Freedom Vs. Aliens: Aliens Series, #3

By T. Jackson King

Jack Munroe’s anti-Alien crusade runs into a roadblock. The Unity rulers of Earth attack his Asteroid Belt home. They aim to ally with the predatory Hunters of the Great Dark. But Jack is not about to let Earth be run by Alien predators who treat subject peoples as serfs and living meals. He attacks Unity space bases on Earth, destroys the Unity headquarters in Switzerland and encourages America and other nations to reclaim their independence. Jack then leads a fleet of powerful starships out to the stars to make a Freedom Alliance with subject Aliens. That requires finding common ground for Humans, the Melagun hippos and the ChikHo ostriches. Which he vows to do. Jack is determined to subvert a galactic system that says only carnivore predators can travel star-to-star!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilder Publications Inc.
• Release date: Mar 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781633843707

T. Jackson King

T. Jackson King (Tom) is a professional archaeologist and journalist. He writes hard science fiction, anthropological scifi, dark fantasy/horror and contemporary fantasy/magic realism--but that didn't begin until he was 38. Before then, college years spent in Paris and in Tokyo led Tom into antiwar activism, hanging out with some Japanese hippies and learning how often governments lie to their citizens. The latter lesson led him and a college buddy to publish the Shinjuku Sutra English language underground tabloid in Japan in 1967. That was followed by helping shut down the UT Knoxville campus in 1968 and a bus trip to Washington D.C. for the Second March on Washington where thousands demanded an end to the Vietnam War. Temporary sanity returned when Tom worked in a radiocarbon lab at UC Riverside and earned an MA degree in archaeology from UCLA. His interests in ancient history, ancient cultures and journalism got him several government agency jobs that paid the bills, led him to roam the raw landscape of the Western United States, and helped him raise three kids. A funny thing happened on the way to normality. By the time he was 38 and doing federal arky work in Colorado, Tom's first novel STAR TRADERS was a stage play in his head that wouldn't go away. So he wrote it down. It got rejected. His next novel was published as RETREAD SHOP (Warner Books, 1988). It was off to the writing races and Tom's many voyages of imaginative discovery have led to 23 published novels, a book of poetry, and a conviction that when humans reach the stars, we will find them crowded with space-going aliens. We will be the New Kids On The Block. This theme appears in much of Tom's short fiction and novel writing. Tom lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. His other writings can be viewed at http://www.tjacksonking.com.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Playing soccer on a grassy field in a cave inside the asteroid 253 Mathilde had seemed to Jack like a fun thing to do. Then rocks began falling from the ceiling and the ground vibrated under his feet.

Max! he called over the comlink tab pinned to his jumpsuit. What the hell’s going on? He looked at the twenty-eight people who, like him, had stopped playing soccer. Rocks now fell inside Mathilde, thanks to the one gee grav-pull field newly installed inside the cave. Everyone head for your vacsuits and the Dock Cavern! Archibald, kill the gravity in here so we can move faster.

His lifemate Nikola grabbed her carrybag even as Maureen the combat veteran ran past them headed for the airlock that connected their soccer cave with the Dock Cavern. Which held their fleet allies and the giant rotating torus in which lived 12,000 people. The comlink spoke.

Thermonukes! Max yelled from the Uhuru. Five frigate ships blip jumped into local space just above Nikola’s scope building. They launched five thermonuke torps at the surface!

Jack! called his sister Elaine as she arrived on a floater flatbed. Get on! It’s faster than running or weightless jumping.

He followed Nikola onto the floater just as Archibald ran up to the tripod and globe housing of the grav-pull gravity generator and cut power to it. Around them other people used floaters to rescue people who had not kicked off toward the airlock.

Why is this place not cracked open? he yelled to Max over the comlink tab.

His engineer buddy cursed in Polish. They seem to be three megaton thermonukes, not the biggies like our fleet thermonuke torps.

