Battle Station sf-5

by B. V. Larson

  By the time we reached the foot of the mountain range, Miklos had reported to me that most of the teams were down. In the end, we’d fielded much fewer than the millions of volunteers we’d been promised by the Centaurs. I would have gladly put them all down, but I didn’t have enough delivery systems, or infantry kits. Putting them down without proper equipment would have been akin to murder in any case. As far as we could tell, the machines had exterminated every individual on the surface, and they weren’t about to change their genocidal policy now.

  We’d landed about thirty thousand Centaurs, each team lead by one of my officers or noncoms. A few were led by private first class marines who’d I’d raised to the rank of Corporal for serving in this hazardous mission.

  By the time all the companies had made it to the mountain range, we’d only lost about three percent of them-six marines and about a thousand Centaurs. It seemed unfair, but these poor guys had a way of dying in groups. Their natural herding instincts failed them in modern combat-at least in regards to survival rates. That said, they got the job done and rarely complained. The only queries I received from them came when we stopped moving forward to press against the enemy. In these cases, I explained the situation to them in terms they understood.

  “We are massing up before pressing forward. We need more weight, more numbers. When we have all our strength together, we will overrun the machines in our thousands.”

  This sort of talk always got them into line. They loved the idea of swarming the machines and burning them down. The enemy themselves were something of a surprise. They had missiles, good command and control and they fought gamely enough. But they lacked troops. Apparently, this system had been marked down as friendly in their book. We were in a state of peace, and therefore all production could be turned to harvesting resources.

  I was surprised, as I thought perhaps our forays down to the surface at both poles would have made them switch their massive production systems over to military hardware. They hadn’t done so, but they were sure to now.

  Consequently, our march to the enemy dome was relatively easy. We met up with a few hundred machines-mostly small worker units. These functioned well against unarmed civilians, but when faced by thousands of troops carrying heavy beamers, they were melted to scrap quickly. The bigger harvesters were more of a problem, but we’d figured out how to disable them.

  Then there were the gathering units that resembled floating cities. These came along the black highways of partially digested materials to pick them up. They were monstrous, buzzing systems that apparently used massive versions of the repellers in our battle suits to fly. Once we figured out where the repellers were located, they were easy to bring crashing to the ground.

  I gathered my thousands on the cliffs over the valley we knew must contain the enemy dome. I wasn’t happy with what I saw, however. Instead of finding caves that led down to the enemy production facilities, I found only a deep lake of still water that was barely above freezing. From this water, machines crawled in and out all along the shore line.

  I compressed my lips and called Miklos. “Captain. Do you know what I’m seeing down here?”

  “Yes Colonel, we are monitoring your suit video.”

  “Maybe the stream isn’t clear up there, but what I’m seeing is a failure. The enemy dome must be at the bottom of this lake.”

  “Are you sure, sir?”

  “Yes, I’m freaking sure!” I shouted. “How am I supposed to take thirty thousand Centaurs into a frozen lake? They don’t even have vacc suits. They’d drown even before the Macros could murder them all.”

  “It does look like an intelligence failure, Colonel.”

  I took a deep breath. We’d come so far, all for the possibility of capturing a Macro production facility. We’d lost a lot of troops, time and given the enemy details as to our strength and tactics. But the mission was a failure despite all those lost assets on our side of the ledger.

  “We spent too much time building up and not enough time doing proper recon. I have to take responsibility for that.”

  “Excuse me, Colonel,” Miklos said. “I have Marvin here. He wishes to speak with you.”

  “Put him on.”

  “Colonel Riggs?”

  “Yes, Marvin. Go ahead.”

  “You have about three hundred marines in full battle suits. I’ll come down with you, if you like. If you can get me into that dome somehow, I’m fairly certain I can transfer full control of the unit to Star Force.”

  Fairly certain. It sounded like my epitaph. Here lies Colonel Kyle Riggs, who was fairly certain he would survive his last campaign.

