StarFight 1: Battlestar (3 page)

“Allow the launch of a Cloud Skimmer from Armory Six.”

“Allowed. New ship status now permits full range of defensive movements, drone releases and Weapons Deck activation,” the AI said redundantly, telling Jacob something he’d learned in class at the academy, but had never expected to occur by his own action.

He looked to O’Hara. “Tactical, launch the Cloud Skimmer. Send it into ground contour following mode right after atmosphere entry.”

“Aye aye,” the woman said quickly as she tapped on her control panel. A torpedo shape suddenly appeared in the true space image in the holo before her.

Jacob looked up front. “Daisy, come and sit in the XO’s seat. I will need your support in whatever happens in the future.” A thought struck him. His other friends might be of help in this situation. They knew tech stuff he didn’t. “Melody, advise Ensign Carlos Mendoza, Ensign Lori Antonova and Spacer Quincy Blackbourne to report to the Bridge for consultation with me. Add them to the approved Command Deck personnel list.”

“Directives sent. Personnel added,” the AI said briefly.

Daisy stopped before the XO’s chair and looked up at him. “Jacob, are we doing the right thing?”

What a question to ask in front of the other Bridge crew persons! Then again, she likely spoke what many of them were thinking. “I am acting on behalf of Rear Admiral Cornelius Johanson, who is out of comlink with this ship, as are the captain and the XO. A potential emergency exists. It is our duty to determine whether this comlink severing is due to natural weather events, or due to enemy action.”

New sympathy filled her face. “Agreed.” She turned and sat in the XO’s seat, tapping the left armrest to bring up the holo of all ship decks and status reports for all ship systems.

That was one of the duties of an XO. It was something she, like Jacob, had learned at the academy. Which reminded him there was another duty that went with Alert Unknown Enemy ship status.

“Melody, send an encrypted neutrino signal to the other nine ships in our fleet that advises them to change their ship status to Alert Unknown Enemy.” The other ships would wonder at the order from the fleet’s flagship, but someone on their Bridge would go to their captain’s quarters, force open the safe, read the code unique to their ship, and order their ship’s AI to change ship status.

“Ship status change signal sent to each ship,” the AI said quickly, her tone moving from routine to intense. Clearly there had been an algorithm change in the smart AI’s interaction module. “Confirmation of signal received from ships
Chesapeake, Hampton Roads, Tsushima Strait, Salamis, Philippines Sea, St. Mihiel, Marianas, Britain
and
Ofira
.”

Jacob swallowed hard. He had moved beyond taking command of his ship’s Bridge. He had sent new orders to the two cruisers, three destroyers and four frigates that made up the battle group. Briefly his mind rewound a lesson from the academy that described why some ships were named after famous naval battles and others were named after famous aerial fights. Shaking his head, he remembered a final academy lesson.

“All Bridge crew, put on your vacuum suits. Prepare for environment disruption. Melody, send my vacsuit order to all ship personnel and all decks.”

“Complying,” the AI said sharply.

A hiss from below his left armrest told Jacob a compartment had opened. It held his own vacsuit with flexible helmet. Its clear fabric would darken at any exposure to stellar radiation. He pulled it out, stood up and joined everyone on the Bridge in donning the precaution against sudden air pressure loss.

As he did so, he wondered what the leader of the wasp-like aliens was thinking. Surely the alien ships had detected the radar scan of the meeting site. Those ships had put out their own spysats before the fleet arrived. Those sats would soon report the
Lepanto’s
launch of a Cloud Skimmer. What would the alien captain or leader or whatever passed for someone in charge now do?

CHAPTER TWO

Hunter One perched tensely on his control bench as his five eyes took in the behaviors of his Servants and Worker Leaders. Their Flight Chamber was large enough for a cohort of twenty Swarm members. Fewer than that worked at the instrument panels and watched the perception imagers that emitted pheromone signals for all to sense. Outside his Colony Nest was empty void, a cold, scent-less space that hated all life, even the lives of lowly Workers. At least his fellow flying nests were safe and warm and filled with life that yearned to occupy the inviting world below. The eleven Support Hunters who controlled the other mobile nests had been surprised by the arrival of other life in strangely shaped flying nests. Their world of Nest knew only the Swarm, a myriad of smaller, senseless hard-shelled life and the strange soft-skinned occupants of their world’s skies, forests and oceans.

But three rest cycles ago the new flying nests had appeared at the edge of the local sky light’s magnetic field. Their sudden appearance gave scent of movement by way of the alternate dimension the Swarm itself used to send Colony Nests to new worlds that winged about other sky lights. Clearly the ten new flying nests had come from elsewhere. Most seriously, the new nests had ignored the warnings against entry emitted by the Swarm’s boundary globe. What kind of creatures could ignore the scents of repellent and territorial pheromones? One scent claimed this system for the Swarm. The other scent provided a noxious reminder to stay away. That was how other Swarm cohorts spoke to each other. And how the members of his ship cohort spoke among themselves. Even the Soft Skins on their world sensed the warning pheromones and stayed away from buried Swarm nests. But the flying nest intruders had ignored the globe’s warning. They had moved close to the local sky light’s warmth, aiming for the outermost fourth nest world that the Swarm had already claimed. Clearly they aimed to take the warm world for themselves.

