by B. V. Larson
“If this is their base, where are their factories?” I asked in frustration. “There’s nothing here. Nothing we can see, anyway. Every planet we’ve scanned shows no movement, no factories, no crawling miners. I don’t get it.”
“They’ve hidden before,” Newcome interjected, his face appearing on screen next to Jasmine’s.
Jasmine and I both frowned on our separate ends of the connection.
“I know, I know,” he said quickly. “I wasn’t part of Star Force back then. I didn’t fight the Macros in your early campaigns, but I’ve read all of your logs. I know your reports inside and out, Colonel.”
It was my turn to look startled. I hadn’t realized anyone had bothered. Of course, I had become famous over time…some would say infamous. Somebody must have cared what I was doing over the years.
“All right,” I said, trying not to sound flattered, “what do my reports tell you about this situation?”
“They’re hiding somewhere, just the way they did under their domes at the bottom of the sea on Earth, or as they did when they camped on the middle-zone Eden worlds. They’re building up under their protective domes. We have to find their factories and root them out.”
I nodded thoughtfully and turned to the map again. There were a lot of hiding places out here. We’d already discovered no less than sixty-three bodies as large as the Moon or larger. Any of them could house a hidden base as Newcome suggested. Or they all might.
“Look for rings, too,” I said. “I know we haven’t found any yet, but they should be here. I don’t think this is the end of the line. The ancient aliens the Blues spoke of linked more than seven systems as I understand it. I’ve been told as many as two hundred systems were linked by their interstellar highway. There have to be more rings.”
“We’re under a time constraint, Colonel,” Jasmine pointed out. “No more than a month’s time.”
“I’m well aware of that, Captain, but I disagree with you on the timing. We have less than two weeks to clean this up. After that, I want to return to Earth and set up our defenses for the final battle.”
“Where do we start?” asked Jasmine, staring at the floating contacts representing moons and planets. On the screen, there were red circles surrounding each body. Most were so dark that, without that circle, you wouldn’t even notice them.
The red circles all rotated around the central large circle, which apparently had once been the system’s star. Around many of the middle-sized rocks were smaller ones—former moons. A few others drifted far out in large, swinging orbits. These were asteroids and comets.
“So damned many of them…” I said. “We’ll have to split up the fleet.”
Newcome made a choking sound.
“Do you have something to add, Admiral?” I asked. I tapped at the portion of the console that currently showed Jasmine’s face as she worked on the table remotely. Tapping at the image caused a camera to edge to her right, showing Newcome’s red face and white puffs of hair.
“Nothing, sir,” he said, looking into the camera nervously.
I stared at him sternly for a moment during which time he avoided my eye.
“For the record,” I said, “I don’t like splitting up any more than you do. But we can’t just go en masse to each rock in this burnt out system and hope to find something. It would take a year or more to visit them all. We have to get this over with, even if the lucky force that finds the enemy might have a hard time of it.”
“Very well, sir.”
I returned the camera to its home position, where it focused on Jasmine.
“Jasmine, what if we set up a task force around each carrier? We have fifteen carriers out here. Would fifteen search groups get through all the planets, moons and rocks out here in a reasonable amount of time?”
I was guesstimating on my own that the answer was “no”. But Jasmine did a much more thorough job. She brought up a script and ran the numbers. Pathing through the system over and over with a variety of solutions, she sent an expanding set of imaginary fleets jumping from world to world in a linked series of green lines.
We eyed the displayed results together dubiously.
“I don’t think we could do it with only fifteen search groups, Colonel,” she said. “See? By the time the Macro fleet reached Earth, we’ll have only visited three quarters of the ninety-odd contacts we’ve found so far.”
“Ninety? What happened to sixty-three?”
She tapped, and an indicator appeared to her upper left that tracked the red. There did seem to be more contacts all the time. Every minute or so, our sensors detected another dark rock out there floating around.
“Are you getting that data now, sir?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, trying not to let my disappointment come out in my voice. I think I failed. “How much time did you allot for searching each rock?” I asked.
She looked at me. “Oh. I didn’t. The estimates you see account for flight times only.”
I shook my head. I’d been thinking about ordering fast searches, but this simply wasn’t going to work.
“Smaller task forces then,” I said.
“Sir!” Newcome interrupted.
The software focused on his face.
“Talk to me, Admiral.”
“We can’t expose the carriers. Splitting our forces into fifteen squadrons is questionable, but breaking the carrier groups down and supplying them with only a few escorts each…it’s not wise, sir.”
“Objection noted, Admiral,” I said. “How about this: we’ll put three cruisers into each group. We’ll leave the carriers, transports and support vessels back at the ring.”
Newcome made an odd sound.
“Did I step on your foot, Admiral?”
“No, sir—I don’t think that’s possible.”
I grinned. He and I were thousands of miles apart, and I wasn’t sure if his response was meant to be funny, but I still found it amusing.