  I thought about it while Marvin prattled on about Macro security protocols and transmission spoofing codes. I believed that he believed it could be done. But I wasn’t sure the Macros were going to cooperate. We had no way of knowing what they had down there. Maybe they’d held back their military hardware to protect the dome itself. Maybe they’d analyzed our intent and prepared a trap for us.

  The real trouble was that the three hundred marines were the majority of the five hundred-odd human troops I had in the entire Eden system. If I lost them, I lost an asset I couldn’t replace. I would have to return to Earth and endure Crow’s sneering displeasure with no victories to speak of. For all I knew, Crow was on his way out here with a retrieval fleet. Doubtlessly, he’d been building new ships non-stop since I’d left him. I frowned fiercely and tried to push all thoughts of Crow and Earth out of my mind for now. I had a job right here that needed doing.

  “No, I don’t think I want to take my men underwater again,” I said. “The risk is just too great. I went on a sea campaign once with thousands of troops-and we still pretty much failed. I’m pulling out.”

  “But sir, what about the enemy dome?” Marvin asked.

  “We’ll nuke it from orbit,” I said. “We’ll burn this lake until there isn’t a drop of water to hide under.”

  “Our original plan was to take control of a Macro production facility.”

  I thought I heard a hint of a whine entering his voice, but it could have been my imagination. I knew it was Marvin’s dream to poke and prod at a real Macro production facility. No one had ever done so for long and lived. It was just the sort of thing that got his imagination boiling.

  “There are two more domes on this planet. This one was the easiest to find, but we’ll find another.”

  “But sir,” Marvin persisted. “I must point out that-”

  “Forget it Marvin,” I said. “Miklos, pull us out of here and drop your bombs.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  — 11

  A day later, I was crouched over a battle computer on Barbarossa. I was in a bad mood. We’d failed to take the first Macro factory we’d assaulted, and we’d blown our element of surprise in the bargain. On the plus side, I told myself repeatedly, we’d learned a lot and dealt the Macros a hard blow.

  It wasn’t enough, however. The enemy knew we were coming now, and every Macro production system on all six of these planets had to be churning out combat systems at this point. I wanted to attack again immediately, but it wasn’t that simple. Getting Centaur troops back onto landing pods had proven very difficult. They simply didn’t want to be trapped again after experiencing the freedom of running wild on their own planet. I couldn’t blame them for that, but they represented a critical resource that I didn’t want to lose.

  When I reconvened the morning debate squad-my command staff-no one looked any happier than I did. Kwon rested his cheek on one massive fist. Miklos hunched over a tablet computer and tapped at it. Marvin looked positively dejected. He barely turned a camera in my direction when I spoke to him.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s review our options. When can we hit them again, and where?”

  “Sir,” Miklos said, “shouldn’t we wait for Captain Sloan?”

  I grunted, and drummed my fingers on the table for a full minute. I’d never been good at waiting on people. I finally keyed ope
n my com-link and called him.

  “Where are you, Sloan?”

  “In transit sir-sorry about the delay. There’s something odd showing up on our sensors.”

  I frowned. “Where? I don’t see anything on our planetary surveillance app.”

  “No, not here, sir. Something is going on with the ring-and in the next system. The one with the lobsters, sir.”

  We hadn’t even named that system yet. I figured I should get around to that, but hadn’t been overly interested in the place since I’d discovered it. Now, however, Sloan had my full attention. He was excellent at spotting danger early-and avoiding it.

  “Brief me when you get here.”

  Sloan arrived a few minutes later and took his seat. He had a worried look on his face. I tossed my scribbled agenda aside and turned to him. “All right, let’s hear it.”

  “It might be nothing, sir.”

  I made an urgent gesture.

  He nodded. “There was some kind of vibration-a signal maybe-which went through the ring. We detected it only because we have ships sitting at both sides. It was recorded on the logs, and when I compared data hours later, I noticed both ships had detected the same thing at about the same moment.”

