lasers, sending two green beams at the nose of the enemy ship. Then he tapped a black circle on his control pillar. A black beam shot out and struck the rear of the enemy ship.

Its nose lasers vanished in a bloom of yellow light and red heat. That was followed by a white-yellow flare that resembled a miniature sun.

In the true space holo, his ship’s electro-optical scopes showed the remains of the Collector ship that had fired on them.

White metal fragments now flew away from the middle of what had been an elongated white teardrop. Silvery globules of water shone briefly in the orange sunlight. All that remained of the enemy ship was its forward third. But that third contained the ship’s antimatter projector and MITV torp launcher. Both of which required electrical power to operate. No such power was available as the enemy’s partial disintegration had robbed it of the three fusion reactors that normally occupied the middle and rear of a Collector ship.

The
Blue Sky’s
rolling rotation now brought his ship’s tail lasers into line of sight of the enemy ship. He fired them at the belly plasma battery that now came into sight. A yellow puff of flame and gas showed the battery vanishing under the impact of one CO² laser. The second laser hit under the front end of the ship, killing the MITV torp launcher. He fired a second time at the top hull plasma battery when the enemy ship’s tumbling in vacuum brought that weapon housing into line of sight. The double green beams bit through and into the top of the ship hull.

“Star Traveler,” he called. “Is that ship’s AI still alive? I tried to leave the Command Bridge portion intact.”

“It is alive,” their ship mind hummed quickly. “It thanks you for allowing it to live. It reports that two crew died in the middle section of the ship, while the captain and two crew are alive in the bridge section. They wear vacsuits and the enemy bridge is still pressurized. They are trying to fire weapons systems that no longer exist.”

“What is the status on the other Collector ship?” Bill asked. “Is its crew trying to fire on us?”

“There is no crew on the second Collector ship,” their ship mind hummed low. “Only the captain is resident on its Command Bridge. He lacks the crew to make physical changes to the control conduits and wireless transmitters so as to remove its artificial mind from control of ship weapons. While the ship captain is standing before its Ship Weapons control pillar, nothing it does there has any effect.”

“Tell me if there is any change in that situation,” Bill said even as the last of the shuttle icons on the system graphic holo disappeared. He tapped the Tracking portion of his control pillar. It yielded the number 58. When added to the 37 compounds with no Captives present, that meant 95 of 97 heat hot spots on the moon were accounted for. Perhaps the last two were scientific or mining sites. He looked back to his wife, who had been watching him.

“Jane, all Buyer shuttles are killed. The single enemy Collector ship that fired on us is mostly vaporized. The second Collector lacks the crew to attack us,” he said. “And all weapons on the Traffic Control station are either dead from my weapons fire, or knocked out by our invading hover bots.”

“Good work, XO,” she said, her tone command serious. She looked aside to her comlink holo with its images of the other three ship captains. “Alicia, Frank and Stefano, how are your ships?”

“Fully operational,” Stefano said swiftly.

“Same for the
Chapultepec
,” Frank grunted.

“Ready to fight more,” Alicia said.

Jane sat back in her seat, both hands braced on its armrests. “Star Traveler, what is the status of the hull breach above the Containment Chamber?”

“Two repair robots have been dispatched to begin sealing hull opening,” the AI said in a low hum. “It will be atmosphere sealed within sixteen minutes. However, the hull door openings above the containment cells will not be operational until much later.”

“Advise me when repairs are completed,” she said, looking to Bill. Inside her helmet, she shook away black bangs that had drifted over her eyebrows. “Bill? Time for Stage Two of your Buyer attack plan?”

“Yes,” he said, checking his system graphic to confirm that no new Collector ships had entered the HD 128311 system. “Alicia, Frank and Stefano, it’s time to go rescue some Captives from the compounds below. We know which compounds have Captives in them.” He tapped his control pillar top. “I’ve just sent you the backtrack data on all shuttles that came up, plus the 37 compounds with no Captives in them. That leaves 58 compounds to be visited.” The expressions on the faces of his three saloon buddies were priceless as they realized Stage Two of his Buyer assault plan involved ground pounder assault on defended forts. “I’m taking one of our transports down. The second will attack as our wingman.” He looked away from the comlink holo to face the seven Aliens who were watching him and Jane. “Long Walker and Time Marker, will you come with me and Chester and Learned Escape as we assault Buyer compounds and free Captives?”

The black-skinned walking snake turned his triangular head to the left and fixed two blue eyes on Bill. “This one will battle to free Captives,” he hissed.

