us.”
“Would it help to know we’ve gotten about another battalion of reinforcements-your kind of marines?”
“That’s good to know, sir. Have they undergone the treatment and the training?”
“Your people back at Andros gave them the injections. But they will get their training on the battlefield. This is the moment. We are shipping them down now. If you would order your craft to ferry them, we could get them there much faster.”
I had a headache. The General had assumed I was dead. Apparently-I could read between the lines-the moment I’d been prematurely declared out of the picture he’d taken over ground operations. He’d given orders I’d never have agreed with. I had to wonder, right then, if the good General would have preferred I’d stayed dead.
“I’ll tell you what I want to do, General. I want to pull off the continent and build up my forces. The Macros aren’t making more factories-more domes. So each day we get stronger now, and they get relatively weaker. We don’t have to rush in. We can build up another ten thousand troops and kill their domes decisively.”
“I don’t think we have to wait.”
“You haven’t faced the Macros personally, sir.”
“No. And I won’t take that away from you. But I’m going to land my regulars. Will you move to cover our landing?”
I looked out across the Falklands. I wasn’t sure which island I stood on, the East or the West. The land was cold, beautiful and very green. At my feet, lush grass grew nearly a foot high. Single dew drops clung to every blade.
Sheep wandered in rolling pastures only a mile off. As I recalled, sheep were about the only thing on these islands. It was odd to think a war had once been fought over this pretty scrap of land. I had to wonder, with the intrusion of aliens, if men would ever again fight silly little wars amongst themselves. I supposed they would.
“Riggs?” asked Kerr, cutting into my thoughts. “You there, Colonel?”
“I’m here, sir.”
“You are about to turn me down, aren’t you?”
“Yes sir, I was considering it.”
He heaved a sigh, as if ignorant fools plagued his every hour. Perhaps they did.
“All right. I’m going to tell you something. Something not generally known.”
“I’m listening. And I’m wondering why I’m not on your intel short list.”
“I don’t make up the names on those lists, Colonel.”
Liar, I thought.
“Anyway,” he went on, “we’ve got some cause for moving now. We’ve spotted something, see. Something off in space.”
I straightened and dumped my coffee. The dew drops clinging to the grasses at my feet turned brown. “What kind of something, sir?”
“Well, as you might have guessed, we’ve been working on our telescopes lately. With a feverish new intensity, actually. We’ve been checking out every corner of this solar system. These Macro ships have to be coming from somewhere. We don’t think they are coming directly from another star, they must have a base of some kind.”
“You found such a base?”
“We don’t know. We’ve found something. A satellite-something artificial. Something very large orbiting Venus.”
I blinked at that. I looked at the skies, even though there was nothing up there to see but our own light blue atmosphere streaked with shreds of cloud. Off to the east my own ship hulked close to the ground. As I watched, a car pulled up near it and someone got out surreptitiously. They snapped pictures of the Alamo with their cell phone. No doubt they thought themselves very daring.
“Okay,” I said. “Why is this discovery prompting a suicidal attack now, sir?”
“Because, Riggs, there are flashes going on there. Once or twice a week, there is a release of energy. And there are smaller contacts around it, we think. Growing in number. As they come in, they glide back behind Venus, where we can’t see them.”
My stomach turned to ice as I grasped what he was saying. “They are forming up a fleet?”
“We think so.”
“A much bigger fleet.”
“That stands to reason.”
I thought about that. The implications were beyond grim. “Here’s what I propose, General. I’ll direct my bases on Andros to produce more ships. Perhaps we can defeat them in the skies again.”
“Bases? You’ve got more than one?” he asked, clearly startled.
“It seems like a good day to put our cards on the table, General.”
“Yes, of course. But, I mean-you can build more ships?”
“Yes sir. Given time.”
“But you’ve been building more small arms instead?”
“Yes, but I think that will have to stop.”
“I agree. I see now, I should have told you this earlier.”
“Yes sir,” I agreed flatly. That was exactly the conclusion I had wanted him to make.
“Will you help us take out those last domes?” he asked. “As fast as possible?”
“Within-two days sir.”
“Two days… I’m not sure we can get our troops down there that fast.”
“I’ll send transportation help, sir. Mass your men. Give me their tonnage with equipment. We’ll airlift them down here starting now.”
“You’ve given me new hope, Colonel.”
“You’ve given me new fears, General.”
He hesitated.
“What else do you want to tell me, sir?” I asked.
“We’ve got another surprise we’ve been working on. The cruise missile brigades were fairly ineffective, but we’ve got a new support unit for you.”
“I’m glad to hear that, sir,” I said. And I was.
“Well, you might not like them. But they should get the job done.”
I frowned. I walked out toward my ship as we finished the conversation.
He was right. I didn’t like his new units. I didn’t like them at all.
35
It was a very tough two days, but I managed to pull together my battered marines. I had about ninety percent of my survivors back in the field and in respectable fighting shape. Most of that miracle was due to relentless rescue-ship forays to gather them from their scattered locations and the hardworking, thankless nanites who repaired their bodies. Men who were too far gone-mostly men with missing limbs-got to rest up back on the Falklands. The new recruits Kerr had so kindly created for me in my brief absence were spread around amongst the veteran units. The new men were green with their weapons and their new bodies. They tried to look tough, but they could tell by the quiet, haunted look in everyone else’s eyes that they were in it deep.
The men in my new unit, in particular, seemed chastened. They were proud to serve with me, I could sense that. But they were also worried. Stories must have circulated about the casualty rate in my previous command, which had been higher than any other battlegroup. I had to wonder if I had any flashy nicknames yet. I had heard a few muttered words in this vein. One was The Blender, which I found distasteful. I was sure about my unit name, however. We’d gotten the moniker of Riggs’ Pigs. I supposed it was the best I could expect.
This time, instead of splitting up my forces, I massed them under a single banner. I decided to use my ships for anti-missile cover this time. Crow thought I was mad, but I feared that my new strategy could be undone by a