His Servant who specialized in aberrant social behaviors had urged him to meet with the intruders before attacking their flying nests. Attack was the traditional means of defending one’s territory. But as their world of Nest had grown more complex, as the castes of Swarmers had learned new scents and new results from studying the world about them, there had risen a need for Servants with specialized knowledge. Some Servants focused on mechanical devices. Some focused on invisible scent signals coming from the home sky light and other distant sky lights. And some Servants discovered ways for a cohort of Swarmers to fly further than their wings would normally convey them. Across the oceans. Out to the large moon of their world. Thence to other, colder sky nests that winged far beyond the warmth of their sky light’s white-yellow glow. Then had come knowledge of alternate dimensions, and ways to travel to distant sky lights. His generation was the sixth to have control of such wondrous devices.

Now, it seemed other life had learned the same hard lessons. And it chose to invade their clearly marked territory. So he had proposed the meeting down on the world of Warmth. Defense of his home cohorts on Nest had taught him the wisdom of entrapping the Hunter leaders of opposing cohorts. The trap allowed the trap-maker to render the invading cohort members without leadership, without a Hunter, or useful Servants, or strong Fighters, maybe they even suffered the loss of their egg-laying Matron. A cohort without leaders and guidance became chaos. It then became a simple matter to impose his pheromones on the new arrivals and add them to his home nest. So he had invited the meeting, had created a nesting site, had sent down a small cohort of defective Servants, and then waited for the invaders to arrive. The memory of the perception images of the new beings had nearly emptied his inner gut. His breathing spiracles had become erratic in their pumping of air. Nausea had filled him as he realized the new arrivals were the worst type of Soft Skins. They were two-legged scavengers who resembled smaller soft skins on his world of Nest. Those tree-dwelling beings were known as crafty thieves. Clearly these larger Soft Skins, who had only four limbs rather than the normal six, intended to steal Warmth from the grasp of the Swarm.

The invaders had arrived. Transports from each of their ten flying nests had touched down on the empty meadow far below his ship. Close to four six-groups had walked in on just two legs. They had attempted to communicate with the defective Servants he had sent down. Those Servants knew their duty. They had pretended to cooperate. After one flying transport left the meeting site, giving him worry that some Soft Skin leaders might escape, he’d sent down a second transport. It carried the Storm Bringer floating globe. The globe, once deployed, rendered inoperable all signaling devices, whether pheromone or radiation-based. An added benefit came when the globe burst. The plasma created by its eruption incinerated all that lay below it even as the magnetic field created by the globe drew in local storm clouds. Those clouds covered the meeting site, making it invisible to normal perception imagers. While he could have destroyed the Soft Skin leaders with a particle disruption device, such weapons left behind deadly radiation residues that lasted for many lifetimes. He had no desire to sully the pure lands of Warmth. So the Storm Bringer globe had been deployed. And it had worked well.

“Hunter!” came an alarm pheromone from a Servant who occupied the bench which analyzed perception signals from the monitor globes they had dispersed in orbit above Warmth. “A Soft Skin monitor globe has cast a hard scent beam down on the meeting site! The beam will reveal our second transport.”

Around him the other eleven Servants who operated the systems and devices that controlled the operation of his flying nest now flared their antennae. Their mandibles moved as if cutting through an enemy. Their spiracles pulsed in anticipation of his response pheromone.

“Have the Soft Skin flying nests changed their position above Warmth?” he scent cast, adding a food trail pheromone to entice quick response.

The Servant spread his wings. “They have not. The intruder flying nests remain in their cluster formation, acting like—”

“Alarm!” interrupted a releaser pheromone from a different Servant who monitored radiations from the cold of empty space. “The largest Soft Skin flying nest has released a small device. The device is a . . . a flying fabrication. It now enters the air of Warmth and flies toward the meeting site.”

Hunter emitted a calming pheromone and spread it across the chamber by way of his wings. He followed it with an inhibitory pheromone to forestall hasty action by any Servant. “Servant,” he scent cast to the one who had scent spoken. “Send a pheromone signal to the flying nests of our Support Hunters. Advise them of the monitor globe action and the flying device. Have them awaken their Fighter Leaders.”

Sudden scent silence came from those about him. The Servant who had reported the Soft Skin flying nest behavior now emitted a releaser pheromone, signaling his intent to change his behavior. His front limbs touched the control panel that lay in front of his bench. “Signal pheromones sent. May I add perception images from our sensor devices?”

“You may do so,” Hunter agreed with the release of a calming pheromone. He then followed the scent words with a brief territorial pheromone to remind the Servant that he, the Leader of all Swarmers aboard the Colony Nest, controlled their futures, their lives and their destinies. “Send an identical scent to the Fighter Leaders in our flying nest. It is time for the attack stations on this nest to become fully occupied. The moment of attack may come sooner than any hard shell expects.”

“Sending,” the Servant scented back to him with a strong aggregating pheromone as a signal of his loyalty.