The segmented worm with the fanged mouth and legs fitted with claws able to gouge metal turned his fleshy head toward Bill. Two black eyes blinked slowly. “Freedom for Captives is desired. This one will assist.”

Bill looked past Jane to their other pilot. “Builder of Joy, are you willing to fly
Tall Trees
alongside our transport in combat support? Your laser is a ship laser with an effective range greater than any compound laser.”

The brown-furred flying squirrel fixed two yellow eyes on Bill. “This one will fly like a raptor against these compounds!” he chittered.

Since Jane knew all about his Stage Two, he faced back to his saloon buddies in the comlink holo. “Folks, you captains can go. But you have to leave two crew on the ship to maintain control with the help of each ship’s AI. What say?”

Alicia spoke first. “Rangers lead. And I’ve been aching to try out the nose laser on one of this ship’s transports.”

Frank frowned. “Us too, of course. Uh, between our four ships we have only 80 containment cells for freed Captives to occupy, since I assume we do not give Captives the run of the ship. What do we do if we liberate more than 80 Captives?”

“That should be obvious,” Jane interjected. “We take over the nearby Collector ship. That gives us 20 more cells. If we have more than a hundred Captives, well, some cells will get two folks in them. We can head back to Earth if there are more than 100 Captives.” She looked his way, her expression showing worry at his upcoming combat drop. “We can build a habitat dome somewhere on Mars for them, until we can arrange trips back to their home star systems.”

“Ready to assault,” Stefano said from the
Seafloat
, his expression calm and collected. “Bob is joining me. He wants payback for his shoulder wound.”

Bill gave them all a nod, then looked to the woman in charge. “Captain, we are ready to head out.”

Despite her earlier look of concern, now her face showed only the look of an officer willing to send others into deadly combat. “Go to it.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Bill reached down and grabbed his backpack from where it sat next to his Weapons seat. To the left, Chester did the same, grabbing his own backpack. Like Bill’s it carried both laser and taser tubes, explosive balls and a bar nuke. And since they were landing without vacsuits, in a normal oxy-nitro atmosphere, each pack also contained telescopic monoculars for scouting out access points within a compound. The titanium chest and back plates, thigh-strapped first aid kits, personal handguns and each person’s knife were already inside the transport
Talking Skin
, ready to be donned during the transport’s descent. To his right, Time Marker and Long Walker turned away from their stations, The tentacle neck fringe on the snake flared and twisted with excitement even as the yellow electrical nimbus around his body expanded outward. For Walker, the giant worm lifted his two front leg-hands and wiggled four fingers at the end of each arm, as some humans might interlace their fingers and crack knuckles. Beyond them the flyer Builder of Joy had stepped off his branch-like seat and was moving their way. To the rear, Learned Escape awaited them, his color-casting skin a riot of color as he shared a private goodbye with Bright Sparkle. As he looked that way, his wife held up a hand.

“Bill, wait. Just realized something we can add to your plan,” she said, looking away to the comlink holo on her right where the other ship captains watched. “Alicia, Frank and Stefano, have your Weapons Chiefs aim your lasers at the 37 Buyer compounds with no Captives.” She tapped the top of a nearby control pillar. “I’ve sent you the backtrack locations of those compounds, with 12 targets for each of you. Fire on them repeatedly until every structure shown in your ship’s electro-optical scopes is down and burning. If there is a spaceship or shuttle at any compound, take it out too.”

“As you command,” Alicia said, turning and relaying the orders to Mark.

Frank grinned hugely. “Just my style! Love doing orbital bombardment with lasers that can cut through storms, typhoons, sand blasts and anything else in the way of my target!” The barrel of a man turned and yelled. “Chris! Show me some Ranger sharp-shooting! You’ve got the boss’s list of Buyer compounds. Take ‘em out!”

Stefano looked briefly amused by the big Marine’s enthusiasm for destruction. Muscles in the man’s classic jawline clenched. “Captain Jane, it will be done. Bob, you heard the boss lady. Fire on them.”

“That leaves one compound not allocated,” Bill said, wondering at his wife’s orbital bombardment rationale.

