Conquest (Star Force Series) Read online

“I haven’t asked him. But if I did, he would most definitely approve.”

  Captain Miklos laughed briefly, catching my joke. It was no secret that Crow and I were frequently at each other’s throats. Any risky action I took that removed me from the home front—especially a mission that might be fatal—was a winner in Crow’s book.

  “Will you not need a crew to go with you, Colonel?” Miklos asked suddenly. He lifted his chin and looked over his nose at me.

  I reached up and removed my helmet. I could tell now I wasn’t going to need the battle suit to take the ship by force. Hell, they were volunteering to go out there with me.

  “Captain,” I said, looking him eye-to-eye, “I can’t ask you to make that kind of sacrifice. I’m only taking a destroyer because they are faster than the smaller ships. I don’t need to kill a good crew along with it.”

  Miklos nodded. “I understand, sir. But do you have the right to order me off my own vessel?”

  I sighed. Star Force was different than traditional national navies. We had slowly developed our own rules of conduct. We had started as a group of pirate captains in a loose association. In many ways, we still thought that way, especially among the members of the Fleet. A captain was still something of a king aboard his own vessel.

  “No,” I said. “I do not have that right.”

  Miklos seemed pleased. He knew I’d once been on the Fleet side of Star Force, and I understood their code of honor. “Colonel,” he said. “I believe I know something of what you intend. But this ship is designed to be flown by a full crew. I ask if I can volunteer to accompany you—along with any of my crew who agree to join us.”

  Surprised by his adventurism, I agreed. “All right,” I said. “She’s your command. I’m visiting brass. If you agree to accept my missions as Fleet orders, you can fly this vessel for me.”

  He swept his eyes over his crew. During our discussion, the group had gathered on the bridge. All told, there were three. The complement of marines I’d planned for each of these ships weren’t yet deployed. I was the only marine, and the only man in a battle suit.

  In the end, all three agreed to come. None of them could bear to be the coward, to turn away while their captain and I watched them. Star Force did not recruit cowards. I was proud of them all, even if the gunner did look a little green.

  “When do we take off, sir?” Captain Miklos asked.

  “Immediately. I’ve already cleared it with traffic control. Give them my priority code.”

  I listed a series of letters and digits. I’d long since arranged codes to allow immediate access to the skies over Andros. Every day it seemed Crow added fresh red tape and I had to work to drive a knife through it. Today, that preparation helped. The destroyer lifted off without being challenged or even causing a stir on the base. As far as I knew, Crow thought I’d gone to eat dinner.

  Even though I figured that Crow wouldn’t try to stop me if he knew what I was doing, I didn’t feel like explaining it to him. He would have objections if he suspected some of my contingency plans. He would also most likely insist I take Socorro instead of one of his precious new destroyers. He might be right in that regard, but I didn’t care. If this went well, we wouldn’t need the destroyer today. If it went badly, one ship more or less wasn’t going to save Earth from the Macro fleet.

  “What’s the name of your ship, Captain?” I asked as I felt the deck heave and swell under my armored feet.

  “The Barbarossa, sir,” he said.

  I nodded, my face registering some level of surprise. The name meant ‘red beard’ in Italian, but had been used in many other historical contexts. I was immediately curious as to how Captain Miklos had struck upon the name. Unlike traditional naval forces, Star Force had a long-standing tradition of allowing commanders to name their own ships. This stemmed from our roots, where each commander had to fight to the death to win the right to command each Nano ship. Captains usually thought long and hard before they assigned their first ship a name.

  “Barbarossa…” I said thoughtfully. “That name means different things to different people, captain. Such as the German campaign to take out Russia in World War Two.”

  “That’s not the meaning I was thinking of,” Captain Miklos said quickly. “I reached back to the oldest meaning. Fredrick Barbarossa was the Holy Roman Emperor of a thousand years past, a great military leader. It has been whispered for centuries that he would return some day to save Europe from evil.”

