Conquest (Star Force Series) Page 9

  The Macros played statue out there in orbit over Venus for seventeen long days and nights. Then one hot, sunny afternoon everything changed. By that time, we’d begun to relax a fraction. I think it’s only human nature to do so. How long can a person keep their bloodstreams full of heart-accelerating adrenalin? How long can one remain sleepless and worried? At some point, I believe the mind and the body naturally become immune to a threat that sits and waits. I imagined that if a tiger sat beside a watering hole, motionless for days, the animals would eventually come to ignore it. Perhaps the monkeys would even sit upon its back and preen. That was the moment a wise predator would make its move.

  We’d stopped worrying every minute about the crouching Macro fleet. We all knew they were out there. We knew they were waiting for something. A signal, a mistake, or perhaps an aggressive move on our part. Speculation on what would make them act ran rampant through the base and the media outlets of the world. Nightly news and talk-shows discussed little else. In the end, it was the arrival of a single, final ship that changed the game.

  “Colonel Riggs, sir,” Major Barrera buzzed in my helmet. “We have a problem.”

  I was down at the landing pits and it was midday. The sun rode high overhead and blazed upon my back, as it tended to do in the tropics. I’d handed over the job of training assault troops to Kwon and others who were already more talented than I with the new battle suits. I had achieved a passable level of skill, and decided to leave it at that. There were simply too many other duties to perform.

  Today, my duty was a happy one. Crow had managed to complete construction of a second full wing of nine destroyers. He brought them in and put them down in nine landing pits at the edge of Fort Pierre. Eager crews rushed to the new vehicles and boarded them excitedly. They held scripts in their hands and went through the rote routine of ordering their ships to take new names and accept their new masters.

  It was a relatively happy moment, and I watched the elated crews with a smile floating on my face. When Major Barrera’s call came in, that smile faded to a memory.

  “Talk to me, Major,” I snapped.

  “The Macros have a new arrival, sir.”

  “Cruiser or transport?”

  “Neither, sir.”

  I paused for a second, and if I hadn’t known the Nanos in my chest wouldn’t allow such a thing, I’d say my heart skipped a beat as well. “What is it then?”

  “Configuration unknown. It is extremely large, however.”

  “Just one ship?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m coming to the command center. Order a full alert.”

  I wasn’t wearing my battle suit, but I wished I was. I vaulted the wall of the landing pit I was in and ran toward the big headquarters building in the center of the base. I could see the sun glinting from the tall windows of my office even at this distance.

  Almost before I knew it, a second figure was running along beside me. My shadow was smaller, lighter and much prettier than I was.

  “What’s wrong?” Sandra asked.

  “You’re never far from me, are you?” I asked. “Psychologists would call you obsessive.”

  “They can kiss my butt.”

  “Not without my permission.”

  “Why are we running?”

  At that moment, the entire base underwent a transformation. A dozen sirens went off. A thousand lights whirled and flashed. A loudspeaker began making echoing statements that no one could understand. It didn’t matter, because they all knew what to do.

  Men and women darted by at angles past us, dressing themselves as they ran. Sometimes they slammed into one another or leapt clear of accidents about to happen. One problem with unnaturally fast, excited people is we tended to have more accidents. Fortunately, most of the base personnel were full of nanites and therefore too tough to care. They picked themselves up and ran on. Tucking in shirts, pulling on flight jackets and buckling goggles to their faces, everyone was grim-faced. There wasn’t any doubt in any marine’s mind why we were scrambling to battle stations. There could only be one answer: The enemy was finally moving again.

  Marines with full combat lasers appeared here and there at the door of every major building. Even the automated laser turrets lining the base walls and the sea itself seemed agitated. They jerked and tracked racing troops with nervous twitches rather than smooth oscillations.

  “The Macros,” I shouted to Sandra.

  She nodded back. She’d figured it out by now.

