by B. V. Larson
More streams of bullets appeared. They grew in number and intensity. More and more of my fighters had reached effective range. The cruisers were no longer sedately sailing along, looking impervious to attack. They shook with internal explosions. Engines flickered and died. Blue exhaust choked off on several ships. Suddenly being stricken and thrown off-balance by uneven thrust, they went into spins. Two of the cruisers slammed into one another as we completed the pass, creating a very satisfactory explosion. Three more dropped down into the atmosphere of Harvard and began to burn. I personally counted six kills, and I was sure there were more outside of my range of vision.
Still, as we roared past the enemy fleet and shot to the far side of the planet, I knew that we hadn’t done enough damage.
“Wing commander?” I called out. There was no response.
“Squad leaders, do I have anyone—”
“Here sir,” said a voice. “I’m Commander Firebaugh. We’ve lost some people—I’m in charge now, sir.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “You’re from Defiant, right? I’m taking tactical command of Gatre’s squadrons.”
“Um, okay sir…”
“Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re out of range now, on the far side of Harvard. We’re going to make a quick orbit and make another pass, but we’re going to do it differently this time.”
“How’s that, Colonel?”
“We’re going to slow down, and we’re going to engage.”
“Sir? We can’t dogfight with cruisers, sir.”
“I know that. Listen closely. We have less than six minutes before this orbit is over and we’re back in range of the Macros again.”
Commander Firebaugh was quiet for a second. I waited impatiently.
“Colonel, if we decelerate, their point defense lasers are going to shred us.”
“I’m well aware. That’s why on this pass we’re going to feed our ships different target priorities. We’re going to take out the enemy laser turrets. We’re too small to hit with missiles or their primary guns. They won’t be able to touch us if we take out their PD turrets.”
There was another, longer hesitation. I felt a familiar red heat rising up my neck. I didn’t like to be ignored or to be kept waiting in the midst of battle.
“Commander,” I began, when I couldn’t wait any longer, “I’m not accustomed to—”
“Sorry sir, I was just checking with Commodore Miklos, he suggests that—”
“I don’t care to hear his suggestions, Commander,” I said loudly. “Here are your orders: have your pilots retarget and decelerate for the next pass. We’ll stay engaged, working from the top of the enemy fleet where most of their weaponry can’t come to bear on us unless they turn upside down.”
“They’ll just invert and burn us out of the sky, sir.”
“No, they won’t. Trust me. Riggs out.”
Reluctantly, the Commander relayed my orders. In my headset, I heard a number of bitter complaints from the pilots. They were brave, but they weren’t stupid. I didn’t go onto the general chat. It was enough that they knew what they were supposed to do.
About two hundred seconds later, we came screaming around the southern pole of Harvard and plowed right into the stern of all those bombing cruisers. I had to hand it to the Macros. They hadn’t missed a beat. They were pounding the world below us with relentless firepower. The purple beaches were now speckled with black pits.
The fighter swarm was moving slower now, and we were much more vulnerable to incoming fire. I watched tensely as the big ships ahead stayed on course and continued their relentless bombardment. They were killing millions, but they were also giving us the time we needed to get into effective range.
By the time we caught up with them on that second pass, we’d lost only six more fighters. We had nearly seventy percent of our force left, and we were all over them like a swarm of angry hornets.
-40-
Within five long minutes, our fighters had taken grievous losses, but we’d managed to trim off nearly all of their defensive armament. They had nothing much left to hit us with, but I was down to less than two full squadrons.
Still, I was alive and determined. The world below was pockmarked with glowing craters, black burnt scorch marks and whitewater impact points. Tidal waves were sweeping around the planet in every direction. The surface of the single, endless ocean resembled a puddle in a rainstorm.
But I knew that although the Crustaceans were taking a beating, they would survive if I could disable the rest of the bombarding fleet. Without thermonuclear missiles, the Macros needed many hours to render the planet uninhabitable—possibly days. The tidal waves were bad, but the native species was aquatic and should survive if they spread out and crawled along the stirred up bottom. Barring a direct hit from above, they could not be easily taken out.
Suddenly, the battle shifted. The Macros rolled over, turning their belly-turrets up into space, rather than aiming down at the planet below. This move took me by surprise, but I ordered the pilots to stay on task, destroying every laser turret they could. When we finished that, we could work on their engines and bring them down one at a time.
“They’ve inverted and are going to blow us out of the sky, sir,” said Commander Firebaugh.
I thought there was a hint of “I told you so” in his voice, but I let it slide.
“Dive below their formation,” I ordered.
We shifted our attack, moving below the enemy. I waited for Firebaugh to tell me they would just turn over and bring their guns to bear on us again, but he didn’t. The Macros, for their part, kept firing out into space.
“Sir,” called Commander Firebaugh, “Those big turrets are firing up at great range. They must be shooting at something. Whatever it is, it’s not us.”
“Nothing on sensors?”
“Negative.”
“Our main fleet isn’t close enough yet to engage them, so it isn’t our ships they’re firing on. I’ll talk to Sarin. Maybe she can see what’s happening.”