Watching as Maureen reached the inner hatch of the airlock, Jack felt shock, worry and then anger. His heart beat fast as he realized five 50 megaton thermonukes would have broken open the 53 kilometer wide globe of Mathilde like a rotten eggshell. But who was attacking them? The Brazilians on the Moon and the Chinese on Mars were part of the anti-Alien alliance he’d created just six months ago, before their nine ships had left Sol system and headed out into interstellar space. And since Max had not said the frigate ships were Alien, that left just one source.

"Max! Those have to be Unity spaceships. Where’s the Uhuru? And the rest of our fleet and Gareth’s fleet?"

They arrived at the open airlock hatch and ran through it as Maureen gestured to Hurry Up! even as her gray eyes looked ready to kill someone. Jack, Nikola, Elaine and Maureen began pulling on their vacsuits even as other soccer players arrived and crowded into the room, calling for news.

Quiet! he yelled, closing up the front of his vacsuit, then grabbing his helmet globe. Five frigates have attacked us with small thermonuke torps! Head for your ships or your homes in the torus!

Our ship is in the Dock Cavern! Max grunted hurriedly as if he was doing three things at once. Gareth’s ship is here, with our fleet. The rest of Gareth’s fleet is out on system patrol. As is Hideyoshi’s Mars fleet. No Belter ship was nearby when these frigates arrived! Denise called to say she’s on the way here, as is my Blodwen. Gareth is leaving the torus and heading for his ship with some of his crew. I’m powering up our Battle Module. We’ll be ready to go after these bastards as soon as you folks get here!

With helmet sealed and internal vacsuit comlink activated, Jack followed Nikola, Maureen, Elaine, Archibald and two dozen other folks through the outer airlock hatch and into the yellow-lighted space of the Dock Cavern. He boarded the floater flatbed that Maureen had pulled through the airlock, made room for his crewmates, and took in the busyness of the Dock Cavern. A place three kilometers wide that was partly filled with docked or free-floating Belter spaceships, plus a few cargo transports that resembled giant soccer balls. The 200 meter length of the Uhuru rapidly drew close to him and his people as Maureen, cursing in Gaelic, hammered at the floater’s Control pedestal. He saw another floater already pulling up to the midbody Lander airlock. Two women were on it. A redhead and a blond. Denise and Blodwen no doubt.

Max! he called over his comlink as their flatbed bumped up against the one ridden by his ComChief and Sociologist. Fire up the modulated neutrino comlink! Call Hideyoshi! Tell him I need him here yesterday!

Powering up! Max said gruffly, as if not welcoming one more thing to do beyond bringing their fusion pulse drive to Pinch Mode and setting the grav-pull module to readiness for blip jumping the moment they exited the tunnel that led into the Dock Cavern.

Jack followed everyone into his ship’s large airlock. The outer hatch was tapped into fast closure by wild-haired Archibald. Sealed! the Brit physicist said. Maureen?

Pressurizing! yelled their Irish grandma who, at 78, had more energy than the seven of them combined.

The inner hatch opened quickly and they all piled into the Spine hallway, running fast in the one gee gravity that was a gift of the Alien-built grav-pull drive module. Jack caught up to Maureen just as the rad-tanned woman jumped through the Pilot Cabin hatch, heading for her Combat station seat up front. He ran past Max and took his Tech station seat at Maureen’s left just as Elaine dropped into her Pilot station seat. Behind them Denise filled the ComChief station, Nikola sat in her Chief Astronomer seat behind Jack, Blodwen sat behind Max in her Sociologist station and Archibald dropped wearily into his Physics station seat beside Blodwen. He waved a hand back to his ComChief.

"Denise! Link me up with Hideyoshi on the Bismarck! Max, move us out of this cavern and into the tunnel on thrusters! Maureen, get the hell out of that chair and back to your Battle Module! We’re likely to be firing our beamers just seconds after we reach open space. The rest of you keep your yaps shut!"

Heading back! growled Maureen as she jumped out of her seat and headed back to take direct control of the Fire Control panel that guided her antimatter and neutral particle beam emitters in the Battle Module. Which lay at the rear of the Uhuru.

