by B. V. Larson
I looked at the timer. We had a little under seven minutes to wait before they hit us.
“Miklos, status report,” I said.
“All enemy missiles on target. They will be within range of defensive fire in-four more minutes.”
I did some quick calculations, and I didn’t like my answers. “Are you telling me we’ll only have two minutes to shoot them all down? Why is our range on these systems so short?”
“We put up what we could, Colonel,” he said unapologetically. “The systems are what they are. Remember sir, this is not open space. The missiles are coming up through the atmosphere in every case. There is cloud cover and the like to get in the way.”
I nodded glumly. It was going to be a long wait.
When the missiles were three minutes out, I took a deep breath. “Are they hitting everything at exactly the same time?”
“Yes,” Miklos said. “All six habitable satellites have an identical attack incoming… Apparently, the enemy didn’t want us to have time to adjust to their assault. Their precise timing indicates they must have missile reserves on some worlds. On the Centaur homeworld, for instance, the enemy only had two factories to produce the missiles. It only makes sense the other worlds would have produced more munitions in the same amount of time.”
“You’re saying they are probably holding back? That this could just be a probe? A taste-test attack?”
“Something like that, sir.”
I looked back to Barbarossa’s big wall-screens. Things just kept getting better and better. I wondered how many Centaurs would die if a single missile got through. Had I screwed up by getting them into this war? They’d proven to be fairly ineffective ground troops. Perhaps, I should have stuck with my own marines and done the job the old-fashioned way, without trying to glue laser packs onto a herd of mountain goats.
Self-doubt was very natural in a helpless, deadly situation. Fortunately, I didn’t have to endure it for long. The next minute passed and our lasers started firing. They did pretty well at first.
“A hit sir-another!” Miklos said, excitement creeping into his voice.
“Put up a tally for each world, Captain.”
“One moment, sir,” he said. He began tapping and sliding his fingers over the screen in front of him. As an operational wingman, he wasn’t as good as Major Sarin. I did trust his judgment, however. And I didn’t have to worry about him making a pass at me, either.
“Give me a verbal count, man,” I said after a full minute went by. I could see we were firing, but didn’t really know if we were hitting the enemy or not. Missiles were winking out-but how many?
“I’ve got it, sir.”
The screens displayed readouts under every planet’s image. Here on the Centaur homeworld, we’d done pretty well. There was only one missile left. Judging by the number of hot beams it had tracing it, that one was doomed as well. This was due to the fact our own destroyers were stationed here and they had moved to engage the missiles themselves, increasing our defensive fire capacity.
On the other worlds, the numbers were less certain. Two planets had four missiles incoming, two had five, and the one closest to the sun had-eight?
“Is that right?” I asked, my voice raising as I spoke each word. “Eight missiles are still coming at Eden-6? We’re going to lose a hundred million civvies out there, Miklos!”
“Possibly, sir.”
I took a deep breath. Eighty-eight seconds to go before impact. These situations had come to haunt me, they were my personal nightmare. To have made choices that cost millions of clueless unarmed beings to be killed… I thought hard.
“Have we got any ships out there?” I asked.
“Two, sir.”
“Get them on the command channel.”
I was down to sixty-one seconds by the time I got the ship captains on the line. “Captain-” I paused to look at his name on the screen. Hiro, that was it. “If those missiles get through, just one of them, we’ll lose a sixth of a biotic species. The seeds to an entire world. I want those missiles stopped.”
“I know sir, we’re firing at the incoming missiles. We’re doing our-”
“Captain Hiro, I can’t order you to block them, but I’m asking you to.”
There was a momentary pause. “Oh…I see, sir. Hiro out.”
That was it. I watched, sweating as the missile count dropped to zero on every world except for the sunward one, that tropical paradise I’d never yet had the pleasure of visiting. There, two missiles were seconds from impact. Suddenly, there was a blinding flash.
“He did it, sir,” Miklos said. His voice sounded troubled. “He’s rammed the missile. Should we contact the second destroyer?”
I shook my head. “There isn’t time left. By the time I explained it to him and he maneuvered his ship…”
We watched as the last missile drove onward, nearing the satellite. I squinted my eyes. I thought I saw a hit with nine seconds to go-but I held my breath. The missile was still on the board. Then it exploded.
“He self-destructed when he took the hit,” I said aloud.
“Who, sir?”
“The Macro pilot. Talk to me, is that satellite ruptured? Order all nearby ships to render assistance.”
Captain Miklos relayed my orders. After a few more minutes, he gave me his report. “Looks like the satellite is damaged, but the hull has maintained integrity. There are leaks, but nothing catastrophic. Most of the Centaurs are going to survive.”
I nodded, and took off my helmet. The attack was over. I smiled at the screens and read the reports. After a while, I caught Miklos staring at me. When I returned his gaze, he dropped his eyes back to his screen.
“What is it, Captain?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. A hard thing to judge.”
“What are you talking about?”
“How many men should die for a Centaur? Is one of our lives worth a million of theirs, a thousand, or only a hundred?”
