Rebellion Ebook Full (2 page)

Alarmed, I struggled to get my helmet off and my headset into place. I tapped at the big central screen. The screen was a little bigger than a pool table and mounted at about the same height. We were standing around the table, leaning against it and gazing down into the screen like a pack of fans at an eight-ball championship.

The screen was still broken and dark in one corner. The funny thing about the nanites was their difficulty with big electronic systems. They could rebuild something small and delicate faster than something big. I supposed it might have something to do with their organizational control. Probably, it was harder to get a million of them cooperating on a complex set of tasks than it was to get a thousand or so of them working together on a single detail. Like a massively-parallel processor trying to run a single task efficiently, breaking a given big program down into many small pieces was harder than it seemed.

I could see the two big ships moving with what seemed like gentle speed. Appearances were deceptive, however. Their velocity relative to one another was small, but in actuality they were accelerating powerfully. I could feel the acceleration now, as I thought about it. The effect manifested itself as a light pull toward the interior wall of the hold. I knew that without the dampeners, the effects would be much more dramatic. Men and bricks would have been thrown everywhere.

“Don’t you think you should contact Macro Command?” Captain Sarin asked me.

I glanced up. They were all staring at me. I knew what they really wanted. They wanted to know what the hell was happening. Not knowing your destiny—that was the worst part of this whole expedition. When we’d headed out to the Worm world to conquer it, we’d had no idea for much of the journey where we were heading or what would be there when we arrived. That made everything worse, somehow. I believe that in order to handle stress and tension, human beings feel better doing
something
to prepare for what’s coming. Even if what they are doing is ineffective, it makes the approaching doom easier to tolerate. We have a sense of security when we are active, while inaction and the unknown slowly fill us with terror.

I cleared my throat and nodded. I adjusted my headset and flicked it on. “Open a channel to Macro Command.”

With apparent relief, Captain Sarin brought up a radial menu and tapped at it. Her fingers slid and danced with practiced movements. “You’ve got it, sir,” she said after a few moments.

I took a moment or two to collect my thoughts. When dealing the Macros, it never helped to ask questions or make requests. They only understood and responded well to direct commands. “Macro Command, this is biotic troop commander Kyle Riggs. Provide a mission briefing for our current activity.”

“New invasion destination selected. New mission parameters set.”

Everyone in the command module gasped. They all started talking at once. I made a desperate slashing motion at the air, urging them to be silent. They fell quiet, but every eye was wide and every one of them stared at me.

“We are not heading back to Earth?” I asked, flustered. Right away, I knew the Macros were not going to answer.

“Cargo is not permitted interrogatives.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed my jaw muscles, which had grown very tense. I wanted to scream at them, but I knew it would do less than nothing to improve matters.

“We need replacements in order to operate effectively.” I said, staying calm. “Take us back to Earth first.”

“No.”

“When we forged the details of our agreement, we specified the terms of service. This unit is no longer at full strength. We require reinforcements to proceed to a new target.”

“Request denied. Biotic Rigs has assured Macro Command the ground forces are functional.”

I frowned. Just when the hell had I said that? “My ground forces are not at full strength.”

“Lift off from prior target world was predicated upon ground force effectiveness.”

I thought hard. What had I said…? Just as the giant Worm was hitting us and we had seconds left to stay breathing. Ah yes, I thought I had it. I’d told them we didn’t need to stay and pick up every piece of equipment. I’d assured them we would still be an effective fighting force without the extra bricks and weaponry….

I keyed off the connection with Macro Command. I stared at the nearest wall. My staff bubbled around me, asking reasonable, logical questions. I ignored them all.

We were going to have to invade another world. I felt cold and slightly sick inside. To get them to lift off Helios and leave behind much of our equipment, I had assured Macro Command we could still fight. They were going to hold me to that statement. I’d learned by now that the Macros did not let you change your mind once you’d made a commitment.

We only had a few hovertanks left. More than half my marines were dead. Most were probably inside some Worm’s belly by now back on Helios. I thought about how things would have gone if we had to do the Helios campaign over again today, with my current forces. As closely as I could figure, we would have been overwhelmed and wiped out in the first counter-assault the Worms launched. My troops could never have completed the mission now, not in our current state. But here we were with fresh, suicidal orders.

In short…we were screwed.

-2-

After a bit of hand-waving to quiet my excited staff, I opened the link to Macro Command again. Now wasn’t the time to argue with them. Now was the time to figure out what they had in store for us—or at least as much as the Macros felt like telling me.

“Macro Command,” I said in an officious voice. “In order to achieve maximum effectiveness, my ground forces require intel on our target enemy.”

“Enemy species is biotic. Enemy species is space-faring. Enemy species must be eradicated from target system.”

I sighed. It all sounded familiar. They were taking us to smash another planet full of organic life forms like ourselves. My people were too shocked to make intelligible sounds. Some shook their heads and covered their faces with their hands. Most stared into nothingness.

“We need to know more about the nature of the target,” I said. “In order to achieve maximum effectiveness. Tell us about the target planet.”

“No planet in the system is to be targeted. Enemy biotics reside in stationary artificial structures in space.”

I nodded, thinking hard. A null-gravity fight. It sounded like there were several of these structures. Space stations? Artificial habitats?

A light hand touched my elbow. I looked down and saw Captain Sarin’s pretty, frightened eyes looking back up at me. “Sir, you can’t be considering going through with this, can you?” she asked in a whisper. “We aren’t ready to fight again.”

