StarFight 3: Battlecry Page 5

  Richard hoped the young man was right. Not even a Battlestar could withstand multiple antimatter attacks. Their two meters of special hull armor would vanish instantly in a total conversion to energy, which conversion would eat deep into the ship. If three AM balls hit the Lepanto, some parts of it might spin off as fragments with air. But as a fighting ship it would be dead. The ships of Rebecca, Joy and Joan would likely not even survive as fragments if hit by antimatter. Well, they now had hours in which to work together, each ship’s Tactical chief coordinating with the other chiefs.

  He moved to positive thoughts. When they killed the two attackers, their four ships would spend hours looping back around to match the outgoing vector of the fleeing wasp ship led by Hunter Thirteen. When they did meet up with that ship, maybe they would join it in fleeing to its wasp colony of Food Enough. But somehow, they must warn Admiral Renselaer about a new alien enemy who now controlled a star system lying less than three days travel time from Kepler 10. Until then, Richard would work on doing tactical simulations with his Marines. He had four functional Darts suitable for forced boarding. Maybe there would be a need for a Marine boarding crew. At the very least the Darts could combine their single lasers and missile launchers as part of an all-out battle against these deadly manta ray aliens. Whatever kind of critter they might be, they now faced the combined forces of humans and wasps. And both species possessed deadly stings!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Pod Leader floated in his water tank and breathed in cool minty water through his gills, feeling blessed by the break from air-breathing that was a necessity whenever he roamed the shores of his sky floater. But relaxation did not block alertness. His topside row of eyes took in the sharp air colors of his pod-mates as they also rested in their own water tanks. Each of them was focused on their assigned pod duties within the Swim Cove chamber. Whether internal to his sky floater or external to it, they did their duty. Duty had brought him and twenty-nine other sky floaters to this new sky glow with its limited group of warm worlds. The growing dryness of Water Home meant they must find other sky glows on which to raise new Podlings. So they had arrived here, above the fourth world outward from this sky glow.

  Duty had led him and others to drop down deadly glow-rocks on the strange land predators who flew above the dry land of the world below. Though he hated to damage the small life that grew and ran on the dry land, it had been necessary. Their history on Water Home had taught the Pod the necessity of killing all predatory land dwellers in order for the Pod’s young ones to be safe as they took their first crawl upon the land. Shore-wandering was vital for young Podlings to develop their air bladders. It was vital for finding small animal food in the wetlands that often lay near the shoreline. And later, it was vital to venturing deep inland, clothed in wetskins, to find the soils and mineral rocks needed to construct sky flyers and the larger sky floaters that flew from sky glow to sky glow. While every member of the Pod thrived best in the shallow waters that lay between dry land and the deep sea, still, his people walk-swam on the land as much as they glided through the glow-lit shallows that held the green plants and small creatures which fed his kind. So it was necessary to kill the flying Dry Ones before the Pod put down Birthers, Podlings and Defenders to occupy the coastal shallows. Which thought reminded him of another duty.

  “Defender Prime, have our two sky floaters caught the fleeing Dry Ones floater?” he color-signed with a simple mix of skin color changes that could be seen through the transparent walls of his tank.

  The leader of all Defenders on this floater and on the other floaters stilled the movement of his mouth tendrils as they touched a view lens control surface. He shifted his long body in his own water tank, front and rear walk-pads pushing water away so the Defender rose higher in his tank. The four eyes on his spine that looked left at Pod Leader blinked with wetness, reading the colors of his signing.

  “Pod Leader, our pursuers have not yet caught the fleeing land predators,” came the Defender’s reply in a mix of black, brown, orange, red and yellow colors that moved through skin pattern changes which gave visual expression to his thoughts. “But the predator will be caught. It will—”

  The silvery walls of his float chamber went bright red, the red of alarm.

