The Code

by Doug Dandridge

  The humans had taken heavy losses further down, and the rest of the Marines and militia were needed to cover the other possible egress points of the Machines, so what they had was all that could be spared. She hoped it would be enough, but seeing over thirty of the Machine tanks heading her way, with more lined up behind, along with scattered walkers, she wasn’t sure.

  “Prepare to fire,” she said over the com, the order going out to all of her vehicles.

  The Machines fired first, all of them letting loose with particle beams. The human tanks had not only their onboard armor and electromagnetic fields, they also had units arrayed just behind the low barrier to their front, augmenting those fields. The beams from the enemy avoided those for the first second or so, before the units spun up and added more particle and light bending energy to the mix. Twelve of the tanks were hit, four bad enough to take out their main weapons. The rest were struck by beams that burned a couple of centimeters into their armor before the augmentation bent them away.

  “Fire,” yelled Martinez into the com.

  Nineteen guns fired, sending their supermetal penetrators out in flares of plasma. The guns weren’t as powerful as the large weapons on the Tyrannosaurs, but they still got the rounds up to several thousand kilometers a second, sucking the air in the chamber up behind them. The solid shot were not slowed in the least by the electromag fields, either those they penetrated on the way out from their guns, nor those they sliced through on the way into the Machines. All of the shots were hits, many traveling all the way through the Machine tanks, into and out of every segment. Some hit at angles that only took out the first two segments. However, nineteen Machines were put out of action, even if only temporarily.

  “Secondaries,” shouted Martinez. The electromag fields dropped for a moment, while the particle beams and lasers opened up, cutting down more Machine segments. Return fire came through before they could raise the fields again, and three more Wolverines were knocked out, along with four crew killed.

  The electromag field came back up, and the main weapons spoke again. Only this time all of the Machine tanks had separated into their segments, quadrupling their numbers and removing the fat targets from the field. The Machines swarmed forward, jostling for position so they could all bring their weapons to bear.

  “When is our support going to come in, ma’am,” called out one of the platoon leaders.

  Any moment now, thought Martinez as the enemy surged forward, the walkers coming up among the tanks and moving ahead. That was not a bad strategy, since they could get in the way of shots intended for tanks. They wouldn’t stop them, but they could change the trajectory enough to generate a miss. Just the sight of the Death Machines coming toward them was enough to send shivers of fear down the spine. Even the Ca’cadasans were living beings, able to fear for their lives, or as much as their stupid minds could consider self-preservation. There was no self-preservation in the Machines. They would come forward until they no longer could. And now they were almost completely in the bag.

  The Phlistarans started the ambush off. The big aliens were not big on taking cover and fighting from protection. They couldn’t crawl and they couldn’t climb. What they could do was run fast and carry a lot of mass. So the company charged forward within a second of powering everything up, their heavy weapons chewing into the machine walkers while hyper-velocity rockets targeted the tanks. Explosions rippled across the center of the eight by eight-kilometer chamber, more machines piled up into the mass, and the Marines added their fire to the mix.

  * * *

  “Now,” shouted the commander of the Klassekian contingent. It took a second for everything to power up, and then over three hundred heavy particle beams were tearing into the Machines from their right flank. The explosions of grenade launchers rippled across the walkers, while more hyper-velocity missiles ripped into tanks.

  Fire came back, and a Klassekian fell here and there with burn throughs of their suits. A few cries came over the coms, from those who had been merely injured by the hits, along with cries of shock from those who were suddenly cut off from the thoughts of siblings they had never been without.

  Phlistarans fell, burned through by tank beams, while others shrugged off the lesser hits from walkers that barely scored their armor and continued on, weapons blazing as they enacted a cavalry charge deep within an asteroid. As moving platforms they didn’t have the greatest accuracy, but with their volume and the mass of the enemy in front of them there were few misses. The huge aliens must have had some reservations about charging into the mass of enemy, but Phlistarans were tough, willing to do whatever to handle the mission. And so they hit the Machine walkers with their heavy suits, bowling them over, stomping them into the ground, throwing them with the strength of their augmented suits.

  “Forward,” yelled the Klassekian commander, and the line jumped their barrier and moved at a walk, continuing their fire.

  Nazzrirat didn’t really like the idea of leaving the protection of their cover. But the order had been given, and he was a leader, so he had to follow while leading his own men.

  The Machines kept piling into the room. Hyper velocity cannon rounds tore through them, particle beams melted them, battle suited soldiers ripped them apart. Until, finally, the last of the Machines fell.

  Nazzrirat stopped where he stood on the edge of the field, looking it over. There were wrecked Machines everywhere, many melted in place. Some still moved, what little they could manage, and were quickly hit with fire. Battle-suited bodies lay scattered about, all dead. With the kind of weaponry used, non-mortal wounds were few and far between, while death shots were plenty.

  We did it, thought the Klassekian, wide eyes roaming the battle zone. “We did it,” he said under his breath.

  “We have a breakthrough in level forty-seven, sector blue alpha.”