She smiled quickly. “That one is for the
Blue Sky
. I think I can remotely handle your Weapons Fire Control.” She read his expression. “As for
why
I’m ordering this, the reason is simple.” She looked away from Bill and over to the holo of the other ship captains. “Alicia, Frank and Stefano, once you’ve destroyed these compounds, I will make a broadcast to the remaining 58 sites. I will offer the Buyers at each compound a simple choice. Their lives in exchange for handing over their Captives to your transport after it lands.” She tapped on the nearby comlink pillar, likely setting it up for the neutrino and radio broadcast to the compounds below. Which com frequency had come with Flight Wing’s list of the 37 compounds with no Captives. “Naturally, I will demand they shut down the targeting radar and sensors on their compound lasers. Which this ship can detect. If any Buyer says ‘Yes, I will give up my Captives’, but leaves his laser defenses active, then that compound is toast.” She looked back to him. “Bill, think my plan will improve your chances of entry into a defended fortress?”

One more reason Jane was captain and he was XO, he thought. The advance attack option was something he should have thought of. But instead, he’d been too focused on the individual compound targets, their layout within the circular wall of each compound, the likely locations of Captives, and ways of entering and freeing those folks while under offensive fire from the Buyers. He gave her a quick nod.

“Excellent decision, my captain. You can send the data on which compounds are complying, and which are not to our transport and the transports from our other ships,” he said, walking up to stand just below her elevated command seat. He reached up his left hand to touch her warm arm. He squeezed it lightly, then pulled away as her expression went suddenly tender. Swallowing hard, he looked to the crowd around him. “Folks, let’s march! On to the transport and the liberation of Captives!”

♦   ♦   ♦

Three hours later, with 73 Captives gathered from the 46 Buyer compounds that had accepted Jane’s offer of personal survival in exchange for Captive turnover, Bill watched the white clouds of the moon below as they left the
Blue Sky
after dropping off more freed Captives. The containment cells of his ship and the other three ships were not yet fully occupied, but they were getting close. At Jane’s order to the AI in control of the remaining Collector ship, which only had its captain on board, that ship had moved over to fly in formation with the
Blue Sky, Chapultepec Castle, Pointe Du Hoc
and
Seafloat
. Frank and Joe had boarded the Collector ship by way of collector pod, advanced to the Command Bridge, entered holes in the wall to either side of the sealed entry door, and then had caught the spider-like Alien captain in a taser cross-fire. That had allowed Joe to take control of the ship as the only aware bioform able to perform ship functions. That gave them another 20 cells and an extra ship for the Joint Chiefs. Which ship Joe had promptly renamed as
Manila Bay
, after the valiant action of the Coast Guard cutter
USS McCulloch
in 1898. Now, in transports paralleling his, Alicia and Mark, Frank and Chris, Stefano, Bob and Cassandra, were following him down for the first assault on a recalcitrant, laser-defended compound. He’d decided that with just 12 compounds refusing to cooperate, it made sense to send four armed transports against one compound. Once more he gave thanks for the wingman transport piloted by Builder. Assault forces on his ship were Time Marker, Long Walker, Chester, Learned Escape and himself. Which meant there would be twelve going up against a fortified compound. A small platoon was fine with him. They all knew him, he knew them and the two Aliens among them had long ago learned his small unit movement hand signs. Each Alien had the means to fire both laser and taser, while Time Marker had his electrical nimbus for close-up combat. The transport bumped a bit as it hit the troposphere of the moon.

“You know,” Chester called from the bench opposite Bill’s bench in the cargohold of the transport, his smoothly shaved face looking a bit pale. “I used to make fun of ground pounders who couldn’t handle the rolling of ships at sea. Now, I wonder if the Air Force types were secretly laughing at us! This sky bouncing is a bit unsettling.”

He smiled at the vice admiral. “You’re right, the air hawks may be best suited for planetary assault trips like this!”

Learned Escape looked their way from the nearby pilot space, his skin colors changing. On his left shoulder the speaker/vidcam unit spoke. “We Megun have never suffered from this motion sickness that seems to bother some humans. Although our early space flights that lacked gravity control did result in some crew illness. Is this similar?”

Bill nodded. “Very similar.” He looked away from the combat-suited Megun and over to the holo floating in the aisle between their benches. It showed the landscape of the moon below. They were heading for a compound on the southern land mass. Based on orbital scope imaging, this place consisted of a circular rock wall that surrounded an area equal to three football fields. Within the central area stood four structures. Thanks to Flight Wing’s secret datafile they knew which was which. The central one was the Buyer habitat where four or five Buyers lived a life of luxury, classy food, Alien booze and whatever else the rich among Aliens coveted. The building shape resembled a two story Quonset hut from WWII. This one, though, was built of steel. The other three compound buildings were also rectangular in shape with rounded roofs, albeit lower and likely a single story. The building on the left contained the globular cells in which Captives had been delivered by a Buyer shuttle. The structure on the right held vehicles like hovercars and shuttles. The garrison behind the habitat contained a dozen or more hired guards. Who provided plenty of firepower in addition to the four laser mounts on the encircling compound walls. In his mind, he evaluated the options for assault from a distance, then later, in close-up mode.