“Don’t worry so much, man. Look on the bright side: you’ll get your own command out of this. Jasmine will stay with the carrier, and you’ll take your three cruisers for a joy ride. Bon voyage.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” he said weakly.
“Is that enough search parties for you, Jasmine?” I asked.
She reran her program. Dozens of green lines leapt out, spreading like a tree from our position across the dead system.
She nodded. “That will do it. We’ll have over a hundred search groups. Provided we don’t find ourselves surprised by an organized force, we should be able to cover the entire system within ten days.”
I nodded. “Good. If we do run into an organized force, we’ll have achieved our objective anyway. Your paths are coming in now. It looks like we’ll have time to spare. Group up the ships, and select the most experienced captain in each group as the task force commander. Give everyone a list of planets to hit. I want this show on the road within an hour after we get the last ship into the system.”
“Sir?” Newcome asked. “Would it be possible to withdraw our carriers and transports entirely? Do they really need to be on this side of the ring?”
“Yeah, they do. If the enemy does spring a trap on us, you watch, they’ll jam that ring first thing. Then we’ll be separated from one another and out of contact. I don’t want to give them that kind of advantage.”
“Very good, sir.”
I knew he didn’t think it was “very good”. In fact, he hated everything about my plan. But that was just too damned bad. We were going to search this system in record time, find the Macros that had to be hiding here somewhere, flush them out and destroy them. I hadn’t come all the way out here just to turn around and run home.
Marvin contacted me a few minutes later. I knew he wanted to come along for the ride to explore a new system, but I had different plans.
“Marvin, I have a new assignment for you,” I told him.
“I will not disappoint you, Colonel Riggs,” he said eagerly. “I’ve heard abou
t these search groups, and I’d welcome the chance to perform as a one-robot team.”
I felt a bit bad as he’d contributed so much to the success of our mission so far, and in some ways he deserved the chance to stay and explore, but I couldn’t afford to indulge his curiosity now. We were playing a deadly game with the Macros, and every day counted.
“I’m sending you back to Earth,” I said, trying to make it sound like a good thing. “And I’m sending Hoon with you. You can drop him off on Eden-6. Admiral Newcome was right when he said we couldn’t take a civilian into a war zone.
“Why are you doing this, Colonel?”
“Worried you’ll miss something?” I asked. “Don’t be. It looks to me like there’s not much to investigate out here.”
“On the contrary, Colonel—”
“Marvin,” I said. “I need you back home. Earth needs you. We have to build up advanced weaponry to protect the homeworld. I’m asking you to do this as a friend. Do we have an understanding?”
“Yes, Colonel Riggs. I understand.”
I took in a deep breath and relaxed.
“Good,” I said. “I’ll see you when we get back. After the Macro fleet reaches Earth, and we defeat them, you can come out here and inspect every rock if you want to.”
“I see. Have a good trip, Colonel.”
And that was that. I watched as he rigged up a small transport vessel and exited the system going back toward Earth. I was pleased that things had gone my way so easily, and I began organizing the search of this inhospitable collection of rocks.
* * *
A week of fruitless searching passed. By the end of it, every day had become painful to me. I was as frustrated as the search crews.
As a side benefit however, I became more familiar with Nomura. She wasn’t quite the cold fish I’d thought her to be. She could even crack a joke now and then—but only if the rest of her crew wasn’t listening.
“You know, Captain,” I said to her on the eighth night of pointless searching, “I think I’m beginning to understand you.”
We were in her office going over the collected data again, this time by hand. When surveying new planets, the diagnostic AI was only marginally effective at discovering something unusual. A combination of anomalies in a pattern might strike a chord in a human, while the computer passed it by.
It was tedious work. In general, we came up with odd readings—a released trace gas that shouldn’t be there or heat signatures that could be plate tectonics but might not be… By combining these elements, we hoped to find evidence of the Macros and their hiding spot. At least, that was the theory. The reality was that we were trapped in a room together, going over data that was as blank as blank could be. It was extremely boring.
“Understand me?” she asked. “What do you mean, Colonel?”
“You behave differently when it’s just you and me here in this office.”
She stiffened, and her eyes met mine. “I hope you aren’t suggesting anything improper might transpire, sir.”
I blinked at her then laughed. “No, no, not at all. Do I have that bad of a reputation?”
“Yes.”
I chuckled again. She wasn’t one to candy things up.
“All I meant was that you’re more open and more willing to talk in this office. In front of your crew, you’re all business.”
Her eyes drifted back down to the data again. “And what is it you’re beginning to understand about that?”
“Why you operate the way you do. Why you never let your guard down on the bridge. I think you’re worried they won’t respect you if you’re anything less than a stickler for every rule. I would suggest to you it might not be necessary.”
She looked unhappy and avoided my eye.
“Everyone has their own command style,” I said, backpedaling a bit. “I’m not here to judge. I’m just telling you that you might be making things harder on yourself than is necessary.”
“I thank you for your concern.”
I shrugged. I could tell her crew might be happier if she lightened up, but I wasn’t going to push it. She was the captain, and she was effective. It was her ship.
