by B. V. Larson
“Okay,” I said, “has anyone located the source of these attackers? They have to come from somewhere, and I’m willing to bet we’re close to their nest.”
“I think you’re right, Colonel,” said a young Centaur lieutenant. “I think they came up out of these holes.”
I headed over to the hole he’d indicated and looked inside. I was reminded of a dirty drainpipe from any Earth city back home. “Any volunteers to scout this tunnel?”
Right away, a half dozen centaur troops jostled forward to volunteer. Not a single human did the same. I clapped a young buck on the shoulder and pointed the way. He disappeared a moment later into the dark. I watched as his suit lights dwindled then vanished as he turned a corner.
Originally, the Centaurs had been highly claustrophobic. Marvin with his genetic brain-tinkering had changed all that. He’d been able to give me Centaurs who feared practically nothing—other than dying dishonorably.
“Have we got a nanite line on him?” I asked.
“Yes sir.”
I felt bad sometimes about the way I valued a human life more than I did that of a Centaur’s. I figured it was a natural human tendency. Not only were humans my own kind, there was also the fact we were relatively rare in the Eden system. People tended to value anything that was rare—just because it was rare. I’d be willing to bet if there were only a hundred houseflies left alive on Earth, people would be holding candlelight vigils to save them.
The Centaurs were anything but rare. They were loyal and helpful, but they bred fast and threw their lives away at the slightest provocation. One of the quickest and most honorable ways they’d figured out to do this was to join Star Force and get themselves killed under my command.
“How’s he doing, sir?” Kwon asked.
“He’s still breathing,” I said, checking the readings coming back on the nanite wire.
Not ten seconds after I said that, the readings changed.
“Uh-oh,” Kwon said, looking over my shoulder. “Looks like he got nailed.”
I turned to him and smiled. “You want to go save him?”
He looked at the pipe dubiously. “I don’t know if I will fit, sir.”
I gauged Kwon and the pipe, and I had to admit he had a point. I grumbled privately inside my helmet. I didn’t want to send a platoon down there into the dark. It could easily be a one-way trip for the lot of them.
“How far down was that? When we lost the signal?”
“At least fifty yards. Maybe twice that. The nanites aren’t answering, the line has been severed.”
I could see our end of the nanite wire. It was about as thick as a pencil, and resembled a line of mercury. The odd thing about these wires was the way they wriggled and moved on their own. For all intents and purposes, they behaved like long living snakes of metal.
From years of experience, I could tell this wire had just been cut.
Cursing, I vaulted over the side of the platform. I clamped my boots onto what looked like a pipe down there. I was under the metal shelf we’d been fighting on, and it was cramped, but I managed to hang on. I got out my laser projector and burned a hole into the pipe with a single controlled burst.
“You see light in there?”
“Yes sir! That’s the one!”
Clanking farther down the pipe, I began to follow it. The rest of the platoon followed me, and the company after that. I hadn’t ordered them to do so, but it made good sense so I didn’t argue.
We made it down about a hundred yards. A portable sensor unit was giving off a beep, indicating some part of our marine’s equipment was nearby. I got out my projector again and did a little custom surgery on an exchange of pipes that came together.
As best I could figure out, we were messing with the atmospheric systems. Probably, the ventilation pipes. This big ship had a lot of them, and since the Blues were gaseous they took these things very seriously.
I no sooner had a circular hole burned than a cyborg arm shot out and clamped itself onto my boot.
“Pay dirt!” I shouted. “Block the rest of these pipes. I want them trapped.
All around me, the rest of the marines began blazing with their lasers. When they’d melted shut the pipes leading to the exchange, we cut our way inside.
We found them in there. A nest of over a hundred cyborgs. They were thick, like a pool full of thrashing fish. In their midst was the torn-apart remains of the Centaur I’d sent down to them on a suicidal scouting mission. There were only scraps of him left.
The cyborgs never had a chance. We killed them all.
-23-
The following few days were relatively uneventful. Marvin’s control over the ship improved every hour. By the third day after the cyborg attack, he could hit moving targets with the gravity-weapon and we were gliding on course toward the ring.
It was the last ring. The ring that led to Sol.
Just thinking about that gave me a little thrill inside. Really, no one who hasn’t left Earth behind for years can appreciate how homesick space can make you. It’s worse than solitary confinement, in a way. Out in space, everything is slightly wrong. There are plenty of odors, but they all stink—and even the stink has a undefinable wrongness to it. There are no fresh breezes as good as a mountain pine scent, or a beach wind. The skies, even if they are blue, aren’t the right shade of blue. And no planet seems to tug with a gravity that matches what you know in your bones to be right.
I met with my officers and planned the final assault as best we could. The core members included were Captain Sarin and Commodore Miklos, who had recovered completely from cyborg venom. Gaines was there too, representing the marines. Marvin was too busy flying the ship, and I knew Kwon would be out of his depth, so I left them at their stations.
“So,” I said, smiling at each of them in turn, “before we begin, are there any updates you’d like to give me? What reports do we have of Imperial activity?”
