Battle Station (2 page)

I nodded, thinking it was good advice. I listened to Marvin’s response with interest.

“I will consider your suggestion at my next point of reconfiguration. The process of choosing my non-ship form is not yet complete. I must weigh many considerations when redesigning myself. This form has excellent sensory input, but it has poor locomotion capabilities under the influence of gravity. I’d originally designed it for a zero-G environment.”

“The thing designs
itself?
” asked Commodore Decker.

“Absolutely,” I said. “He rebuilds his body when it suits him, much as a man might select a new outfit for dinner.”’

Decker’s eyes flicked back to me. “You brought a sumo sergeant and a renegade robot to this meeting? Is this some kind of attempt to intimidate me, Colonel?”

He had figured it out faster than I’d expected. I waved my hand at the group and denied everything. “These are my confidants. The veterans of Star Force. I’m sorry if they don’t meet with your approval.”

Decker heaved a sigh and put his elbows on the table. “Okay, I’m over worrying about your crew, Riggs. Let’s get down to business.”

We all looked at him.

“I’m assuming you received the recall message from headquarters,” Decker said. “In fact, I know you did, and I know exactly what it said.”

My face tightened. I reminded myself to ask Marvin if he’d finished the new secure command messaging system. This business of publicly emailing orders from star system to star system wasn’t going to be acceptable any longer. I’d put up with it so far because the system was only a few weeks old. But now we needed to be able to keep messages private. Especially orders I didn’t like.

My first thought was to yell at the Commodore, delivering a new, perfectly clear message regarding what I thought of his reading everything that came in from Fleet. But I held back, telling myself the situation was better out in the open. He’d come forward and put his cards on the table. I could appreciate that.

“Commodore, you’ll be glad to hear that I’ve decided to comply with the orders.”

Decker looked honestly surprised. I found this amusing. Did I really have that bad of a rep? I supposed that I did.

“Well, I—that’s excellent, Colonel. When do we fly?”

“Immediately,” I said.

Decker demeanor changed from surprised to enthusiastic. I could tell he relished the idea of getting back home to Earth. I couldn’t say I blamed him for that.

“I recommend a column formation,” he gushed. “That way, we will limit our exposure to mines. There are a lot of them out there, most of them undocumented. We can put the destroyers in the vanguard, as they possess our best point-defense weaponry. If—”

I interrupted him with a gauntleted hand, which I raised into the air. “The destroyers won’t be going home, Commodore. At least, not most of them.”

His mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. “What?” he demanded when he managed to absorb my statement.

“Just as I said. Most of the destroyers will be staying. I’m posting one at each ring. Each vessel will contain a full complement of marines in their troop pods. They will provide security and serve to relay messages back to Earth. Then there is this destroyer,
Barbarossa
—I’ll keep it as a command ship. My own personal ship,
Socorro
, will be staying as well. Most of the rest of them will be remaining behind as my core task force. I need the ships to mop up the system and defend against any future attempt to reconquer it.”

“You can’t do that! Our orders are clear, Colonel.”

“Indeed they are,” I said. “Let’s review the orders, shall we?”

I read Crow’s words out loud, emphasizing the line: “
Please return as soon as you secure the Eden system.
”
Followed by:
“
Feel free to leave a few ships behind, including one at each ring for purposes of communication and surveillance.
”

“He didn’t mean you could keep the destroyers!” Decker sputtered. “This will not stand, sir. Mark my words, this will not stand!”

“You can mark them all you want from the deck of your command ship—which will be an empty frigate on the way home, I’m afraid. Dismissed.”

Decker stormed out, leaving me with the rest of them.

“You seem to have upset the Commodore,” Marvin said.

“The Colonel does that all the time,” Kwon said, laughing in his unique, hitching way.

“Kwon, have you secured the ship’s armories?” I asked.

“Yes sir, already done.”

“Marvin, have you rerouted the ship’s messaging system yet?”

