by B. V. Larson
The bumps changed color. They took on a reflective, lightly golden color, like melted tin. They reminded me of beads of solder stained with amber resin. All of them looked the same, however.
“Make the enemy a darker color. And show me physical objects like the Earth and the Moon—with a neutral gray.”
The wall shimmered and a large portion of the wall to the left became a curved surface.
“That must be the Earth. We’re leaving it behind,” said Sandra in a lost voice. “Why aren’t we floating?”
“We are accelerating so fast that it’s pressing us backward,” I said. “If we slow down and coast, we should start to float.”
“Hey, what’s that?” asked Sandra, pointing. “Something is moving toward us over on the far wall.”
We stared at the walls. Over to our right was a fist-sized, rust-red thing. The small golden swellings on the forward wall slowly left the crescent of Earth behind and slid toward the rust-colored thing. All the moving contacts were on a collision course.
“That must be the enemy our ship spoke of,” I said. “Look at it. Whatever it is, it looks a lot bigger than us.”
“Kyle?” asked Sandra after a quiet moment.
“What?”
“Any chance you can take me back home and let me off at your farm? I think I’ve changed my mind.”
-8-
It took a bit of shouting on the open channel, but I managed to describe to everyone the instructions to give to their ships to get a view of the outside world. Once they listened and obeyed, there were alarmed gasps.
“The Snapper is requesting a private channel,” said the ship.
“Okay, allow it.”
“Kyle? That was great work. Thanks a lot for that info. We can all see what we are up against now. Any more ideas on how to fight against this big red thing coming at us?”
The enemy ship, if that’s what it was, had almost reached the corner of the room and come onto the same forward wall with our rash of smaller, metallic bumps. To the far left of the forward wall was the slate-gray raised disk that represented the Earth.
“I was about to ask you the same thing, Jack.”
“Well, maybe the ships know what to do. They are all clustering up and heading at it in a swarm. Maybe they’ll fire in automatic defense or something.”
“I’ll let you know if I figure anything else out,” I said.
Before I could tell the Alamo to break the connection, Crow added a few quick sentences. “My offer still stands, Kyle. And I’m upping the rank. I want you as a Lieutenant.”
“Very generous, Jack. But can we just get through the next hour alive, first?”
“Absolutely. Keep in touch.”
He broke the connection. I pondered the screen.
“Alamo? Can we fire weapons at the incoming enemy ship?”
“The enemy is out of range.”
“How long until it is in range?”
“Unknown.”
Bullshit, I thought.
“Alamo, if we maintain our current course, velocity and acceleration and the enemy does the same, how long do we have before we are in range?”
“Eight minutes.”
“Alamo, when I ask for predictive estimates in the future, use the current sensor data to make the calculation. Exactitude is not required.”
“Program options set.”
I smiled tightly. It was like working with an old computer, one that used a command line interface. You had to be precise in your instructions or you got errors. You had to do things in the proper order, but you could customize your interface with shortcuts. I quickly stopped congratulating myself. I had to remember I was talking to this machine, not typing on a keyboard, and it was far more advanced than anything I’d ever worked with.
“Alamo, as each minute passes until we are in range, give me a report, a countdown of minutes.”
“Enemy in range in seven minutes,” said the Alamo.
I thought of Jake, at that instant, with what was quite possibly seven minutes left to live. I thought of the day I took him out to play ball for the first time. He’d only been about four years old, and I’d bought him one of those plastic training sets with a spring-loaded red stand that popped the ball up into air. After a few swings, he had managed to hit one. He’d been very serious, very focused. When he finally hit one, his broad, toothy grin had made me smile in return. I don’t know why I thought of that particular memory at that moment, I just did.
The memory made the hope-monkey rise up in me again. I told myself I’d play a baseball game with Jake again, back home, after we won this battle somehow. I lied to myself, and I liked the lie. I didn’t really believe it, but it was a nice lie. Right then, I knew the hope-monkey had me. I was helpless in its grasp. I was hooked.
I shook my head and tried to get back to that cold, focused place in my mind. I needed to forget about the kids and any other distractions. For the next seven minutes, at least.
“Kyle?” asked Sandra, pointing to the corner and leaning as far forward as the restraining little arms would let her. “What’s that?”
A small red glint had left the big, red ship-thing. It was traveling toward us. It was no bigger than a penny, but it made my heart pound.
“Enemy in range in six minutes,” said the ship.
“Identify that new enemy contact, Alamo.”
“The contact is incoming enemy fire.”
Before it got half-way to us, another something left the big, rust-red ship.
“They are firing missiles at us, Kyle,” said Sandra. “Will you do something, please?”
“Alamo, change the color of our ship. Make it green or orange or something.”
One of the ships—one that was not on the front line, thankfully—turned a coppery orange.
Sandra sucked in her breath as the first tiny red dot made it to a ship out on the edge of our formation, at the top of the forward wall. The missile, if that’s what it was, vanished. The golden ship it had struck vanished with it. There was no doubt in my mind what had happened. Our side had taken a hit.
“Alamo, draw a predictive line to show me where the next incoming fire will hit.”