  Shit. That was thirty kilometers and six levels up from where they were.

  “Okay,” came the voice of the brigadier over the com. “You heard the woman. All units converge on that point.”

  And will we still be around when the next breakthrough occurs, thought the officer. They were sure to lose some people with every engagements. Enough engagements, and they would have nothing left.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. Samuel Beckett

  BOLTHOLE SYSTEM.

  “They just launched another wave, sir.”

  “Where in the hell are they pulling all of these missiles from,” growled Henare. “They don’t have assholes, do they?”

  “They’re probably manufacturing them aboard their ships,” said one of the tactical team.

  “Aboard their ships?”

  “Why not, sir. They’re machines, which mean they probably have more than their share of fabbers and nanites. They can use their own mass to make more. They could even take apart their hyperdrives. This could be a suicide mission for them, and they really don’t need to go home.”

  No, and they can send a relief and repair expedition at any time and fix enough to get their resources out of here, thought Henare. As long as they destroyed this base and the organic presence here.

  “Get me Gunther.”

  “Captain Gunther here, Admiral,” said the exasperated officer. “We’re working as fast as we can.”

  “And I’m not demanding that you work any faster than you possibly can, Captain. But I would like an estimate.”

  “I can get everything up and running in four hours,” said the officer after a moment’s though. “But I know you don’t want the entire ship up and running,” the captain hurriedly said before Henare could interject. “I think we can get the transmitter up in less than two.”

  “Not good enough, Captain. I know you’re doing your best, and I don’t want to put any more pressure you. But in less than two hours we might not be here.”

  “We’re monitoring the battle, Admiral. It looks like you’re handling everything they send in
.”

  “Are you monitoring the fight going on within the asteroid?”

  “Within the asteroid?” asked Gunther, a confused expression on his face.

  “Somehow they infiltrated machines into the asteroid, and they’re running over everything we’re trying to put in their way.”

  “We’re working as hard as we can, sir. It won’t do any good to do a sloppy job wiring everything up just to have it fry out when we power up.”

  “If you have a good chance of it working, go ahead and power up,” said Henare, feeling his frustration with Gunther growing, but keeping his tone calm. “Remember, perfect is the enemy of the good enough.”

  Henare cut the transmission before he had to listen to another excuse. He did feel for the captain, who was dealing with a heavily damaged ship while trying to get the reason for the ship’s existence working. However, he didn’t have time to feel for the captain, not when there was so much riding on that ship getting into operation.

  “Admiral Bednarczyk is on the com for you, sir.”

  Shit. Henare was sure that he was about to get the same back that he had given to the captain.

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  “I heard that you have one of the projection ships in your system. Just tell me you’re just about to deploy it. We need it working.”

  “I wish I could, Beata. Unfortunately, the damned thing was hit as soon as they came through.”

  “It was destroyed?” gasped Bednarczyk, her face turning a shade of pale.

  “No, ma’am. It was damaged. And we have her out of the line of fire, at least for now.”

  “At least for now?” asked the fleet admiral, her eyes narrowing.

  “Ma’am. We’re taking more fire than expected from the Machines. And they have an infiltration force on the asteroid.”

  “How the hell did they get them on the asteroid?” asked Beata in a disbelieving tone.

  “We’re thinking the same way they did to get them on Klassek home-world. We think they left some behind, powered down. And if they take the asteroid, I have a feeling we’ve lost.”

  “Well, keep on it. And what about that ship?”

  “The captain thinks two hours,” said Henare, repeating what the ship commander had told him, not sure he really believed it. “I’m hoping we can hold out that long.” And that the damned thing works as advertised. They really didn’t know. That was the problem. It had worked in the lab, against Machines they had cobbled together and programmed. But a lot of things worked in the lab, then didn’t in the real Universe.

  “Please do,” said the admiral in a soft voice.

  The com faded, and left Henare with a sinking feeling. The fleet admiral was also seeing the end coming, and now everything depended on an unproven weapon that wasn’t even working.

  * * *

  GORGANSHA SPACE.

  “Get me Admiral Chan on the com.”

  Bednarczyk waited impatiently for the research specialist to come up on the wormhole com. Chan didn’t answer to her, and had a number of duties that were considered vital. But nothing more vital to this admiral than her own command and the people she was trying to save.

  “Admiral,” said the small Asian woman as she appeared on the holo.

  “Admiral Chan,” said Bednarczyk, keeping her voice calm. It would do no good to lose her temper with this woman. “Henare has just informed me that the toy you sent us is broken.”

  “So Captain Gunther communicated to me. We are working on getting you a new one, but I’m afraid it will be about fifteen hours before we have everything installed and powered up. The ship is already on the way to the gate, with a repair ship accompanying. Still, it won’t get to you for at least fourteen, and it will transit with another hour on the clock.”

  “You can’t work any faster?” said Beata, her voice rising as she glared at the scientist.

  Chan’s expression hardened at the tone in Henare’s voice, and the admiral realized he had crossed the line with the genius.

