My visor darkened to an opaque state as the belly cannon fired upon us. My visor’s efforts were insufficient. Light leaked in, so bright it gave me afterimages and an instant headache. Just as my vision returned, vapor washed over me and I heard a roaring sound. I realized our assault ship must have been the second on the target list. It had been blown to atoms.
Spinning and disoriented, I almost lost my dish. Only the emergency magnetics in my boots and the nanite tethers kept me from being fired out into space on a random trajectory. The marine I’d dragged out with me wasn’t in easy reach. I had to let him go, figuring we could try to pick him up later-if we survived.
I zoomed in with my visor on the cruiser. The gun was prepping again. I knew it would take out all four of my assault ships. I had only a few tricks left.
I gained control of my spin and had the dish under my feet and operating again. I applied thrust, braking so I wouldn’t smash into the invasion ship. “All assault companies,” I said, trying to sound calm. “Redirect yourselves toward the cruiser. Troops aboard the invasion ship, injured or not, start taking out the Macro crew. Work your way to the control center, you will find it located near the engines, behind the hold.”
I was flooded with bleeping contact requests. I ignored them all. Everyone had problems, but we all had only minutes left in which to live, and they would have to solve them on their own. I opened a direct channel to Major Kurt Welter, who had flown the rescue mission to pick up my lost marines back at the ring. He had the last assault ship, and it was sitting in the hold of the invasion ship.
“Major Welter?”
“Sir?”
“I need your attention, Major.”
“They are coming into the hold, sir. The spidery-types-their marines. We are in a firefight right on top of our own bricks.”
“I need your attention, Major. Disengage from the enemy and get to your ship.”
Silence for several seconds. I was about to repeat the order, when his voice came back on. “I’ve disengaged, sir. Moving toward my assault ship, but I’m under fire.”
“Do not get hit, Major. That is an order.”
“Uh, doing my best, Colonel.”
“We need your assault ship out here. My men will mass on the cruiser like ants. We can take out the big gun I think, but we can’t get inside. You will fly your assault ship out of the invasion ship’s hold and approach the cruiser once we’d knocked out the belly turret. Do you understand, Major?”
“Yes sir, but there is a problem. The enemy has closed the hold doors. I can’t get out.”
I closed my eyes in frustration. Things were spinning out of control. My surprise attack had turned into their surprise attack. I thought about the mines I’d left the factory bricks manufacturing. They could use one to blow out the doors, but I was pretty sure the concussion in the enclosed space would kill all my marines, defeating the purpose.
“All right, Major. I will think of something. Keep that assault ship intact. Worst case, you can use the beam cannon to burn your way out of the hull. Stay alive, protect your ship and let my marines take the invasion ship.”
“Roger sir.”
Another of the assault ships exploded off to my left. All around me, more than a thousand marines flew past the invasion ship and toward the cruiser, which loomed with sickening speed. I knew I was going too fast, and applied more braking power. It was going to be a rough landing.
16
Like everyone else out there, I came in a little too fast. It was indescribably tempting to overdo my approach speed as I watched the huge cannon swivel, fire and kill two or three clumped marines with every burst. You could see it coming, aiming for you. It reached out like the hand of God and removed men from existence with unfeeling precision. The desire to turn off the braking thrust entirely, and thus get past this deadly, unpredictable menace, was intense.
Some of my marines fell prey to the temptation. They streaked toward the cruiser, then applied maximum thrust. Some pulled it off, knees buckling, shivering from the stresses, but managing to control their tiny dishes enough to slow them down. Others were not so skilled. They tipped, overcompensated and flew into deadly spins that resulted in splattered marines on the dark hull of the cruiser. Like bugs hitting a windshield, dozens of my finest ended their lives that way, howling in my headset during their final seconds.
I cursed myself for not having had more time for training. My marines were experts at a dozen combat exercises, but we were all new to these flying toys. They were inherently dangerous-like sleds with rocket engines attached. I had known my men weren’t really ready to operate them under the stresses of combat, but there had been nothing I could do about it, we just hadn’t had much time to train with them.
The survivors, about eight hundred of them, landed upon the curved hull of the cruiser. We crawled over it on our bellies like beetles.
“Kwon? Get over here,” I said.
One of the biggest beetles scuttled over, eager to obey. I saw him dragging his dish.
“Tell everyone to tether their transports to the cruiser hull. We’ll come back for them later.”
Kwon relayed the order, while I dragged myself toward the belly turret. It was still rotating around, almost silent in space. I could feel the rumble of its motion through my hands and feet where they contacted the cruiser’s hull. Such vibrations were the only sounds you sensed in open space. They felt more like tickling sensations than sounds. I could hear the turret in my bones as it sought a target, but we were too close to the hull to hit, underneath its field of fire.
How long, I wondered, until it turned its muzzle toward the invasion ship? I had no doubt the Macros would blow away their own ship if we captured it. We were a disease and ruthless amputation was every Macro doctor’s favorite technique. The moment they knew my men were going to capture the invasion ship, they would destroy it if they could. I had no doubt of this. We were under tight time pressure. Unfortunately, with this ticking clock I didn’t even know how long we had.
“How do we take this thing out, Kwon?” I asked. “Do we have any charges?”
“No sir, what little we had in the way of explosives and heavy weapons went down with the assault ships.”
I thought of Major Welter and his final assault ship. Should I order him to burn his way out of the hold and fly over here to take out this belly turret? I figured I could tell him to fly between the invasion ship and the cruiser on a precise line. That way, if the cruiser dared to fire it would hit both the assault ship and the invasion ship behind it. I shook my head in my helmet, causing sweat droplets to fly onto the visor and flatten there. There was no gravity to drag even a droplet of water downward.
“No,” I said aloud. I needed Welter to burn a hole in this hull. To bring him over here now, under the muzzle of this gun, was suicide. I knew how the Macros thought by now. Macro Command would fire, I had no doubt of it. They would happily destroy their own ships to rid themselves of us.
It was time to act, and act now. There was no room for niceties. “Men, I want everyone to retreat from the belly cannon. Get around the curve of the hull until you can’t see it anymore. Everyone except for Kwon and I, that is.”
Marines, who had been crawling closer from every direction, now turned and moved away. No one argued, which almost made me grin. Maybe they sensed Old Riggs was about to do something crazy, and they wanted no part of it. They were correct, naturally.
Kwon hulked closer. “What’s up, sir?” he said.
“Find me a body. A marine or two that splatted nearby.”
Kwon, to his credit, paused for a second, but he did not even ask why. He just turned around and crawled away. Less than a minute later, he came back dragging a smashed sack of humanity. I didn’t look at the name patch. I didn’t want to know.
“Major Sarin?” I called over my com-link while he approached. I thought it was a good time to check in on