  “Predators!” color-signed the skin of Sky Watcher from beyond Defender Prime. “Four predator floaters have appeared at the edge of this sky glow’s magnetic field,” came the warning in a mix of skin reflecting plates that were iridescent green, blue, silver and gold, making distinct patterns that conveyed the thoughts of the pod member who kept watch on all things that happened beyond the hard skin of his sky floater.

  Pod Leader felt the magnetic body fields of every Pod member in the dry chamber expand at the news of new predators, no doubt of the land like the flying Dry Ones they had fought above the world below. “Details!” he signed with urgent skin color changes. Then he reached up his front walk-pads, grasped the edge of his tank and pulled himself up so his eight spine eyes could see the lustrous colors of his pod-mates. He inhaled dry air into his front bladder and exhaled forcefully, causing the bladder skin to pulse out air signs. “Do these new predators swim inward to us? How large are their floaters? Is their water smell the same as that of the land flyers?”

  Shock froze the skin patterns of the ten Pod members who worked in the chamber with him. It was rare for any member of the Pod to speak the air language. It was a late learning of his people, caused by the need to communicate when walking the land in silvery wetskins that protected one’s body from the harsh rays of the orange sky glow that warmed Water Home. He blinked the eight eyes that ran along his spine, focusing four to the left and four to the right. On the left he saw the reaction of four pod-mates. One controlled the floater’s motion, one managed its air and water flow, one ensured the weightiness needed keep water in tanks and one oversaw the power rocks that fed energy to all the hard mineral devices that composed his sky floater. On his right side, those eyes sucked in the skin patterns of Defender Prime, Sky Watcher, the female Birther who held new eggs within her, the Food Grower and Pod Signer. His front pair of eyes, arranged just above his mouth tendrils, took in the large view lens that filled the wall ahead. On it appeared red dots in a cluster of four. Some distance away on the view lens were the red dot of the flying Dry Ones floater, pursued by two iridescent green dots of his pod-mates. To one side of the large view lens glowed the brown, green and blue images of the world below. That view of blue water gave him strength and hope for his people.

  “They swim not,” came the simple skin color pattern from Sky Watcher. “The four predator floaters hold still at the edge of this sky glow’s magnetic field. And their sky smell is different from that of the flying land predators,” she said, adding complexity to her skin patterns. “Their floater size is unknown. My mineral devices do not convey a view lens image. They only convey the invisible sky glow emissions that come from our power rocks, our tail thruster and the means by which we color-sign between floaters.”

  It was limited color knowledge. He accepted that. It was the nature of the cold dry spaces between sky glows. Though he ached to swim down to the coastal shallows on the far side of the world below, to waters not touched by their glow-rocks, still, the Pod was new to this world and new to this sky glow system. The worlds further in were either too dry, too hot or too weighty for Pod life. Only the world below was similar to Water Home. Their Sky Watchers who lived on a world under a sky glow not far distant had discovered the presence of worlds circling this yellow sky glow. So the Pod had come here, only to find the dry land despoiled by flying predators. They could not land their Podlings and helpers until all land predators were killed and gone from the world below. It was a lesson learned in ancient times. So the Pod attacked as it had learned to attack on Water Home. Now, it seemed they would have to attack these new land predators.

  “Pod Signer,” he colorcast to the male occupying a water tank beyond Food Grower. “Send dry color signs to al
l the sky floaters of our Pod. Sign to them that we must move as a united pod against these new predators. We must—”

  “Pod Leader!” interrupted Defender Prime in a flurry of metallic colors. “The escaping floater turns toward these four new floaters. And those four now swim toward the flying Dry Ones. Whatever kind of land creature they might be, these new predators now swim to the aid of the fleeing land predators. They seek to kill the floaters of our pod-mates!”

  The flurry of metallic and dry colors that flowed over the wet skin of Defender Prime both surprised him and filled him with determination. The Pod was twenty-five here and two out there. These land predators were five, at most. It would take several rest cycles to reach the distant location of these new predators. But reach them he would, in company with the shoal of his fellow sky floaters. And when they reached these new predators, they would feel the touch of the black balls that ate all that was solid. And if the blackness did not fully eat them, the orange rays of each floater would reach out and make dead the mineral devices that allowed floaters to move through the dry dark void.

