Battle Station (26 page)

I frowned with a new thought. Could he be shocking them in there? Out of sight? Or maybe applying some other form of discipline? I didn’t like the idea, but I didn’t have time to walk out there and check up on him. Right now, he was busy and out of trouble. I wanted him to stay that way.

I finished my programming edits and witnessed the birth of a new gunship. The fresh hull rolled out into the output tray with a tremendous clang. My construction-duty marines set to work on it immediately, pouring in nanites, adding major systems and cementing fittings into place with caulk-guns full of nanites.

As it took shape, the second vessel looked about the same as the first, but there had been many adjustments. The central turret and the generator unit had been edged a few feet forward. This squeezed the bridge crew, but provided a more balanced arrangement of mass. The stabilizers wouldn’t have to work so hard when the ship was firing or accelerating to provide a stable platform.

The big machine began working on the next ship, filling the dome with odd hot smells and a deep, thrumming sound that made my feet tingle in my boots. I wondered how these little ships would hold up in battle. As I exited the dome, I calculated I would learn the truth soon enough.

-26-

No one was more surprised than I was when the Crustaceans broke through the Hel ring in an attack formation. I’d talked to them, and they’d seemed reasonable—if a little stuffy. Now, they weren’t talking at all.

I shook my head. Standing next to me, Miklos clucked his tongue. We were both aboard a destroyer called
Actium
which hovered in the high atmosphere over the Centaur homeworld. We’d made this ship our new command vessel, after the destruction of
Barbarossa
.

I’d reached
Actium
as quickly as possible after receiving the news from Fleet. Due to the significant distance out to the ring orbiting Hel, we hadn’t been given any time to react to the Crustacean attack. Instead, we could only watch vids of the aftermath and analyze them. In this case, the analysis was simple: the Crustaceans had gotten their collective shell-covered tails kicked.

They’d sent through a flock of nineteen ships, each of which was identical in appearance. They were all a familiar design of Nano ship. It was strange, seeing these vessels coming at us aggressively. I recognized them so intimately. I’d spent months inside
Alamo
, a twin to every one of them. I even paused to wonder if
Alamo
was among these attackers, and if the ship would recognize my voice if I attempted contact. It was a strange thought.

I didn’t have time to try to talk to them, however. Sixteen of the nineteen ships were destroyed by our mines. They tried to shoot them down, but it was hopeless. I’d laid thousands there, on the off chance the Macros would send a fresh fleet of cruisers at us from that direction. The mines didn’t work as well on the smaller more maneuverable Nano ships as they had on ponderous Macro cruisers—but they did the job. Each contained a tiny nuclear charge at the center of a dark, star-shaped metal object. Any contact, even close proximity to a vessel that didn’t broadcast the correct friend-or-foe code, caused detonation. As we watched the incoming vids we counted ninety-three detonations.

It was overkill, really. The surviving ships reversed themselves and exited back through the ring. Dozens of my mines followed them, attracted by magnetics and tiny brainboxes.

 “I hate seeing fellow biotics killed,” I said. “Recall
Socorro
. There’s little point to sending a scout ship out there alone now.”

“Why are the lobsters attacking us, sir?” Miklos asked me.

“I don’t know. Have you sent every message you could asking for peace and a meeting?”

“Of course. But they never got the transmissions. The incursion was brief, and the mines pushed them back before they could have possibly received the messages.”

I nodded. Battle at great distances had logistic difficulties. On Earth, you could at least talk to someone on the other side of the world with a few seconds of delay tagging onto the end of each sentence. That was annoying, but it could be dealt with. Without much trouble you could have a comprehensive conversation. At greater distances, it was more like texting each other. There might be hours between transmissions and responses. In this case, the delay was something like four hours. That meant this video was old. Everything could have changed by now. The Lobsters could have broken through, or they might have given up and retreated for good. It was frustrating being fed old information. I wanted to see the battle in real time.