  I ignored the elevator and bounded up the emergency stairwell, taking five or six steps at a time. If I’d been wearing the battle suit, I would have just flown up to the top floor. Occasionally, lieutenants recognized me and hailed me, asking me for directions. Sandra and I wordlessly passed them by in a blur. I didn’t have time to hold anyone’s hand today.

  When I reached the fourth floor, the bevy of purchasing agents scattered, having learned by now to keep out of the central aisle that led to my office door. Today, with the sirens and loudspeakers blaring, it was doubly wise on their part. I thought I heard the mahogany door crack as I threw it open. I felt a pang about that. The wood was beautiful. I slammed it behind me and walked to the big desk computer, breathing hard.

  I opened my mouth to tell Barrera to zoom in on this new ship, but the words died in my throat. He’d already done so. The image swam even closer as Major Sarin made spreading motions with her hands on the central screen area.

  It was huge. It dwarfed the cruisers and invasion ships that lined up around it, even as they dwarfed our smallest Nano ship.

  “It must have ten times the mass of a cruiser,” Sandra said, staring at it with me.

  “We estimate a displacement of a quarter million tons, sir,” Major Barrera said. “That’s a very loose estimate, of course. It largely depends on interior structure, materials used, hull thickness and the like. Roughly, it’s the size of several supertankers, Earth’s largest vessels.”

  “What was your basis for the calculation?”

  “Due to measurements of wreckage, we have good numbers for the cruisers. They weigh in at about twenty thousand tons. This ship has the volume of approximately a dozen cruisers.”

  I touched the screen, rotating our point of view. The thing was shaped differently than a cruiser, which was more or less like an arrowhead in shape. This ship was bulbous. It had a forward section that resembled the head of an insect, with two humps to either side. The bottom was more or less flat, however.

  Crow had finally arrived. He stepped up to the desk to join us. He whistled as he eyed the monstrous enemy vessel. The Macro fleet was now leaving orbit in a grand arc of glinting ships. The big new ship was leading the rest. The computer had plotted their course. They would circle around Venus once, then escape the planet’s gravity and begin the long journey toward Earth. Their projected path was visible as a single yellow line that curved off the screen.

  “What do we call this monster, a battleship?” Sandra asked.

  “Too big for a battleship,” Crow said. “Earth battleships are only about two or three times the size of a heavy cruiser. Let’s call it a dreadnaught. That sounds more ominous.”

  “Dreadnaught it is,” I said. I kept my voice neutral. I didn’t look around at my officers’ faces. They were all glum—except for Barrera of course. That man would go to his grave maintaining a professional demeanor.

  “Give me a rundown on its armament,” I said.

  Barrera reached out to touch various points on the dreadnaught. They glowed blue after his fingertips left the glass. “On the flat belly-side, we’ve counted a series of six rotating cannon emplacements. These appear to be more or less equivalent to the bombardment units on the bottom of enemy cruisers. There is another serious problem, however. These bumps are lighter weapons clusters on the shoulders, here and here. There is another of these bristling pods on the fantail of the ship. They appear to be point-defense systems, sir.”

  I nodded, feeling deflated. “How m
any guns and what kind of range do they have?”

  “We’ve counted eight beam-type weapons on each pod. That’s a total of twenty-four light guns. They aren’t powerful—less range and hitting power than the gun on any of our small Nano ships.”

  I swallowed. “They don’t have to be big. They are for taking out small targets. It’s as if they knew about my plans.”

  Major Barrera looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Impossible, sir. But they might have gotten a report concerning our recent tactics and brought this vessel to correct a perceived weakness.”

  “It was more than perceived!” I said, almost shouting. I took a deep breath and forced my mind to cool down. “Do these defensive pods give the dreadnaught complete coverage from every angle?”

  “We’ve been working on that for the last minute or two,” Major Barrera said. He brought up another screen with a wire-frame analysis of the giant ship. A series of domed regions grew outward from the ship forming reddish shells around it.

