by B. V. Larson
“Dress uniform?”
“You’ve got one. If you don’t know where it is, ask your aides.”
“All right. Who is attending the meeting?”
“My general staff. Of which you are a member, naturally.”
General staff? I frowned. “Who is on the guest list?”
He named a list of captains. He had several of them in the fleet now. And then he listed three generals.
“General who?” I asked, not recognizing the names.
“Marine people. Real Marine people. They are mostly Yanks, you should be happy about that.”
“I’m not quite sure—” I began, a little confused.
“Look, Riggs. I love you, man. You are the best of the best. As a field commander, there’s no one I’d rather have out there. But this is an expanding organization. I have to have managers. People who know how to handle people. You are a fighter. You are a front-line type. I’ve been recruiting staffers, and I’ve selected three to run our Marine Corps.”
I was silent for probably five seconds while all this sank in. “Do I have to salute them?”
“It wouldn’t kill you.”
My initial reaction, naturally, was rage. Here was Crow, up to his old tricks. He was always tossing ranks around. Now, he felt threatened by me and had to trump up some new officers to run the organization I’d invented. I even thought, briefly, of overthrowing Crow. I figured I could probably do it. All I had to do was tell the fleet and the marines—my marines—that we’d had a falling out and they needed to back one of us. They would come to me, most of them, I felt sure.
I took in two deep breaths. My second reaction came in the form of a shrug. In a way, I didn’t care. I had Sandra. I had this base on Andros. When enemies came, I would fight them. I hadn’t gotten into this to have a turf war with Crow. I wasn’t that ambitious. I had gotten into this to kill alien machines. I had been successful in that regard.
“All I want to do is kill machines, Crow,” I said.
“I know that.”
“If you don’t want to have a problem with me, then don’t ever try to take that away from me.”
He was silent for a few seconds. I think the implicit threat in my words was sinking in. Maybe it made him angry. But he didn’t let on. When he spoke again, his voice was calm.
“Right. Well—right then. I hear you, mate. We’ve been through a lot together. I owe you everything. Hell, the world owes you everything. If you want to fight, then you’ll fight.”
“Okay then. I’ll log in tonight and attend your staff meeting. And I’ll have clothes on.”
“Thanks, Kyle,” he said and signed off.
Sandra came in and asked what the conversation had been all about. When she heard Crow had promoted officers over me—without even consulting me—she was furious. I think she was madder than I was. It took the better part of an hour to calm her down. Once she’d cooled to a simmer, she busied herself with getting a dress uniform for me from the staff down at Andros. I had been right, I didn’t even own one. I hadn’t even known we had dress uniforms until now.
Crow was right about one thing. The meeting was boring. There was little in it about combat strategies. Instead, they talked about supplies and splitting accounts from our various funding sources. They discussed shipping schedules and a thousand other logistical details. We had support now from the world at large. For the most part, the nations of Earth had dug up billions and marked it down as a percentage of their defense budgets. A hundred nations donated what they could. But a conspicuous few footed the vast majority of the bill.
One interesting topic was the discussion of what our oath of allegiance should say. Up until now, we had only required men to swear to follow orders and give their lives in the defense of Earth. The staffers were in favor of requiring new troops to renounce their citizenship. They would be, in essence, our citizens. A separate nation. I didn’t like that sort of talk. I didn’t want to tell men they could never go home again.
“I’ve got an alternative,” I said, jumping into the conversation for the first time.
The group fell quiet, realizing who I was. I must have impressed them somehow along the way. On my big computer screen, they all looked as if a pit bull had entered the room and begun snarling, even though my tone was level. I wondered, right then, how many of these new generals had undertaken the injections. I suspected none of them had. That seemed wrong to me, but I decided to let it go—for now.
“I don’t want to tell a man that if he fights for us he can never go back to his old life again. Let them swear allegiance to Star Force for the term of their enlistment. But don’t require them to renounce anything. Leave it up to my officers to form them into a single, cohesive force.”
Crow cleared his throat. I looked at him through narrowed eyes. He was a white-haired fellow with piercing blue eyes and a lot of broken capillaries around his hawk-nose. Today, his red face looked more red than usual. “Look, Colonel, we’ve discussed this at length. We’ve come to the conclusion that—”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” I said.
“Right, well… you’ve been in the thick of it, Kyle. There wasn’t always time to discuss every plan with you.”
“Okay. I can accept that. But I’m telling you I don’t want your morale-damaging idea. Let them fight for Bolivia or Japan, or wherever they are from.”
One of the staffers leaned forward to say something, his name was General Sokolov. He was a stout man with thick black eyebrows that needed trimming. His black eyes were small, narrow and annoyed. “Colonel Riggs. With all due respect, you are very new to running an army. Men who swear allegiance to this organization—only this organization, will tend to be more loyal and dependable.”
“I understand your reasoning, General, but it’s wrong. We aren’t like a normal force. We have been changed. We marines become freaks after we go through the injections. We feel a brotherhood afterward, an effect few armies have ever achieved. The nature of the war is unlike any other as well. Consider sir, that we aren’t fighting against men. We face armies of alien robots out to destroy our world.”