“Sir?” she asked a few minutes later.
I looked up at her, and the expression on her face made me think she was about to open up and tell me her problems. Usually, that sort of look sent me running for the hills, but Nomura was growing on me.
“What is it, Captain?”
“I’ve been going over the paths all of our search parties have taken thus far. We’ve covered eighty percent of the system.”
“Unfortunately, yes. We’ve found very little of interest, and we’ve pretty much wasted our time. Is that what you were about to say?”
“Not exactly, sir. It occurs to me now that there’s one major body no ship was assigned to.”
I frowned. “What?”
“The sun, sir. Or what once might have been the sun in this system.”
I thought about it. “The gravity would be too intense for enemy activity. At least, that was the assumption.”
“Do we know the gravitational stresses the Macros can handle?”
I shook my head. “Not really. We’d sort of bypassed it automatically…but now that you mention it—”
I stood up, and she stood up with me. We were on the same page.
“We’re going to the bridge, and we’re reversing course,” I said. “Every ship in the fleet is threading their way outward along a unique path from rock to rock. But we’re going to return and check out the biggest rock of them all.”
“An excellent idea, Colonel,” she said. Her eyes were intense.
The longer I was around this woman, the more I liked her. She wanted to complete the mission. That’s all she wanted. She would do just about anything to achieve that goal.
I could appreciate that kind of officer.
-27-
The moment I relayed our plans to fleet command, they objected. Despite their resistance, they weren’t surprised to learn I’d already put my hunch into action.
“I’m not asking permission, Jasmine,” I said. “I’m informing you. What I need from you is a little rerouting. Have nearby task forces add our final planetary stops to their search lists. If you spread the job around, it should add no more than a day to our total time here. In the meantime, I’ll have a few days to scour the surface of the dead sun.”
“Sir,” Jasmine said, looking worried on my screen. “I don’t recommend this course of action. Your ship might not even be able to withstand the pull of the collapsed core. If anything overheats or malfunctions, you might not escape the gravity well.”
“The gravitational forces are well within specs. I checked. And Andoria is a new ship. She has the best equipment we can produce.”
“The situation is untested, sir.”
I frowned. She didn’t want me to go down there and risk my life ahead of the pack. She thought of it as unnecessarily endangering key personnel—and the guy who happened to be the father of her unborn child. Could she be losing her edge?
I didn’t see things that way. What right did I have to order crews onto a dangerous path I wouldn’t dare to take myself? It was different in battle, of course. A commander owed it to everyone to stay alive. But we weren’t in battle—not yet anyway—and I was becoming increasingly determined to see this through. We had to find the Macros and destroy their base as fast as possible.
“Jasmine,” I said, “the Macros are somewhere in this system. I can feel it. This might be a longshot, but I want to take it.”
“I understand, Colonel,” she said in resignation. “I’ll relay the orders to the rest of the fleet.”
The channel broke, and I turned back to Nomura. I grinned at her.
“It’s a go!”
She looked at me curiously. “So I heard, sir.”
I wondered vaguely what she was thinking. Had she picked up on the odd interchange between Jasmine and I? Was she aware of the rumors, most of which
were true, about our relationship?
I decided it didn’t matter, and I didn’t care. I stood tall on the bridge while it seesawed under my boots. It felt good to be turning around, to follow a hunch.
* * *
A day later, I found myself orbiting the dead sun. It wasn’t a normal smooth orbit, however. We were too close for that. We had to keep the engines on full to stay aloft, and there was a thin dusty atmosphere around the monster that was dangerously close to scorching the hull with friction if we drifted down any closer.
It didn’t take long to find what we were looking for. The emissions had been too faint to pick up deep in space, but up close they were clear: there was an energy dome on the surface of this rock.
We’d found this type of base many times in the past. It was a Macro dome—an extremely large one. Nearly ten miles across, it doubtlessly was protecting their most valuable assets: their factories.
“I’m impressed,” I told Captain Nomura as I studied the readouts. “They built it here, in plain sight. But such a crazy place for a base! Every ship they launch must have to blast away under full power to escape the gravity well. It seemed impossible, and we almost passed them by.”
“Maybe that’s why they did it,” she said.
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But I don’t think so. I think they have some other reason. A rare local resource, perhaps. They normally don’t build their bases with subterfuge and deception in mind. They aren’t great hiders—they always think aggressively.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t even nod. Nomura was an odd commander. I liked her, but I had a hard time figuring out what she was thinking.
Macros liked to build their factories under heavy energy shielding to prevent orbital bombardment. Only nuclear weapons could take one down. Grinning, I ordered the bombardment to begin.
“Let’s unload, Captain. Send down every missile we have on three sides of that dome. That amounts to forty-eight warheads.”
Nomura didn’t argue with me. She didn’t tell me I was wasting ordnance, or that I should hold back in case we found a second dome. She tapped in the targeting data, transferred it to the other two cruisers, and they all fired in rapid succession.