  “All sky floaters, follow me! Swim with me! Join me in defending our pod-mates!” he color-signed in a series of sharp skin color patterns.

  Hooting sounds came from his fellow pod-mates as each used their air bladder to lend urgency and agreement to his command. He expanded his magnetic field. The expansion was detected by a mineral tool in the chamber and broadcast outward to every other sky floater. His field became their field. Together, in perfect unison, their twenty-five sky floaters turned and sped outward to where the intruding land predators now swam in the dry darkness. It was time to send these dry land beings back to the blackness that had born them!

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  As the Lepanto surged forward toward the rendezvous with the wasp ship, Daisy kept her eyes locked on the spysat and system graphic images on the front wallscreen. That tight focus allowed her to speak faster than Rosemary.

  “Captain! The alien ships are leaving planet four. They’re heading toward the wasp ship. Or where it and we will be in five hours,” she said, glancing down at her own holos that showed the same images.

  “Enemy ship movement confirmed,” Rosemary said from her Tactical station.

  Daisy’s holo with an overhead view of the entire Bridge showed Jacob sitting back with a frown. “That is not good. But it will take that fleet forty hours or more to reach our intercept point. We have time enough to hit those invader ships and then loop back to join Thirteen’s ship on its move outsystem to the Food Enough star.”

  She knew that. As likely did the other captains and everyone on the Bridge. Still, it said something about these new aliens. “Captain, our spysat shows the twenty-five invader ships moving in tight unison. Could they have a central navigation system that controls all ships?”

  “Could be. Or it could be something else,” Jacob said. “Commander Branstead, do you have an opinion on that invader ship movement?”

  The Australian Science Deck chief pursed her lips, then her right hand tapped an armrest control patch. “Captain, I doubt they have a central nav control, unless these aliens are a group mind species. Our ships and the wasp ships both use neutrino comlinks for instant communications and coordination without lightspeed lag. But each ship is run by its own Hunter or captain.”

  Richard twisted in his seat. “Then what allows such immediate and instant movement of those ships?” the Marine said. “I don’t like it. It makes these aliens a tactical challenge if they all fight with the same coordination we see in their ship movements.”

  Alicia shrugged. “I have no idea. We do not even know what these aliens look like, which prevents any analogizing to Earth or colony world lifeforms.” She brushed a gloved hand through her brown hair. “But I can say these aliens are predators, they hunt in packs and they are seeking colony worlds the same as us and the wasps.”

  “So are they land animals, like lions?” Jacob said.

  Alicia shook her head. “Predatory pack hunting is not limited to land creatures. Killer whales do it. So do arthropods like fire ants and Argentine ants. And Harris hawks hunt in packs. These aliens could come from any planetary environment. We won’t know for sure until we capture one, dead or alive.”

  Richard grunted. “My Marines are up for that. Our four Darts are willing to go after a manta ray ship.”

  “I’m sure they would,” Jacob said. “But before I send out your Marines, we have to find ways to disable those gamma ray lasers and the antimatter balls. Speaking of which, Oliver, do you have any data on the effective range of those grasers?”

  The swarthy Brazilian tapped his control pillar. “Captain, yes, I do. That wasp video showed the attackers firing grasers at the ship of Thirteen as it fled from planet four. The beams died out before reaching his ship. My calculation of graser range, based on ship size and speed, is 7,000 kilometers.”

  “Shorter than our lasers and the wasp lightning bolts,” Jacob said. He looked down. “Alicia, do you have any idea how those black balls do what they do?”

  The stocky woman looked to her right, where Chief Petty Officer Willard Steinmetz sat at his Science post. “I’ve got some guesses. Willard, you have any ideas?”