  I squinted at Sloan. How could something vibrate these huge rings? Marvin’s reaction was much more dramatic. At least six cameras on extending stalks rose up and stared at him from every possible angle.

  “I don’t get what you are trying to say,” I said. “Something vibrated the rings? The entire thing vibrated? As in making a small motion?”

  “Exactly, sir. Both ends did it, at the same time.”

  I shook my head. We really didn’t know much about the rings. We didn’t know much about the factories, either. In truth, we were primates playing with technology developed by our mysterious betters. I’d often wondered if one of these days we’d look down the barrel of one of these devices and pull the trigger with our tails. There would be monkey brains on the walls that day.

  I began to speak, but I saw Marvin wanted to say something, so I turned to him. “Ask your questions, Marvin. I can see you are dying to.”

  “Captain Sloan, was there any form of emission detected?”

  “No, none that we could pick up. No light, no radio, no magnetic impulse-nothing.”

  “How very odd,” Marvin said.

  I smiled. When Marvin called something “odd”, it meant “exciting” to him.

  “Is there any information from the Crustaceans?” I said. “Any mention of what it might mean?”

  “Nothing. We have detected a large number of their ships, however, forming up in orbit over their primary water-moon.”

  “Any hostile intent detected?”

  He shook his head.

  “All right then, I want Marvin to study the data. Sloan, you are to tell the pilots on station out there to watch for any further anomalies and report them immediately.”

  “Right sir.”

  “Let’s get back to current combat ops,” I said, bringing up a map of the Centaur homeworld on the screen that all of us sat around. “Our secondary target is here, in the middle of an open slag-heap. It was once a forest, but their harvesters took care of that.”

  The screen depicted a black wound in the middle of a vividly green plain.

  “I’d originally liked the mountain location better, as it provided us natural cover for our approach. But this one will have to do. At least there is no lake in the area for the dome to hide under. As far as we can tell, it is in the bottom of what looks like a giant sinkhole.”

  “I believe it’s a strip-mine,” Marvin said.

  “Whatever. They are inside this deep, dark hole. We’ll run down there and take it out.”

  “Excuse me, Colonel Riggs.”

  “What is it, Marvin?”

  “When would you launch this attack-ideally?”

  “Right now, but I can’t. The first load of Centaurs we took down there isn’t coming back, and they are about five thousand miles from this target. We have retrieved their weapons kits-about half of them anyway-and we have to put together a new invasion force.”

  “What if I told you we could invade today-within the hour?”

  I looked at him. I knew he was baiting me. I knew that at the end of this rainbow, I’d find something Marvin wanted. I also knew that the bait smelled pretty good. I took a bite.

  “Okay,” I sighed. “Talk me into it.”

  “We can’t mount a full-scale invasion force immediately,” Marvin said. “But we could drop a small commando team. All they would have to do it run to the pit, find the factory and once under the dome-”

  Kwon was laughing now, his heavy, whuffing sounds filled the room. “Run to the pit and slip under the dome? There is no cover, robot. You are a dumb toaster.”

  “My IQ exceeds yours by approximately-”

  I cleared my throat. “Kwon has a good point. There is no cover. Macros don’t care about night and day for visibility. They don’t fall asleep on guard, either. How do you propose we sneak in there?”

  “I never said we would sneak in. We will run in openly.”

  “Under fire?”

  “Suicide!” proclaimed Kwon.

  “Let me explain,” Marvin continued. “Macros designate targets on the basis of their importance. This is an entirely predictable process. Therefore, if we present them with higher value targets, they will ignore any small party of individuals in the area.”

  I mulled this over. I knew what Marvin was talking about. Macros did work that way. Many times I’d sat with a squad near them, and while they had something else to shoot at, an individual was perfectly safe. “What do you suggest we use for a diversion?”

  “The only asset we have. Our ships.”

