Battle Station (20 page)

The enemy had reorganized their assault to focus on our new position by this time. The air over the crater sizzled with laser bolts. Within a single minute, two of my marines had been hit and taken out of the fight. One of them slid flopping and spinning down into the dark hole behind us. He crashed down on the piles of loose dirt, stones and dead Macros. He screamed as one of the upright Macro pincher blades punched through his leg at the hip. I looked down and winced. Kwon’s men struggled to free him, but he was impaled.

“Get our corpsman down there,” I said, gesturing with my rifle toward the impaled Marine.

“Carlson was our corpsman, sir,” someone answered.

“That’s great,” I said, then snaked out an arm and grabbed hold of the nearest rifleman. “You, grab Carlson’s kit and use it. It’s mostly extra nanite injections anyway.”

Star Force Marines included our own medical personnel, unlike some other national forces. We called our medics Corpsmen, and they had basic medical training and a specialized kit for emergencies. But even these men were trained, armed, combat troops. Since we generally didn’t fight other humans, this didn’t represent a conflict for a man who was dedicated to saving lives. They destroyed machines by day, patched up fellow marines by night, and slept like babies whenever we gave them the chance.

“Any luck with that hatch, Kwon?”

“I almost have it, sir,” Kwon grunted.

He was so big, the other marines standing around couldn’t really get in underneath him and help. He simply strained and heaved solo. I watched his shoulders shift, the wheel must be turning.

“There we go,” he said, and pried it open a fraction.

To everyone’s surprise, it was yanked shut again.

“Dammit,” I said, pointing at the others. “Quit fooling around. Get a pry bar into that opening next time.”

Kwon stooped again. He heaved and roared. A few seconds later, another Marine pushed the broken length of a Macro’s leg into the breach and forced it upward.

A flash of light illuminated the dusty scene. The marine with the Macro leg in his hand cried out, clutching his arm and staggering back.

“Sloan, dammit sir,” Kwon said. “It’s us.”

The hatch was ripped all the way open. I looked down into the dim lit interior. There were Marvin and Sloan. They’d been hanging onto the hatch from the inside, trying to keep Kwon and the others out. All of Marvin’s thin, black nanite arms were entangled in the wheel of the hatch. I was surprised Kwon had been able to open it at all, even with the added power of his battle suit.

“Sorry sir,” Sloan said. “I—we thought—our radio is dead, Colonel.”

“All right, honest mistake,” I said in irritation. “We shouldn’t have shoved a Macro leg in there to pry it open. But I’ve got one less man on the line now. Get up here and take his place.”

Captain Sloan glided up to me on his repellers, but he kept his head low. “What’s our tactical situation, Colonel?”

“Suppressive fire. Keep it up as you talk.”

Sloan poked his head up and spat a series of laser bolts toward the enemy lines. I joined him. We nailed a sniper machine, but then were forced to duck down again as incoming fire melted the dust around our helmets into smoking glass. The laser strikes looked like wet splashes of hot wax.

“See the enemy? They are climbing to the top of the factory now, so they can get a good downward angle on us. We’ll be screwed if we allow them to get a firing position up there.”

Sloan’s eyes were wide. He joined me as we popped up and showered the machines that were trying to scale the factory structure.

“They’ve got to be digging to this spot again,” Sloan said. “We can’t stay here forever.”

“I’m hoping we don’t have to. Miklos should be coming down and invading this dome with reinforcements any time now.”

“With all due respect, Colonel,” he began.

I turned to him, annoyed. I hated hearing those words. They always preceded a short speech, the sort of speech which inevitably informed me I was an entirely new flavor of moron.

“Sir, we have to get the hell out of here,” Sloan continued. “We can’t hold on. We have no idea how long Miklos will take to get here. We have to assume we are on our own.”

Sloan had a point, but I didn’t see much else we could do. We were pinned down, and our only means of mobility was now twenty feet underground. I glanced toward the bunker, and I noticed it shook and shivered with the Macros that invaded it. They poked their pinchers through the loopholes, seeking something,
anything
to tear apart. Soon, they would figure out we’d completely abandoned that position and they would come tunneling toward us.