  “We aren’t the Machines, Admiral. We have to have human supervision of all of our construction robots throughout the process. That is the law. And it’s in place for good reason. If we just set them loose to work as fast as they could all kinds of havoc could ensue. Like a rebirth of the damned things we’re trying to destroy out there.”

  “I’m, sorry I questioned you, admiral,” replied Henare, her shoulders slumping. “It’s just that we’re about to lose out here. And that means everyone under my command will be dead.”

  “I know,” said Chan, her tone softening. “And we’re doing all we can. From what I understand, another fifteen wormhole armed ships are moving toward the gate. They’ll be there in forty minutes and adding their fire. They….”

  “Henare is reporting that he has just lost his decoy gate, ma'am,” called out one of the com officers. “He's afraid his real gate will be next.”

  “Did you hear that, Admiral?”

  “I did. And I'm sorry. I can't advance the timetable. No matter how much I might wish it, I can't circumvent the laws of physics.”

  Beata nodded. She might wish it too, but if Chan couldn't think of a way around it, the miracle worker, Beata didn't think anyone else could either.

  * * *

  BOLTHOLE SYSTEM.

  “The Machines just got three hits on the decoy gate, sir,” called out one of the CnC officers. “It’s gone.”

  Henare turned to stare at the officer who had made that report. They had to keep sending missiles through the real gate or they all of his installation would be blown out of space. But then the Machines would know the gate they had hit was a fake. Or at best one of two, and they would concentrate everything they had on the real gate.

  “Try to keep the gate covered, but we need to keep sending weapons through it.”

  You ever figure out how to send a wormhole through a gate, Admiral? he asked in Chan in his mind, shaking his head. Because that may be the only thing that can save us now.

  * * *

  GORGANSHA SPACE.

  “A hit on the planet, ma’am.”

  Beata turned at those words, her heart sinking. He job was to defeat the Machine force. But in so doing she was supposed to save as many of the Gorgansha people on that world as she could. Any hit by a relativistic weapon could be devastating. The weapons were smaller, with only half the mass, but they still carried relativistic velocity into their targets, and along with it, massive kinetic energy.

  “Where?” She looked at the holo of the globe, projecting to the right of the overall system map. A part of the globe was outlined in red, their estimation at this distance of where the missile hit, and the area of effect. Of course the blast wave and heat wouldn’t be the only effects. There would be earth tremors, and possible volcanic eruptions, all along the fault lines of the world. Buildings would topple, seismic waves would pound the coasts, and entire communities would be wiped away.

  “The Southeastern continent, ma’am. Population, one hundred and seventy some million.”

  Beata breathed out the breath she had been holding in, guilty that she felt such relief. There were over two billion of the aliens on that world, and that continent was the most sparsely populated of them. Possibly not everyone on that land mass had been killed. There were some stout shelters that citizens might have gotten to, and people in them on the periphery of the continent could survive. But most would have been wiped out. The last stage of the defense had been in the hands of the Gorgansha fleet, who had done well to take out all of the weapons but the singleton that had gotten through. That could have happened as well if her fleet had been the one in place to backstop theirs.

  “Fleet Commander Goran.”

  Beata had decided to take matters into her own hands, and had ordered a warp fighter to run over to the Gorgansha force and form a transmission loop. The fighter was sitting just above the Gorgansha flagship, connected by lascom, the Klassekian transmitting by its quantum connected brain to a sibling who had been b
rought aboard Bednarczyk's command ship from one of her carriers.

  “Here, Admiral,” came the transmission through that Klassekian over their ship. The image was distorted, with a lot of static, coming as it did through several minds and a computer interface.

  “I’m sorry,” said Goran, his image fading for a moment before coming back into focus. “We weren’t able to take out all of the Machine weapons.”

  “I’m sure you did your best, Admiral,” said Beata, feeling for the Gorgansha officer. “And the important part is those who are still alive.”

  Beata was silent for a moment, thinking about what she wanted to say next, and how she wanted to word it. “I want you to concentrate on protecting those. Get all of your missiles into the lanes where they can intercept.”

  “And your ships?” he asked, his concern for her coming through the transmission.

  “Will have to take care of themselves,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re still some hours from being able to support us. But you can be in position to support the planet in less than twenty minutes. So support your people, and let us handle the Machines.”

  “And if they blow through you?” asked the anxious fleet commander. “I probably won’t be able to stop them.”

  “I guarantee that there won’t be that many of them left by the time they get past us,” said Bednarczyk, knowing that was true. “And then they’re going to want to kill all of those people. So do what you have to, protect them.”

  * * *

  BOLTHOLE SYSTEM.

  Captain Jessica Powers cursed under her breath as more enemy fighters appeared on the plot. Her command was down to forty-nine fighters. She had arranged them in seven squadrons of nine each, four pairs and a squadron leader. She was doubling as squadron leader as well as the wing commander. It wasn't a unit configuration they had trained in, but it was the best she could come up with based on what she had left.