  “Ah, I see,” I said, getting the reference at last. “In that case, rest assured. This ship will get the chance to live up to its name very soon.”

  Captain Miklos looked pleased. I could tell this man had guts and dreams of glory. I liked him already. The other crewmembers exchanged worried glances. I didn’t blame them—they were in for quite a ride.

  -14-

  We reached low orbit within minutes. We slid around the world near the equator once, then flung ourselves up and away sunward. About then, Crow had finally figured out I wasn’t coming back from dinner.

  “Riggs? Where are you taking my brand new destroyer?”

  I grunted, unhappy to hear Crow’s voice reverberate from the dull metal walls of the bridge. The volume seemed deeper and the chamber echoed somewhat. The size of the ship made everything feel a little different aboard the destroyer. I’d had a vague hope I would get away from Earth without having to explain myself to anyone other than Sandra. Those hopes had been firmly trashed.

  “Greetings Admiral Crow,” I said. “I’m taking the ship out for a shake-down cruise. You know I plan to put my marines on these vessels. I need to plan a release hatch and a launch and retrieval mechanism.”

  “Smooth bullshit,” Crow marveled. “But it still smells. You are the only marine aboard, and there is no reason to fly right into the teeth of the approaching Macro fleet. Now, tell me what the bloody hell you are doing up there in my ship?”

  I sighed. Crow was many things, but he wasn’t dumb. I looked around at Captain Miklos and his crew. They appeared uncomfortable. I’m sure their loyalties were divided. If Admiral Crow ordered them to return to base, what would they do? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t feel right putting them on the spot, either. I decided to try to explain myself to Crow, at least partly—if only for the sake of the crew. But I was going to do what I had to.

  I was still wearing my battle suit. I picked up my helmet, the one missing piece. Every one of the crew members watched me closely. The gunner looked baffled. The helmsman’s face was blank. But Captain Miklos knew what the move signified. He eyed me worriedly. We exchanged glances, and he read the truth in my eyes. I didn’t try to hide it. If Crow ordered us back, I was going to use the battle suit to take over Barbarossa. The crewmen had hand-beamers, but they were useless against heavy armor. They could only draw a few smoking scars on the outer plates. I didn’t want to do something so monumentally unfair, but in war unpleasantness was often necessary.

  “Jack,” I said, taking in a deep breath, “you know I’ve had many dealings with the Macros. More than any other human we know of.”

  “Right,” he said cautiously.

  “Well, I’ve got some ideas. Things I want to try out. I want to talk to them, and see if I can redirect their rage.”

  Crow gave one of his dirty laughs. “No chance there, mate. If anything, you’ll prod their backsides until they’re even more pissed off.”

  “How can we be any worse off than we are right now?”

  “Well, you have a point there. But I don’t want you losing our best ground officer in space, as well as a perfectly good destroyer. Barbarossa is one of the best vessels in the fleet. And you didn’t bother to even ask if you could take her up.”

  I knew that his last point was the element that irritated him the most. He hated it when I usurped his authority over any part of Fleet ops. I didn’t blame him, but this had to be done. I decided to back down and throw him a bone. I was a firm believer in asking for forgiveness rather than permission.

/>   “I apologize for that, Jack,” I said. “I should have talked it over with you first.”

  “Oh right, I buy that, mate,” Crow said sarcastically. “Well then…I suppose you can try out your plan, whatever the hell it is. I know you won’t tell me the details, so I’m not even going to ask. But I do want to know if you plan to return Barbarossa.”

  “I absolutely do,” I said.

  “What about your own person?”

  I hesitated. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Crazy bastard. I knew when you took off like a robber’s dog you were a danger to yourself and the rest of us.”

  “The Macros are coming to stomp humanity into dust. The fleet outnumbers us four to one. I might as well try to talk to them.”

  “I know that. Everyone knows that. But why can’t you just wait it out until they get closer to Earth? Why fly out there into their faces?”

  “Have they fired any missiles yet, Admiral?” I asked.

