by B. V. Larson
“Oh.”
There was an awkward pause. Marvin didn’t even bother to refute my accusation. Wasn’t every evil scientist supposed to give people a speech about how his efforts benefited the greater good? Marvin seemed to find such delusions unnecessary. He delved into the tiny lives of others purely for his own pleasure, and apparently felt no need to candy it up with a moral argument. Somehow, I found this disturbing.
The newly-pledged Star Force people lined up. I beamed at them, thrilled to see their numbers inflate my ranks. In most cases, they weren’t allowed to keep their former rank. As a matter of course, I’d bumped up the veterans who’d fought with me out here on the frontier for so long and busted most of the new people back down to private. They weren’t always happy about that, but they were soon eager to rebuild their reputations. I figured that starting off at the bottom always made a marine work harder. More importantly, this system kept my own loyal personnel at the top of the command structure. If Crow had planted a few shills in this group, they would not find themselves running anything until I was sure they were true to the cause.
The hold was about the size of a gymnasium. The recruits formed lines, and I walked among them. Each wore a spacer’s black nanocloth uniform, a uniform that would forever remain sharply-cut and perfectly-creased. Most of them were male, but about a third were female. I stopped in front of the next and placed a marine private’s single stripe on his shoulders. The insignias adhered themselves to the nanocloth and merged with it, becoming part of the uniform. Shining gold on black, the stripes really stood out.
“Sir, is your decision final?” Marvin asked as I shook hands and congratulated the newly sworn-in marine.
“All my decisions are final,” I said. “Until I make a new one.”
Marvin followed me as I walked down the long ranks in the main cargo hold, distributing insignias of rank. His limbs scrabbled at the deck like a nest of vipers. The recruits couldn’t help but stare at him, but at a stern look from me, they set their eyes dead ahead again.
“Are you considering a change of course in the next few hours? Preferably before we reach Eden-8, I—”
“No, Marvin. I’m not. I assure you, however, we’ll return to Eden-6 in due course. When we do, your puddles of slime will still be full of thriving Microbes.”
“I think you may fail to grasp the significance of lost time in this circumstance, Colonel. A day represents a generation among the Microbes. We will have been gone so long, much of their conditioning and specialized breeding will be lost.”
“Is that so?” I asked. I was about to pin a Fleet midshipman’s symbol on a redhead’s collar. I paused and glanced at Marvin. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”
“How could such a gross loss of effort be beneficial?”
“Living beings are supposed to determine their own purpose in life, Marvin. We’re programmed that way.”
“An interesting hypothesis. I would counter that your theory is unproven and unlikely.”
“Listen,” I said, tired of being badgered by a robot. I pinned the insignia on the redhead where it melted into her uniform. I shook her hand. We’d long since dropped the midshipman’s anchor in favor of a golden comet, which now streaked across her lapel. “Excuse me,” I said to her, “welcome home to Star Force.”
“Thank you, Colonel Riggs,” she said.
I turned on Marvin. “No more whining,” I told him. “If you want to play with your Microbes again, you’d better come up with a valid reason for doing so. Give me a solid gain for Star Force, a tangible advantage that I can weigh against other concerns. Then you’ll get whatever you want—an office. A laboratory and a staff, maybe.”
I had so many cameras on me now, I couldn’t count them all. “Really, Colonel Riggs?”
“Yes, now get out of here until you can make a substantial case for your pet project.”
Marvin slinked away excitedly. I glanced after him once as he left the hold. I shook my head. It was good to see him energized about his work, but I wished he’d make his obsessions more useful to the cause.
I forgot about Marvin after that and swore in hundreds more new people. Sometimes, I thought I recognized a face. A few times, marines shook my hand warmly, claiming they’d been with me in one firefight or another. A few I actually remembered having met before.
In every case I gave them a hearty welcome home, whether I remembered them or not. I didn’t like glad-handing, but it was necessary. Not only was it good for morale, it was good for my cause. Crow had splintered Star Force, and as far as I could tell, I was his only serious rival. Personal loyalty was a powerful motivator for any military organization, and I intended to use that to the fullest. I let them take shots of the ceremony with their handhelds and helmet optics. I gave out hugs and smiles like I was running for office back home. Perhaps, in a way, I was.
Jasmine and Sandra interrupted me as the crowd broke up. The recruits were heading back to their transports amid cheers and well-wishes. I took one glance over my shoulder at the approaching women, and knew there was trouble coming. At least they weren’t fighting each other. But their expressions were worried—even nervous.
“Sir,” Jasmine said, “we’re in trouble.”
I threw one last salute at the recruits as they mounted their ramps and passed through the coupling airlocks. I gave them a bullshit smile, then turned back to my staff. I marched with them toward the long, sloping corridor that led up to the bridge. Under my feet, the deck rippled and shifted—that worried me. The ship was reconfiguring itself for something.
“The nanites look frisky,” I said. “Give me the short version.”
“I took the liberty of ordering the bridge crew to prepare for a rapid departure,” Captain Sarin said.