Jack tapped on his Tech panel and set it to Combat mode, tapping on the touch controls for the two spine-mounted railguns and the hydrogen-fluoride laser pods that lay on the port and starboard sides of the Uhuru.

Connected! called Denise. Live AV up front.

Jack fixed on the worried-looking face of Admiral Hideyoshi Minamoto, leader of the Mars fleet of grav-pull ships and a man with more combat experience than anyone other than Maureen. "Admiral, there are five enemy frigates in space above Nikola’s Big Eye scope station. Which one of our spysats says is a glowing radioactive pit. Along with four other pits from thermonuke torps! That puts the enemy near Mathilde’s north pole and on the side opposite from our Dock Cavern tunnel. I’m taking the Uhuru out and heading to our south pole vector, he said hurriedly, mouth feeling too dry. I need you and the Bismarck here now! We need your antimatter beamer, particle beamer and lasers to hit those ships from the side opposite to our approach. Can you do it?"

The man’s thin black eyebrows creased together. We are one-third of the way around Sol system from you. Even at eighty percent of lightspeed we cannot be there sooner than a half hour.

Jack pointed at the Alien-built drive module that sat next to Max. Use your Alcubierre drive shell module! You can be here within two minutes. And your arrival will not leave a tell-tale graviton pulse. I want us to both appear suddenly and fire on them before they can aim their own particle beams at us!

The man nodded abruptly. "Will do. Give me the spatial coordinates for where you want the Bismarck to arrive."

Nikola! he yelled, then lowered his voice. Transmit the coordinates for your scope station plus two hundred kilometers altitude to the admiral.

Sending! she said, sounding breathless as if the run up the Spine hallway had left her short of breath.

Jack looked back at the man who had never failed to follow his orders. In two minutes we will arrive opposite these five ships. Kill them! By whatever means available!

Jack! called Maureen from a holo that popped up above his Tech panel. Second round of thermonukes fired! Aimed at the equatorial region of Mathilde. This place can’t take much more pounding like that.

He knew that. The lives of 12,000 people rode on the pending actions of him and Hideyoshi. Among them the lives of his Mom and Dad, who lived in the rotating habitat torus that occupied the rooftop portion of the Dock Cavern. Glancing through the porthole on the left of his seat he saw small pieces of rock free floating in the cavern. The fat spearhead shape of his Welsh ally’s ship Dragon now showed controlled movement as its maneuvering thrusters fired yellow flame, moving its blunt nose to point toward the exit tunnel. And toward his ship. Max! Move us out of here. He looked back at Denise, whose two red braids framed a face that looked younger than her nineteen years. ComChief, keep the neutrino comlink open to Hideyoshi but open an encrypted AV Come-Back signal to Gareth! Do it fast!

The woman blinked her jade green eyes, licked her pale lips and nodded. Channel open!

The front screen of the Pilot Cabin split into three segments. The left segment showed the five Unity frigates holding position above the north pole of Mathilde, with the yellow-white gases of the second round of thermonuke explosions expanding outward from the asteroid’s surface. Hideyoshi’s image moved to the right. The middle filled with the broad shoulders and brown gaze of Gareth Davies. The man’s full black beard filled the lower half of his helmet.

We’re right behind you! the Welshman said.

Jack nodded, his mind whirling with spatial relationships, attack tactics and his plan to kill all five ships at once. Using the Uhuru, Gareth’s Dragon and the heavy cruiser Prince Otto von Bismarck. But they each had only two sudden-kill weapons in the antimatter and particle beamers. The Dragon would bring the weapon needed to kill the fifth ship. Gareth, follow close beside me. We’re heading for a south pole vector, then curve around to come up beneath the enemy ships. Hideyoshi will arrive above them. Use your antimatter beam to kill one the ships!

Will do, the middle-aged man said as, behind him, his fellow Welsh crewmates worked at their own stations. We could use our Higgs Disruptor set at wide footprint to disintegrate all five at once?

