been bluffing them. Sure, let the dumb humans crawl near in their fake ship and cozy up with us in formation. Once we were in range of all three gunships, all they had to do was turn and open fire in unison. The plan was the perfect counter to ours-fortunately, it didn’t happen.
“All three of them are in range now,” Gorski said. “Their belly turrets are tracking us, but that isn’t unusual. Macro turrets track whatever is in range.”
“Okay, you are on then, Gorski,” I said.
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Put your turret on the nearest Macro. Act exactly the way they do.”
“Ah, of course,” he said. He seemed happy about it, actually. He’d figured out how to control the turret, but as yet had never used it to do anything important. Now, at least he could manipulate his new toy. He managed to get it to swivel around and aimed it at the Macro cruiser to our right. After awhile, he swung it over to point at the one on the left.
I nodded in appreciation as I watched on our external vid pickups. He was moving it with smooth, professional precision. Not too hurried, but very decisive motions. Just like a Macro.
We caught up with the Macro formation after another few hours. By the time we had reached the orbit of Mars, about forty-five million miles from Earth, we finally slid into our spot. After a few minutes of holding our breath, we finally realized the Macros weren’t going to turn on us-not yet. I couldn’t think of a reason why they would wait any longer than this to make their move. The tension level on the bridge eased. Acting as much like one more Macro as we could, we flew along with them, accelerating as a group toward Earth.
Each ship was nearly a mile long, and we were several miles apart. Space formations were rarely tight, there was no need for the ships to be close. Maintaining tight formations at high velocity only endangered your sister ships. Marvin didn’t report any individual Macros trying to contact us with their personal transmitters, so we kept quiet.
We watched Crow’s response-or the response of whoever was handling ops for Star Force. They massed- up over Andros and then launched into orbit. More ships than we had expected flew to meet us, to my happy surprise.
“Update our count on Star Force Fleet strength,” I said.
“Two more ships have launched from behind Luna,” Major Sarin said. “They must have been hiding in craters. They are small ones, though. Nano-sized, single-pilot ships. Three bigger ships are rising off Andros now. They are the newly-designed destroyers. They must have been hidden from our sensors on the ground.”
“Good old Crow and his tricks,” I said. “We’d only counted seventeen ships before. We’re up to twenty-two now?”
“That’s right sir,” Gorski said, “But the long range sensors indicate the destroyers only have a single weapon mounted on each. It’s a bigger gun than the Nano-class boats, but we can’t count on them as having too much firepower.”
I nodded. Crow’s strategy had been to produce numbers and the appearance of strength first, to scare the Macros. It had worked in the past. But now, when it looked like things were going to go down in a big way, I wished we really had the guns to back up the display of vessels. I did the math quickly. Against just three cruisers, our Star Force Fleet power was pathetic. Normally, it took around forty small ships to bring down a single cruiser, and we were coming at them with four. Crow had to be crapping his pants. But at least he was coming up to fight the good fight. I had to give him that.
“Incoming transmission from Star Force,” Major Sarin said. “It’s in binary. They are trying to talk to the Macros.”
“What’s the gist of it?” I asked.
“Talk about our treaty. Talk of giving them twice as many marines. Crow is pleading, with them, Colonel.”
“Macro Command response?” I asked.
“Nothing. No transmissions.”
I shook my head. I felt bad for Crow. I wished there was some way I could tell him I was flying one of these cruisers, but I couldn’t without tipping my hand to the Macros.
“When are we going to hit them, sir?” Gorski asked.
I looked at him. He had his fire control interface up and was anxious to try it out.
“Hold on,” I told him. “I want to be close enough for Star Force to be able to give us a hand.”
We waited. It took hours. Space is big, even when crossing our own Solar System in an alien cruiser. Eventually, we were close to the orbit of the Moon. We’d all taken breaks and refreshed ourselves. We figured something would go down when we reached Luna’s orbit, as Crow was massing his forces there. Maybe he had a few more ships hidden on the Moon. I hoped that he did.
What happened next did surprise me, but I suppose in retrospect that it shouldn’t have. Long before we got into shooting range, Crow turned his fleet around and headed back toward Andros.
I hissed through my teeth.
“He’s running, sir,” Gorski said.
“It was all a bluff,” I said. “Damn.”
“He was probably hoping the Macros would turn back or buy into his talk of renewed alliances,” Gorski offered.
“I wonder if he even knows why the war has started up again,” Major Sarin said.
I ignored them both and stared at the metal table. A mass of metallic green beads retreated toward Earth. Our red diamond pursued.
Everyone watched me, waiting for orders. I was uncertain. If we hit them now, Crow might turn around and join the fight. But then again, he might stand back and let us do as much damage as possible before coming in to clean up. That sounded more like the Crow I knew. I hadn’t come all this way just to die in Earth orbit.
“Damn that man,” I said.
“He doesn’t know we’re here, sir,” Gorski said. “It looks like a hopeless fight against four cruisers to him.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but I know him. He’s going to go down into the upper atmosphere and hug close to his laser turrets on Andros Island. He’ll stay in low orbit and try to get the Macros to attack him where his strength is.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Gorski said.
I shook my head. “It would be, but there is no way Macro Command is going to fall for it.”
Marvin, who had been quiet for a long time, finally spoke up. “Incoming orders from Macro Command. Target has changed.”
“New target?” I asked.
Marvin began to list off cities. Mostly, they were in southern Europe, but they spanned on toward Moscow and beyond. We were to do a bombing run over Earth, destroying millions. Crow’s fleet would not be allowed to spring their trap. Macro Command clearly had figured it out. Star Force would have to come face us in the open, or Earth would suffer the consequences.
In the meantime, we were Macro ship number four, and had orders to fire on our own civilians. If we didn’t do it, Macro Command would know who we really were, and the fight would be on.
50
We hit them a few minutes after we passed the East Coast of the U. S. The Macros followed Crow’s retreating ships down over Cuba, I supposed in case he changed his mind and came up to fight. The Macros never lowered themselves into the range of Star Force’s ground-based beams, however. Instead, the diamond formation veered northeast and glided toward Europe.
I figured it was now or never. We were accelerating over the Atlantic. A battle over water would minimize any collateral damage on the ground. Every minute I waited left Crow’s Fleet further behind. It was still a hard decision to make. We considered waiting until they were bombing Lisbon and Madrid, the first cities on the hit list. I knew Earth had some missiles to fire back up in our direction, and possibly they’d developed enough tech down