  “No, they haven’t—” Crow broke off and fell silent for a second. “Oh. I get it.”

  “That’s right. Once they launch a few thousand nukes at us, the time for negotiation will be long past. I need to talk to them before they decide to do that, sir.”

  “Bloody hell. Right…well, right. Just get on with it, then. Crow out.”

  I relaxed in my crash seat and put my helmet back down on the floor. Captain Miklos gave me a tiny nod of thanks. A chain-of-command crisis had been averted. The captain’s face was white, but relieved. Around me, I saw the crewmen go back to their duties calmly. I think only the Captain understood that disaster had just been averted. He had kept command of his ship by a thread.

  “How far out are we going, Colonel?” he asked me.

  “Far enough to allow them to pick out our signal. Let’s not fly directly toward them. I want to shift our course thirty degrees below the ecliptic for the next hour. At that point, our position should be clearly distinguishable from Earth’s in the background.”

  Miklos blinked at me, trying to figure out my plan. At last, he nodded. “You want them to be certain it is you in this ship talking to them, not a signal relayed from Earth.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You want them to be certain of your location—in the Barbarossa?”

  “Yes.”

  He thought about that. He didn’t seem to like his conclusions. “Are you going to exit the ship, sir?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It depends on what the Macros say.”

  “Colonel, self-sacrifice is a noble attribute, but there are limits to the logic of it.”

  I eyed him for a moment. His concern seemed genuine. “Have a little faith, Captain,” I said, giving him my best, most reassuring smile. “I’ve always got a plan.”

  That line worked, as it usually did. Captain Miklos turned back to his screens and readouts with a more confident expression. Some of the color even returned to his cheeks above his bristling beard.

  I did have a plan, of course. I even had a few back-up plans. But I wasn’t sure if anyone aboard would like my ideas, so I kept them to myself.

  We flew on into the face of the Macro fleet for the next hour. It was hard not to feel a growing sense of tension in my shoulders and neck as the enemy contacts swelled ever so slightly on our long range sensors. The Macro fleet was bunched up behind their big dreadnaught. They looked like a dripping snowball seen from head-on, with one big central mass and dozens of smaller contacts slipping out from behind the protective skirts of their mother from time to time. Things looked even worse as we slid below the plane of the ecliptic. The enemy fleet began to stretch out and lengthen as our viewpoint shifted. From this new perspective, the snowball had grown a short tail of specks like a comet. If we kept flying away at an angle, they would stretch out and out into a long mass. The thought that each of those specks was a Macro cruiser with greater firepower and much greater mass than our ship possessed was terrifying if one let your mind dwell upon it. I didn’t bother.

  After we were about two hours out from Earth, the Macros finally reacted to our presence.

  “The enemy fleet is shifting formation, sir,” the helmsman said.

  I nodded, unsurprised. I glanced at the helmsman, a young, obviously inexperienced ensign. He had the look of a bookish fellow from a good college. I wondered why he’d joined Star Force, but there wasn’t time to ask him.

  “Describe the new formation,” I said. I could, of course, figure that out for myself by looking at the forward wall of the bridge or checking on the linked-in sensor data. But I wanted to hear how he analyzed the input.

  “Sir, the enemy seems to be shifting some of their ships away from us. The—the tail sir. The ships hiding behind their dreadnaught are moving to where we can’t target them. Even though we are clearly out of range.”

  “That’s a good sign. They don’t like us being out here by ourselves. We’re making them nervous. The fact they reacted to us at all shows an unusual lack of certainty on their part. Macros do not usually bother with reactive defensive postures.”

  “Could their change in tactics be due to the leadership of this new, larger vessel?” Captain Miklos asked.

  I looked at him and nodded. “Yes, that’s very possible. I’ve seen evidence before that the Macros get smarter with increasing numbers of them on the scene. Maybe their shared processing systems increase in capacity with the presence of more individuals.”

  “So Macro Command becomes more capable with larger fleets?”