Jack shook his head. No! I want to keep the Higgs secret from the Unity Naval Command as long as possible. Plus I want to salvage at least one NavTrack computer from an enemy ship. And maybe the grav-pull drives of those ships. He looked up at the image of the admiral. An image that was real-time thanks to the passage of their neutrino signal through another dimension, according to Archibald. Admiral, you heard me. You take out two ships. Maureen will take out two and Gareth will kill the fifth ship. Understood?

Understood. The man looked aside as one of his crewmen came up, dressed in the same Mars red formal uniform worn by the admiral. We are entering Alcubierre drive shell now!

The man’s screen image wavered, grew jagged from the gravitational lensing that preceded any ship going into either grav-pull drive or Alcubierre FTL drive, then it disappeared. Leaving him looking at Gareth and the five frigate class ships of Earth’s Communitarian Unity. He wondered why the Unity had chosen to attack the Asteroid Belt now, not that long after the death of former Dictat Ludwig Carsten Berthold Maathias aboard the HikHikSot colony ship. And how had the Unity ships found 253 Mathilde? It was a base left over from the First Belter Rebellion in 2072 and not known to Earth. Somehow they had learned it was the base for Jack’s fleet of seven ships and now attacked.

Exiting the tunnel, Elaine called from her Pilot station. She tapped on her NavTrack panel, causing their vector line to appear on the front screen as a third image that showed them turning toward the asteroid’s south pole.

Max! Take us to the south pole on fusion pulse thrust! Stay off grav-pull! Don’t want to emit a graviton pulse that these bastards will detect on their gravitomagnetic sensors, Jack said. Let’s have them looking in every direction for Belter attack!

Moving from Pinch Mode to thrust now, called Max from behind them.

On the front screen a second ship vector joined theirs as Gareth’s Dragon moved up alongside them on his own fusion thrust. Jack looked right to where his sister sat, working her NavTrack panel. Elaine, you heard what I said to Gareth. Enter that course vector and give me a two second warning before we arrive at the asteroid’s equator. And keep us in ground-hugging transit! Damned well don’t want those Unity ships to know we are here until we fire on them!

Vector laid in, she said softly. I’m glad Ignacio is out on patrol.

Following your vector, Gareth called.

Jack turned back to watch the front screen images of Gareth, the five Unity frigates and their navigational vector track. He understood his sister’s worry for her Basque boyfriend. Ignacio Aldecoa and his cousins were always the first to attack, the first to find a way out of an impossible situation and among the few ships to have lost crew during their earlier space battles against the HikHikSot predator Aliens.

Below them the gray rock surface of the carbonaceous chrondrite asteroid that was 253 Mathilde moved by in a near blur. They could not speed along at the twenty percent of lightspeed normally allowed by their fusion pulse drive, let alone the eighty percent of lightspeed granted them by the Alien-built gravity-pull ship drives. To date their three fleets possessed only grav-pull drives salvaged from Alien ships killed in Sol system and in their recent interstellar voyage to the HikHikSot home system. Maybe that would change in the future. The presence of five Unity frigates arriving here on grav-pull said the Unity government of Earth had built new grav-pull drives from the engineering specs given them when the HikHikSot Aliens tried to add Earth to their Hunt territory. Those Aliens were social carnivores who resembled a cross of cheetahs with leopards. They were one of the Hunters of the Great Dark who enforced the rule that ‘only predators travel star-to-star’. Now it seemed that tech gift had encouraged someone on Earth to try to reclaim control of Sol system. Despite the rebellion led by Jack, Gareth and Hideyoshi.

Two seconds! called Elaine. She tapped on her panel. Putting up a north ecliptic Tactical Display view of Mathilde, the enemy ships and our ships.

Ready to fire! called Maureen from the holo above Jack’s lap.

The front screen went hazy briefly, then a new image joined the ones before them.

Arrived! called Hideyoshi from the Command Bridge of the Bismarck. Lieutenant Lopez is ready to fire our beamers.

Jack watched as, flying just two kilometers above the asteroid’s surface, they rounded its equatorial bulge and came into view of the five Unity frigates. He saw ships that were hundred meter long spearheads fitted with energy weapons domes, railgun launchers and attack landers attached to the belly of each ship.