“Learned Escape,” he called to their pilot over his throat comlink disk that put him in immediate link with everyone else. And they with each other since everyone was now out of their vacsuits. “Use your nose laser to take out those wall laser mounts once our entry steadies. I know the place is 900 miles away but the transport can take them out. The datafile from Flight Wing says the defense lasers have a range of just a hundred miles.”

“Flight is stabilizing,” the color-banded man said over the comlink. “Firing on compound lasers.”

“Hey boss!” yelled Frank from his transport. “Don’t leave us out of the fun. What can we do?”

He smiled, not minding that Chester and the rest saw him. Informality in combat prep time had always been the practice in every SEAL team he’d ever met. “Gunny, you’re piloting so you get to use your transport’s nose laser against the garrison building at the back of the cluster down there. Alicia and Stefano, feel free to add your transport lasers to Frank’s merry making. Builder, hold your laser free for defense against any attacking craft.”

“Flying fast and toothy,” chittered the flying squirrel.

“Firing,” muttered Frank over the ship-to-ship comlink.

“Me too,” sang Alicia.

“Targeting,” called Stefano.

In the aisle holo, things lit up.

Four spots on the compound wall flared yellow one after the other as Learned fired on them. Four green beams had reached out faster than instantly and four laser mounts were now dead.

Three green beams came from the top of the holo, striking down at an angle to hit the gray metal of the garrison building. Beams able to cut through a ship hull had no trouble turning the garrison into ground bursts of tiny fragments and orange-yellow flame as the building innards were incinerated.

Bill knew the Buyers were expecting their attack. Which meant some guards were likely in the central building and maybe at the Captives structure. Maybe all of the enemy, Buyers and surviving guards, were inside the Captive structure. That was the single building which the Buyers knew he and Jane would not destroy. Not with living Captives inside. They would learn about who was where once they landed in the open space of the southern half of the compound.

“Bill,” called Alicia. “Any more buildings we can target?”

He thought quickly, weighing likely Alien motivations and emotions. “Yes. Take out the shuttle hangar. It could shelter snipers and ambushers. And UAVs like the hover bots Stefano has. No need to leave the enemy a hiding place.”

“Striking,” sang Alicia as she nodded to him.

Frank and Stefano both waved to their Weapons Chiefs.

In seconds three green beams shot down, striking the hangar. It exploded in a fountain of yellow flame, which told Bill there had been some kind of fuel tanks inside it. Gray metal fragments flew out in a fountain of metal shrapnel. Unfortunately, there were no guards nearby to be taken out by the burst. The laser attack by the three transports left only two buildings standing. And two low piles of sparking debris, as best the scope image in the aisle holo could show. He hoped Jane, who had watched the live vidcasts of their three hours of landing, locating and liberating Captives, would feel reassured at the destruction they’d visited on the first recalcitrant compound. Which now became very real as they came into direct line of sight of the enemy.

“Learned, land us in that open space on the south side, but closer to the Captives building than the habitat.” A thought hit him. “Any chance you can land this transport
between
the two buildings?”

“Yes,” the Megun survival master said quickly. “Other ships, hold off on landing until I make ground contact.”

Alicia, Frank and Stefano acknowledged the pilot’s request.

Bill watched as the color-banded man brought their transport in from the direction of the local star, which approach should make difficult any launching of manpads by Alien guards. Hard to target what you cannot see. And the infrared heat seeker sensors on manpads missiles could not lock onto any craft when the orange star was dominant. Only when they were within a few miles did Learned use the Magfield drive to suddenly drop them straight down, landing in a pebbled area between the two buildings. The aisle holo showed the other three transports landing behind and away from
Talking Skin
, with their nose lasers aimed at the habitat building. Overhead, Builder of Joy jinked and slid and hopped across the sky at ten miles out. Which should be beyond the range of any manpads missile the guards might possess. He assumed Aliens who traveled star to star could easily create weapons equal to the SA-7 or FIM-97 Stinger. While the Stinger could reach 26,000 feet in a one gee Earth gravity, this moon’s gravity was maybe 15 percent of Earth’s. Which surely enhanced the range of any manpads system. Best to be safer.