Conquest (Star Force Series)

by B. V. Larson

  It was eerie. I knew those sands, I knew those rolling waves and those shifting palms. The enemy’s plan was clear. They were marching up in trenches underwater, keeping themselves low and out of sight as long as they can. My laser turrets were right on the beach, easily within range. They tracked the underwater targets as they came closer.

  “Why don’t they fire, Kyle?” Sandra asked beside me.

  “They can’t do any damage yet,” I said. “Lasers won’t penetrate a cold, dark ocean. The waves make it even worse. Lots of sediment and foam. The beams wouldn’t be effective for more than a few feet down. They have to wait until the Macros are in water that is too shallow to hide them.”

  “I get it,” Kwon said. “Our turrets are smart. They will wait to blast them until they are in close.”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “Our turrets are smart enough to know they can’t do any damage, so they are waiting. I would say the Macros are the smart ones this time. By coming under the cover of deep water they will be very close when the surface. They’ll burn down our turrets at point-blank range.”

  “Look, they’re stopping all along the line,” Sandra said. She took a step toward the screens and pointed at the main radar display. She turned and looked at me. “They’re waiting under there like spiders, aren’t they? Waiting until all of them are into position, then they’ll all rush us at once.”

  I nodded, and contacted Barrera. He answered almost immediately, despite what had to be an overwhelming number of details to worry about.

  “Colonel?” he asked.

  “I see about twenty of the big machines are poised to strike your position at Fort Pierre. I don’t think you’ll be able to hold.”

  “We’ll be all right, sir.”

  “No, you won’t. I’m going to back you up. Clear the area of all air traffic.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  I broke the connection. I called Crow next. I hadn’t talked to him for a day or two, but I knew he was watching the battle unfold like everyone else. It took several minutes to get hold of him, but I finally did so.

  “What’s up, Riggs?”

  “The end of the world,” I said.

  Crow laughed at that. “Always a drama fan, aren’t you?”

  “We can’t hold this time, Admiral.”

  “Admiral, is it? You must want a big favor, right mate?”

  “Yes. Bring your fleet down to cover the island.”

  “Suicide. You know that. I thought we’d talked this out by now.”

  I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. I counted to three before going on, so I wouldn’t curse and scream at him. I knew that wasn’t the best way to get his cooperation.

  “You still there, Riggs?”

  “You don’t have to engage them. Stay out of range. I need you to be ready to run interference.”

  “What if they fire missiles at us?”

  “Then you’ve managed to distract them from Andros. That’s a good thing.”

  Crow grumbled about being outnumbered and outgunned. I ignored most of it. I’d heard it all before.

  “Why did you build all those ships in the first place if you meant to hide behind the Moon?” I demanded at last in exasperation.

  “If I had four times as many ships as I have now, you wouldn’t be asking that. You’d be cheering me on as I blasted the enemy out of the sky. As long as these ships survive, they are an asset. Blown up, they aren’t worth a damn to you or me.”

  Crow had a good point, but I was desperate. I could see the Macros were not cooperating with any of my plans. They were coming at me methodically, and I wasn’t winning any of the skirmishes so far. I could sense doom approaching, and I wanted every ounce of firepower I could get on the table to stop it.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll set up a gun emplacement on top of your little secret base. It’ll take potshots at enemy Macros until they come to investigate.”

  “You wouldn’t do that. Those factories are our ace in the hole.”

  “This entire island is everything we have. We can’t lose just half of it. If they overrun us, we’re all dead anyway. Are you in this mess or not?”

  More grumbling ensued, but after another few minutes he said he would come down and provide cover fire for us.

  “But let me tell you straight,” he said, “if they fire bloody missiles at us and we can’t shoot them down, we’re going to run again.”

  “Just get down here and support us.”

  He finally agreed and I broke the channel. I heaved a long sigh. Dealing with Crow was one of the worst things about my job. Having him hanging out behind the Moon had been like a vacation. I would have left him out there if I hadn’t needed him so desperately.

  “Colonel?” the fort CO called to me. “They are starting to stand up.”

  I frowned, not knowing at first what he meant. Then I saw the forward screens. The Macros had apparently come up as close to the beach as they could in a crouched position, moving like crabs with their legs bent. Now they stood up together, water gushing off their metal bodies. Our lasers flashed and their guns answered. The night was split apart with brilliant streaks of light. Our coastal turrets fired a dozen stabbing beams at once at the invasion Macros as they crawled up out of the sea. The enemy methodically returned fire. We watched the Macros as their legs churned the ocean below them. Explosive impact points flared and gushed vapor as intense beams touched cold, wet metal. They shrugged off the hits however, and did not stop advancing. They returned fire, frequently knocking out our small turrets with a few good hits.

  Sandra stood directly under the main screen, staring up at it. “I know that cove,” she said. “They’ll wreck it.”

  I had to agree. I called to the fort CO. The captain turned to stare at me with wide eyes. I figured he wasn’t excited about the order I was about to give him.

  “Captain,” I said. “Target the machines closest to Fort Pierre and burn them down.”