Sensors say we are being painted by lidar and maser scans! called Elaine.

Fire! Jack yelled.

A blue neutral particle beam and a black antineutron antimatter beam shot out from the Uhuru, impacting on two of the five ships. A second pair of such beams shot down from the Bismarck on the two outer Unity ships. The Dragon shot its sole antimatter beam at the middle ship.

Death in space usually happens quickly.

The three frigates hit by antimatter beams grew yellow-white flame globes in their middle, then exploded into ionized gases as their onboard fusion reactors lost magfield containment and added their fusion plasmas to the total matter-to-energy plasma caused by the antimatter beams.

The two remaining frigates were sliced in half, then into three pieces each by a second blue particle beam from the Uhuru.

Jack tapped his Fire Control panel, aiming the dual railguns of the Uhuru at the fragments of the two Unity frigates. Each railgun was loaded with a barrel of steel ball bearings that would exit the railgun launcher at planetary escape velocity. Ventilating the frigate fragments. We do not need living captives when their NavTrack computers will tell us what base they left from and who gave them the orders to attack us. He looked up at the older man of Japanese heritage who had renounced his allegiance to the Unity Naval Command in favor of protecting Earth from Alien domination. Admiral, I know your decryption codes are six months out of date. But can your ComChief figure a way to gain access to the NavTrack computers of those two dead frigates?

On the front screen dozens of black holes suddenly showed on the dimly shinning hull fragments. Tiny whisps of white air and water joined the massive gas balls emitted earlier when each frigate was diced twice by Maureen’s neutral particle beam emitter. No ship fragment showed any kind of controlled movement. Now, anyone left alive in a vacsuit would join those who had died under the first energy beam attack.

Hideyoshi glanced aside at a repeater screen image that showed him Jack’s ventilation of the ship fragments. He nodded abruptly, then turned to Jack. The man’s clean-shaven face showed resolute determination. "It will be done. We will find a way to decrypt the access codes. Recall that the Bismarck is a heavy cruiser. Our Library computer retains the codes, and code variations, from twenty years of cruising for the Unity. The man blinked dark eyes, then lifted one black eyebrow. What about the grav-pull drives on the ship fragments? Do we salvage them?"

Jack smiled. "Yes, please. Your Lander Rudyard Kipling is roomy enough to take onboard the two drives. Plus their control panels. Will be interesting to see how their grav-pull control software compares to that reverse-engineered by Max."

Captain Jack! called Elaine. We have twenty inbound grav-pulse ships! Coming in from Mars, Pluto, Europa, Ganymede, Titan, Enceladus and other parts of Sol system. They . . . she looked down at her Sensor panel. Their origin points match our last records of Belter and Mars ships doing system patrol duty. They’re ours. Within the bubble helmet she wore her long brown hair looked sweaty under her headband. But Elaine’s amber eyes showed relief.

He nodded slowly, mind spinning with multiple schemes on what to do next. Pilot, thank you. ComChief, send a Fleet Activation signal to every ship by way of our neutrino pedestal. Tell them to rendezvous here at Mathilde. We have a fleet battle conference to set up.

Transmitting, called Denise from behind Jack.

He heard her whispering into the pickup for the modulated neutrino pedestal that Max had salvaged from a Hackmot Alien ship. He also heard the sighs of relief from Blodwen, Archibald and Nikola at the cessation of active combat. If only his heart would stop hammering faster than he could think. And he needed a drink. Reaching down he grabbed a water tube, stuck its nipple against the intake slot of his helmet ring, took the ring’s tube in his mouth and sucked long and hard.

Maureen! he called to the holo of the woman with short black curls, hair fine wrinkles on her narrow face and a rad-tan like all Belters who’d grown up wearing a clear helmet atop their vacsuit. Get the hell up here. I need current fleet status info from you. Plus your sneakiness!

Smart mouth youngling, she muttered from the holo. Heading up the Spine.