My eyes flicked up to the factory itself. We could fly up there and play king-of-the-hill with the enemy, but it seemed like losing proposition. It wasn’t designed as a defensive position. In retrospect, I wished I had built my bunker up there instead. I gave my head a shake inside my helmet. Sweat dribbled down into my eyes and burned. I tasted the droplets a moment later in my mouth. With one eye half-open and bleary, I gazed at the factory. I had to think of something.

“Marvin,” I snapped a moment later.

“Yes, Colonel Riggs,” came the reply. Marvin sounded as calm and crisp as always.

“Can you communicate with the factory still? Will it take your orders?”

“Yes. Now that I’m above ground, I’m linked with the local production facility. The enemy has not yet regained control of it.”

“How long would it take to build a new tank, like the one you are standing on?”

“Just under an hour. There isn’t enough palladium dust, however. We’d have to reduce the—”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. Forget it. We’ll all be dead in an hour. Can it make a—ah—how about a Macro worker? One that obeys us instead of Macro Command?”

Marvin hesitated. “Yes, I believe so. But each unit would require several minutes of production time.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, thinking fast. I was hunkered down in the crater, and programming under these conditions was unreasonable. Overhead, the storm of fire seemed to be on the increase.

“They’ve got a new team up on top of the factory, sir,” Sloan told me. “They have a good firing position on the far side of the crater, our men are exposed.”

“Great,” I said. “Kwon, get a squad to concentrate on taking them out, sharpshooter style. Or at least keep them ducking.”

“On it, sir!”

“Marvin,” I said, switching channels. “I want you to program the factory to make small Macros. Little spider-sized guys.”

“The facility is inefficient in that regard. Something that is under a gram in size—”

“No, no, not that small,” I said. “Let me explain more carefully, I want a climbing robot that is dumb and simple, about as big as a dog—five percent of the mass of a single Macro worker. Can you produce those quickly?”

“I believe so. The designs are available, and already loaded. Very few specialized materials would be—”

“Okay, great,” I said. “Now, I’ve got one more modification to these little robots that I want you to add. Then I want you to stamp out as many as you can. Batches of them all at once.”

Marvin listened closely, and he assured me what I proposed was possible. After the program was engaged and the big machine began humming, I went back to firing my laser at anything metallic that moved. I hoped Marvin had done his programming right, because we were going to be overrun and wiped out soon.

-20-

The first batch of spider-bots that rolled off the line was a surprise to everyone, even me. I never even saw the first one reach its target, but I did see the explosion.

“What the heck was that?” Sloan demanded, pointing toward a knot of Macros that now were scattering.

In their midst, one of their number appeared to have malfunctioned. It was lying on its side and a small plume of dust hung near. Another group of them popped a moment later. This time, I was certain of what I was seeing. It was as if a grenade had gone off in the middle of them.

I laughed. “That, Captain Sloan, is my latest joke on the Macros. They are being blown up by their own kind.”

I quickly explained my small spider-bots with their explosive charge payloads. They had very simple programming. They were to find the nearest, largest group of Macros, run into the middle of them, and blow themselves up.

“Diabolical, sir,” Sloan said, smiling.

I noticed he was hugging the crater edge, not bothering to fire at the enemy. We were down to ten effectives now, and I needed every gun on the line. But I held back from ordering him to keep up the defensive fire. The Macros were now in a confused state. They were scuttling around, being chased by tiny replicas of themselves. Some tried to turn and slash their pursuers. This gambit inevitably resulted in a flash and a loud bang. With their front sections blown off, the back legs spazzed for a while then finally ground to a halt.

Others tried to get away by climbing the big machine. This was a big mistake. We were able to pick them off up there, or at least wound them and slow them down enough for one of our scuttling little demons to catch up and take them out.

“Marvin, send a squad of spiders up to sit on top of the factory and wait for any new snipers who get the bright idea of shooting us from up there.”

“Done, sir. We’ve almost run out of bots, however.”

