by B. V. Larson
Sandra stared at each of us in turn. “Are you telling me you’re putting bombs on these troops, then ordering them to fly into enemy ships?”
“Exactly,” Kwon said.
“No,” I said. “That’s not what we’ll tell them. We’ll tell them how the systems work. Then they can decide what they want to do with the weapons they have—when the time comes.”
Kwon lit up. “Very clever, Colonel. I like your idea better.”
Sandra looked troubled, I was frowning as well. Only Kwon seemed unperturbed by this arrangement. We were giving a team of fanatics what amounted to suicide-vests, hoping they would get a bright idea in combat and take out enemy ships. It was diabolical, but I also suspected it would be highly effective.
“Kwon? How many of these Centaurs are we going to be able to get into the ships? How many kits and altered troops do we have?”
“Give us a day or two, and we will stuff twenty thousand of them into your transports, sir.”
Twenty thousand, I thought. I didn’t know what to say. They were like our answer to the Macro missiles—intelligent flying bombs. I felt both invigorated, as the odds of our winning the coming battles had just risen dramatically, and sickened with the knowledge of the carnage we were trying to release.
I watched the Centaurs train and drill for hours. They were good. Not as good as my marines, but very good for raw recruits. They didn’t seem to fear their suits, flying, nor even death. They flowed in streaming masses, riding their skateboards at top speed. They occasionally collided with the waves or one another, and there were serious injuries. But this didn’t stop the rest of them, it didn’t even slow them down.
I had no doubt after observing them that they would charge the enemy fleet without any thought of their own personal survival. What more could a commander want?
“Sir,” Kwon said, hurrying up to me. “I have an urgent call from Captain Miklos.”
I had removed my helmet and walked out of the waves to work with the Centaurs. I’d been watching the newly trained troops closely, shouting suggestions to their leaders, both human and native. The plan was different than it had been when I’d used the Centaurs as invasion troops to retake the habitable Eden worlds. At that time, I’d had one marine lead every company of a hundred Centaurs. These troops were more organized, and now I used veterans from within their own ranks to lead them. I made sure the officers of each company had seen combat against the machines back on Eden-11. This upset their system of chieftains and sub-leaders, but I didn’t care. Being good at butting heads back home didn’t make you a space marine in my outfit.
I put my helmet back on and opened the command channel. Miklos sounded agitated.
“Sir? Colonel? Are you listening, sir?”
“Talk to me, Miklos.”
“The Macros, sir—more than hundred ships so far have come out of the far ring in the Thor system. They are massing out there.”
I felt a cold, sick feeling. Another full fleet? So soon? What did the Macros have on the far side of that ring? As always, not knowing what we truly faced was terrifying. We’d destroyed a huge fleet only weeks ago, and yet they’d sent another, bigger one. Was the entire war hopeless? Were we all fooling ourselves?
I pushed aside these defeatist thoughts and walked out of the sea toward the nearest flitter. I figured I’d just run out of time for inspecting new troops.
“How long will it take the Macros to hit our battle station, if they move now?” I asked.
“About two days, sir. They have no momentum. They’re moving cautiously, massing up the entire fleet at the far ring before advancing.”
“What about traffic at the rings?”
“There’s plenty of it, sir. It’s spiked since the Macros arrived.”
I cursed quietly. The Blues seemed to be calling my bluff. Maybe my threats had backfired. Maybe they’d called the Macros immediately when I’d talked big about bombing their homeworld. It was also perfectly possible that they’d been coming all along, and my words had had no effect on their plans. There was no way of knowing right now.
“All right,” I said, “keep watching them, Miklos. I’m flying back out to the fleet. And I’m bringing reinforcements. I want every transport that isn’t full of marines already to head to Eden-6. I have twenty thousand new volunteers ready to load up and ship out.”
“Twenty thousand, sir?”
“That’s what I said. Riggs out.”
All the way back up to the fleet I felt sick inside. They were coming, and everything I’d done to persuade the Blues to stop them had failed. Worse, it might have backfired. I felt like a fool.
When I boarded my command ship, I was greeted by an armed and armored marine. The fleet was on full alert now. The enemy was in sight of our longest ranged scanners, this was no drill. I flashed my ID transmission to the marine guard and moved on to the command deck. The holotank had only two staffers standing around it, staring. The situation displayed showed only the Eden system, which was empty except for our bustling little fleet of ships. Soon however, that would change.
I walked into the conference chamber, and was met by a dozen sets of anxious eyes. Only Miklos looked bored. Jasmine immediately tapped up a multi-system display on the conference table without having been asked. I smiled at the twisted lips Miklos showed as she did this. Technically, it was his job as my exec to bring up the displays.
“All right,” I said loudly. “This is it, people. There are going to be some changes. Sarin, you’re on ops now. You know how to run the tactical display on the holotank, right? Good. Miklos, I have bigger concerns for you. I’m going to personally oversee the marine contingents and the overall battle. But I want you in charge of fleet tactics. You will decide how to line up the ships, and will take over command if I’m out of the fight for any reason.”