“With all due respect—” droned the black-eyed General again. I could tell he hadn’t heard a word.
“Hold on,” said Crow. “We’ll do it your way Colonel Riggs. You know our troops better than anyone. The pledge stays as it is.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The staffers looked annoyed, but dropped it. The meeting went on and became terminally dull before it finally, blissfully, ended.
-39-
Peace went on until I began to think it was permanent. Every morning as I ate breakfast, I thought of the Macros out there behind Venus with butterflies in my stomach. Were they still there? Were they building something to destroy our world forever?
But a man can only worry for so long. It was on the very first day I’d forgotten to think of them at breakfast, that they came back. It was as if they had waited until that weak moment.
It had been a fine week. Sandra and I were talking seriously. We might even get married. Something about that had lifted the cloud that had dampened my life and heart since the kids had died. Perhaps, I thought, there was still time to grab something good from life before it was over—before it ended one way or another.
Then the message came. It came in the form of a long black arm. It popped the bay window of our modular home, which I’d set up on Mangrove Cay some miles to the south of the big base on Andros itself. Some of the other Marine officers lived in the area. It was a pleasant, secluded place. We had a nice hill and an even nicer view of the Caribbean. Geckos came out in droves to hug the banana trees on warm, sunny days. There are a lot of warm, sunny days in the Caribbean, and today was no exception.
The arm, however, was unusual. I jumped up and my first instinct was to avoid those three, thick, cable-like fingers.
Alamo? Is that you?
I am Alamo.
Are you reaching in my window for me?<
br />
Yes.
So, I let the ship take me. The glass scratched a line down my back, but I knew the nanites would fix the cut quickly.
Why are you picking me up, Alamo?
You are command personnel.
Are there ships attacking Earth?
Yes.
That was all I needed to know. I had known it, really, the moment the arm had shown up. The ship had not been set to give me a verbal warning. But in its inner programming it clearly knew it needed its captain before it launched itself up with suicidal eagerness to face the enemy.
I thought of Sandra as I sailed into the sky and was swallowed by my ship. I hadn’t kissed her good-bye. I knew without asking that my ship wouldn’t let me take the time to go back and kiss her. We’d made love that morning, and it had been very pleasant. I thought that perhaps this was the best way. If I was never to return, her last memory of me could be one of peace and happiness. Wasn’t that better than a tearful good-bye?
I scrambled to my command chair. Things were much more organized aboard the Alamo these days. I had chairs that didn’t roll around the place. There were straps and harnesses that didn’t have fingers on them. There was a range of proper communications and visual equipment, too. We’d melded our own technology with that of the Nanos as effectively as we could. Large flat screens were attached to the walls in spots, showing the world outside and whatever the military networks saw fit to send me. We still used the metallic bumps on the walls, as they couldn’t break and the Nanos had better range with their sensory equipment than we did. We still didn’t quite understand how they did that, but we were more than happy to make use of the capability.
“Open channel to the Snapper.”
Channel open.
“Crow?”
“Kyle? What do you know about this?”
“I was hoping you knew something, sir.”
“No. The regular military didn’t give us any warning. All of our ships just launched themselves. We are heading out toward the sun, though. I know that much.”
Sunward, I thought. One of the few directions in space that meant anything. “Toward Venus, in other words? So the Macros are finally making their move?”
“Looks that way.”
“Ship count?”
“We total just under eight hundred strong now, including the new ones you built on Andros.”
I’d spent some time building a handful of new ships. They weren’t really the direction I wanted to go, however. If only we had been allowed the time, we have could build bigger fabrication units and bigger weapons systems. We certainly didn’t need more of these small science vessels. We needed a ship meant for war. One that bristled with weaponry. But that would take years.
“If you don’t have anything special for me,” said Crow, “I’m out.”
“I’ve got something.”
“Talk to me.”
“We can try to order our ships to maintain a set distance from the enemy. Rather than wading right in, I mean.”
“What the hell for?” he asked.
“There will be a lot of them this time. We need everyone massed up into a single swarm to fight together.”
“Or to die together. Never mind that, sorry. Good idea.”
“Admiral? Good luck, Jack.”
“You too, Kyle.”
He broke the connection. Our ships lifted us up, out of the atmosphere. Soon, I was pressed back in my seat only by the mild gee-forces of acceleration, not by Earth’s gravity. I looked around the bridge. I missed Sandra. Maybe I should have tried to grab her out of the shower. I smiled at the idea of her, naked and angry, being dragged up to the ship. It would have been like old times. At least, we could have died together.
Kyle’s voice gave the commands I’d suggested. We ordered our ships to approach the enemy, but stay at a defined maximum weapons distance from them. The ships had allowed this order. They wouldn’t allow us to run from the enemy, but they would let us stand in formation if properly coerced.
Then the enemy appeared on my walls, and I lost all hope. There were hundreds of them. Maybe even a thousand. I didn’t bother to ask the Alamo for an exact count. It didn’t matter.