A rippling, vein-like line, crudely drawn, appeared on the wall. It was rust-red. It straightened out as we watched into a direct line that ran to the opposite side of the formation. The second missile was headed downward. It was going to hit the last ship in our line at the bottom of the wall, while the first missile had targeted a ship at the top of the wall.
“They are shooting for our farthest outlying ships,” I said. “Why?”
“So we don’t shoot the missile down?” suggested Sandra.
“That’s it,” I said nodding. “Alamo, open the ship-to-ship channel, please.”
A wave of chatter came in. I realized I would never get a word in over it. People were trying to figure out who had died. Others were talking about how to get their ships to turn tail and run, which I realized by now wasn’t going to happen. If it was possible, someone in the group would have managed to give the order by now. The ships had picked us up and brought us along for this little jaunt into space. They wanted us to command them through it. Maybe the AI was smart enough to know it wasn’t a tactical genius.
Much of this entire situation made more sense to me right then, as if I’d been hit by a bolt of clarity. Why had they chosen us for our survival skills? Because if you wanted advice on surviving, you asked an expert. These ships had weeded us out ruthlessly, looking for the tough-minded people. They had kidnapped us to help them beat this enemy.
What, thought a distant part of my brain, are they going to do with us once they no longer need us? Unbidden, the image of the centaurs I’d slaughtered to gain command of this vessel came to mind.
“Enemy in range in five minutes,” said the ship.
The forward motion of the enemy ship had stopped. Why get closer, they must have been thinking, if they were already in range? They could just shoot us all out o
f the sky, one by one.
“Alamo, get me a private channel with the Snapper.”
Hesitation. “Established.”
“What is it, Riggs? I don’t have much time.”
“Have you figured out what to do then?”
“No dammit. Talk to me.”
“The big bastard is shooting for our outlying ships. I think it is trying to kill ships that are off on their own, separated from the rest.”
“I can see that, talk faster.”
As we spoke, the second weapon reached its target. Another tin-colored beetle representing one of our ships vanished. Two more missiles were incoming. I figured at this rate half our number would be gone before we got into range.
“Have your ship draw a line between the incoming missile and the target ship. What I suggest is we group around the guy who is targeted. Then all our auto-defense fire might stop the incoming weapon. Just maybe, we can shoot it down.”
“That’s the best you have?” demanded Crow.
“Yes.”
“The ships won’t fly where we want them to, we’ve all tried that.”
“They won’t let you run off and hide. Maneuvering to defend one ship is a different matter.”
“How do we figure out who is targeted?”
I told him about telling the ship to color your own vessel. “The one being targeted should tell everyone else. That way, we will have the target ship’s name. The rest of us can tell our ships to move toward the targeted ship and cover them.”
“Good plan, mate!” Crow laughed again. Some of the harshness and confidence was gone from the laugh, however. He sounded a little nervous. I didn’t blame him. Who wasn’t nervous at this point?
I heard him shout for quiet on the public channel. He gave them the instructions, telling them to sing out if their ship was the one under fire. Before we managed all this, a third ship blew up. Finally, the red lines were on everyone’s wall.
“Right!” shouted Crow. “Talk to me people, don’t be shy. Who is next on the death list?”
No one answered.
“Enemy in range in four minutes,” said the Alamo.
“Dammit, talk to me before it blows us all up!” screamed Crow.
“Jack?” I said.
“What now, Riggs?”
“Did you color your ship yet?”
“No, I’ve been too damned busy with your cocked-up plan to—”
“Jack, it’s you. If no one else can see it’s targeting them, then it must be the one who hasn’t done it yet.”
One second of silence, then: “Everyone, order your ships to cluster around the Snapper. Do it now.”
“Alamo, move close to the Snapper,” I said. “Do it as fast as you can.”
The fourth little red contact had almost reached us. I watched as, sluggishly, a dozen or so ships moved to cover what must have been the Snapper. Sandra and I watched with our teeth clenched. I hoped I’d guessed right. What if our ships couldn’t shoot down these incoming weapons? What if instead Jack’s ship took us all out in the resulting explosion because we were too close?
We didn’t have long to wait. Our ship began to shudder. I knew the sensation, it had happened every time the ship fired its beams.
“Is that our ship shooting? Or are we being hit?” asked Sandra.
“I think if we were hit, we’d be toast. Our ship is automatically firing at the incoming weapon.”
The red dot grew very close. It was pointless, but I clenched every muscle in my body. I couldn’t help it.
Suddenly, the sensation of firing stopped, and the red weapon contact was gone. I couldn’t tell with the intermingling of ships if there was one missing or not.
“Jack? Jack Crow, are you still there?”
“Yeah. I’m here. Who’s next? Talk to me.”
“Enemy in range in three minutes,” said the Alamo.
More panic people identified themselves. We ordered our ships to gather around each in turn. As we closed with the enemy, the enemy rate of fire seemed to be increasing. The big red ship was retreating now, slowly at first, but picking up speed.
“They are pulling out, let’s go after them!” shouted Crow. “Everyone, order your ships forward. Increase speed.”