“Very little since the cyborgs made their move, sir,” Miklos said. “Actually, they are being rather quiet. It surprises me. I’d expected them to challenge us by now. I’d imagined Crow or one of his lackeys would transmit a dire warning, telling us we were moving into their space and that proceeding would amount to a declaration of war.
I chuckled. “That does sound like Crow’s style. Why hasn’t he done it?”
“Maybe they don’t even realize we’re here,” Jasmine said.
“No, I don’t believe that. We’re being watched. The Imperials laid these cyborg eggs out here to stop invaders. They must have probes beaming back reports. But still, they haven’t challenged us. They haven’t flown a single ship out here to do so much as flip us the bird.”
“Maybe he’s hoping we’ll go away,” Major Gaines suggested. “This is technically neutral territory.”
I pointed a finger at him, and shushed the others.
“That’s it,” I said. “Gaines nailed it. They’re hoping we’re fighting with this big ship and that we’re self-absorbed. Why mess with us if we aren’t messing with them? They’re weak, and rebuilding as fast as they can. They got a good look at our fleet strength and decided to take a pass. Alpha Centauri is no-man’s land. At this point, we could turn around and fly home and no one would say a word about it.”
I looked at the group, taking their measure. A few, in particular Miklos, seemed to think that retreating might be a pretty good idea.
I shook my head slowly. “That’s not going to happen. We’re here, and we have the best relative advantage we’re ever going to get. We’re pressing the attack.”
After that announcement, the planning began in earnest. Not even Miklos mentioned calling the whole thing off. As much as he didn’t like the thought of losing ships, I believe he’d been traumatized by the cyborgs. They made it clear Earth was not helpless, that they were still gearing up for war. Who else could they fight, other than Star Force? On the chain of star systems, we were between them and the rest of the universe.
“Let�
�s do this by the book, sir,” Miklos said. I thought there might be a hint of pleading in his voice, but I wasn’t sure.
“Lay out your plans, Commodore.”
The table lit up under our elbows.
“As you can see, we are here, about sixty hours out from the last ring. We can’t increase our velocity because this monstrous ship only goes so fast. If the ring was closer to the central star—well anyway, we have sixty hours to go. I recommend the standard missile barrage be fired through the ring right before we arrive. Then, we can at least be certain there will be no mines to encounter when we first break our way into the Solar System.”
Everyone glanced at me, checking my reaction. I nodded and said nothing.
“I think we want Phobos to go through the ring first, followed by the rest of the fleet.”
I watched expectantly, but Miklos shrugged.
“That’s about it,” he said. “Really, we can’t plan a battle with an enemy force we have yet to lay eyes on. We could place a thousand ships there and do a pretend battle with them, but in reality I have no idea as to their numbers or fleet configuration.”
“So you just want to wing it?” I asked.
“I thought that might please you, Colonel.”
It didn’t please me, and it wasn’t like Miklos. I wondered if something was up. He always had elaborate plans. I frowned at the screens and slowly nodded. I thought I had his angle: he had a plan, but he wasn’t going to show it to me yet. If he showed me his plan now and asked for approval, I could say no. But in the heat of battle, he could present it, and I might well go forward with it without editing.
“All right,” I said, “I’m not giving you an A for effort, but I’m in agreement with what you’ve presented so far. Now, let’s go over our ship strength for the battle—presuming there is one. How do we defend Phobos?”
They all looked at me in surprise.
“Defend Phobos?” asked Miklos as if he had perhaps not heard me correctly. “I was not under the impression this ship needed a special defensive arrangement. We already have a battalion strength marine unit stationed here, and about a hundred laser turrets on the hull. Not to mention miles of rock for a hull.”
The others chuckled, but I didn’t.
“Let’s assume they have more cyborgs—lots more. They got down to the surface before, and they will do it again. When they come here in strength, they’ll take the delicate machinery on the nose area apart, disabling the gravity weapon again. A few thousand of them could overwhelm my marine contingent and disable the entire ship.”
“Sir,” Miklos said, squirming. “I don’t know what you want us to do. We can’t bring our own ships in close to provide cover. If we do, they will be damaged by the defensive gravity-field if it was fired, which renders it useless. If they stay out of range, they can’t shoot down incoming invaders.”
“I’m not suggesting we encircle Phobos with ships. I’m suggesting we place more marines here. And more turrets.”
There was some grumbling at that. Gaines finally spoke up.
“My forces are in space for a reason, sir,” he said. “A major element of our offensive force has been the ship-assaulting marine. Every transport has specialists aboard for this purpose. We can—”
“How many?” I asked.
“Excuse me, Colonel?”
“How many of your marines are trained for attacking ships?”
“Well…all of them, actually. But about two thousand of them specialize in such tactics.”
“Centaurs, mostly?”
“Yes sir. With human officers leading the units in most cases. We’ve found the Centaurs tend to get excited and charge enemy ships if they are led by Centaur officers.”
“Right,” I said, thinking of several suicidal charges I’d witnessed in the past. “Okay. We’ll leave forty percent of our ground forces in space, spread out among the carriers, transports and cruisers. That way they can launch a spaceborne attack from many platforms if they’re needed. But I want most of your ground-pounders on Phobos. I don’t want to chance losing the ship.”