  “See these regions?” Barrera asked, touching the three dome-like shells in turn. “They are our projected areas of enemy defensive fire. It appears that the pods do cover the ship from every angle, but it is most vulnerable from the flat underside. Anything approaching from that direction would have to face the six cannons, but the light defensive pods would be relatively ineffective.”

  “Six of those big cannons firing at you? That’s suicide,” Sandra said.

  No one argued with her.

  “Missile ports?” I asked. I was a glutton for punishment.

  “There is one accompanying each of the defensive pods,” Barrera said. “I’m not sure how many tubes they have in each grouping. I would assume this ship can fire a large number of missiles, given the enemy’s fixation on them as their primary armament.”

  I straightened my back and clapped my hands together, making a loud popping noise. Everyone except for Barrera winced in response.

  “Well,” I said, “the enemy intentions are clear. They’ll fly here behind that big bastard. If we throw missiles or flying marines at them, the defensive guns will take them out before we can reach the core of their fleet. When they get to Earth, the dreadnaught will roll over and use the cannons to bombard us—along with their missile salvoes.”

  “Here’s the part where you demand I fly my Fleet out there to die gloriously, right mate?” Crow asked.

  I shook my head slowly. “A head-on assault would be suicide. We’ve got about thirty destroyers now, but only the new ones you built are fully armed. The older ones were decoys as much as anything else. We have time to improve their weaponry, but that’s it. Gathering every additional ship we could, I doubt we could put up more than another sixty small ships. Less than a hundred vessels all told. Even without the dreadnaught, they would have three times our firepower.”

  “What are we going to do then?” Crow demanded.

  “We’re going to have to let them get in close. Real close. That way, the dreadnaught can’t protect the rest of their fleet.”

  They were silent for a second as they digested that idea.

  “But,” Major Sarin said, speaking for the first time in a long while. “If we did that, won’t they be able to fire on Earth, Colonel?”

  “They’d have that opportunity, yes,” I said.

  “They have invasion ships too. Six of them.”

  “I can count. If anyone else has a better plan, I want to hear it right now.”

  Everyone fell silent. No one looked happy. Even the unflappable Major Barrera was glowering at the screen. All of them knew the score. We were charged with the defense of Earth. Except for a few thousand modified ICBMs the Earthers could fire into the mix, we were the only thing standing between humanity and annihilation. Unfortunately, we were going to have to let this enemy come in close before engaging them. Very close.

  “Hey!” Sandra said, pointing and tapping at the screen. “See that? That little yellow contact lifting off Venus behind the Macro fleet? Is that…?”

  “Yeah,” I said, unable to keep a hint of bitterness out of my voice. “That’s Marvin. My guess is he’s been hiding in the blue giant system on the other side of the ring. Now that the Macros are out of the way, he’s finally come back here to watch the show.”

  -13-

  They’d turned off the sirens, but everyone was tense, watching the skies. At their current acceleration rate, we had several days before the Macros reached Earth. We were going to use every second we had to dig in.

  I managed to slip out a couple of hours after the Macros left Venus’ orbit. I had the entire staff busy by then. I exited the headquarters building and made it all the way to my bungalow unnoticed.

  This suit was one of the newer models. I’d made many refinements over the last few weeks and had come up with a superior design. Sandra had even put in a few additions of her own when I’d been too busy to work on them. In some cases, just trimming back the overlap of the armor plates increased my freedom of movement. I’d also beefed the fusion generator somewhat. The initial system didn’t really provide enough power to keep both beam projectors embedded in the suit’s arms going while the system was in flight. That was a critical drawback. If my marines were going into battle as swarms of tiny fighters in space, they had to be able to fly and shoot at the same time.

  I had my battle suit half on by the time Sandra found me. When the door slammed, I played it cool.

  “Ah, there you are,” I called out. “Could you help me with my helmet? This thing is still hard to put on solo.”

  Sandra stalked over to me and crossed her arms under her breasts. She gave me a withering stare. “Just where do you think you’re going?”

