hundred target space stations. There may, or may not be enemy ships defending them. The stations may or may not have defensive weaponry. It was hopeless.
We went back to work fine tuning the propulsion systems. They were critical elements. If they didn’t have enough power we might take days to reach the enemy target and be sitting ducks in space. Or, we might be going too fast relative to our target at the moment of launch and be unable to brake down to a reasonable speed before running into the enemy.
We struggled with the problem of predicting relative velocities. What would we do if we had to slow down to invade an enemy structure, not speed up? In space, if a ship was flying toward an enemy station and you wanted to dock with it-or in this case, invade it-you had to slow down your approach at the end, rather than continuing to accelerate. When they fired us out of this invasion ship, we would already be moving at the same speed as the ship that had launched us, just like an object tossed out of a car window on a highway. If the attacking ship was moving toward the target at say, 50,000 knots, then an assault ship launched from it was going to hit a stationary target at 50,000 knots, even without using its engines at all. At that point, our ships would effectively be missiles, not an invasion force. Missiles with soft payloads of dead marines.
If we encountered this situation, the assault ships would have to brake hard, using their engines to slow down to a speed that would allow a safe landing on the surface of the target.
“In the worst case,” Gorski said as we reviewed our latest design, “I figure we could turn the main repellers around a hundred and eighty degrees and use the main unit for braking if necessary.”
“Maybe we should make a single large propulsion unit, and make it mobile,” I said. “We could forget about all the smaller repellers, and use only one unit for maximum power. That way, we could direct it at any angle and get maximum thrust for braking once we are in close.”
Gorski sucked in air between his teeth, making a hissing sound. He did that a lot, and it was irritating, but I didn’t complain. Most programmers were irritating people, and I included myself in that category. You had to ignore minor oddball habits to get good work out of your dev team. I once knew a guy who had to snap himself with rubber bands to work effectively. Snap, snap, snap. No one wanted to work near his cubicle, but if you let him snap himself until his skin was red, he would produce code that worked every time.
“How about three propulsion units?” Gorski negotiated at last when he was done sucking his teeth. “One big one for thrust, then two smaller ones that rotate around the center for directional control.”
“Why not just one?”
He shook his head. “Because it will take too long to reposition. If they need to avoid an incoming missile or make fine adjustments when making their final approach, a single large unit couldn’t realign fast enough.”
I nodded and agreed with his plan. We would go with three repellers for the assault ships. Once we had the design set, we set our surviving factories to build the needed components. If we had time after the first eight were perfect, we would build more. Next, we gave the nanite hulls their shaping instructions. It was like molding clay. I ran my gloves over the hulls, shaping it and guiding it into the shape I wanted. It was easier to do it that way than to explain to some dull-witted brainbox what you wanted in English. Once you had the nanite walls shaped, you could just tell them to remember the shape and they could reconfigure into that form perfectly. Smart metal was a wonderful thing.
I climbed inside the first assault ship. It was sleek, and I felt a certain sense of pride in the design. Gorski felt it too, and followed me into the interior. The ship was designed with two rows of seats facing one another. Nanite arms were all I needed for harnesses. With a single, shaped-metal chair for the pilot up front and the big laser, the generator and the engine in back, the shuttle was straightforward in purpose and design. All it needed was a pilot and a platoon of marines in the seats, and we were in business.
“Push that wall out, and smooth every surface with a gentle curve,” I told him.
“To provide structural integrity?” he asked.
I shook my head. “If we take a hard hit in one of these things, the men are all dead anyway, but I don’t want them smashing into hard edges if the ride gets bumpy. Even if everything goes perfectly, they are likely to slam their helmets into these walls when they impact with the target. Let’s not give them anything to injure themselves on.”
There was a central rib that pressed into the hull like a belt around the entire ship. This was the track the directional repeller would move along. I took time with my gloved hands to guide the nanites over it, covering it with glittering particles. I felt like a sculptor. I supposed, in a way, that’s what I was.
When we were finally satisfied with the design, we only had room for twenty marines in each ship. That meant a total force of one hundred and sixty marines in eight assault ships. It sounded like an absurdly small force, but I had to remind myself these were not the only men I had going out there. In fact, these few might be the lucky ones. Most of my troops would not be this well-protected. They would be going solo in a cloud behind these assault ships.
The second day we spent designing the solo capsules. They amounted to a bullet-shaped cocoon of nanites wrapped around each marine. A flat disk under each man’s feet was a repeller, his only means of propulsion. Gorski and I designed these in less than an hour and set the factories to churning out the only elements we needed more of: the disk-shaped mini-repellers and a tiny brainbox for each to control it.
Gorski and I eyed one another. I saw the guilt in his eyes. I felt it too.
“These are death-traps,” he said quietly.
“I know, Captain,” I said.
He blinked at me. “Captain? I was a sergeant two days ago, Colonel. And I believe you might have skipped over first lieutenant.”
“Yeah,” I said, running my hands over the interior of the capsule, looking for rough edges to smooth out. “But anyone who effectively helps me with design gets rank in my outfit. Besides, remember what I said? You’ve survived a day or two and now you’ve got your promotion.”
Gorski chuckled. “Do you remember what I said? These assault ships and even these capsules could work very effectively against the two Macro ships we’re now sitting in the middle of.”
“You’re right,” I said, “but so was what I said before. If it was just us, I would go for it today. But this isn’t about just us. I’ve made mistakes before. Remember China? I didn’t even attack the Macros that time. I just nosed around and pissed them off. I’m not keen to get millions more innocents killed.”
Gorski nodded. “I understand, sir. We are expendable. We will do or die.”
“We will do both,” I said, correcting him.
Quietly, we smoothed and shaped our tiny, flying dishes. I hesitated, and then I ordered our factories to churn out sixteen hundred of them.
I’d been working hard for hours, at that point. One annoying thing about a helmet was the fact that it kept you from touching your face. Abominable itching was something all my men had to endure for hours from time to time. As soon as I got through the airlock, I removed my helmet. The interior of every brick was pressurized. I breathed deeply of slightly fresher air and gave my head a good scratching.
I got to thinking about a suit redesign. We had vacc suits, and they had done fairly well on Helios. But they were far from ideal. They weren’t really made for combat in pure vacuum, nor for weightless maneuvering. I envisioned many problems and deaths with our current designs. We’d come up with suit improvements before the Helios campaign, but I’d put our efforts into preparation for that world’s heavy gravity, such as the lighter combat kits I’d issued. I’d never really gotten around to improving each marine’s basic survival suit.
The problem with combat in space was that any hit tended to be fatal to the victim. Even if you had a suit- puncture over a limb, it was hard to isolate that portion of the marine’s body without the injured man freezing and suffocating. The nanites helped a lot, as they were able to act like a smart metal, automatically sealing up the breach. But the first thing that happened was depressurization. So, even before the nanites could act, the marine had no air in his suit and none in his lungs. The freezing void would suck it all out. We’d taught our people to release all the air from their lungs in such a case-you could last a little longer that way. If you held your breath, you were asking for a rupture.
I found these conditions unacceptable. A small puncture could take out one of my men effectively. Even if it didn’t kill him, it would at least incapacitate him. I soon found myself working on a new suit, a battle suit. There were a lot less of my people left now, and I knew the environment we would be facing. I figured the least I could do was give them the best equipment possible for the job.
Hours went by. I came up with an armored design. A battle suit that was heavy, and required some