“Should be disengage, sir?” asked the Commander hopefully.
“No, dammit, keep on them.”
I hailed Gatre, and Jasmine answered quickly with happy news.
“It’s not us,” she said, “it’s the Crustacean transports. They’re coming in and unloading boarders. They’re clearly planning to storm the Macro cruisers.”
“That is fantastic news!” I shouted back. “For once, I’m glad these lobsters are so good at copying our tactics.”
I was beginning to think we were going to win this, then the Crustaceans finally arrived and I became certain of it. Another minute passed, during which we didn’t lose a single fighter. Every gun the machines had was spamming fire at the approaching transports. I couldn’t see the damage they were doing, but I was sure the Crustaceans were taking a beating.
Despite this, I was elated. I could taste victory now, and it was sweet. We’d all come so far and lost so much. Taking out these machines would make my day. Sandra’s sacrifice seemed more valid to me, given the number of lives we were saving.
A moment later I could see the transports. There were at least a hundred of them. And much closer, I could make out dark, tiny shapes falling like a shower of sand. These shapes were individual Crustacean marines. They fell in a cloud over the Macro fleet. They crawled over the surface of every vessel like cockroaches. I’d never been so pleased to see a thousand little crawling monsters before.
Then, the Macros shifted their tactics again. Their missile ports opened.
My heart pounded as I fought the controls on my ship and the communication system in my helmet simultaneously.
“Jasmine?” I shouted. “Get through to the Crustacean High Command. They have to stop those missiles. They haven’t got half their marines down yet, and I’m sure the Macros mean to take out the transports and any flying troops that haven’t landed on their hulls yet. The cruisers might even scorch one another to burn the troops off like fleas.”
>
“Relaying,” she said.
I waited impatiently, looping around a cruiser, seeking a valid target. The enemy ships had very few laser turrets left. I would have fired on their engines, but my main gun was out of ammo. These small ships had drawbacks.
“Colonel?” Jasmine said, coming back on the line. “I’m sorry sir, they say their transports can’t stop them.”
I cursed and switched over to the tactical channel. “This is to all pilots,” I said. “Break off and chase those missiles. We have to take them out.”
Dozens of engines flared blue-white and drew streaking arcs on my canopy. The fighters disengaged and charged after the missiles. But we couldn’t catch them. We took out one or two with our lasers, but the majority streaked away. Our ships were fast, but a missile was nothing but an engine and a warhead. It was designed for speed and little else. We couldn’t catch up.
I cursed and gnashed my teeth until my gums bled, but it was all in vain. My fighter was no faster than any of the others.
A moment later, the flock of missiles intermixed with the incoming transports—then shot past them.
I stared, dumbfounded. I contacted Jasmine again.
“Captain Sarin, am I missing something?”
“No, sir,” she said. “The missiles went right through the Crustacean line without detonating. They’re still flying, and accelerating. There is no chance you can catch them, Colonel.”
“The question is, where are they headed?”
“We’re plotting that. But it is so early after launch, they have options.”
“If they’re coming at your fleet, I think the enemy has made a mistake.”
“I would agree, sir. But we don’t know that.”
I ordered the fighters to turn around and go back to harassing the enemy cruisers. Almost immediately, Commander Firebaugh was back on the line. I looked at the beeping light for a second in annoyance before answering it.
“What is it, Commander?” I demanded.
“Sir, we need to return to the carriers. We’re out of effective ammo.”
“I know that. But we can still help the Crustaceans by distracting the Macros and taking out the last of the enemy point-defense systems.”
“I disagree, sir,” he said evenly. “We’re as likely to burn a lobster in the back as kill another turret now. There are hardly any left in any case. I respectfully request that we return and let the native marine troops do their work. They can finish these cruisers on their own.”
I gritted my teeth, but finally agreed. “All right, break off to the enemy stern. We’ll return to base.”
I heard a great deal of relief in the Commander’s voice as he relayed the order to his pilots.
We fell back behind the fleet, letting them glide away from us. They had turned back over now, and were again bombing the helpless world below. It was galling, watching them fire so many deadly salvos without being able to stop them.
“Colonel?” Jasmine asked in my helmet.
“Go ahead.”
“We’ve plotted the course of those missiles. They are all headed for Yale.”
I froze, staring straight ahead. Suddenly, I got it. The Macros had never changed missions, never for one second. They had started this attack by draining the seas of Yale in a scheme to kill all life on the planet. When we’d stopped them, they’d moved on to Plan B, the direct invasion of Yale. Now, they were taking another shot at it with the last of their missiles.
I understood in a flash that they didn’t care about my fleet or any fleet. They weren’t here to win a fleet battle. They were here to annihilate a biotic species entirely, burning their three homeworlds to rubble.
“Can you get in the way of that barrage, Captain Sarin?”
“No, sir,” she said. “We’ve already plotted it out. We’re out of position. We’ll arrive shortly, and probably destroy the last of the cruisers. But we won’t be able to save Yale.”
