by B. V. Larson
“Socorro, invert the fleet into firing position.”
Our ships all had their turrets on top of each vessel. In order to fire directly downward, we had to be upside-down. This wasn’t a problem for the crews, however, as we were all weightless anyway and concepts such as up and down were all just a matter of perspective in space.
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” Sandra asked me in a dead voice.
“Uh, you might want to go into the other room.”
“No.”
I drew in a breath, and ordered our ships to fire on the Chinese military. Big green beams stabbed down from space and burnt away trucks, tanks, planes and hangars. Bunkers were exploded to rubble. Missile launchers, abandoned in streets and deserts, melted to slag and I imagined flared into mini-mushroom clouds as their fuel ignited.
Systematically, I disarmed China’s conventional military.
-33-
“Socorro, disable channel requests from Star Force,” I said, growing tired of denying beeping calls from every ship in the Fleet. “Open channel to the Macro command ship.”
“Channel request accepted.”
“Send them this: All Earth Rogue targets will be destroyed.”
“Incoming message: Yes.”
I thought about that one, rubbing my chin. What would get them to go away so I could stop firing?
“Request operational command for removal of rogue targets.”
There was a long wait on that one. I wondered if the Macros had ever faced a similar situation. Perhaps other races had never been so eager to destroy themselves at their whims.
“Socorro,” I said, noticing the firing had stopped. “Retarget larger installations that have not been completely destroyed. Fire on one every minute.”
“Acknowledged.”
The ship shuddered again as the turret moved and my ship’s beam cannon stabbed down at Earth, punching through the atmosphere. There were enough clouds and smoke now that they obscured the beam, but I was sure they were still effective.
“Incoming message: Rogue targets must be completely removed.”
“Agreed,” I said quickly.
“Incoming message: Operational command given to indigenous forces.”
With that, they moved on. Maintaining their triangular formation, they drifted slowly over Japan and out over the Pacific.
“Socorro,” I said quickly, “Retarget only empty, destroyed facilities in remote locations.”
“Retargeting complete.”
A dozen sites were still on our forward screen. I left them that way. In rotation, we would pointlessly pound buildings that we’d already destroyed. I suspected that from here on out, the loss of life would be minimal.
After a few more hours, the Macros had completed two, slow patrolling orbits over the globe. No one else fired on them. The earthers had at least learned that was a bad idea. We continued to sit over China, beaming dead horses tenaciously.
Without further communication, the Macros left orbit and headed back toward Venus. I kept up the pretense of bombarding China for many hours, until the Macros were out of sensor range and the bulk of our planet was between their retreating ships and the crippled nation.
By that time, Sandra had calmed down. She was horrified, naturally, but she didn’t seem to blame me any longer. She looked drained and tired. Gone was the easy smile and manner of the college coed I’d fallen in love with. I hoped she would bounce back one day soon. This war was taking a toll on everyone’s spirit.
“You had to do it, Kyle,” she said after she brought us a round of drinks. They were soft drinks, this time. I’d long since run out of beer and I hadn’t had time to restock during our brief pause at Andros.
“Thanks for understanding,” I said. “Socorro, open a broadcast channel to all Star Force ships.”
“Channel open,” said the ship.
“I’m sorry you all had to experience that engagement,” I said. “For many of you, it was the first time you’ve fought in this war. Keep in mind, we are still in a war. We have a treaty presently with the Macros, but it is more to our advantage than to theirs. We had to fire on Earth forces to maintain that treaty. We are not yet ready to fight them on even terms. From their point of view, the Chinese military went rogue. If we had attacked the Macros, even if we had destroyed them all, we would have surely doomed Earth and our entire species.”
I took a sip of soda. I looked over at Sandra. She gave me a flicker of a smile, the best she could do.
“Socorro, open all channels for requests,” I said. “Close ship-to-ship group-link.”
“Permissions set.”
Crow was the first one to call me. He was in a petulant mood. “You could have told me what you were about, mate,” he said.
“Be glad I didn’t,” I answered. “Do you really wish you had okayed that order?”
“You did the right thing—I think. But you should have told me. Crow out.”
I huffed and ordered my ship to return to Andros. We still needed a number of repairs. I didn’t even look to see if the others followed me. They could do as they pleased for now.
Sandra surprised me by climbing into my lap and putting her head on my chest. She didn’t say anything.
I didn’t want to blow it, so I just patted her awkwardly. I’d thought maybe she’d want to break up after this expedition, but instead she appeared to understand I’d made the best of a horrible situation.
Kerr called me next. “The Chinese want blood, Kyle,” he told me. “Fortunately, they no longer have anything to avenge their dead with. I know what you did took huge balls, and maybe it had to be done. But I wouldn’t open any fortune cookies for the next century if I were you.”
“Thanks for the advice,” I said.
“One more thing,” he said. “We’ve got a fix on the second ring—or at least the spot we suspect a second ring exists.”
“I’m listening.”
“Have you ever heard of Tyche? It’s a theoretical planet out in the Oort cloud.”
“Let me guess, it’s right where the rest of the Nano ships flew out and vanished?”