Fleet Captain Jack, called Hideyoshi from the front screen. The man’s image now showed side by side with that of stocky Gareth, captain of the second Belter fleet and the current romancer of Maureen, their Belfast granny. What do you plan for Earth?

What indeed? Well, I’m not going to hit them with asteroid strikes. Those nine billion people are enslaved by the Cooperative Consensus of the Communitarian Unity. But there are still riots going on from our broadcast of their last Dictat’s effort to put Sol under the control of social carnivore Aliens. And while the Unity Naval Command is clearly functional, I suspect there are some remnants of old nationalism that may welcome the chance to reassert local control. Maybe even the United States portion of the North American Cooperative. He nodded to vacsuited Maureen as the woman entered from the Spine hallway and sat in her Combat station seat. She immediately began bringing up combat simulation holos that she had previously programmed. In her spare time. Jack refrained from grinning at the woman’s obsession with space combat maneuvers. That obsession had served them well during their recent interstellar roaming. Admiral, I’m open to suggestions from every ship captain. Which makes for thirty voices at our conference. But . . . I think it wise to destroy all space launch sites on Earth. And to pay a termination visit to the Unity Civil Bureaucracy in Brussels and to the Unity Congress in Geneva. Beyond those steps, I’m open to everyone’s ideas.

The admiral showed his usual restraint, allowing no emotion to show on his face. And rarely in his voice. Reasonable. This violation of the vote by the Unity Congress to give up any effort to control Sol system must be punished severely.

I say kill them all! growled Maureen, one gloved hand slamming against the armrest of her seat.

Jack smiled. The bloodthirstiness of the woman who’d known his Grandfather Ephraim during the First Belter Rebellion in 2072 was unchanged even now, twenty-six years later. Good Maureen, your tactical advice is always welcome. As it will be at our upcoming fleet battle conference. And afterwards on any ship I command.

The trim, slim woman glanced at him from within her bubble helmet. She gave him a wintry smile. I have no doubt you will be deadly enough, youngster. Not after the object lessons we gave the HikHikSot. Loved your fragmenting and deorbiting of their moon. Made for lovely fireworks.

Jack looked away. Killing half a world’s population was not what he would consider as a ‘lovely’ event. But it had been necessary to implant in the deadly Aliens the operant conditioning lesson that they should always run away from any human or human ship. Instinctively. If they wished to live another day. He nodded at Hideyoshi and Gareth.

My friends, thank you for your service today. Admiral, please bring your ship into the Dock Cavern. We need to use your Admiral’s Mess room for our meeting. He looked to his Welsh ally. Captain Gareth, please put your ship in orbit to guard against further Unity attacks. Then join us in your Lander. Jack unlocked the restraint straps of his seat and stood up. He looked to the rear and caught the gray eyes of his gruff, honest and sardonic buddy. "Drive Engineer, please stay onboard,  join up with the Dragon and keep the Uhuru’s Battle Module on Auto-Track and Defend mode. The rest of you, join me in our Lander. We need to get back to the Dock Cavern to reassure the Citizens Council of Mathilde that we will protect our home no matter who or what attacks!"

Will do! Max said, though he looked disappointed at not being able to join their meal and conference in the Dock Cavern.

Jack’s lifemate Nikola stood up, her sandy brown eyebrows bunching up as she frowned. How many will we have to kill this time?

Lots! grunted Maureen over the vacsuit comlink that connected everyone aboard the Uhuru.

Red-haired Denise and Blodwen both stood up to join him, Elaine and Nikola. To his right their chief physicist Archibald Wheeler was unsnapping his seat restraints. The man’s shock of unruly reddish-brown hair framed a worried look. I hate the idea of attacking Earth.

Jack led the way through the Pilot Cabin’s hatch and into the long Spine hallway that ran the length of their ship. "Me too. Like all of us, I’ve got relatives still living on Earth. But we have to teach this Unity Congress a final lesson. They are not in control of Sol system! And they will never again run the lives of freedom-loving peoples."