“Yes Colonel,” Marvin said. “All communications will go through me now—literally. I’ve automated the system and the processor load should be quite low. I’ve set up a series of key phrases and conditions to flag questionable messages for your personal approval before they are allowed to be transmitted or received.”

I turned to Captain Miklos next, who had listened throughout the meeting without making any comments. “Captain, are the new ship rosters ready? I want those crews remixed before Decker pulls out.”

“Yes sir,” Miklos said. “You’re longstanding veterans are all moving onto the destroyers. May I say something, Colonel?”

I nodded.

“I find the entire process of commandeering these ships disturbing. Is it absolutely necessary?”

“I feel that it is.”

“Very good, sir.”

The meeting broke up. Everyone left quickly, as they all had something urgent to do. I watched them go with mixed feelings. I hadn’t crossed the Rubicon yet, but I’d certainly given Crow a good look at my middle finger. I wondered how it would all turn out in the end.

-2-

When avoiding the intent of your orders, but not completely blowing them off, it is important to maintain appearances. Therefore, I decided to “clean up the system” as my first action. There were plenty of Macros running around on the local planets, and I meant to eradicate them.

I had ulterior motives to choosing this course of action. One was to appear to be following orders—but there were other reasons. I wanted the Macros dead, of course. And I wanted to help the Centaurs regain their lands as I’d promised them I would. But more than that, I wanted factories. I couldn’t run a campaign on what we had with us this time, which was a single factory.
Socorro
had the sole production unit. As my command staff split up and went to perform their various duties, I crossed over to
Socorro
. I quickly reassigned the two-man crew to Decker’s group, bidding them a fond farewell. They exited with bitter glances back at me.
Good riddance,
I thought, even as I beamed and waved at them.

Once aboard
Socorro
, I ceremoniously changed the locks. This amounted to altering all the passwords and resetting the rules as to who was allowed to board and command her. Essentially, I reduced the list to a single person: me.

I stretched out on my command chair and heaved a sigh. “It’s good to be home, Socorro.”

“We are in the Eden system.”

“Yeah, but for a Star Force veteran, home is found in the guts of a friendly ship.”

“Reference stored. Welcome home, Colonel.”

I chuckled.
Socorro
had advanced since I’d built her. I’d designed this ship with a dozen variations in comparison to other Nano ships. She had more engines, better sensors, and a bigger brainbox. When the ship had started out life she’d not been overly perceptive. As time went on, she became as savvy as any Nano ship—but now, I sensed she’d advanced further. Her nanite chains were more complex, even sophisticated. She’d spent a lot of time with humans and I could tell she understood us better than the original Nano ships, which had more rigid programming and more limited mental capacities.

Strangely, I really did feel at home. Sandra and I had taken a few adventurous voyages on this ship. We’d made love frequently, and nearly died almost as often. I walked the ship’s nanite-sculpted rooms, starting with the observatory. I saw the cracks in the glass floor had been repaired. Looking out into space, I was instantly captivated by the scene.

Using magnification systems I’d had installed, I was able to directly view many of the twenty-one worlds in this system. Hel was one of the farthest out from the local G-class star. Looking sunward, I was able to pick out most of the life-bearing warm water worlds. There were six of them, and I meant to cover them all with intelligent biotics.

I rubbed my chin, looking at those lovely worlds. Each was a prize all by itself. So many worlds! Compared to the Solar System, Eden was capable of supporting a trillion living beings. I had to admit, it was overwhelming, and I felt a hint of greed.

Did I have to return all these worlds to the Centaurs? Surely, with their vastly reduced numbers,
one
world could be given to the humans. Either that, or we could share the land with them.

I frowned, considering. I knew the herds fairly well now. They weren’t just different culturally, they were a different species entirely. Historically, humans had a hard time getting along with their own kind due to relatively minor differences. Perhaps it would be best if we lived apart, to allow them to rule their worlds the way they wanted, while we ran a planet or two as we saw fit.

I shook my head and took a deep breath. I was getting way ahead of myself. These worlds still crawled with Macro machines and the Centaurs hadn’t agreed to any of my fanciful ideas. Possibly, they’d object strongly to giving up a single blade of grass once the planets were recaptured. Just as plausible, the Macros might come back before we could secure this system and wipe us all out.