“This is all we need,” I said. “It’s not enough that the Macros are building up a fleet to push us out of this system, the Crustaceans seem to have the same goal. No one wants us here in the Eden system, do they Captain?”

Miklos shrugged. “A wise man listens to the winds,” he said.

I glanced at him sharply. Was he trying to suggest Star Force should retreat? He didn’t meet my gaze, but instead busied himself with the command screen. I frowned down at the debris from the ships and the reduced count of mines. They’d shot down a fair number. Still, there were about seven thousand of them active out there. We’d lost about a thousand, but they’d done their work.

I slapped my hand on the command table. Fortunately, I’d removed my gauntlets, and the screen didn’t rupture. A few staffers flicked their eyes to me, then back to their work.

“Maybe we should call on the Worms,” I said. “They might come to support us.”

“You think these Nano ships are that big of a threat?” Miklos asked.

“Not really, but I like to operate from a position of strength. Right now, I believe we have the best ground forces in the system. But we can’t use them if we don’t control space. The Crustaceans are a new unknown in the equation. A newly hostile neighbor. They’ve obviously destroyed our scout ship on their side of the ring and just made their first aggressive move into this system. I need allies, not new enemies!”

Everyone else in the control room stayed quiet. I supposed I had a rep now for temper tantrums. No one wanted to get in my way. Miklos looked like he would have exited the room himself if he could have come up with a good excuse.

“How did the test flight go on the new gun ship?” he asked.

“A blatant attempt to change the topic,” I said, then sighed. “Really, the tests went well. They are nowhere near as sleek and maneuverable as these destroyers, but we can produce them twenty times faster—maybe thirty. Pitted against Macro cruisers and these Nano ships…I don’t know. If we have enough of them, we’ll do fine. Let’s talk about our new battle formations and tactics.”

Miklos looked relieved. “Yes, let’s do that.”

After several hours, we’d hammered out a plan. Once we had more gunships than destroyers, we’d implement it. The gunships would lead the fight on the front line. They took more damage, but had a lot less range. They would need to get in close to be effective with their railguns. The Nano destroyers would tag behind, but not too far behind. They would use their lasers to cover the gunships, shooting down incoming missile barrages. Once the formation was in close enough, the railguns and the lasers would be used to target and take out individual targets in coordination.

Really, it came down to numbers. If the Macro cruisers outnumbered our smaller ships we were doomed. If we outnumbered them two to one, we’d win. In-between those two numbers, it was iffy. It was hard to predict how the battle might go.

I had a contingency plan, however, in case the battle did play out with us on the losing side. The front line of gunships would take their beating like little bulldogs, but would eventually be taken out by the larger cruisers. If they lasted long enough to intermix with their formation however, they would have done their work. Aboard every destroyer would be a platoon of troops. These men would deploy like tiny independent attackers and swarm the cruisers. We’d done well with those tactics in the past, and I prayed the Macros hadn’t yet come up with an effective defense against marine boarding assaults.

I recalled that in ancient times, sea battles had really been land battles between ships linked by boarding planks. The slow, wooden galleys of the Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians had missile weapons, but the real fight began when they closed with one another. They rammed, boarded, and set fire to one another. They fought close battles on blood-slicked decks that often involved hundreds of ships and thousands of marines. I reflected that battle tactics had come full-circle over time, once again making marines a significant factor in ship-to-ship combat.

After hammering out plans for rosters of ships I hadn’t even built yet, I retired when my eyes no longer focused properly. By that time, I had four new gunships, and more were on the way. But I knew I needed forty—or better yet four hundred of them. I wouldn’t feel comfortable until I had a serious fleet.

* * *

I was awakened by an alarm klaxon. Something big was up. I bounced out of my bunk and cracked my head on the ceiling. Wincing and rubbing, I reached for my battle armor and slapped on the lights. I connected to the general command channel and almost broke my headset pulling it onto my head.

“What’s going on?” I demanded. My voice was drown out by the babble of others. There seemed to be some kind of action going on.