“I’m learning all I can, while I can. Get back to your post, Captain.”

Her hand jerked away from my arm and she turned her face back to the big screen. Her mouth was a small, tight line. I figured she would have plenty of time to get over it later—or we’d be dead, and it wouldn’t matter anyway.

“Macro Command, confirm my assumption: the target enemy species is the Worms, the same species we faced on our first mission.”

“Assertion incorrect.”

Great
, I thought. Where did that leave us? We would be fighting somebody else, somebody who lived in space habitats of some kind rather than on planets. In order to live in space, the species had to have good tech. And they would be of a race we hadn’t seen. It did not leave us much to go on.

We spent a few days madly getting organized. Before, I’d had the men working, but not with the urgency of an expected mission on the horizon. Now we were moving like we meant business. Suits and kits were repaired by the factories first. Once I had every marine’s basic needs covered, I set the factories to rebuilding a new set of brainboxes and laser turrets. The men themselves were urged to heal up quickly. The moment they were out of bed, I had them exercising and working in the hold. The bricks were finally reorganized and stacked properly. They no longer resembled a pile of sticks. They now looked like an official Star Force base—but smaller than it used to be.

“New contact sir,” Captain Sarin said, calling me from the bridge.

“On my way,” I said. I raced up there, dropping everything I was working on and leaving it up to Kwon to finish the work in the hold.

“What’s happening?” I asked Sarin as I came up to the console.

Captain Sarin had her long dark hair out of the usual tight bun she kept it in. Her hair was too long for a marine, but I wasn’t complaining. She looked much more womanly today, but I tried not to notice her too much. She worked our new command console with quick, deft motions. She pointed at the big screen. I looked down and immediately saw why she had brought me in. We were approaching another ring in space. A new contact had appeared on the big table. It appeared as a tiny, flickering oval shape on our projection of the star system. I opened a channel to the Macros immediately.

“Macro Command,” I said. “We are approaching a ring. Will it take us directly to the enemy system?”

“Yes.”

I began to feel a little of the panic the rest of my people were feeling. I keyed off the connection to the Macros. “Get everyone to their battle stations. For all we know, we are going in hot. There might be mines waiting for us—like the last time we jumped.”

My staff was jolted into activity. Captain Sarin dialed up the flashers and gave the order for every marine to head for their assigned combat station. I heard clanking magnetic boots running over the roof of the brick we were in. I eyed the ring. It was coming up fast. I doubted we had more than a minute left before we jumped into God knew what.

“Macro Command,” I said. “We request a delay.”

“Request denied,”
said the Macro synthesized voice with utterly maddening calm.

“We require time to prepare for null-gravity combat,” I said. “We are not prepared for that type of mission. We must reconfigure.”

“Request denied. Biotic Rigs has assured Macro Command the ground forces are functional.”

“We are functional, but in the absence of intel we had assumed we would be fighting in a similar environment. We require time to reconfigure our weaponry.”

“Request denied,”
said the voice, sounding positively cheery.

We all eyed the looming ring with fear. Like most of the rings we’d met in space it was about three miles in diameter. I wondered if the ancient race that had built this mysterious transportation system had ever flown anything through one of these rings that was big enough to fill it. A spacecraft three miles across? The thought was daunting.

When we’d first jumped into the Helios system, we’d hit a long row of mines. The Macros had lost five out of six cruisers just getting to the target world. Now, we were down to one cruiser, and I figured that if the enemy had any kind of an effective defense we might well be destroyed before we could get out of the transport ship.

“We will be less than one hundred percent effective,” I said.

“Effectiveness rating estimate required.”

I thought hard. I could say one percent, but I didn’t want to blow it and make them think we were bullshitting them. I recalled something I’d learned from a software project leader: never give a nice, even number. Odd-sounding estimates were far more believable.

“Uh…” I said. Official-sounding bullshit took time to come up with. “We are at twenty-nine percent effectiveness against a null-gravity target. We need time to reconfigure to achieve maximum effectiveness.”

There was one of those several-second delays during which the ring loomed closer. We couldn’t see the edges of the ring all at once now with our visual sensors. Without being told, my staff switched over to wireframe and the entire scene was laid out. We were even closer than I had thought. I could only hope the artificial neurons of the Macros were firing in our direction.

“Schedule reset. Priority reset.”

What the hell did that mean? We all turned our eyes to the screen for a clue. We felt a shudder and a slight crosswise sensation of movement. The ring, which had been dead ahead, slid slowly to one side.

“We are braking and turning away, sir,” said Captain Sarin.

I could hear the elation in her voice. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. We were standing at death’s door, but we hadn’t knocked and barged inside yet. That was all I had to do to make my staff happy again: keep them alive for a few more hours.

Our relief was short-lived. I thought about asking the Macros for more details, such as how long they would give us to “prepare” but decided it wasn’t a good idea. We would take all the time they gave us, then when they became antsy again, we would act surprised and beg for more. It was the same technique my kids performed flawlessly upon me every night back when I had been a father. When I’d said:
Time to go to bed,
they had heard:
Agree to go to bed, then quietly stay awake until I remember to order you to bed again…go back to step one and repeat.

Thinking of my kids gave me a pang I hadn’t felt in a while. I stood staring at the screen for a full minute. When I noticed my surroundings again, I saw a new face, standing beside me and staring at me. It was Sandra.