“Oh,” I said. “I’ve already made those calculations. Depends on who we’re a talking about, of course. In the case of Star Force crews-I put that ratio at about a million of them to one of us.”
With that, I turned around and walked off the command deck. I could feel Miklos’ stunned stare on my back. I smiled grimly and left him wondering if I was serious or not. There were no cold calculations made in these moments, not for me. They were very hot, emotional, gut-wrenching choices.
But I had to admit, I did value one of my marines more than I did a quite large number of Centaurs. I had to. In the end, this was a war for survival, and I was determined that our side would win it. The side of all the biotics, that was.
Hiro had done as I’d asked, because I think he understood this. He’d made the sacrifice for the living. Together, we had to beat the machines-the moving, thinking dead. And we couldn’t do that if we let millions die screaming in space to save our own sorry skins.
But with all that said, Star Force was still the main thing holding back the Macros. We truly were worth thousands of other lives each, because they would all be dead if we didn’t win in the end.
— 13
After their first missile attack, we expected more, but they didn’t come. For another day or two, we did nothing but scramble to build up our anti-missile defenses and patch holes in the damaged satellite. About a hundred thousand civvies had died there from asphyxiation and freezing-but it could have been worse. Much worse.
After I had every satellite bristling with small turrets, I placed unmanned platforms in low orbit. Each bore eight more small guns. They hung just above the atmosphere, about ten miles under every one of the big Centaur habitats. If another attack was launched, these tiny forts would have to be passed by the missiles. They could either expend a missile to destroy them, or ignore them and endure fire from their guns all the way up to the bigger targets.
I had quite a production operation going by this time. We’d learned our way around the star system and found
the easiest matter was still the chunks of junk that formed rings around the gas giant. I had sent more collectors to orbit the massive world, dipping their scoops into the dirty rings and sucking up matter that was perfect for our purposes: small, pulverized minerals. I was glad for the supply, as we didn’t have much left we could strip from the Centaur habitats. There were now noticeable holes in the gas giants rings-but I didn’t care. The locals would just have to get used to the new look.
I kept fortifying the satellites until they were ready to stop a hundred missiles or more each. When I finally halted the effort, I wondered what I was doing. I called another meeting, this time with just Miklos, Marvin and myself.
“I think I’m playing into their hands,” I told them.
“How so, sir?” asked Miklos.
“Think about it. They fire up less than a hundred missiles, all told. I then proceeded to turn away from my invasion mission and spend most of this week building defenses. In the meantime, they quietly build their own forces, digging in on every one of these planets. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have stopped building surface-to-space missiles entirely.”
Miklos frowned. “That is not the usual Macro operational profile. They almost succeeded in removing one Centaur habitat. They should press on, repeating the same strategy until it fails utterly.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That is the norm. But I’m sensing more intellect here. I feel like I’m being played. They threw up a feint, and while I’m up here working hard to cover my ass, they are setting up their next move. I’m reacting at this point-and we’ve lost the initiative.”
Miklos nodded thoughtfully.
I turned to Marvin next. “What do you think, Marvin?”
He swung three cameras to cover me. Normally, three would have represented rapt interest. I would have taken it as compliment. But now that he had about a dozen cameras, three wasn’t saying much.
“Judging from their actions, I calculate a high probability you are correct. There is a greater intellect at work. They have had the time to build deeper cognitive structures on these worlds.”
“Some kind of super-brain? Like the thing that ran that big dreadnaught back on Earth?”
“Precisely.”
“That’s great,” I said. “That’s just grand. I have a hard enough time beating their numbers, without them getting all smart and unpredictable on me.”
“Could we locate and target this super-brain?” Miklos asked.
I thought about it, and shook my head. “No. The primary targets are their factories. We’re going to have to go down there and execute Marvin’s original plan. In fact, I’m going for it now. Mass up the ships and make the approach. When can we do it?”
Miklos looked startled. “I–I can’t answer that without looking over all our positions, sir.”
“There you go. They’ve got us scattered. We’ve got ships patching up holes in Centaur balloons and building anti-missile defenses. In the meantime, I bet they are down there building up ground forces to repel our next assault. They panicked us, and are now one step ahead.”
I smashed my armored fists together. Miklos winced. Marvin was watching me with five cameras now.
“We don’t really know-” began Miklos.
“I know enough,” I said, cutting him off. “I know I’ve been sitting up here in space, cowering and worrying about where they might strike next. We had the advantage when we hit them hard-but we didn’t keep up the pressure. They managed to make a counterpunch and put us on the defensive. Well, I’m done defending. We’re going down there. Make it happen, Miklos.”
“May I suggest something, Colonel Riggs?” Marvin asked.
“Talk to me. You’ve been way too quiet lately.”
“The actions you are suggesting will make our plans transparent. The mission might be jeopardized by-”
“No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head and chuckling. It wasn’t the kind of chuckle I used when I thought something was actually funny. “You wanted this attack, but now that I’m committing to it you are growing apprehensive? You can’t have this both ways.”