There was quite a bit of complaining after that. I didn’t really listen. I signaled Jasmine, and she deftly rearranged the positioning of the ground forces on the map. They were mostly inside Phobos’ belly before she was done.
“I’m not sure why you want to commit so much of our ground forces to Phobos, Colonel,” Miklos complained.
His fingers worked, and he kept frowning at Captain Sarin. I could tell he wanted to move the ground forces back onto his ships.
“Because it’s the key to our attack. If Earth has serious defenses—and we would be fools to assume otherwise—Phobos is the one weapon they can’t handle. The ship outranges them with a weapon they probably don’t understand. Even more importantly, it’s terrifying to behold.”
They looked at me with eyebrows riding high. No one seemed to get the significance of what I’d said.
“Look,” I said, “we’re talking about invading and conquering a world. We have to look scary to do that. If we want Earth to surrender, if we want the local national governments to pull their support from the Imperials, they have to be afraid of us. They have to fear us more than they fear Crow.”
“Why can’t they like us more than they like Crow?” asked Jasmine. “Aren’t we here to liberate them? To free Earth?”
Major Gaines jumped in before I could answer. “The Colonel is right,” he said. “I’ve dealt with people in such situations. They will be shocked, and fear will be their first response. That’s just where we want them. We want them uncertain. We want them to hesitate, to hold back.”
“Just one more question, Colonel,” Miklos said.
I waved for him to talk and get it over with.
“If this ship, Phobos, is so key to our victory, what were you planning to do at this point before the Blues built it?”
He had me there. I looked around, and they all knew it. I shrugged.
“I would have thought of something,” I assured them.
There was some further argument, but not much. Jasmine’s redistribution of the ground forces stuck. Within hours, troops began flowing down onto Phobos in great numbers.
The huge ship’s outer hull now bristled with weapons and equipment. We were dependent on the Blue’s gravity drive to fly it, but even without their primary weapon it was a powerful addition to the fleet.
We had loads of ideas on how to improve it as well. One obvious one was to drill another, broader shaft all the way to the central chamber from the surface. This shaft would function as a launch tube. Miklos’ eyes lit up at the idea of storing thousands of fighters and dozens of landing craft within the protective shell of the ship.
But we didn’t have time for that much drilling.
“The enemy has already seen this ship and scouted it with cyborgs,” I told them on the last day, the final twenty hours before we hit the ring to Sol. “We have to assume they have a good idea of what’s inside the ship, and how it operates. The time to strike is now, before they can adapt their defenses to the new threat.”
On this point, I had agreement. Not everyone liked it, because they all had their pet ideas on building up for the battle, but they could not argue with the idea that the enemy was out there, building up just as furiously as we were.
I now operated out of Phobos myself. We had constructed an excellent command center near the original control systems, and we had gained at least partial control over the weapons. We could fire the big area-effect weapon to knock out missiles and the like without a problem. The long-range weapon, however, hadn’t been perfected yet. We’d imploded a number of dummy targets and passing asteroids to experiment. At ranges over a million miles, we usually missed. I suspected that our control system wasn’t as perfectly sensitive as the analog one that Tolerance used. That dead cloud’s dexterity had been amazingly precise.
The more we learned about the interface, the more I was impressed by it. Most of the push buttons w
ere in fact sensory-feedback. By nudging themselves slightly in various patterns, the hundreds of buttons formed a collective image of the universe outside. They gave anyone touching all of them and sensing their fractional shifts a view of the surrounding space, displaying for a creature like Tolerance information concerning targets and ranges. Fortunately, we didn’t have to work with that part of their technology. Just aiming the ship and the primary cannon around was enough, using our own sensor technology.
“Have we got a full charge, Marvin?” I asked, coming on duty after a full set of tests were completed.
“Yes, but my control is still lacking in refinement for long range targets. I can’t hit a ship the size of a fighter—and missiles are still out of the question.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “We’ll reserve your hammer for the biggest targets. In fact, that’s what I think we’ll call it—the hammer.”
“Dramatic, sir.”
“Thanks, I like it too.”
I stood on the open deck of Phobos beneath a tangle of tentacle-like nanite arms that interacted with the original control boards. We’d move equipment from the fleet to set up the new command center here. I would have liked to have compartmentalized the interior of the huge ship into smaller zones and maybe even pressurize them with bulkheads, but there simply wasn’t enough time.
Miklos came to me about seven hours before we hit Sol with a new idea shining in his eyes.
“What have you got, Nicolai? Have the Imperials said anything yet?”
“Still silent, sir. But I do have a possible solution for our decompression problems.”
“Let’s hear it.”
What we’d been worried most about was the possible catastrophic depressurization of the central chamber. It was so large that a big enough hole into space would suck out our crewmen and possibly even our control systems.
“We’ll put up smart metal bubbles, sir. Here, and over the encampment that encircles the exit.”
We’d set up a shanty town of bricks from the troop ships all around the single shaft to the outer hull. Much of my marine ground force was stationed there, ready to sally out and do battle on the surface or in space itself.