  “Um…to war,” I said. “Helmet?”

  She took the helmet away from me and bounced it around in her hands as if it was a basketball. I knew it weighed about as much as she did. Her strength still surprised me sometimes.

  “You were going to ditch me. Again. Don’t even try to deny it. You are a serial-ditcher.”

  “Uh, I have a war to run, Sandra. At times, that is bound to put me in harm’s way.”

  She shook her head, ducking as I reached for my helmet. “No, I don’t think so. You don’t need to be in a battle suit days before the Macros get here. There’s only one reason you would be dressing up like this.”

  I sighed. “Yes, you’re right. I’m going up. I have to.”

  “Why, Kyle?” she asked. Her voice shifted to a high, almost tearful note.

  “I’ve got a plan. I really do. If it works, it might save this world another bloodbath.”

  “Let somebody else do it.”

  “I would if I could. But truthfully, no one else can.”

  Deflated, she lifted up my helmet and slid it down on my head. I winced as it went over my face. Sometimes, if put on roughly, these things could rip your nose half-off. But she did it gently.

  “You know,” she said as she adjusted my suit here and there. “I read in school that Samurai wives would sometimes help put on their husband’s Yoroi armor before battle. They would line his body with a layer of silk, then the armor. They would make sure it was done right to ensure he would return from battle.”

  “I can’t take you with me,” I said. “Not this time.”

  “That means you’re not coming back,” she said.

  “I’m—I’m really not sure if I am or not.”

  She hauled off then and kicked me in my heavily-armored butt. The kick was so hard I actually felt some sensation and rocked forward a bit. Inside my helmet, I grinned.

  “What happened to all that business about understanding?” I demanded.

  “I have my limits.”

  Sandra left me then, but turned around in the doorway.

  “Come back,” she said, “or I’ll kill you myself.”

  With that stunning display of logic, she walked out of the bungalow into the afternoon sun. She left the door standing open behind her. A fresh breeze stirred the paper plates on th
e kitchen table and ruffled our blinds, but I couldn’t feel it through the suit. After a minute or so of checking my readouts, I clanked out of the house and headed for the landing pits.

  I’d always wanted to fly one of the new destroyers. I could have gone up in Socorro, but I didn’t feel like it. After all, I’d designed these destroyers, and by damn if I was going to die today, then I was at least going to have the pleasure of flying one first.

  I marched to the first of the destroyers. It was sleek and vaguely boomerang-shaped. I took a slow moment to admire her lines, then commed to the pilot to open the hatch. After identifying me, he did so hastily. I walked heavily up the ramp and found the bridge. It was relatively roomy compared to the smaller ships I was used to.

  I’d chosen this particular destroyer at random. It happened to be resting in the closest land pit to my bungalow. I looked around at the lucky crew.

  “Gentlemen,” I said. “I’m commandeering this ship. Kindly get the hell out—now.”

  The crew stared at me. They were Fleet people, and wore blue nanite-cloth flight suits. They’d been training, preparing for the big day when this ship was needed in battle. I was still hoping that day wouldn’t come. It was a faint hope.

  One of the men got up out of his crash seat and frowned at me. He was a tall fellow with a dark, bristling beard.

  “Colonel Riggs?” he said with a mild east European accent. “I’m Captain Miklos. We have only just been assigned this vessel. Why do you ask us to leave our new ship?”

  Inwardly, I sighed. I had sympathy for Miklos. Getting your own new ship to command, especially one of these amazing new destroyers, was exhilarating. I knew I was seriously raining on his parade.

  “I’m sorry, Captain,” I said. “I need to take her up. With luck, I’ll bring her back in a day or so.”

  “And if you have no luck, sir?”

  “Then I won’t be coming back at all.”

  Captain Miklos stared at me, nodding slowly as he gained an inkling of what I intended to do.

  “Does our Admiral Crow approve of this expedition?”