  “My guess is that it does.”

  “Sirs?” the helmsman interrupted, “they are shifting again. A sub-formation has broken away.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Four ships in a diamond pattern?”

  “Exactly sir.”

  “And, they’re headed toward us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay then,” I said, sitting up perfectly straight. It was hard to do anything else in my battle suit, but I’d managed to slouch fractionally inside it. “They’ve noticed us, so it’s time to talk to them. Barbarossa, open a directed channel to the Macro fleet.”

  There was no response for a second. I glanced at Miklos.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said. “Barbarossa, take all orders from Colonel Riggs as if I’d given them to you. Colonel Riggs is to be accepted as command personnel with full authority.”

  “Permissions set,” said the ship.

  I repeated my request.

  “Channel open. Propagation delay due to distance is three minutes each way.”

  We waited the three long minutes before the ship spoke again. “No response has been received,” the ship said.

  “Barbarossa, relay the following,” I ordered. “Macro Command, this is Colonel Kyle Riggs, commander of Star Force. I wish to negotiate the terms of my surrender.”

  Every eye on the bridge widened and every head swiveled to aim at me. The gunner’s mouth hung open.

  I ignored them all. I stared at the chronometer. I had six minutes to wait to hear Macro Command’s response.

  -15-

  Macros generally ignored pleas and threats. They especially hated questions. But they were suckers for offers of surrender. If Star Force surrendered to them, that meant less loss to their fleets. That made a material difference to them.

  In the end, the Macros were accountants at heart. They were like giant metal spreadsheets. To get their undivided attention, there had to be something sweet in the equation for them. Something that would significantly alter the bottom line. If they could talk me into giving up without a fight, their goals could be met with greater efficiency. That made it worth their time to acknowledge me.

  “Incoming message: Surrender offer accepted. Disarm your ship and alter speed and course to match that of the approaching fleet.”

  I chuckled. “They aren’t giving us much of an opening offer, eh?” I asked Miklos.

  He didn’t respond. He didn’t seem to know what to say, he just gave me a horrified look. I w
aved an armored hand toward the screen.

  “Just listen,” I told him. “Barbarossa, transmit messages from me beginning with the words ‘Macro Command’.”

  “Ready.”

  “Macro Command, I am offering my own personal surrender. Not the surrender of Earth, my ship or any other Star Force assets. Before I agree to surrender, I must have assurances that all Earth will be spared from any attacks and that your fleet will leave this system peacefully. A state of peace shall then exist between our two peoples.”

  We had a long wait after that, so I got up and prepared myself a cool drink in the galley. I avoided alcohol, instead finding some stuff that looked like orange juice, but tasted like sweet plastic. I took a swig and grimaced. I threw the remaining half of the disgusting liquid on the ship’s deck, along with squeeze bottle it came in. The bottle dribbled for a few seconds, then the nanite decking detected it, correctly classified it as trash, and swallowed it. A hump of silvery liquid metal indented, allowing the squeeze bottle to sink into the indentation. Then the deck flowed over the surface of it. I knew that the nanites would release the discarded item into space. You had to be careful what you tossed onto the decks in these ships.

  Captain Miklos joined me in the galley. “We’ve got to get better supplies aboard these ships,” I commented to him.

  “Sir, I understand your plan, but I don’t agree with it.”

  “You don’t, huh?” I asked with vague interest. I glanced at him, my eyebrows raised. “You want to split one of these doughnuts with me? I’m not sure they’re any good, either. With the amount of money Crow wastes, I figured we’d have lobster soufflé on every journey.”

  “Sir,” Miklos said insistently. “You don’t have to give yourself up to the enemy. They might well change their minds and destroy Earth anyway. You don’t understand how valuable you are to our world.”

  “Very kind words, captain,” I said, handing him half my doughnut. It was glazed with chocolate sprinkles. I preferred plain, but decided it would be too much work with armored gloves to pick off the sprinkles.