Hunter settled down on his bench. It was elevated above the device boxes and tubes that ran along the chamber’s floor and across the ceiling above. His flying nest was a poor imitation of his home shelter in a deep hole in a rock face that fronted a cool lake and meadow. Like every Swarmer in the twelve flying nests that made up their colonizing effort, he felt bereft of home. Such loss was a sensation that sent some Swarmers into chaotic behavior despite the pheromone scents of their leaders. Only Swarmers who could stand a long separation from the home nest, or home shelter, took duty aboard the flying nests that sought out new homes for the millions of new eggs produced by the Matron caste. Hunter was one of those who could handle such isolation from the familiar. But he did not pretend the loss did not affect him. Only the awareness of finding new home nests kept his inner gut at equilibrium.

Breathing deep through his spiracles, he focused his three simple eyes and two major eyes on all the perception imagers that filled his Flight Chamber. Unlike other hard shell groups on Nest, every Swarm member had trichromatic vision. They could see from the dark purple through blue, green, yellow and orange. Servants who studied distant sky lights said there were other colors beyond dark purple to orange, which their native Soft Skins could perceive. No matter. The Swarm’s trichromatic vision had been a vital aid in defeating half-aware flying hard shells. Now, that vision told him much. Several imagers depicted the ten invading nests. Their shapes glowed in ultraviolet reflected from the local sky light. As did the many monitor devices dispersed by the invaders.

How would the Soft Skins on those nests react to the loss of their leaders, their guides, their givers of order and coherence? Chaos should fill those flying nests as the Workers, Fighters, Servants and Matrons left leaderless became confused and fearful. When the ten flying nests showed erratic movements, that would be the moment to strike hard. The twelve nests of the Swarm would fly in and englobe the Soft Skins, overwhelming any artificial stingers possessed by such strange lifeforms. A mass englobement had always been the method by which any Swarm cohort overcame an opposing Swarm cohort. Surely the same would now happen with the Soft Skins.

♦   ♦   ♦

Daisy scanned the ship deck and status holo as she waited for Jacob’s friends to arrive. Her friend’s order to change ship status made total sense to her in view of the failure to contact any senior officer from the battle group. Something strange was going on at the meeting site. They had to know what was happening. The Cloud Skimmer would bring them imagery and sensor data once it arrived at the site, in another twenty minutes. Until then, the
Lepanto
and the other ships had to prepare for possible conflict. Which meant she had to confirm every deck on the Battlestar was in combat alert status with people manning the vital stations involved in operating, fueling and fighting the giant warship. The holo drew her gaze.

She saw that the left and right side outrigger pods were now at Weapons operational status. The carbon dioxide lasers on the nose and tail of each pod were powered up and ready to unleash green hell against any target out to 10,000 kilometers. In the middle of each pod the proton lasers were up and aiming sideways, ready to cover any side-approaching enemy with their red beams. The proton range was the same as the lasers. On the spine and belly of the ship were the railgun launchers and the plasma batteries. They were equally powered and ready to defend the ship against enemies that got too close. The railgun mounts were aimed sideways, like the proton lasers, and fully covered the flanks of the
Lepanto
. The plasma batteries covered the top and bottom angles out to 400 klicks, which made them useful for taking out kinetic Smart Rocks, if the enemy possessed such. She looked at the ship’s nose, the area directly above the Bridge on the ship’s outer hull. The emitter node for the antimatter cannon showed Green Operational, and the particle accelerator tube that circled the body of the ship had accumulated a reservoir of negative antimatter sufficient for four shots. While the range of the black antimatter beam was just 4,000 kilometers, anything touched by the magnetically focused antimatter became instant energy. Similar to the yellow plasma balls shot by the plasma batteries. Finally, she confirmed the six armories at the rear of the ship and the four hangars at the ship’s front were in fighting trim, ready to feed thermonuke missiles to the rear missile launch silos, Smart Rocks to the railguns, plasma canisters to the batteries, and laser artillery, rifles and pistols to the twenty person Marine boarding team. Which should already be at Silo Eight, ready to enter their Assault Darts if ordered to board an enemy ship. Finally, she noted the personnel count. There were 321 lives aboard the
Lepanto
, each one as vital to the ship as she and her friends.

Which made her wonder again at Jacob’s order. Carlos was a programmer on Navigation Deck, Lori a biologist on Science Deck and Quincy a laser gunner’s mate assigned to the front laser node on Weapons Deck’s right outrigger pod. Which left out only Kenji. Course the man was a line cook in the Mess Hall, an important talent but not something they needed for a space battle. Would there be a battle? Or would some Lieutenant Commander on another ship or LC Bannerjee on
Lepanto
show up and order the battle group to leave the system? Retreat in the face of the loss of their captains, XOs and other ensigns did not sit well with her. They had to know more about these wasp-like aliens. Who were they? Where did they come from? Why were they in orbit above the system’s outermost planet? Had they attacked the commanders of her fleet? If so, why? But answering such questions required a common language. A feat yet to be achieved. Maybe Lieutenant Branstead on Science Deck could figure out an algorithm that would—