Freedom Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series Book 3) (17 page)

“Incoming AV signal!” said Denise loudly, her tone nervous. “Going up front among the other images.”

Jack unlocked his restraint straps, stood up and stepped forward to the middle of the cabin’s front row of function seats. He stood in front of Maureen’s Combat station.

Before them appeared the image of Guide Benaxis, this time showing his full body and the command cabin of his ship. Three Melagun hippos wore their own vacsuits and floated from one control panel or pedestal to another. The Alien ship commander was planted solidly above a padded bench, his six legs secured to the ship’s deck with restraint straps. While the Melagun hippo could easily lower down onto his rest bench, it was clear he now stood upright on his thickly muscled legs. Six tentacle hands moved about his thick neck. Wearing the red cape that covered his back and sides, the Alien fixed large round eyes on Jack’s Come-Back image. The Melagun blinked hurriedly.

“Communicator, reduce incoming illumination to Home normal,” the Alien said, looking to a fellow hippo seated on a bench before a metal block covered with images. The Guide fixed on Jack. “Your imagery is brighter than is comfortable for us Melagun. But we are adaptable. Tell me, Guide Jack, about this star society of predators. It concerns me and will concern the Chief Guide of Home, when she receives this discussion.”

Jack gripped the waist tool belt of his vacsuit and inspected the Aliens before him. There were five moving about in a metal floored and walled room that resembled his Pilot Cabin in the numbers of function stations. A wide doorway loomed dark in the rear of the room, presumably leading to other parts of the Melagun ship. Pale yellow light glowed from strips on the room’s ceiling. Three potted purple bushes fluttered as air blowers moved in fresh air and sucked out carbon dioxide. “Guide Benaxis, this society of predators calls itself the Hunters of the Great Dark. Their society has been in existence for 3,000 years. They treat other peoples as either juvenile species who have not yet reached the outermost planet in their star system, or as ‘subject peoples’ who allow the dominating predators to plant a colony on their home world. Part of being dominated by predator Hunters involves the provision of living people to be eaten by the dominant predators. It happens yearly in a kind of ritual I detest.” Jack waved to Denise. “To my right you will see a hologram of part of our galaxy that we call Orion Arm. Among the millions of stars in this part of the galaxy are thousands of stars occupied by juvenile peoples like yourselves, subject peoples and predator peoples like the HikHikSot and Nasen.”

Benaxis hooted through his flat white teeth, gave a full body shiver, then scanned past Jack. “I count nine of you Humans in your ship
Uhuru
. Are there similar numbers aboard the other ships that float above us?”

Jack nodded. “Most of our ships operate with only five crew. Our largest ship contains 230 crew people. We do not seek to dominate your star system or your people. And we will leave if that is your wish.”

The Melagun guide gave a low rumble. “Stay. Our people of Home have long wondered if other . . . people lived around other stars. Our Yellow Robes have long said they do. Our Purple Robes say what matters is enlarging our economy for the benefit of our people. Our White Robes consider the nature of reality and cause everyone else confusion.” The hippo looked to one side as a fellow Melagun brought up a flat black plate that resembled a datapad, glanced at it, then fixed back on Jack. “You say these Hunters of the Great Dark go star to star hunting for people to dominate. How do they do that?”

Jack explained quickly about the Rules of Engagement and the Challenge to Combat on a personal level. “If you Melagun fail to defeat an invading predator ship, you would then be treated as ‘subject peoples’. We humans believe all intelligent species have the right to travel star-to-star, exploring the galaxy, not just social carnivore predators.”

“What a strange concept,” Benaxis rumbled. “While our people defeated the unthinking predators of our world, the colors of which we show on our own skin, the protection  of our world Home and our Melagun people has always been the prime duty of every Melagun no matter what color robe they wear. As you surely know, our world is the only habitable world in this system. But it is subject to frequent attack by comets and asteroids from the Outer Rock Fields. We developed devices to destroy such threats to our world. We would use them to defend our system against any Hunter of the . . . the Great Dark.”

“Captain Jack,” called Elaine. “My sensors show one of the fusion ships in orbit above Home is heading this way. At top speed. They’ve had time to receive the first images of our arrival.”

“Thank you Elaine.”

The neck tentacles that served Benaxis as hands moved in a flurry of motion. “Our Chief Guide has likely sent a ship of the Melagun Protection Force out to aid us. But we have not heard back from her. How do you know this?”

Jack’s mouth felt dry. His heart hammered. He did not like being on public stage like this. It felt like slow torture. “You Melagun have your devices. We have ours. One of them detects neutrino emissions from moving sources. Every ship that has a fusion reactor on it emits neutrinos, as does its Drive engine.”

“Understood,” Benaxis said, two of his neck tentacles moving down to grip a black datapad that hung from his neck. “What is the nature of these predators who call themselves the Hunters of the Great Dark?”

Jack gave a smile that did not show his teeth. “They are social carnivores who are the apex predator of their home system. They are mostly meat eaters, since they evolved from animals that hunt other animals. Their prey is called herbivores. Creatures who eat mainly plant food. We humans are omnivores. We eat both meat and plant foods. But we do not hunt thinking creatures for food!”

Benaxis lowered his bulk down onto the padded bench under his belly. “By your terms, we Melagun are also omnivores, though we love our purple bushes. Which is why every ship carries them. We call them Sweet Berry Bushes.” The Alien paused, looked down at his datapad, then up to Jack. “Final question. How did you and your ships arrive here so suddenly? We have devices to detect the exhaust flares of fusion pulse ships like ours. We saw no such flare before your arrival. Yet our Monitor Devices saw you use such a drive to reach this orbit.”