I did some quick math in my head. The Macros had already wiped out one world, Princeton, with the first missile attack. Yale was half-dead and they were going to finish it now. The last world was Harvard, stretched out below us with scarred purple beaches and churning seas.
“Contact the Crustacean High Command,” I said. “Tell them what the machines are doing. Tell them they have to stop these cruisers, or they might be extinct within the hour.”
“How, sir?”
“Just tell them.”
As she relayed the message, the Macro cruisers made their next move. They broke up, splitting the fleet apart into a hundred and fifty separate units. The ships spread out in every direction. Then they began dropping, dipping down into the atmosphere of Harvard. Their hulls turned orange, then white.
“What are they doing, Colonel?” Commander Firebaugh asked me.
I stared at the scene before I answered. I was humbled by the magnificent purity of the enemy. They had the single-mindedness that only a machine could have. They didn’t care if they lost a fleet, or a hundred fleets. They only cared about taking us out. I had the feeling they’d gotten tired of dealing with us, and changed their strategy to a new one: extermination. Biotics were to be destroyed wherever they could be found. The war had entered a new stage.
“They’re killing a world, Commander,” I said sadly. “The friction will burn off the attacking marines. But they won’t stop falling. They know our fleet is bearing down on them and they can’t stop us from destroying them. So they’ll come down in a hundred separate locations and ignite their cores.”
“Just to kill the lobsters?” the Commander asked incredulously. “They’ll sacrifice their entire fleet?”
“Taking out an enemy species is worth more than any fleet. The machines are winning today.”
I watched, as did we all. There was little else to do. Within a few minutes, I had my answer. I’d hoped I was wrong—but I wasn’t. One by one, the big ships exposed their cores and detonated themselves. The cruisers blew themselves up in a chain of explosions. Each blast was huge and devastated a new spot on the beautiful world below.
Soon, the purple sands were gone. I couldn’t even see the great ocean a minute later. The entire planet was shrouded in vapor and airborne debris. Still, the explosions went on. Beneath the thick clouds, huge orange flashes continued to rock the world. From my lofty perch in space the impacts were silent, terrible, and unreal to behold.
-41-
The surviving fighters limped home to their respective motherships. The pilots inside were as drained physically and emotionally as were their ships’ power systems and ammo magazines. Of the two, the ships were the easier to repair. The pilots were damaged goods. We’d sacrificed so much, and yet failed to defend the last Crustacean world. We’d all witnessed the death of a lovely planet, and we’d never be the same afterward.
I kept thinking of Sandra. That seemed selfish, in a way. What right did I have to lament the loss of a single woman after having presided over this failed attempt to save a trillion individuals? The human heart has no sense of scale and balance, however. I would have probably traded them all to have my woman back the way she’d been a week ago. But that was not an option.
I was haunted in particular by Sandra’s scent. It had been a unique thing. What was the source of the memory that lingered in my mind? Her shampoo? Her perfume? Or even her sweat? Possibly, it was a mixture of all these things. I don’t know, but I’ll always remember the way she smelled when I drew her close in my arms, and I’ll miss it forever.
Fortunately, there were a thousand things that desperately needed doing. It was, perhaps, the single blessing awarded by a war of desperation: a man didn’t have enough time to dwell and grieve. I buried Sandra and all my thoughts of her deep in my mind. I carried on because there was no choice, other than to go completely mad.
“Sir?” Jasmine said, signaling me.
I looked up and forced my eyes to focus. I was standing on Gatre’s bridge, eyeing the tactical display. The big ship had come throu
gh the battle without a scratch. The machines hadn’t been gunning for our fleet this time. They’d wanted blood, and they’d gotten it.
“What is it?” I managed to say to her.
I could tell from the look of concern on her face, she must have been trying to tell me something. I searched my memory for some hint. My mind was a blank, I hadn’t heard her words. Then my eyes strayed to my com-link, which was blinking urgently. I picked it up.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“The Crustaceans,” Jasmine said.
Great, I thought. “You mean their High Command?”
She pursed her lips, then gave a slight shake of her head. “I don’t think they have a High Command anymore, sir.”
“Right. Well, whoever it is, I owe it to them to answer the phone. Patch them through the translation circuits.”
“Done.”
“Colonel Kyle Riggs here,” I said into my com-link.
An oddly watery voice came to my ear a few moments later. To me, it sounded as if their own equipment had malfunctioned somewhat. It sounded as if their microphones weren’t good at handling the transition of audio from their aquatic environment to mine. I couldn’t fault them for that. Whatever tech they had left, I was sure it wasn’t their best.
“Colonel,” the voice said thoughtfully. “You have survived.”
“Yes,” I said.
The individual had not identified himself, but I didn’t have the heart to demand that he do so. I wasn’t quite sure what to say next.
There was a lull in the conversation. I thought of a million things to say. I could give him my heartfelt apologies. I could tell him to buck-up, tomorrow would be a better day. I could talk about humanity’s losses against the machines, and commiserate.
But I didn’t have the energy for any of these approaches. They all sounded like bullshit to me. So, we both fell silent for several seconds.
“You have gotten what you wanted,” the voice said at last.