We chased them, still blowing up each missile as it came in. It only caught one more ship, a woman who screamed and howled for us to get close. She was too far out and hadn’t clustered like the rest of us. Clearly, she hadn’t followed Jack’s orders.
“See?” demanded Crow as her contact vanished and her cries for help were cut off. “See what happens when we don’t all work together? She was a rogue, and she acted like one, and now she’s dead. We couldn’t save her because she wouldn’t work with the group.”
I worked on creating a program to cluster around the targeted ship. By giving our ships a carefully worded set of commands, they should automatically move to protect the one that was targeted.
Soon, we were in range of the big red bastard itself. I wished, right then, that I knew just what it looked like. Our ship began firing. So did the others, according to the reports. We circled around the ship and engulfed it. The big ship tried to pull out, to run, but we were all over it. At some point, it stopped firing missiles. Still, we kept pounding it.
“I wonder who is on that ship?” asked Sandra aloud. “Who are we killing? Are we really the good guys, or the bad guys?”
“Yeah,” I said, slightly troubled. What if this ship had come here to rescue Earth? What if its mission was to get rid of these vulture-ships that had kidnapped us? Maybe the ship was full of angry, righteous centaur people, bent on revenge for what these ships had done to their own world. We had no idea and no way of knowing.
After a while longer, the ship stopped retreating as well. Still, we rippled and churned around it, like a school of piranhas tearing apart a side of beef. Each of us got our mouthful, then went back for more.
When it finally blew up, we felt it. The Alamo stuttered. We lurched and drifted. The firing stopped. The other ships stopped moving, too.
We had lost six ships altogether. But we had won.
-9-
“Riggs? Hey, Riggs?”
It was Jack Crow again. He sounded pretty happy.
“Hello Jack. We lived.”
“We sure did, my fat-brained friend. You helped out tremendously. I want to make you a lieutenant commander, Riggs. No, forget that. A full commander! How does that sound, Commander Riggs? I want you to know, you would be the only person with such a high rank in my fleet. You would be my second in command.”
I chuckled. “If I wait another day, will you make me a captain?”
“Right. Well, right. Laugh it up. Well done. This is all a big joke, isn’t it? But consider, the fact that I put together some sort of organization kept us alive today. That ship might have killed all of us, you know. Think about that. Your ideas saved the day, but without my organization, we wouldn’t have worked together at all and we would have failed.”
“You have a point there, Jack.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear you admit it. I’m not just some megalomaniac who wants to call myself a commodore.”
“What’s a commodore?” I asked.
“It’s a rank between captain and admiral.”
“You are a commodore now?”
“Well, I realized I needed to have more ranks as more ships join us. More of a hierarchy.”
“I see,” I said, grinning.
“But that doesn’t matter. What I want you to think about, Riggs, is what that ship would have done if we had lost the battle. What if it had made it down to Earth?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what about the next time? What if there are a dozen ships like that, or a hundred?”
“Next time?” I asked wonderingly. I had honestly not had time to think through the implications of the battle we’d just faced. I felt out of my depth. I had no idea what was going on out here. Was Earth involved in some kind of war? We
desperately needed more information. Would there be a next time? Why not? Wars were not usually fought in a single battle. And it did indeed seem like we were involved in a war.
“Jack—Commodore Crow, I mean. Do you have any more detailed political information? Is Earth in a war? Or did Earth just declare war on whoever was in that ship, by helping our ships destroy it?”
“Great questions. Join us, and I’ll assign you the task of figuring out the answers. I’ll do recruitment and organization.”
“What the hell have your people been doing? Do I have to figure out everything?”
“Look, Jack, most paranoid people who sleep with a gun in their hand aren’t deep thinkers. This organization isn’t made up of a bunch of philosophers, diplomats and techies. We are a fleet of opportunistic killers—survivalists. Unfortunately, running a fleet of alien ships in space combat requires more than reflexes and a killer instinct. I’m coming to realize I need you more than anyone else in my fleet. For the last time, will you join me?”
I thought hard for about five seconds. I looked over at Sandra, who nodded firmly. I sighed, and realized they were both probably right. I didn’t really like joining some independent, militia-like organization. It wasn’t my style. But in our situation, I couldn’t see how we were going to be taking orders from the ground, and I wasn’t interested in letting some military agents come aboard and toss me out of this ship. Self-sacrifice had its limits. Who knew, anyway, if the Pentagon could run this ship better than I had done? Would they have won that battle? Maybe I was overestimating my problem-solving skills, but then again, this ship had chosen me for good reasons.
“Okay Commodore. You’ve gotten through to me. For now, I’m joining your organization. I’ll be a commander, if that’s what you want. By the way, what do you call your fleet?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. How about Star Force? That has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
I agreed. It did have a nice sound to it. I broke the connection and looked at Sandra again. She was smiling and I thought I hadn’t seen too many smiles on her face up until now. She was very pretty, but I had to get her out of those ridiculous cables that held to her ankles like manacles. Maybe I should go through with the injections, or whatever it was the ship wanted me to go through to allow people to be in my presence without restraints. I’d have to ask the ship about the details. I mentally added it to the growing pile of tasks I should be doing.
