What’s that Macro cruiser up to? How long until we hit the next ring?”
Major Sarin glanced at Gorski, who cleared his throat. “You sure you want to hear that now, Colonel?”
I looked at both of them. “I’m not going to lie quietly down somewhere while you two run the show. It’s not happening.”
Gorski sighed. “Okay. We are having trouble steering, sir. We are on course for the ring again, but it will take another day to get there, as we went off course during the battle.”
I nodded and sipped hot coffee. I burnt my tongue and curled my lips at the foul taste.
“As for the enemy cruiser-we’re not sure what it is up to. I thought it would have fired all its missiles by now and taken us out. But it hasn’t. We were out of drones, it was at close range, and it didn’t fire. I understood why when the Macro boarding action was in progress. That made sense. But now they are just waiting, shadowing us.”
I thought about it. “Plenty of reasons are possible.” I said. “They could be out of missiles.”
Gorski shook his head. “Seems unlikely. The other ships fired eight each. Why would this cruiser have none?”
“Maybe they are studying us,” I suggested, “relaying back intel on our behavior before they take us out.”
“Maybe. But the Macros are rarely subtle.”
I had to agree with that. They were the sledgehammers of the galaxy. I snapped my fingers, and was irritated to find that even such a simple gesture caused me a sharp pang. Every inch of my body hurt, itched, or both. “Last time they delayed, they were setting up for these invasion missiles. Maybe they are setting up four more of them.”
Everyone in earshot looked alarmed at this idea. If I was right, we had no way of stopping them. The nose of the ship was a wide-open hole. They would be able to march right in like ants.
“I don’t know,” Gorski said. “It just doesn’t sound like their style. If they had eight missiles full of Macros, I think they would have fired them all at us.”
I agreed. “Whatever they are up to, it won’t be good for us,” I said. “They are waiting for a reason. Somehow it benefits them.”
The rest agreed, but there was little we could do about it. I headed over to where my brainbox pilot worked the cruiser controls with seven arms. Only three were in evidence now, as the ship wasn’t performing any complex maneuvers. Major Welter stood there, watching the machine operate. He had a computer tablet in his hands and tapped at it, making observations and taking notes.
“Welter?” I asked. “Glad to see you survived the battle.”
“Not as glad as I am, sssir,” he said, his speech badly slurred.
Major Welter turned toward me and I blinked, my smile freezing on my face. The left side of his face was a slag of hanging flesh. The eye was loose and weeping. The jaw was hinged, but not completely covered by his ripped-loose cheek. It flapped over his teeth as he spoke. Nanites glinted a silver-golden color in there. They were hard at work rebuilding his face, but I suspected he would carry a scar with him forever.
I turned back to the control system and the brainbox operating it. “I see you are studying the interface.”
Welter nodded with his ghoulishly damaged face. It didn’t seem to be troubling him at the moment, so I decided not to bring it up. Injuries were viewed differently now that we could take horrible wounds and survive. They were less remarked upon by all.
“I’ve been ssstudying this sssystem. I really think I can do it, Colonel.”
“Do what?”
“Fly it. Pilot this cruiser.”
I stared at him. “You’ve only got two hands, man.”
“Yes. But if you watch, the brainbox doesn’t move all those hands at once very often. I would need a copilot for difficult maneuvers. But I can do it.”
I thought about it. I knew the enemy cruisers had better piloting than we did. Their ships had consistently outperformed ours. The brainbox had learned the basics, but wasn’t a gifted pilot. The problem with most computers is they were generalists.
“I could use a real pilot,” I said. “Why don’t you give it a try? But if we get into action, hand the controls back over to the bot.”
“Excellent, Colonel Riggs!” Welter said.
I could tell he was truly happy. A few minutes later, as I left the bridge, I felt the deck slide laterally under my feet. It caught itself, leveled out, then slid again. I paused, wondering if I should go back and countermand my instructions. I looked back from the hatch toward the control system. The rest of the bridge staff stared at Welter as well. He had both hands up on the control board. He waved forward an assistant and indicated colored geometric shapes on the screen that needed touching.
Soon, the ship flew smoothly again. I smiled and walked out. I tried to appear confident, but with each step I felt the urge to throw my hands out to catch myself. I resisted the urge and marched resolutely down the corridor. My foot hurt, but I ignored that too. Marines who passed me in the corridor gave me congratulations I returned, along with smiles and confident nods. I knew it was good for morale for them to see their commander strong and in charge again.
By the time I’d reached a sleeping brick and stretched out on a cot, I had one eye closed and was already dreaming of huge, savage machines.
33
My nap didn’t last long. I was back to limping down the corridors of the cruiser before two hours had past. I took a shower, and felt a lot better. It was odd, looking down at my oozing foot while I showered-or rather the missing chunk of it. I thought I would have to have special boots made, as I couldn’t go hobbling into battle.
Everywhere aboard Jolly Rodger people hustled and worked hard. We weren’t out of this yet. We all knew we might survive…and we might not. When my marines caught me looking at them, they nodded, or just tossed me wide-eyed glances. Then they went back to work. They were focused, diligent and scared. No one knew what the Macros would do next. We were still on the defensive, and it’s hard to win any fight without making a move of your own. I couldn’t see any easy way to reverse things on the Macros, however. We hadn’t had time to regroup and rebuild. We’d been under a constant battering since we’d landed on Helios and were terribly under-strength. The only asset I’d gained in all that time was the cruiser, and that seemed to be little more than a fat target for our implacable enemy.
I tilted my head as another thought struck me. We had one other new asset: Marvin. I hadn’t had time to make much use of him, but he had warned us about the Macro assault ships. I decided to seek him out and see if he knew what their next move would be.
I went to the Macro laboratory with the big bag of biotic soup. In all the excitement, I’d almost forgotten about the billions of tiny beings imprisoned there. I didn’t even know if the Macros had wrecked the tank and killed them all. I figured Marvin might just be in that chamber. I’d seen him hanging around the place.
I found him standing very close to the gurgling tanks. When I stepped into the entrance and saw him, I froze in surprise. Marvin had changed. He wasn’t a cube with four short legs and a tail any longer. What had he done with his legs?
“Marvin?” I asked warily. “What are you up to?”
He still had a camera for an eye, but he stood erect now on two heavy, grasshopper-like legs of thick metal. They had clearly been salvaged from dead Macro systems. He’d salvaged them and affixed them to the sides of his brainbox using the short nanite legs I’d given him as connectives. He had one nanite limb left over, and this he now employed a small forearm to poke at the bag of tiny biotic creatures in their prison.
Marvin’s camera eye swiveled to glance at me then returned to the transparent polymer window that allowed observation of the churning biotic soup in the tanks. I noted he moved his camera with more precision than he had previously. He was getting comfortable with his new body.