Once again his days of living a normal life had come to an end. It had been barely two weeks since they had returned from their interstellar jaunt to the star systems occupied by the Nuuthot, Mikmang, Nasen and HikHikSot Aliens. He and his fellow captains had been planning to leave on a second deep space trek to find allies for their fight against the predatory Hunters of the Great Dark. Humans alone could not overturn an ancient galactic system that said only predators could travel star-to-star, with conquered ‘herbivore’ peoples becoming slaves and tasty meals for those interstellar cannibals.

Now, it seemed they had to ‘tame’ Earth before they could head out to liberate Alien peoples ruled by social carnivore Aliens. He grit his teeth. Tame Earth he would!

CHAPTER TWO

Jack followed Hideyoshi into the Admiral’s Mess on the Bismarck, a room easily big enough for 30 people. Thirty ship captains plus most of his crew sat at the oval table in the middle of the room. At the far end was a large wallscreen, which currently showed the true-light image of a blue and white Earth, with the Moon at one side. To their left, standing beside an AutoChef device, stood a female crewman in Mars red. Hideyoshi sat down at the near end of the table. Jack walked past him to sit between Maureen and Nikola. He looked at his one ally with formal military training.

Admiral Minamoto, please advise me on the number and affiliation of ships in orbit about Mathilde, or in our Dock Cavern, he said, gripping his hands together to stop the nerve tremors that he always felt before a big gathering of people.

The man who had been born in Japan, then had gone on to graduate decades ago from the South Pole Naval Academy on Earth, pursed his lips. "Fleet Captain Jack, as you ordered, all three fleets are now concentrated at 253 Mathilde. My Mars fleet

Reviews for Freedom Vs. Aliens

[dabofdarkness · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very fast paced space adventure with humans battling it out with more than one alien race. Jack Munroe doesn’t start off as the captain of the Uhuru (thanks for that nod to Star Trek) but things go wrong early on for the original captain, Monique d’Auberge. The Polish engineer, Max Piakowski, becomes Jack’s wingman as they quickly assess these new predator aliens and come up with a game plan.In many ways, this story felt like a really long episode of Star Trek meets Battlestar Galactica meets Futurama. Jack often acts like Captain Kirk in Star Trek but the aliens can be pretty vicious like the Cylons in Battlestar Galacitica. Meanwhile, there are some silly shenanigans and stubborn idiocy by bureaucrats as I would expect in Futurama.Most of the time I liked the quick nature of the story but sometimes I did get fatigued and wanted a moment to reflect on things or clarify the current score. Also there are a ton of characters in this story. Honestly, I lost track of nearly everyone. I believe there’s no less than 3 alien species introduced and yet I had trouble keeping the individual alien characters separate as well. I do recall Destanu, the first alien they communicate with, and he’s of the Rizen aliens.The author did do a great job of having both men and women play important roles, even if they messed up. The characters, in general, were flawed and very human. They weren’t all heroes and some made big mistakes. The crew starts off small – only 6. Jack, Monique, Max, Gail (pilot), Hercule (comet expert), and Hortense (biologist). Plenty of other characters are drawn in along the way.Early on, a chunk of the crew accurately assess the first aliens as predators by simply taking note of their physiology – claws, muscles, teeth, aggressive stances, etc. Initially, I really liked that Jack and his posse acknowledged that they had not stumbled into altruistic morally advanced aliens, but rather predators who were seeking to expand their territory. However, this then becomes the backbone of the story, and in a rather simplified manner. After all, us humans are apex predators and yet we can make alliances and seek something more than territory and resources. So over all, I would have liked more depth and to have the predator aspect toned down.It’s a fun listen with plenty of action and interesting characters. If you’re looking for a simple humans versus aliens story, then this would be a fun choice.The Narration: In many ways, Somerset Hamilton did a good job at narrating this book. His character voices were all distinct and his female voices, for the most part, were believable. There were no technical issues with the recording. However, Hamilton does such a realistic job with the various accents that I often found myself trying to figure out what the character just said in that thick (Belgian, Russian, Polish, etc.) accent instead of paying attention to the tale. I would have liked this better if the accents were toned down a bit.