Deciding to go into the situation with an open mind as to the outcome, I headed below decks next to check on the ship’s single factory. It wasn’t running at the moment. I hadn’t brought along any raw materials for it to work with. With the factories, time was the critical factor. They took time to make things, and therefore every second it spent idle was a second wasted.

“Captain Miklos,” I said, opening up a channel to the command ship. “I need raw materials.”

“Materials, sir? What kind of materials?”

“The usual. Base metals, rare earths, radioactives and polymers. Everything a factory requires to churn out weapons and constructive nanites in quantity.”

“We have factories, Colonel?”

“Yes,” I said. “We have one, anyway. Have the pilots collect wreckage. We destroyed a number of Macros in this part of space and their floating hulks should be treasure troves of raw materials. Have them bring the wrecks to me.”

“Yes sir,” Miklos said, then another voice interrupted our conversation.

“I could help in this instance, sir,” Marvin said. “I’m well-equipped for gathering materials. I would find the study of damaged Macro systems infinitely—”

“No, Marvin. I don’t think so. Not this time. I have another duty for you. An important one. Come over to my ship as soon as you can.”

“I see,” he said. “What is the nature of this new assignment?”

Was that a hint of disappointment in his voice? If so, that was just too bad. I didn’t want Marvin building himself into a ship again. It had taken me weeks to trim him down to size the last time.

“I need you to translate for me. I want to talk to the Centaurs. Please transport yourself into my presence.”

“Is physical transference completely necessary for—”

“Yes, it is,” I said, growing annoyed. Marvin wasn’t like most of my marines. They didn’t always like or even understand my orders, but they didn’t argue with them all the time.

“On my way, sir,” he said, after a brief hesitation.

When we were alone aboard
Socorro
, Marvin dragged himself into the command module and sprawled on the second chair. It didn’t really fit, and in truth it looked damned uncomfortable, with all his tentacles flopping out and lolling on the deck like the tongues of tired dogs. But I knew he didn’t feel physical discomfort, so I didn’t worry about it.

“Before I have you get me into contact with the Centaurs, Marvin, I want to make sure there is no risk of an unauthorized download from them.”

“That should no longer be a problem, Colonel. I’ve restructured my ports and access protocols. No transmission from an outside source can erase my brainbox now.”

The last time we’d conversed with the Centaurs, their servers had automatically attempted to erase Marvin’s mind. This wasn’t due to any kind of ill will on their part, it was just an automatic subsystem trying to do its job. Marvin had been an incomplete copy of a system image from one of their brainboxes in the first place. When we’d left the Eden system the last time, they had not quite finished transmitting his mind to our ship. The missing elements in his mind had sought completion, and had resulted in the quirky creature I’d come to consider—well, if not a friend, then an ally at least.

“Good,” I said, “I don’t want your brain erased and turned into a boring alien-translation robot.”

“We agree on that point, Colonel.”

“Let’s give it a try then. Connect me to the Centaurs.”

“They are listening now. I connected the channel the moment you made the request.”

“You mean, before you even walked aboard
Socorro?
”

“Yes.”

I grumbled and muttered under my breath for a time. Marvin made a lousy secretary. I cleared my throat, trying to form a coherent thought. I was quite glad I hadn’t said anything that would insult the Centaurs or reveal any details of my plans that they might not like. I opened my mouth to speak, but the Centaurs beat me to it.

“Colonel Kyle Riggs,” said Marvin, speaking as the Centaurs. The effect was an odd one, reminding me of listening to a medium at a séance. “We have witnessed your glorious path through our skies. Our young kick and surge with high spirits. Your honor is our honor, and the paths of our herds know no swollen rivers between them.”

“Um,” I said, “That’s great. We feel the same way.”

When talking to the Centaurs, it was always the same. They were a herd people who spoke in their own idioms most of the time. They always talked about blue skies, green fields, winds, fur, hooves and honor—above all, honor.