  The portly man looked her way, his squarish face half-hidden by his full black beard. “Clearly there is a containment field in operation that encloses the ball of antimatter, otherwise it would disperse into space. And there has to be a sheltered drive engine somewhere inside each ball, otherwise the balls could not move toward a target. Ma’am, that’s all I can figure.”

  Alicia nodded slowly. She twisted in her seat and looked up at Jacob. “Captain, my guess is the balls contain negative antimatter, similar to what our AM cannon fires. That means it is contained by a positive magnetic field. Which goes down on contact with anything solid. And while our lasers and wasp lightning bolts easily penetrate such a field, the antimatter converts any incoming energy into raw energy through a matter-to-energy conversion. So the balls eat up whatever we fire at them.”

  Jacob frowned. “What if one of our missiles hit a ball? Would that take it out? The missiles are solid matter.”

  “They might,” Alicia said. “And the Smart Rocks fired by our railguns might also collapse a black ball field. We’ll know when we enter combat.”

  Jacob closed his gray eyes, gave a sigh, then opened them. “But what moves them? Antimatter does not move on its own.”

  Alicia held up her right hand, one finger uplifted. “My guess is these black balls move by interaction with local stellar magnetic fields. Call it a magfield drive. If there is a central ball that houses a magfield generator, well, that generator could create an inner field shield to protect itself from the antimatter, an outer field shell to contain the antimatter and also a magfield grabber engine that would either push against or pull towards the local stellar magnetic field.” She put her hand down. “Such an engine would explain the ball’s ability to move in any dimension. And contact of the outer field shell with solid matter would send a signal to the innards to shut off the fields entirely, allowing the antimatter to flow out over a ship’s hull. As we saw in the wasp video.”

  Jacob gave the woman a thumbs-up. “Good thinking. Your guesses make sense. And they suggest these invader aliens know a lot about magnetic fields. So. Every Earth ship and wasp ship generates a magnetic field just outside its hull to deflect charged particles shot out by the Sun or a local star. Any chance we can project our ship’s field to block these antimatter balls?”

  Willard shook his head. Alicia did the same. “No sir, we cannot,” she said. “Our ship field generator is engineered to project a field that hugs our outer hull. It cannot deform and reach out to an incoming black ball. Our best defense is likely missiles and Smart Rocks.”

  “Which may or may not collapse a black ball’s magnetic shell,” Jacob said. “Perhaps the shell generator is set to not collapse unless it encounters a large amount of metal. Is that possible?”

/>   Alicia winced. “It is possible . . . but not likely. These invader aliens have not encountered Smart Rocks or missiles in their attacks on the wasps. The wasp nukes are unguided and unpowered and none were launched at the invader ships. So maybe these invaders have no experience with auto-guided missiles and Smart Rocks.”

  “We can hope,” Jacob said, looking ahead at the wallscreen. “Captain Sunderland, Commander Swanson and Lieutenant Commander Jefferson, have your missiles and railguns at Battle Condition One when we approach the enemy ships. I have no doubt these aliens will compute our vector track and then fire antimatter balls and graser beams at our projected vector tracks. Your missiles may be the only thing that will save your ship from antimatter impact.”

  “Will do,” said Swanson from the Chesapeake, her obsidian black face looking all too serious and worried.

  “Just gave the order to my Tactical person,” said Jefferson on the Philippine Sea, her expression lacking the big grin that was her trademark.

  “We will be prepared with our single missile silo,” muttered Sunderland on the Aldertag, her gray-streaked blond hair bound up in a bun on top of her head. “This frigate is quick to change vector tracks. My navigator is top level. She will keep us away from any antimatter balls.”

  Daisy hoped the fiftyish woman was correct about the abilities of her navigator. But even a ship that could bounce around like a rubber ball might not escape an antimatter ball able to instantly change its approach angle thanks to its magfield drive.

  “Captains, have your Tactical people cross-link their targeting with my Tactical station,” Jacob said. “We will flash by these two invader ships. If we are to help that wasp ship, we have to fire at exactly the right time to intersect their approach vectors.”