There was regret on my face as I passed by the shower compartment. There simply wasn’t time. I pulled on my armor as quickly as I could and staggered out into the hall. An Ensign rushed past on his way to the command center. I followed him stiffly.

Everyone aboard was in the command center, and they were so focused on the display they didn’t even notice me at first. I didn’t care. I stumped up to the board and worked on adjusting my battle suit. The Nanos did most of the work in that department. It was nice, having a million or so tiny robots to dress you. All a marine had to do these days was get himself stuffed into the suit, then the smart metal took over. It closed the gaps, sealed the openings and gently cinched up every inch of the frame until it fit like a thousand-pound glove.

I didn’t have to ask anyone what was happening, as the facts were plain to see on the big board. I’d expected to see a mass of Macro cruisers, fresh from their berths under domes on every world, rising up to attack us. But instead, I saw a depiction of Hel and the distant, dark ring.

When I’d gone to sleep aboard
Actium
, there’d been over seven thousand mines out there. They were tiny yellow contacts, one pixel each, forming a gentle cloud that obscured the entire region of space. Much had changed, apparently. Now, fully two thirds of that cloud had vanished. In the middle of it was another cloud of larger objects. Nano ships—hundreds of them.

“It’s a full attack, Colonel,” Miklos said, spotting me for the first time.

“Have they broken through yet?” I demanded. A half dozen people recognized me and threw me significant glances. I ignored them all, and they lowered their voices. They still conferred with others on station around the planet we all orbited.

“This vid is four hours old. The conflict is still on-going.”

“Is this as close as we can get? Zoom in.”

“We’ve lost that capacity, sir.”

I looked at him. He looked back significantly. I could tell he thought we’d lost control of the ring.

“This is exactly why I wanted to build a battle station out there. Something tougher than a mine field. They came through with what—three hundred odd ships? With two guns each, that’s six hundred guns. They knew the field was there after their little scouting mission, so they came in nice and slow. Our mines are ineffective if the enemy isn’t charging into them blindly.”

“Yes, sir,” Miklos said.

“So, we have to assume the field is lost, and they’ve managed to punch a hole right through it.”

“That is a logical assumption, Colonel.”

“Where are they headed?”

“We won’t know until the battle plays out.”

It was a hard thing, watching a battle that had already happened. I kept wanting to press some kind of fast-forward button and get to the conclusion. The Nano ships were taking no chances. They edged forward, almost drifting. Arranged in a layered ovoid mass, they fired their hundreds of guns relentlessly as they detected the tiny mines and destroyed them one at a time. Beams stabbed out in every direction from the central mass of ships as they advanced, destroying our mines almost without a loss.

“Total numbers?” I asked about an hour later when they’d passed the minefield successfully.

“Twenty-one ships hit, eighteen destroyed. Mines left in the region—nine hundred sixty-one, sir.”

I studied the numbers. “You included their losses from the earlier scouting trip. That means we only knocked out what—two? Two of this entire new armada?”

“Yes sir. We did score a few other hits, mostly from mines that detonated prematurely. But the Nano ships were only damaged and are still functional in most of those cases.”

“Great,” I said. “That’s just great. They made it through almost intact. Any response to our attempts to open channels with them?”

“No response, sir.”

“Projections of their course?”

Miklos hesitated. “We can’t be certain yet, Colonel.”

“What do you mean? What’s your best guess?”

“I—I don’t understand the data, sir.”

“Just tell me if they are coming to the Centaur homeworld to wipe us out. I don’t care if you’re wrong. Give me what you have.”

“Yes, sir. See the projected arcs on the screen?

An orange spray of pixels appeared. It was an arc which cut a broad swathe across the system. It widened steadily as it moved farther from the ring. It was a projection of where the enemy fleet might be headed. Every minute that passed, their most likely goals narrowed and the arc narrowed with it, graphically depicting targets. The arc was huge, encompassing several planets. I was reminded of weathermen, plotting the likely path of an incoming hurricane. The analogy was a pretty close one to us. The storm of ships that had just entered our system was capable of destroying anything that got into its path.