“You are a prophet. Yes, Tyche has historically been an explanation for an effect, an odd clustering of comets and other crap out in the farthest, darkest regions of our star system. People thought a big dark planet might be hidden in a far orbit, disturbing the ice chunks that fly around out there. But now with new evidence, it seems that it must be another of your rings, like the one you found on Venus.”
“The Venus ring has its mysteries as well,” I said. “For example, I don’t know how we could have missed it all these years.”
“I shouldn’t be telling you this stuff,” said Kerr.
“But you’re going to anyway, because I gave you a wealth of free data. And because I’m one of the few people who can actually make use of your intel.”
“Yeah, something like that. Venus has a thick crust, about thirty miles deep. We don’t think the Venus ring came down from space and sank into the planet. Instead, our theory states it was already inside the planet, and it was recently pulled up out of the crust into the open.”
“Huh,” I said, thinking that one over. It would explain a lot. “Any clue as to who built these rings or when?”
“They’ve been around for a long time. Maybe it was the Blues. Maybe it was someone else we’ve yet to meet.”
“Encouraging, given the friendly nature of everyone we’ve met out here so far. What about the atmosphere of Venus? Why hasn’t it all escaped into the void on the other side of the Venus ring, where the blue giant reigns?”
“We are still theorizing on that point. I suppose for now, it’s enough to know that only a cohesive moving body like a ship can activate the ring and be transported to another star system.”
“Yeah,” I said. “As usual, we know how the tech functions, but we have no understanding of the principles behind its operation. Nor can we duplicate any of it.”
I told him then of my
theory we were like Plains Indians who’d learned to use rifles and horses, the tools of a more advanced enemy.
“At least we’re still on our feet and fighting,” he said.
“Right, but do me a favor.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“If they come and offer us a pile of blankets—just say no, okay?”
-34-
China weighed upon my mind over the following days. Looking back at it, I’d taken risks and things had gone badly. Guilt hung around my neck, but I tried to shake it off. I had to keep reminding myself that although I’d provoked the Macros into cruising over the Earth, the Chinese had decided their own fate by taking a shot at them. They’d paid a grim price, and I’d added a little damage of my own, but in the long run I’d helped save their nation from complete annihilation. I’d also kept the Macros from nuking the rest of the world and kick-starting the war again.
Because I’d been gone for over a week and Barrera hadn’t staged a coup, I made him a Lieutenant Colonel. Major Robinson looked slightly annoyed. Barrera didn’t offer any expression at all. He was a stoic man—the quiet, effective guy every leader needs to back him up.
When I told Crow about the promotion, he flapped a thick-fingered hand at me. “Great, great,” he said. “Why don’t you give him a bloody medal for bombing China back into the Stone Age while you’re at it?”
“I ordered that, not Barrera,” I said.
Crow shook his head. “Don’t tell anybody about that. The press isn’t blaming you—don’t change their minds.”
I frowned. “Who are they pinning it on?”
“Me!” roared Crow, stabbing his chest with a thumb. He did it so hard he broke the skin. His tee shirt welled up with a stain and a thin jet of blood squirted out onto the tabletop computer between us when he pulled his thumb back out of the hole.
“Not quite used to nanite-muscles yet, are you Jack?” I asked.
Crow dabbed at his shirt in annoyance. “They blame me, Riggs, because I’m the Admiral. I’m supposed to be in charge of the Fleet.”
“Why didn’t you tell them I was in operational command?”
Crow grinned at me, but there wasn’t any levity in the expression. “Don’t you get it, Riggs? I was in overall command. It was my fault, no matter what. The press loves you and they hate me. Don’t you watch the vids?”
I shook my head slowly.
“Figures,” muttered Crow. He ripped off his shirt and dabbed at the blood that still seeped out of his chest wound. “The one guy they gush over doesn’t even care. I’m blamed for fouling the nest and I couldn’t even control my own ship at the time.”
“Life’s not fair, Jack,” I told him. “At least you’ve got that sweet Star Force pension to look forward to.”
Crow glared. I smiled and left. I had an army to pull together, and only three months left to do it. The butcher’s order was up, and I would see to it that it was filled.
The following days blurred into weeks. I had the recruits, the weapons and the uniforms, but that wasn’t all I needed. Most of the cargo weight was in the contingency items. When I’d cut the deal with the Macros, I hadn’t had the foresight to ask what kind of world we’d be required to fight on. Were we going to the Garden of Eden or an airless rock? Was it going to be hot or cold? What kind of gravity should I expect? So many unknowns…. I was overwhelmed trying to produce a force that could be effective in any environment.
Robinson and I had many late night meetings about it. He was coming with me as my exec. He had some experience and had shown loyalty. I figured he might make Lieutenant Colonel after this little exercise was over, too. But I didn’t tell him that. It was best to keep them hungry.
I put Barrera in charge of production. When we left, he’d be running the show for me back on Earth—and that included keeping a handle on Crow. That was the plan, anyway.
