cursed and followed me into hand-to-hand.
Fighting one of the machines this close up was terrifying. They were much worse than the Worms. They were not soft flesh, and they were bigger than your average Worm. A good fifteen feet long, the Macro worker had its back to us as it worked over the marine, who roared hoarsely as the thing diced his suit and flesh. It looked as if he were being attacked by a lawnmower. Shreds of material, nanite-impregnated or not, flew everywhere in an alarming spray. The marine still slashed with his knife, the monofilament edge removing flashing metal mouth parts from the Macro.
I tackled the thing, and it felt as if I had tackled an angry bulldozer. The metal surface didn’t give way a micron. It was not staggered by my weight or the impact of my flying assault. I was an insect hurling myself upon a careless being of gray metal.
I put my pistol onto a jointed section on its back where two sliding plates met. I pulled the trigger and held it down. A thin beam lanced into the metal, melting its way into the things guts. I didn’t have much hope of taking it out this way, however. It would take too long to bring it down.
Kwon came in behind me. His approach was more effective, and got a response from the monster. He put his monofilament blade up into a set of cables that controlled a rear leg. The leg lost tension and went sprawling and flailing. That entire end of the monster sagged.
The Macro left the shredded marine and turned, dragging the bad leg. When it realized we were holding onto its back and not letting go, it did something unexpected. It loaded up its legs underneath itself and sprang into the air.
I felt a huge surge of power. My first instinct was to grab and hold on, but I realized that was the wrong move. I let go.
The Macro surged upward like a grasshopper launching itself into flight. In this case, however, the ceiling was very close, and like a grasshopper in a box, it smashed into the roof.
Kwon, unfortunately, had held on. His bulldog instincts failed him, and he crashed into the roof of the chamber, crushed between the Macro’s metal body and the equally unforgiving ceiling. He went limp and tumbled away, falling in slow-motion.
Not knowing if he was dead or not, I broke my own rules of engagement and unlimbered my beam projector. I fried the Macro point-blank as it came down again.
18
The marine the Macro worker had been chewing on didn’t make it. He did live long enough to see us clear the room. But his guts were spread over a five yard area, and not even the nanites could patch him up again.
Kwon was out for a while, but came-to after some help from a corpsman. He had six cracked ribs and a fractured skull, but it was nothing one of my marines couldn’t recover from. I decided my next battle suit would have to be better designed with internal form-fitting foam to prevent injuries to marines who were tossed around in their armor. My current design stopped most penetration, but didn’t give enough padded protection from concussive damage.
Kwon dragged himself to where I was working on a bizarre control panel. I lifted my hand to clap him on the back, but thought the better of it.
“Congratulations on surviving,” I told him.
“Just don’t give me any more promotions,” he said, groaning.
“Don’t worry. Are those nanites itching?”
“Yeah,” he said, running his gloved hands over his chest and helmet. “This is worse than the time I got my foot chopped off. What are you doing, Colonel?”
“Exercising the first useful skill I ever learned: problem-solving.”
Kwon grunted.
“Identification, analysis, design, implementation,” I said. “The engineer’s basic steps. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to figure out this interface and make it work for me. It might take weeks or even years of study.”
“You mean we can’t fly this ship?”
“ We can’t, no,” I said. “But we don’t have to. We have little friends to do it for us. I brought along some extra brainboxes and connective materials.”
As I spoke, I showed him what looked like a simple box of nanites, the sort we used for control components on a dozen other devices. From it sprouted seven thick cables that terminated in metal hands. The nanite arms lifted themselves to touch the complex Macro control board, which looked like the cockpit of a jet fighter of the future.
“Can they do it?” he asked, sitting on the floor of the ship. He put his back against a dead Macro worker, as if it were a brick wall.
I shrugged. “They became symbiotic with our bodies very quickly. I suspect the ship controls are a lot simpler than that. I’ve instructed them to go for navigational controls first. We have to get underway.”
Kwon scratched at a gash in his right forearm. The suit had been ripped open, but had now repaired itself. I knew the flesh underneath probably looked worse than the suit. The nanites had their work cut out for them with Kwon.
“But they were studying us for years, I thought you said. They can fix us because they dissected thousands of humans.”
I nodded. “That’s the worrisome part. The Macro and Nano technologies are related, but how much do the Nanos really know about their bigger cousins? It is a mystery we’ll learn more about today.”
Kwon frowned. “You mean, if they can’t figure it out and we are blasted by enemy cruisers, we will know they are not close family, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“So, this is your plan?” he asked. He gestured toward the brainbox and the skinny arms snaking out of it.
“This was all I had.”
Kwon looked around the room. I followed his eyes. The conquest of the cruiser had been costly. Marines were resting or flat on their backs, trying to keep breathing while their nanites repaired their bodies. A few of them were dead and lying in a twisted configurations.
“That’s great, Colonel,” he said. “I’m glad you didn’t tell us before we assaulted this ship.”
“You’re welcome,” I said brightly. Internally, I was as worried as Kwon-maybe more so. This had always been the sticking point. Sure, I figured with a thousand marines I could take a few ships. But could we fly these alien ships? That was the real question.
A few long minutes passed. The brainbox shivered now and then, sending out a new arm to fiddle with a control point. Sometimes, one of the ones it had in play was sucked back into the box where it disappeared. I had no idea if this meant we were one step closer to flying this monster or if we’d failed yet again.
Major Welter contacted me from where he was still camped out on the cruiser’s hull.
“Colonel Riggs?” he called, sounding excited.
I thumbed him up on a private channel. “Tell me this is good news, Major,” I said.
“I don’t think I can do that, sir. I’ve finally gotten through to our people on the invasion ship.”
I shifted nervously and leaned my ear against the padded earpiece. “Talk to me.”
“They blew out the hold doors about two minutes ago, sir. I was able to get a signal to them then. The bricks are floating out now. They must have released the magnetic clamps.”
“What?” I said. My mind raced. It sounded to me as if they’d lost their battle. They had a lot fewer troops than we had here on the cruiser. I cursed myself. I should have split my forces more evenly. If we’d lost one ship out of two, and couldn’t fly the one we held…
“Yeah, more of them are flowing out now. Our bricks, our equipment, men in suits. Sir-it looks like they are abandoning the ship.”
“Give me a video feed,” I ordered. “Link our visors.”
A moment later a scene swam into view. I stared, my heart pounding. Somewhere in that mess of metal