Jack turned, walked back and sat in his Tech station seat. “We have complex devices. One of them we call the gravity-pull drive. It moves each ship of our fleet in a straight-line vector that ignores inertia. There is no exhaust. We travel at eighty percent of the speed of light thanks to this device.” The Melagun hooted deeply, as if surprised. “To travel star-to-star we use a different space drive. We call it the Alcubierre drive shell. It creates a space-time manifold that allows our ship to travel very fast. It took only three days for our fleet to travel from Sol to your star Tau Ceti.”

“Remarkable.” Benaxis looked aside at a different hippo who sat before a pedestal topped with an image screen. “My Defender says your ship
Uhuru
possesses devices that resemble our negative matter and congruent light projectors. Do you use these devices to fight these predators you speak of?”

“Yes,” Jack said as Maureen’s holo image began swearing in Gaelic. “It is good your ships possess this antimatter weapon. It will help you defend your system from predators. If you wish help in defending your people, we humans offer an alliance of mutual help. If you Melagun join our alliance, we will share with you our modulated neutrino comlinks that allow people to talk star-to-star at speeds faster than light. We are also willing to trade the technology of our Alcubierre star drive with you, in return for food, deuterium and helium-3 fuel, and any devices that you wish to share with us.”

The Guide’s brown eyes blinked quickly. “Your behavior since your arrival above Cold Gases has been that of a wise Red Robe. You do not attack us with devices stronger than our own defense devices. You have twice offered to leave our system. And though you are crippled with too few legs and a paucity of manipulators, your words are those of a Chief Guide.” The Alien tapped on his black datapad with one tentacle. “You may visit our world of Home. We have a Refuge that orbits above our world. It contains air, water, food and fuel resources like those you describe.” Benaxis gave a low sigh. “Will you visit us?”

Jack felt a chill from the sweat that had run down his neck. Thinking of how right Cassie had been about showing a limited presence to this Melagun Guide person, he raised a hand. “Yes. The air we breathe is the same as the air of Home. However, our world of origin is smaller than your world. The pull-down strength of our world is just one-third that of your world. Is there a section of your Refuge where we humans could enjoy our own gravity level?”

Loud hooting sounded from Benaxis and the other five Melagun on the command deck of
Polar Ice
. “Easily done,” the Guide said. “We transmit to you an image of our Refuge and our world of Home. You can see that the orbiting Refuge is composed of three rings lying within each other. The innermost ring is closest to the central tube where our ships arrive and tie up. Its pull-down strength, or gravity, is one-third that of Home. The outermost ring equals that of Home.” The Melagun looked down at his datapad, then up. “You may bring your ship and five other Human ships to our world. The rest should float here. The arrival of so many stranger ships would worry our people.”

Jack clapped his hands together, hoping it matched a gesture of the Melagun. “Guide Benaxis of the Melagun Protection Force, your wisdom in  sharing words with strangers unlike your people is valued greatly by myself and my people. My ship
Uhuru
, the large ship
Bismarck
and four other human ships will visit your world. Will you lead us?”

The front screen showed a yellow-orange flare jetting out from the base of the Melagun ship. Its orientation shifted and the hippo ship assumed a vector aimed at its world of Home. Benaxis stretched out the six tentacles that surrounded his neck, making his squarish head appear as if it were the spoke at the center of a wheel with no rim.

“Leading our herd and your herd we are,” the Melagun rumbled in low infrasound.

Jack looked up at his fellow captains. “Hideyoshi, Gareth, Minna, Ignacio and Akemi, follow us please. The rest of the fleet, stay here. Admiral, can Fleet Commander Zhāng take charge of the rest of the fleet?”

The Mars fleet commander gave a swift nod, his expression professional and focused. “She can. Uh, is it possible for other fleet ships to rotate into a visit at this Refuge station? We have plenty of folks who need a break from the confines of our smaller ships.”

Jack grinned. “I’m sure that will be possible, once Benaxis sees the peaceful but greedy side of humanity. Let me negotiate that. After all, every fleet ship needs to top off its fuel tanks and refresh its oxy-nitro balance. Though I do
not
promise to share the Melagun version of steaks!”

Laughter came from every captain, even Hideyoshi, and from Jack’s crew.

“Jack,” called Max. “We’re going fusion pulse now! And you better find out what the Melagun version of booze is. I need a new buzz!”

He shook his head. Only the Pole from Lodz would put Alien booze at the top of his list of things to trade for!

CHAPTER ELEVEN

One week later Jack stood beside Benaxis on the inner ring level of Refuge, looking out a clear plexiglas panel as the brown, purple and watery-blue surface of Home moved with the rotation of the Refuge. He saw a world twice as big as Earth, with a high haze of white stratospheric clouds. While the light of Tau Ceti that illuminated his view was equal to early twilight on Earth, he saw enough to make him understand the vital importance of the Melagun Protection Force to the people of Home.

“Those are a lot of impact craters down there,” he said to the Guide, giving thanks Denise had programmed his shoulder comlink tab to speak in Melagun and convert such speech to English that he heard over an earbud.

Benaxis’ hippo body shivered, causing ripples to move under its hide. The red, yellow and black stripes shimmered from the effect. The Alien kept his gaze focused on his world. “We have documented 373 remnant craters,” he said in a low infrasound rumble. “There would be many more if it were not for the gravitational deflection effects of Cold Gases and Ice Giant. The inner edge of the Outer Rock Fields has enough asteroid and comet collisions to send many objects our way.”

Jack nodded. “Our world of Earth has recorded 183 such large impact craters. The largest ones are named Vredefort, Sudbury and Chicxulub. The last one caused the extinction of giant reptiles on the planet along with massive climate change.”