  Nodding an acknowledgement, he relayed my orders to his operators. The big guns wobbled as the black nanite arms that held them shifted slightly. I could hear them move out there, grinding metal against metal and making the entire building creak and groan. First one projector spoke, then more fired. Soon, the guns were going off rhythmically in a slow, repetitive pattern. Big lasers fired more slowly, as they took longer for the chemical gases to dissipate from the firing chamber. They also generated a lot more heat. Liquid nitrogen was puffed into the chambers after each shot, cooling the tanks before the next big gout of energy was released.

  I was surprised to feel recoil from these guns. They were so large, and released so much energy that they actually rocked the installation when they went off. This made them slower as well, because the arms that aimed them had to stabilize and retarget the projectors slightly. Each shot burned for a duration of around five hundred milliseconds, then took about ten more seconds to reset and fire again. The effects were impressive, however.

  “Wow,” Sandra said. “Look at that, a hit!”

  For all their ponderousness, the guns were effective. We watched as one of the big machines took a direct hit in the upper plating. Unlike the lighter fire of our coastal laser turrets, the fort’s cannons didn’t just gouge the armor of the big machines. Instead, they burned right through it. The stricken machine was at first shrouded in a plume of flaring light green vapor, but as it cleared, I saw it was badly damaged. Two of the six massive legs no longer operated. It was tipping and dragging its upper body through the surf. Like a wounded man, it struggled to make it to shore.

  Another big beam struck the smoking invader. A secondary explosion inside finished it, and it crashed down on the beach. A whoop went up around the control room. It was our first kill.

  I smiled tightly, but didn’t share in the enthusiasm of those around me. It had taken nearly two minutes to bring down a single machine, and there were hundreds of them rising up all along the coastline now. My coastal turrets were almost ineffective, and once the enemy
machines reached the land, they would be harder for the big cannons to hit as they crashed through the forests.

  Now that my central forts had demonstrated their long-range firepower, I knew the enemy would want to destroy them. Despite that, I had decided to commit them. I did not regret the decision. After all, what was the point of a military asset if you were too scared to use it?

  I watched as the battle unfolded before us. My neck ached from tension, but I didn’t dare try to massage it while wearing my battle suit. The gloves would probably rip my skin off.

  -33-

  I barely had time to sip some coffee and shake the armored gloves of a few smiling technicians before the Macros made their next move. The third group of tunneling Macros was active again. They’d gotten a message and had selected a target. Splitting into three groups, their numbers swelled on our monitoring screens. They had apparently been reinforced by survivors of the assault on my production base. En masse, they were digging upward.

  We calculated where they would come out. The math wasn’t too difficult. Being centrally located, the fort I stood within was going to be visited first. After that, the other two forts would each be assaulted.

  “Bring your garrison troops inside,” I ordered the fort CO.

  The captain relayed the order without hesitation or argument. I liked this man more every minute. I checked his nametag for the first time. Captain Flynn, it said. I watched him work with nervous speed. I could deal with a man who didn’t know what he was doing, as long as he was aware of his deficiency and willing to learn. It was the rookie idiots with big ideas of their own that bothered me the most.

  The command post was roomy, and there were sleeping quarters for twelve, but two hundred marines simply couldn’t fit inside the space. I thought about it. I didn’t want them to stand around outside on the fresh earth. When the Macros dug up to assault us, they were going to suck them down under the ground and grind them up in dusty holes.

  “Sir,” Kwon said, understanding my dilemma. “I’ll take a platoon up on to the roof of the dome. We’ll keep out of the way of the big guns, of course.”

  I nodded slowly. “Up,” I said. “Yeah, that’s it. Commander, get these men back out of here. Leave a platoon inside. Spread the rest in the trees outside. We can fly, so put them up there. When the enemy dig their way into the open, we’ll jump down on them.”

  Eyes wider than ever, Captain Flynn relayed my order. Battle suits clanked back out of the building. I could hear men complaining and speculating on the intelligence of their leaders. I didn’t blame them. Smiling, I had Sandra help me put my helmet back on.

  We returned to the big screen and watched the damage we were doing to the enemy Macros. They reached the tree line, but were missing seven machines by that time. Other groups were unmolested, unfortunately. Up and down the coast most of the machines reached the safety of the shore, blowing up our automated turrets and smashing their way into the cover of the trees. But where my fort concentrated its firepower, they melted. That was in a cove not far south of Fort Pierre. It was the nearest landing point of the enemy to our main base. We gave them hell, and they couldn’t even fire back. We were out of range for the guns mounted on their backs.

  In the trees around and inside Fort Pierre I had placed about a thousand marines. Most of the island was vacate, of course. It was over two thousand square miles of wilderness and there were only about ten thousand marines on the island. I hadn’t been given the time to rebuild my forces before the Macros had begun their assault. Some had questioned why I didn’t bring down more recruits from Miami, but it would have been pointless. Without battle suits, nanites and most critically, proper training, they would not have been able to fight these monsters.