“They will know we are coming.”
“Fine,” I said. “I think they’ve known all along. We made a move on one factory and we blew it up when we realized we couldn’t capture it. If they are brighter than usual, they should realize what we are after.”
I had to count cameras. I thought it was about nine now. I must have freaked him out.
“You believe they’ve analyzed our intentions?” he asked. “If so, my plan is not going to function as designed.”
I thought about that. “I’m saying I think they know we are going for their production facilities. But that doesn’t mean they will know about you and your hijacking attempt. We’ll just have to be tricky, that’s all. It’s still worth a try.”
Marvin looked worried, and for some reason this pleased me. I turned to Miklos.
“Gather the fleet here. We’ll take down the landing pods, but only load one of them-the one we’ll be in. And I want Sloan in there with me. I want his luck aboard my ship. That way, I know we’ll at least make it down to the surface alive. Besides, it’s about time that unkillable bastard got into this war.”
Miklos spread the word and the response was impressive. Marines and Fleet pilots were rushing around everywhere. The ships gathered by the hour and I sensed that the Macros were down there, watching us closely with their artificial eyes.
When I was about to board Barbarossa for the trip down, Captain Miklos stopped me.
“Oh, by the way Colonel…”
“What is it?”
“There have been more vibrations detected-out at the ring that connects us to the binary star system.”
“Why wasn’t I informed earlier?”
“We’ve been busy avoiding missiles and mounting a ground invasion, sir.”
“Priorities, Captain. My orders were clear: I want to know what those Crustaceans are up to.”
“Sorry sir. The ship we had posted on the remote side has returned to our side to transmit a report-this was many hours ago, due to the distance. He says a swarm of Nano ships are approaching the ring and refusing to communicate.”
I swore. “The lobsters are getting ideas, eh? Why now? Maybe they know we are tied up with the Macros and want to make their move while we are distracted. Do you think that’s it?”
“I’m not really sure, sir.”
I paced, my heavy boots ringing on the deck. “Have them lay down some more mines on our side. Then have our sentry ship relay a politely-worded informational communique about the weapons. If they still come through-well, they can’t say we didn’t warn them.”
I left it at that and boarded the landing pod. We were finally going back to the Centaur homeworld. It felt good, in a way. I hadn’t liked being driven back from this planet the first time. After all, I’d promised the original owners their world would be liberated.
The trip down was relatively uneventful. I’d half-expected a fresh barrage of missiles, either aimed at our ships or the habitat above. Neither came. The enemy sat quietly, waiting.
Looking down through a rigged-up video system, I eyed the LZ intently when we broke through the cloud layer. It was going to be a gray, drizzling day down there when we landed. Through silvery sheets of falling rain, I made out a charcoal-black surface. The region around the great pit was graded and channeled by the passage of countless machines as they destroyed the region, leaching every ounce of minerals out of the land.
The ship fell like a rock at the end, and I soon saw why. A missile had finally come at us, but it was a small one, of a familiar AA design. I glimpsed it as the cameras tracked it. A sliver of dull, unfinished metal with a flaring red exhaust. A contrail ran behind it, pluming out as billowing white vapors.
“Evasive action,” Sloan ordered.
I would have answered with a few curses, but I could barely breathe. Sloan was piloting this ship, and he clearly didn’t intend to get hit by that
missile. He swung and whipped the ship from side to side. I felt the guns stuttering as they tracked and tried to shoot down the incoming weapon.
I looked at the screens, but it must have been too close for the cameras to track it now. I flicked my gaze to the front wall, which showed a rust-red finger moving very rapidly to intersect with our ship, which was represented by the nanites in the wall as a golden bead of metal. I gritted my teeth and tightened my shoulders, bracing for impact. With luck, even if the ship was knocked out, some of us would survive to continue the mission.
Then a second later, it was over. The missile was gone.
“We must have shot it down,” Sloan said. He asked the ship what had occurred, and Barbarossa confirmed the missile had been taken out.
“Ha!” I shouted. “That’s just the sort of flying I expected to see out of you, Sloan. That’s why I brought you along. The Macros don’t have a chance of shooting us down with you aboard.”
Sloan tossed me a grin, then went back to studying his boards intently. When off-duty, he was quick to slam down a beer and seemed half-asleep at meetings. But when he was under fire, the man was all business.
“That was an AA shot,” I said. “The kind the big Macros put on their backs. I bet there’s at least one of those machines down there.”
“We have not seen any of that type of unit in the vicinity,” Marvin said.
I glanced at him. “Believe me, they’ve been building like mad down there.”
“Trouble, sir,” Sloan said.
I snapped my helmeted head around and examined the big screen again. “Seven more incoming? Is someone transmitting my name from this ship? I briefed you about that.”
“No sir, not to my knowledge,” Sloan said. He was making the ship buck and weave again. If I’d been a person who got seasick, I’d have filled my helmet by now.
“We can’t get away from three-what the hell are you doing, Marvin?” I broke off and stood up, but was tossed back into my crash seat.