I stared at her for a moment, trying not to become annoyed. Miklos was still the second in command in this system. I could see already that Sarin was bucking for her old job back. Well, she hadn’t earned that position yet in my mind. Maybe she would in time, and I had to admit she had been the best at ops, but I didn’t want her to overstep her bounds right off. I almost admonished her, but nodded instead. I decided to wait until I heard what these two had to say.
I looked to Sandra next. She didn’t seem to be trying to put Jasmine in her place, as I would expect. That cued me in.
“This is something big then. Very big. Am I right?”
“We don’t completely know, sir,” Jasmine said. “But there are transmissions coming in, through both the rings on either side of Eden’s star. The signals going to Helios we don’t have a report on. But we do have ships in the Thor system. They are monitoring the opposite ring, where the Macros came from last time. The signals—whatever they are—are going through the ring in the Eden system near Hel. Then the signal can be traced, vibrating the ring at the far end of the system.”
“Which goes to an unknown system beyond the edge of our maps,” I said showing my teeth for a moment. “What was it the old maps used to say about such points? ‘Beyond here, there be dragons…’ Well, that is discouraging news, and may well be a prelude to an attack. But I hardly think that—”
“That’s not all, Kyle,” Sandra said, speaking up for the first time. “There has been a report from the Worms as well. They came through the ring from the Helios side—just one ship, with a message.”
I stopped marching toward the bridge. At this point, we stood near the entrance to the bridge itself. I could sense energetic movement up there. People knew something big was happening.
“What did they say?”
“We just had Marvin translate. It wasn’t really necessary though. Anyone can understand their symbol language, once you get used to it. They sent their symbol for enemies, then the symbol for approaching or attacking. Lastly, they sent a pictograph of the stars in the Helios’ sky.”
I took a long second to digest that one. “Isn’t that the one that means a count in the high hundreds?”
“Or even in the thousands.”
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Suddenly, I got it. “They aren’t talking about the Macros, are they? They’re talking about Earth ships. They have to be.”
Sandra and Jasmine both nodded seriously. As we’d been talking, the women had lowered their voices. For some reason, when discussing possible approaching doom, it is part of human psychology to talk about it quietly.
I thought about this new situation for several seconds. Someone was sending signals through the Thor system again, possibly summoning more Macros or a new fleet of Lobster ships. We’d trashed them the first time, and we’d repaired our battle station. But it was nowhere near one hundred percent operational effectiveness. If they had another fleet, this would be an opportune time to strike.
Worse, it sounded like the Earth fleet was coming as well, on our opposite flank. I felt a bit sick inside, but tried not to let it show in my face. I think the women standing near me both knew, however. They’d been with me for so long, and seen too many terrible things while standing at my side. It was harder for me to fool them than anyone else I knew. Finally, I took a deep breath and stopped trying.
“This sounds bad,” I said. “If it is Crow flying in after us, coming to avenge Decker, well, that’s bad enough. But the Macros and Crustaceans too? How long do we have? Have you gamed it out in the holotank?”
“Not long,” Jasmine said. “A week or less, I’d say. We can place scouts at the far side of both rings to keep a lookout, but that will only tell us when they’re coming. I don’t know if we can be ready in time.”
I smashed my right fist into my left palm. “We have to know if both sides are really attacking at once, and which will arrive first. I refuse to split my defenses onto two fronts.”
I turned to Jasmine and peered down at her. “I’m going to speed things up. Let’s go to the bridge and open a general channel. I want to talk to every volunteer, every grunt and swabbie you brought with you in those transports.”
She nodded, and the three of us walked onto the bridge together. A few hours passed before I made my announcement. During this time, we investigated the situation as best we could and read every incoming piece of data. We wargamed enemy positions and made calculated assumptions. By the time I set up my system-wide broadcast, we had a pretty good idea what was going on. It wasn’t good.
“This is Colonel Kyle Riggs,” I said loudly over the public address channel precisely one minute after I’d been hooked up and everyone had been given the one minute warning. They knew a major address was to begin, and they’d better listen to this one.
“I know that many of you are new to the Eden system,” I said. “I want to thank you for coming out here to support Star Force. The people here on these worlds believe in a different kind of life, one without tyranny and backstabbing. We have no secret police, torture booths or live floggings on TV. There is no Ministry of Trust, whose job it is to silence dissenters and spread lies. Instead, we have a set of beautiful, unspoiled worlds and a handful of determined defenders. We’re all colonists now, whether we want to be or not.”
I paused here, as there was scattered applause on the net and around me on the bridge. Everyone was staring at me intently. I pressed ahead, trying not to think of the gravity of the news I was going to impart to this faithful group.
“Unfortunately,” I said, knowing it was a word every audience hated to hear from their leaders, “when a group lays claim to a jewel, or a set of jewels such as these fine worlds, there always seems to be a challenger to the claim.”
I let that concept sink in for a moment before pressing ahead. As I paused, I signaled Jasmine. She worked the controls on the holotank, allowing the contents of it to be transmitted and duplicated on every bulkhead in the fleet. In most cases, it would only appear in two dimensions, rather than three, being formed by hard beads of nanites. It would have to do.