  I’d fought them myself on several occasions, learning the hard way how to bring down one of these big machines in the South American campaign. The knowledge had cost us thousands and thousands of lives. One of the biggest lessons I’d learned was how ineffective normal earth troops were against them. It was like sending men with bolt action rifles against entrenched machine guns—the butcher’s bill had been incredible and the enemy machines had been unfazed.

  Another possible defensive move had been used in South America, but we’d avoided it thus far: nuclear mines. We didn’t have endless miles of ground here on Andros. I could have killed a few machines that way, but nuclear weapons are relatively risky when used in close-quarters. Perhaps I’d been naive, thinking I could win without using every asset, but that was still unknown. What I did know is that fighting in a radioactive cloud would be a hardship that would reduce the effectiveness of my men much more than it would the Macros.

  When the tunnels began to open up around the base, they did so with surprising coordination. I had ordered the men in the command post to ignore the enemy unless they were right there in the room with them. They were to keep firing salvo after salvo at the easiest big invader—it was the job of the marine garrison to stop any assaults from smaller machines below us. Still, when it comes right down to it, such orders can be difficult to follow. I had to give Flynn and his crew credit, they really tried. But when the report came in the enemy had dug up into the mess hall and firing broke out under our feet, it was hard to keep staring straight ahead.

  I sent Kwon down, and the disturbance subsided for a minute or so. Then the floor bucked up of its own accord. The big screens died, losing power, and some screamed: “The generators!”

  I didn’t hesitate, and neither did Kwon. If the damned machines cut off our generators, the big guns would stop firing. Mission accomplished for the enemy.

  I called in two more platoons out of the trees. Apparently, the enemy weren’t going for that route yet. Charging down the ramps, we half-ran and half-flew to generator room. Four Macro workers were in there. One had committed suicide by using his big lobster claws to cut into the central feed leading to the base. He’d been electrocuted, but I was certain he’d earned whatever award Macros had in their database for a successful self-sacrifice.

  Twenty-one of us went down there, including Sandra with her flashing twin carbon knives. Nineteen of us walked out unaided, but the machines had been destroyed. I posted a squad with orders to call for backup the second they saw anything suspicious and sealed the tunnel with nanites.

  We headed back to the command post. There was a kind of new commotion going on up there. When we reached the screens and they flickered into life again as power was restored, I saw what it was. The mounds of fresh earth all around the fort were frothing with flashing metal mandibles. The enemy didn’t come out of just one hole, or four holes, they came up in dozens of spots at the same time. Without orders, my men in the trees fired down on them. The machines boiled up onto the surface like ants, taking hits as they did so. Those that survived their first critical seconds in the open returned fire with heavy beamers of their own.

  I turned to Flynn. “Keep firing these big guns until you don’t see any more machines downslope, Captain.”

  Flynn nodded. His mouth was a grim line. I could tell he wasn’t afraid anymore. He was determined.

  I left him and ordered the marines outside to come down out of the trees and meet the enemy on the ground. They were too exposed up there. A ferocious firefight began on mostly open ground. I headed up to the main entrance. Sandra was ahead of me, while Kwon led a squad of men in my wake.

  We pressed out onto the field and engaged every Macro we saw. Within ten minutes of hard fighting, I knew we weren’t going to be able to kill them all. There were just too many flowing up out of those holes. Kwon tapped my helmet as I sited on a Macro stalking a man who was injured and crawling for safety. I fired repeatedly until the Macro stopped moving.

  Kwon thumped his glove on my helmet again.

  “What is it, Sergeant?” I snapped, looking at him.

  He extended a metal-covered index finger and pointed upward. I followed the gesture. I saw them then, the big guns. They were hanging down loosely. The arms no
longer held them up, because they no longer were powered. To me the arms and the guns looked like giant riflemen, dead at their posts.

  I looked back at Kwon. “We’re pulling out. We’ve lost this one.”

  Kwon nodded. He did not seem surprised or upset. He shouted orders and soon flocks of flying marines took flight. I reached out and slipped my arm around Sandra’s waist. She struggled for a second, then realized who I was and gave me a quizzical look. I didn’t have time to explain matters to her, the Macros were closing in as my men left around us.

  I lifted off, carrying her under my arm. She didn’t weigh much, compared to the suit itself. I tilted my body forward at a forty-five degree angle. It felt as if I was falling over the land and about to pitch forward onto my faceplate at any second.

  We zoomed over the Macros, dropping frag grenades down open holes as we went. These parting gifts were received with an ant-like frenzy of activity.

  Behind us, explosions boomed. I crashed through pine branches and palm fronds, heading for Fort Pierre at top speed. I couldn’t see Kwon, but I figured he could take care of himself. He always did.

  -34-

  When I brought a hundred and fifty marines cruising out of the trees into Fort Pierre, I saw a lot of scorch marks, but the walls were still largely intact. We were challenged as we came down in the landing pits and I identified myself and my unit. I handed the wounded off to medical teams and the able-bodied were sent to the walls. Sandra and I headed for the headquarters bunker, where I knew Lieutenant Colonel Barrera and Major Sarin were managing the battle. Kwon stumped along behind us.

  When we reached the entrance, I turned to Kwon. “Why don’t you see if you can help out on the walls?” I suggested.