Robinson and I juggled the numbers extensively. We knew we had an unknown amount of reserved cargo space on a Macro ship. We knew how much the cargo was to weigh, but not the volume we would be allowed. I didn’t feel like flying back out to the blue giant system again and asking them for any more details. For all I knew each question would cost us Canada, or Mozambique. I didn’t want to make any more horrible mistakes, so I figured we had to take all of our water, food, air and even living quarters with us. What did a crowd of eighty-foot tall robots know about comfortable, pressurized cabins with bunks, showers and working toilets? Medical systems too, were at a premium. I put together a staff of doctors and nurses to help out with the early hours after an injury. The nanites could repair any wound over time, but they didn’t always keep a man alive long enough to effect those repairs. We still needed plasma to replace blood lost due to hemorrhaging, and about a thousand other things.
“We can’t do it all, sir,” Robinson told me with seven weeks to go.
I looked at him. “We’re going to complete this mission, Major.”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “But I don’t see how we can adapt to every environment we might encounter. There are extremes we can’t deal with. Such as a world with four times our natural gravity.”
“We have to assume the Macros are not complete imbeciles. They know what we can do, and they hopefully won’t waste our troops in a place where we are unsuited. I’m assuming the world will at least be somewhere we can function.”
“What if we are forced to fight underwater?” asked Robinson. “Our weapons will not be terribly effective in a liquid environment. What if the enemy technology is high-level? What if they have shields, sir?”
I eyed him. He’d always been a worrier, but he had some good points. It was daunting to be heading to an unknown world to face an unknown enemy.
“We need flexibility,” I said. “I can only think of one way we can gain that attribute. We’ll take a set of factories with us. Then we can produce what we need when we get there. We can take raw supplies and build appropriately.”
Major Robinson locked stares with me and nodded slowly. “Is Admiral Crow aware of this detail of your planning?”
I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. The chair creaked ominously. We’d still never gotten to constructing furniture to hold up our nanite-laden bodies.
“We’re taking hovertanks, you know,” I said. “Some of them will be very well-equipped—hovertanks.”
Robinson smiled. “How many specially-equipped hovertanks were you thinking about taking?”
“Twelve. With each puffed up into a rectangular shape for shipping, about the size of a railroad car and packed with raw materials. Another eight will carry more raw mass, but no factories.”
Robinson, still smiling, worked on his tablet. It beeped and lit his face with blue light. We worked out that each of these special hovertanks would weigh in at a little over a hundred fifty metric tons. We could easily squeeze them into our roster.
Most of the weight ended up being the living quarters for the troops. We built modular units that were considerably smaller than a Macro robot, figuring that they would be easily loaded into one of their ships. Besides weight, there were volume concerns, but we calculated that since much of a marine’s weight was liquid or metal, we were dense enough to fit into a fraction of the space one of the big Macro transport’s cargo holds. We had decided to build modular units for barracks, which could be stacked like bricks and could interconnect if placed close to one another. They could take a lot of heat, pressure and were armored against incoming fire. With a team of worker units, we could deploy anywhere—on a sea floor or a mountaintop. If forced to, we could handle a nearly-weightless vacuum environment like an asteroid, but I hoped we would not have to fight under such conditions. I couldn’t imagine a lifeform that needed removal from such a place.
When we were all done amassing our expeditionary force, we only had five thousand personnel, about a thousand of which were non-combat support people. I only took volunteers and I insisted everyone be nanotized.
I hired Sandra a
s my personal aide. There was snickering, but I did my best to ignore it. If I’d been in their place, I would have smirked, too. I set her up with a desk in my private office in the command module. She handled all my personal incoming messages, which were countless. She liked the job, saying it gave her a chance to delete all the sexting messages I received as fanmail before I got to see them.
The main camp on Andros had been transformed by the time the big day came. We had thousands of troops living in the expanded base area in their steel modular units. The men had taken to calling their modules ‘bricks’, but not without affection. Each housed sixteen to twenty people. They were comfortable and well air-conditioned, a real bonus in the tropical climate of the Bahamas.
There were bricks everywhere on the sands around Fort Pierre by the time the Macros were due to return. Many of them didn’t house troops, but rather supplies and armament. Many were dedicated to reprocessing breathable air, waste, water and food. Some contained arrays of reactors to supply power. Each of the hovertanks had their own brick to stuff them into, like steel garages.
When the big day finally came it was blustery and clear outside. Everyone watched the sky and checked their handheld computers approximately every eight seconds for net-news of the Macro arrival. Even Crow seemed nervous. I caught him eyeing the sky at regular intervals.
Eventually, the sun set and disappointment set in with it. The Macros were late. The news was met with a mixture of relief and fresh worry. What did it mean? Were they coming at all? Was there a problem? Would they not be needing us for six months or more? How long did we all have to stand around on this beach, waiting for them like thousands of stood-up brides?
Days passed, and I saw my troops growing edgy. I announced major war-games. Thousands of men drilled and sweated in the sun and the surf. We practiced beaming sand into glass, trees into smoldering stumps and ceramic targets into slag. Constantly, we checked the sky over our shoulders.