Before I went on, the scene was depicted clearly for everyone to see. The Eden system was in the center, with its hot, yellow sun burning. The tight circle of green worlds spun around the star. Further out were two rings, which led to two other star systems. I took a few moments to explain the positions of our enemies. I pointed out that as far as we could tell, there was nothing happening in either the Helios system or the Thor system—but there were grim warning signs in each.
“Over the past several hours, I’ve become aware of enemy movements and warning signs. We now believe two fleets are approaching Eden.”
Jasmine tapped at the screen so fast her fingers were a blur. The woman was a virtuoso on the touchscreen. Two amorphous blobs like reddish clouds of blood appeared beyond the far rings on our three system diagram. One of those rings led to Alpha Centauri, where we believed Crow’s fleet now lurked. On the other side, another blob of red was shown, hovering just beyond the water-moons of the Thor system.
“We believe the Macros are on the move again on the far side of the Thor system, where the Lobsters live on their three moons. Frankly, I’m not too worried about these guys,” I lied glibly, “as we’ve recently beaten them. They haven’t had time to rebuild everything they lost last time. On the other side of us, however, there are more new contacts approaching. These are coming from the direction of Earth. We can only surmise they are Imperial ships.”
My last sentence caused a buzzing to build up in my headset. I signaled to Sarin, and she cut out all cross traffic and let my signal dominate all others on the channel. I normally didn’t like doing that, but it was the only way to get their attention and hold it. As we weren’t yet in a pitched battle, I figured the most important thing was to get my message across. They could all gossip and second-guess me after I had made my speech.
“Due to the seriousness of these two threats against the system, I’ve decided to accelerate our swearing-in process. I want every recruit who can hear me now to stand up, and place his or her hand over their hearts.”
I could not hear it, but I could imagine the startled thousands obeying my instructions. “Repeat after me, with witnesses: ‘I do pledge my loyalty to Star Force. I will, to the best of my ability, defend Star Force and Earth from all enemies, foreign or domestic. I will follow the orders of my lawfully appointed superiors, and follow them to Hell and back, if necessary. Long live Earth, long live Humanity, and long live Star Force!’”
By the end of this speech, I knew I had them. Even on the bridge, where my staffers were standing and pledging along, the veterans around me were thrilling to my words. When I’d first made my announcements concerning the approaching enemy forces, there had been a period of shock, followed by whispering. Now, there were only ringing words being repeated by thousands of throats separated by thousands of miles of space. Inside our steel ships, we all stood and made our pledge.
“Now, let me read a piece by Gordon Dickson concerning the difficult task of all space-borne warriors: ‘Soldier, ask not—now or ever, Where to war your banners go…’”
I read the entire poem to them, and even though it might not have been understood by all those that listened, they understood the spirit behind the words. The poem was a call to sacrifice without question. A call to die frozen in space for honor, if need be. By the time I was finished, none of them were whispering to each other. On the bridge around me, it was quiet enough to hear the nanites rustling in the walls.
“I now pronounce all who have heard this transmission and made this pledge to be members of Star Force. You have only one commander now: me. You’re all members of Riggs’ Pigs, whether you fly a ship with big ideas or hump along on the ground with a thousand pounds of gear on your back. Your deployment orders will be transmitted to your shortly. Riggs out.”
I let Captain Sarin open the channels then, and listened to the cheering and the questions. I smiled. They were pumped up, and ready to follow me into battle. I only hoped I wouldn’t let too many of them down this time.
-22-
After the glow of an uplifting speech fades, the reality of a huge workload always looms. Like a wedding ceremony, soaring oratory ra
rely bears much resemblance to what follows. I got my people working immediately. Fortunately, we had plenty of weaponry and battlesuits. We’d constructed somewhere around a half million of them for the Centaurs, expecting a huge ground battle against the Macros when we’d originally reconquered the lovely planets of Eden. With a few modifications, I was able to outfit every Star Force veteran and new recruit alike.
I was surprised to learn just how many of my reinforcements were new people. Apparently, they’d come from far and wide and begged to get into the transports. The civilian population had taken a hit due to Decker’s bloodthirsty attacks, however. They’d started out with over thirty thousand civies, and we still had something in the neighborhood of twenty thousand to take care of. I saw this as a mixed blessing. They were more than welcome to join us out here on the frontier, but they had to be cared for—and I just didn’t have the resources for that now.
Instead of landing them all on Eden-8, I ordered them to be transported and dropped off evenly among the three inner planets we’d claimed with the Centaurs’ blessings. The transports spent a lot of valuable time doing this population shuffle, but I didn’t see how I could play it any other way. Sarin and I spent some time discussing the issue. She wanted them to load up into their ships, while I’d wanted them planet-side.
“We can’t let them just die up here in space,” I said.
“They don’t have to die. They can be parked in orbit on the far side of various worlds. That way, they can run if danger comes their way.”
I shook my head in disagreement. “No. There is nowhere in this system to hide if the Macros roll in past our battle station and fire just one missile at every transport. They will be hunted down and destroyed. I want these people spread out on the ground. It’s far harder to dig a population out of bunkers in a planetary atmosphere. They’ll have cover and be dispersed.”
“It’s taking up too much time,” Sarin complained. “We need those transports full of combat marines to win this fight.”