Kwon’s hand was already up.
“Yes, Kwon?”
“Permission to accompany you with the marines, sir.”
“Granted. I wouldn’t have you anywhere else. Who else…Sandra?”
“Is Welter still in command of the battle station?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But if you’re right, sir, nothing will happen there.”
I stared at her, and they all stared back. I knew what she was getting at. They wanted to hear it from me, right now. Was this a two-front fight or not?
“We will proceed under our original assumptions for now. The Macro Fleet has arrived, that’s true. But they’re barely moving.”
“I would calculate, Colonel,” interrupted Miklos, “that they’re waiting for heavier ships as they did last time. They aren’t just on a parade exercise. They’ll come here.”
My jaw tightened. “We don’t know that. You may well be right, but we just don’t know that for sure.”
“Excuse me, Colonel,” Miklos said. “Can we now begin the process of jamming signals? The enemy doesn’t seem to be in complete coordination. I would like to keep it that way.”
I thought about the request seriously, but shook my head. “No. We’ll hold as we are. They’ve had days to coordinate, to hatch a plan of action. They’re probably on a schedule that jamming won’t change.”
“You don’t actually know that, sir.”
I tossed Miklos a flat stare. I’d always allowed my senior staff an objection or two per meeting, but he was over his limit.
“Jamming them now would have some benefit, I’m sure,” I said. “If I were planning a preemptive attack, for instance, I would begin with jamming. But Marvin is really close to cracking the code now, he’s assured me. If we can listen in and find out who all the players are, if we can know their exact strengths and positions—well, that’s worth much more than a few days of jamming.”
I could tell with a single glance that no one in the group agreed with me, with the possible exception of Kwon, because he didn’t care. He only wanted the fight to start as soon as possible.
“Let’s go to the transports now, sir,”
he said eagerly.
Jasmine leaned forward. Her eyes were intense. “Sir—I don’t quite know how to tell you this. But we all think that jamming would be the best course now. It is definite action with a definite gain. Marvin might break the code, but he hasn’t done so up until now. Why should that suddenly change?”
I felt a surge of irritation. “Take a deep breath, everyone. I know things look bad. But we’ve just gotten a huge boost in our combat strength due to Marvin. He’s done with that project now and he’s moved on to the next challenge: the code. Frankly, I consider that to be a far less difficult feat. Let him have his shot at it.”
“Can we at least split our forces now?” Miklos asked. “I mean, with the additional troops—surely we can spare some of them for the defense of the battle station.”
I felt myself becoming stubborn. With an act of will, I stopped myself from ordering him to stop questioning everything I did. I forced myself to consider his question carefully and coolly.
“All right,” I said. “Kwon, order a complement of five hundred Centaur troops to fly to the battle station, and add in a hundred of our own human marines. That will bolster Welter’s defenses considerably.”
Miklos frowned, but fell quiet. I knew he’d been asking for a contingent of ships, but I wasn’t willing to give those up. We didn’t have a battle station at the ring to Helios. If the Imperials hit us there, all we had to defend Eden was our fleet and our space marines.
I watched the tabletop as four transports broke off and dashed lines projected their course toward the battle station. It would take them around ten hours to reach their destination. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be needed when they got there.
Suddenly, as we all watched the board and broke up into muttered conversations, the screen shifted on its own. A klaxon went off somewhere in the ship.
We stood up as the door opened. A staffer with a white face walked in and pointed a thin finger at the conference table.
“I relayed the new report here, sirs,” she said.
I frowned at her, but followed her finger to the tabletop. The image swam briefly, then objects flashed into being. I quickly recognized the Helios system. I was about to demand from the staffer what this was all about, but the words died in my throat.
Ships were appearing in the Helios system, at the mouth of the far ring, the one that led to Alpha Centauri. The only system in line after Alpha Centauri was Earth. I didn’t have optics on these unknown ships yet, but I had no doubt that they were Crow’s Imperial vessels.
As we all watched, they kept coming through. More and more of them. I recalled then one of the last words Decker had said when threatening me about Crow’s new fleet…
The word he’d used was: overkill.
-26-
Over the next few hours, the Earth fleet kept silently gathering strength. It was like watching silver coins spill onto a black floor. They poured out, slowly filling the space surrounding the ring. I don’t think I’d ever seen so many ships in a single place. All of them positioned themselves in an elaborate formation and stood as if on parade, glinting in the light of three distant suns. They didn’t advance, and I was reminded distinctly of the behavior of the Macros. Both were gathering at a safe distance, positioning themselves carefully, and waiting for the signal to advance. We’d been set up, and everyone on the command deck of the Nostradamus knew it.