“How long until the next batch is done?”

“Just under four minutes, sir.”

In a firefight, four minutes was an eternity. But the Macro assault had already been broken. They were still sniping at us, and I could tell by the occasional underground explosion they were still tunneling. The last of my spider-bots found these tunnelers and detonated, collapsing the earth down upon their maimed bodies.

I ordered my men to stay low. We traded power with one another, rationing out what we had left. The generators never seemed to produce enough for a prolonged firefight. Carlson’s suit was a boon, as he had a nearly full charge. As a group, our power reserves averaged twenty-four percent when we’d finished. Our generators would charge every suit up to full eventually, but that would take time—time we didn’t have.

We stopped firing, and there was a lull that both sides needed. The spider-bots were all dead before the next batch was due to arrive. I knew Macro Command was out there, coming up with a new plan of action against us. I wished I still had a sensor-box that functioned. It was unnerving not to know if the enemy was tunneling under our position.

We made plans to coordinate our next effort with the arrival of a fresh load of spider-bots. With luck, we could take the attack to them. It was my guess they were running out of Macros. I was proud of my marines and impressed with what one of these production facilities could do to defend itself. Clearly, the Macros lacked an active imagination. They could have created a thousand varied weapons systems with which to hit us over the years. Instead, they’d stuck with their basic designs. These were good, but adapting to battlefield conditions required more thinking than that. In short, I didn’t think biotics were necessarily more intelligent than the Macros—but were definitely more inventive.

It was not until the next batch of spider-bots were produced that I was given a reason to stop congratulating myself. By that time, the Macros had all but halted their assault. When the batch came into play, however, the situation changed dramatically.

Macros might not be good at creating their own designs, but they were good at analyzing weaknesses in an enemy variation. This became abundantly clear when Marvin gave me the fateful message: “New spider-bots being deployed now, Colonel.”

“Good,” I said. I was all smiles and ignorance. “Start another batch. Men, get ready to fire into any Macro that runs. Take out the legs so our little guys can catch up.”

Marines chuckled in my headset. Everyone was enjoying this. We all wanted to watch Macros run and die from their own kind—we couldn’t get enough of the spectacle. I’d even taken to making vids of the action with my suit. It would play over and over in the officer’s canteen, I figured, when we got back to base.

“Sir! Incoming!”

I cranked my helmet around, frowning. Laser fire began spitting from every rifle around me. Then I saw it. A Macro worker, running full tilt away from one of my little spider-bots.

There was nothing unpleasant about that, but the destination of the worker—that was the problem. He wasn’t trying to climb the factory, or dig into a hole, or heading for the glimmering walls of the dome itself. He was running right at us, where we crouched in our crater. Worst of all, he didn’t have just one spider bot on his tale, there were three of them, and their tiny churning silver legs were a blur of motion.

“Shoot that thing down!” I roared. “Take out the legs!”

Lasers blazed and spat. At the same moment, a group of Macros nosed up from the roof of the factory itself. They’d taken their time to sneak up there, no doubt climbing the back of the factory while we were congratulating ourselves on how smart we were. Now, they crawled forward on their metal bellies and directed their nose-guns down into the pit of scrambling marines.

The Macro charging us went down, and a second later, all the bots detonated. A fountain of dirt clods showered my troops. It had been close.

Laser fire peppered my men. The next thirty seconds were grim. We went from an easy victory deep into the jaws of defeat. Two of my men were out of the fight, putting us at eight effectives. Marvin was our medic now, as the corpsman had been killed. He sat in the dusty hole in the midst of us, doing what he could for the wounded.

“Marvin!” I shouted. “Send five spider-bots to the roof. Take out those snipers, now!”

“Message sent.”

“Sir, we are being charged from all sides!” Kwon shouted.

I swiveled my head this way and that. The Macros were veering in from every direction. “Where did they all come from?”

“I saw them pop out of tunnels out there, trenches in the dirt.”

I watched as more came up and did the same.

“Marvin, reprogram the spider-bots,” I said. “Tell them not to come within ten yards of any marine.”