  I nodded. I figured he was getting around to that. I turned to Captain Sloan. I could see the worry in his face. Captain Miklos was frowning down at his computer. I knew what they were all thinking. Would Riggs be crazy enough to go along with this robot’s plan? Everyone there knew I just might. I found the thought almost as disturbing as they did.

  But there was a certain beauty to it, the longer I considered it. We didn’t have to have a knock-down battle with their newly built defensive units. We could bypass them and possibly many deaths and end the fight in one fell swoop. The more I thought about it, the more I started liking it.

  I looked at Captain Sloan. He looked alarmed.

  “Are you thinking of taking me with you, Colonel?” he asked.

  I almost laughed. Sloan’s death-avoidance radar must have been going off at full tilt.

  “No, I want you in the ships-with Miklos here. You two will run ops and fly our destroyers around, shooting every harvester they have. In the meantime, Marvin, Kwon and I will be dropped on the battlefield. We’ll take a squad into that hole.”

  “What if the Macros realize who you are?”

  “Then I’m dead. I’ll go under a code name. Call me Condor. I’ve always liked big buzzards.”

  Sloan nodded, looking relieved. Kwon was in the opposite mood, he pulled down the corners of his mouth into an appreciative grimace. “Will we get to fight, sir?”

  “Hopefully not much. The mission is to get in there and take out the production system.”

  Miklos finally spoke up then. He asked his first question of the meeting, and it was a good one. “Sir, what about after you take over the dome? You will have every Macro in the hole reevaluating their targets. I doubt we can hold their attention at that point. You will be swamped in enemies.”

  I nodded, considering. “That is a major flaw,” I admitted.

  Marvin’s cameras swung to every face in turn, and quickly judged his plan was in jeopardy. He’d stayed cagily quiet until now, letting us convince ourselves it could work. Now, he sensed the need for more input and jumped back into the conversation.

  “Sirs,” he said. “I have good news on that front. I will immediately put the dome back up, protecting the commandos inside.” />
  “What if you can’t do that, Marvin?” Miklos asked. “We are betting on you twice now, not just once.”

  Marvin began to answer, but I put up a hand. “We can’t know if he can do it or not. But if he can take over the entire facility, it stands to reason he can maintain the dome. At that point, if Star Force can destroy the machines outside, we can clean out this entire nest and make it our own. The possible gains are enormous, gentlemen. We could churn out undreamed of levels of production with one of those systems. Instead of a hundred huge robots, we could build a fleet of destroyers, or a thousand laser turrets. We could even build the battle station I’ve been working on for weeks.”

  I massaged the stubble on my jaw, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. I found myself feeling a powerful emotion that I rarely experienced. Greed, that’s what it was. All those raw materials, just sitting around the dome. Millions of tons of matter ready to be turned into whatever I wanted.

  Most importantly, it would double the production capacity of Star Force. That was worth some risk, wasn’t it?

  — 12

  Even before we launched the new ground assault, things got complicated. The Macros started it, by launching missiles at every one of the Centaur satellites. They did it all at once, and they did it by sending a full barrage of sixteen surface-to-space weapons toward each target. Every missile was loaded with a nuclear warhead and a Macro technician at the helm. Macro missiles were essentially small ships-suicidal spacecraft on a one-way mission.

  I didn’t have much time to wonder if they’d built these long ago, or only just now in response to our attack. Whatever the case, it was clear they’d reclassified the system from “peaceful” to “contested”, and they’d also decided the Centaurs had broken their deals sufficiently to be directly attacked. I couldn’t blame them on that score.

  Fortunately, I’d had a large number of automated turrets installed on every Centaur orbital habitat. They weren’t foolproof, but they should stop a small missile attack like this. Still, watching the weapons rise up in red arcs from the surface had me bearing my teeth in a grimace inside my helmet. What if they had some fresh trick to play? What if my laser defenses weren’t fully operational? It would only take one hit to inflict many millions of Centaur casualties. All told, billions of lives were under direct attack.