All the Fleet people became increasingly tense as enemy hosts gathered on both sides of us. I reflected that in olden times, soldiers on a castle wall must have felt like this as they watched a horde of enemy troops gathering before they assaulted the cold stone walls. The only people who didn’t have their stomach tied up in knots were the suicidally brave Centaur troops, who seemed oblivious to the stresses we naturally felt before battle. I watched these fresh native troops on vid feeds from the transports. I’d placed a line of cylindrical transport ships behind our line of gunboats, destroyers and my single cruiser. The Centaurs inside the transports were enjoying themselves, experimenting with their new equipment and demonstrating the value of their newly stress-free minds. I almost envied them as I watched them butt heads and fly around in buzzing figure eights all over the interior of the holds. At no time did they show the slightest hint of claustrophobia. In fact, the only emotions I observed were exuberance and impatience. They were more than ready for us to get on with the show. They couldn’t wait for me to release them into space like twenty thousand angry bees.
The Earth fleet kept growing, while the Macros advanced very slowly. I ordered Nostradamus to move to the far side of the ring to have a closer look. I knew I would have to contact them and attempt a little diplomacy. I doubted I could talk them out of attacking, but I at least had to try.
“Open a channel to the commander of the Imperial Earth fleet,” I said.
Sarin was running the boards, and she was faster than anyone else. The request flashed out into the cold void of space. As we waited, the enemy armada shuffled closer. They weren’t attacking yet, but they were advancing.
At last, a signal came in. When it did, I received an unexpected shock.
“Hello Riggs, this is a voice from your past, boy. Hehe, I bet you didn’t expect me, good old General Kerr of the United States, to be riding herd on this flying armada, did ya?”
A thousand rude retorts bubbled in my mind. After I regained control of myself, I made my reply. “No, I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting you General. I thought you had better judgment than this, sir.”
“Now, now! That could be construed as an insult to our good Emperor Crow. Lord knows, we can’t have that on the transcripts. But let me tell you something, as you’ve been out of the loop for a good long while. This massive display of fleet strength wouldn’t have been possible without the influence of good old Jack Crow. Whatever you think of him personally, he brought Earth together as you never did, Kyle. He united us under a banner, rather than ignoring us and just using us as a source of raw materials.”
I frowned. Kerr’s words did sting, and I knew from experience that meant there was a grain of truth in what he said. Still, I rejected his underlying premise.
“So then, General...let me get this straight. You think I should have conquered Earth when I had the chance? The moment Star Force was strong, and the militaries of Earth were collectively weak? By allowing the nations of Earth sovereignty and respect, I failed to do the right thing?”
“Reality isn’t always as pretty as we would like it to be. I think your character is a strong, positive thing. But doing what’s necessary to save the species is infinitely more important. Haven’t you made that argument many times, usually while presiding over the deaths of millions?”
My frown had changed into a glare, and I opened my mouth to unleash a tirade. Through sheer force of will, I stopped myself. I decided this bickering was getting us nowhere. Kerr had signed on as part of Crow’s legion. He’d sold out to totalitarianism, and there was no way I was going to talk him into resigning his commission now.
“Let’s change the tone, General. Can you tell me what your part is in all this? I thought you were more of a ground-force commander—or more recently, a spook-herder.”
Kerr cackled at that one. “Right you are. But I made the case to his majesty that space battles aren’t really that similar to naval battles—any more than they resemble land battles. They are a new and unique form of combat, more like an air campaign than anything else. More importantly, I’ve gone up against the legendary Kyle Riggs before. All that aside, I’d say as the Director of the North American Sector, I was first in line when the honor of leading this force was handed down by our leader.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Director of the North American Sector? That does sound like an impressive title, sir. Can I ask how you managed to achieve such greatness?”
“It’s an old story, Riggs. Early converts to any new political wave tend to rise up to the top. By being in the right place at the right time, and picking my winners early—we
ll, let’s just say I’ve been blessed by the course of current events.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “Let me guess: You signed on with Crow and gave him inside information. Maybe you had a hand in bringing down your government as well? Sounds to me like you’re a hero, General.”
“Now, there’s no call for that kind of talk. If you doubt that I made the correct decisions both for myself and for Earth, do a recount on my fleet strength. I know you probably have a little red number up on your screen by now displaying how many ships have wriggled into the Helios system. Notice that they are still coming through. I bet your Worm buddies down there on their hot little rock are pissing themselves by now!”
While I listened to the General’s cackle, I glanced at the counter as he suggested. Sarin had set it up without being asked. It stood at one thousand ninety-eight. I couldn’t believe the number, but it checked out. Fortunately, most of the ships that were coming through now were much smaller craft. I figured they were no more than independent one-man fighters following the larger cruiser-sized vessels. Still, over a thousand of anything in space was extremely impressive to me. I stared at the armada for several long seconds before responding to Kerr again.
“I’ll offer you deal, General,” I said. “Fly through our territory peacefully, and help us destroy the Macro threat on the far side of Eden. I’ve got them bottled up, and I could use your aid in finishing them off.”
This time, the General didn’t answer right away. He was thinking, I could tell. Maybe he even had a meeting and talked it over with his command staff. I figured the offer had to be tempting. Allowing them into our system and trusting them to stand by our side would be risky, of course. They might well decide to turn on us when the battle was over. But I knew Kerr, and I knew human psychology. It would be hard after fighting at our sides to turn against us. Every man in his fleet would naturally want to stand with us. With luck, I could avert a civil war.