I took a deep breath and looked at their approaching formation with my hand over my mouth. What could we do? Attack one flank? Take a few with us, out of spite?
They came on slowly in two ranks. The first rank was of ships I’d never seen before. They seemed triangular in shape. They were smaller than the big Macro ships we’d seen before, but larger than our ships. I figured they were cruisers of some kind. Ship-to-ship killers. Something like the ships I had wanted to build, if I had been allowed the time to do so. The second rank was made up of the big, fat, slow ships, exactly like the one that had dropped invaders on our world months ago. There were about twenty of these.
I understood better now, looking at them. During the first attacks they had sent only invasion ships. When we had destroyed the first ship, they had sent three more. We had managed to destroy two of those and the third had gotten through to drop its deadly payload of self-replicating machines on Earth. When we repelled the invasion, they had changed their tactics.
This time we faced their true battle fleet. This time, we were seeing the strength the Macros had never shown us before. At least, I thought grimly, it was clear that we’d gained their respect, if not their mercy.
It was going to be a matter of selling our lives dearly. We could not hope to win. The best we could do for humanity was spit in this enemy’s eye. We would bite and kick as they gunned us down. I could only hope the Macro’s were capable of feeling pain at a loss.
Crow hailed me again. “Any bright ideas, mate?”
“Stand off. Try to talk to them. When they come in, let’s ignore the combat ships up front and try to take out the invasion fleet. If we can do it, maybe humanity will live another year.”
“As good a plan as any,” said Crow, signing off to make the fleet-wide announcements. His voice was grim. He knew the score as well as I did. Probably everyone did.
Our ships floated up to form a ragged line some thousands of miles from the enemy ships. The others approached. I knew that communications crews were transmitting to them, trying to talk.
The enemy rolled nearer. They were inside the orbit of the Moon now. Then they were about a hundred thousand miles from Earth—very close. We would have to engage them soon. Our ships wouldn’t let us run from this fight.
Just as we were about to charge past them and go for the invasion ships, the enemy line halted. I blinked at the wall, not quite sure if I was seeing correctly.
“Alamo? Did the enemy halt?”
“Enemy velocity reduced. Their relative distance is being maintained.”
“Are they within range of our weapons?”
“No.”
I chewed on my thumb. “What are they doing?”
“They are transmitting a message,” said the ship.
“They are? Put it on audio!”
A continuous screeching sound came from the walls. I listened to it carefully. It didn’t sound like any language I knew. “Alamo, translate the message.”
“Unknown meaning. No frame of reference provided.”
I thought about it. I knew that Crow and his communications team were no doubt poring over the meaning of this right now and transmitting their own answers in every way they could come up with. But would any of them know what they were doing?
“Alamo, can you analyze this language? Can you figure out the meaning of it?”
“Unknown meaning. No frame of reference provided.”
“Try ASCII. Is it ASCII? Or Unicode?”
“No match.”
“Try all known human computer languages.”
“No match.”
I went back to chewing my thumb. After an hour or so, it was getting sore. I’d contacted Crow a few times, and he said he had a team working on it, talking to the Earth teams on the ground. They were trying to puzzl
e out the meaning. The Macro fleet sat out there, patiently repeating the message all this time. I had to wonder, how long would it be before they timed out on us and began shooting?
“Alamo, record a portion of this transmission. Wait, hold on. Record one second of what they sent to us and send it back to them.”
“Done.”
The sound of the enemy transmission stopped a few seconds later. It had gone on for so long, the sudden silence was shocking.
“Alamo,” I said, trying not to panic, “continue playing their transmission.”
“Enemy transmissions have ceased.”
“Oh shit.”
“Admiral Crow requests a private channel.”
“Open it.”
“Kyle? They stopped talking. What do you make of it?”
I hesitated. “I’m not sure… but I did send them back part of what they were sending.”
“You did what? When?”
“Just before they broke off.”
A stream of harsh language erupted from the air around me. Crow’s accent grew so strong, I wasn’t able to make out many of the words. But I felt certain they were uncomplimentary.
“Why couldn’t you just keep out of it? I’ve got a team of techs on this, Riggs.”
Enemy ship approaching.
“Ah… Crow, something is happening,” I said. I watched as a single contact broke off from the enemy fleet and slowly approached our swarm.
“Alamo, do not fire on that ship,” I said. “Crow, relay that to everyone. Don’t fire. We don’t want to start this.”
“What if it’s some kind of super-bomb or something?”
“If this comes down to a fight, we are screwed anyway. This might be a diplomatic effort on their part. I think they are trying to communicate. Let’s not start what we can’t finish.”
Crow snorted. “They are probably demanding our surrender.”
I had to admit, that did seem likely. But what kind of terms could they possibly offer? They wouldn’t bother asking for surrender if all they wanted was to wipe us out. “Just hold on. Let’s see what they’re doing.”
Crow gave orders to every ship in the fleet to stand and hold. A few drifted forward, as their pilots were doubtlessly struggling to get the correctly worded commands spoken aloud to their ships. But no one fired.
