“No,” I said. “We’ll stick with the battle plan for now. We’ll put a hundred or so beams on one cruiser at a time until it goes down.”
There had been something of a spirited argument about that. Some of the commanders thought we should focus everything on that big bastard up front and burn it out of the sky. I didn’t like that idea, as I didn’t know how tough it was. If I spent several minutes of battle time shooting at it, even as they were taking my guns out one at a time, they might be able to retreat and keep the ship alive. Then I would be facing all the cruisers without having destroyed anything. On the other hand, I knew how much firepower it took to destroy one of their cruisers, having done so on several occasions in the past. Focusing on the smaller ships, we were guaranteed to destroy one about every ten seconds if we could get all thousand guns over the island on it at once. That would not be possible, however. If they were smart-and Macro Command was fairly smart-they would hang off one coast in a tight line and pound it, staying out of range of our guns on the other side.
Unfortunately, as they approached, I could see this was exactly their plan.
“They are down to a crawl, sir,” Major Sarin said. “They are going to bombard the east coast of the island.”
“That’s why I had you put on these suits,” I said. The clock read eight seconds. “Hang on. This is liable to be quite a ride.”
— 21
The bombardment began about a minute after Major Sarin’s clock ran out. That was a good thing, because they’d come in closer than I’d figured they would. That meant my laser turrets along the coastline were well within range.
“Targeting priorities, sir?” Lieutenant Colonel Barrera asked.
“Put a hundred on each cruiser, burn it until it goes down. Automatically retarget next available cruiser.”
“Locked in sir. Are we ready to fire?”
I didn’t answer right away. I wanted the Macros to come in as close as possible, allowing more of my turrets to be in effective range. Slowly, they glided near.
I felt small, rumbling impacts.
“The bombard had begun, sir,” Major Sarin said.
“Any missile launches detected?”
“None, sir. So far, their missile ports are staying closed.”
I grinned inside my helmet. “That’s just how we want it,” I said.
“Are we ready to fire, sir?” Barrera said.
“Hold fire. Let them inch in closer. They don’t like to retreat, and I want as many guns in range as possible. Damage reports, Major Sarin?”
“Two turrets knocked out, one damaged. Update: three knocked out, one damaged.”
“Put some kind of damage meter up for me,” I said.
She deftly tapped at her screen, scripting a tiny app. She was the best at this type of thing.
“The ships appear to be down to a walking pace, sir,” Barrera reported over the strategic command channel.
I thought I heard a tinge of worry in his voice. That was a rare thing, and it meant anyone else would be panicking at this point. I’d been holding back in hopes they would roll right over the center of the island allowing more of our guns to reach them. But if they were going to halt, we were taking hits now for nothing.
“How many guns can we get on them now?”
“About three hundred and sixty effectives, sir,” Sarin said. “That number is dropping…”
“Commence firing. Bring them down!”
On the big screen, hundreds of thin green lines lanced out. They intersected on four points. At the center of each of those points, I knew, was an enemy cruiser under withering fire. If they would have just come in closer and lower, I could be certain of a win. But they were hanging back, wisely feeling their way. They would pound us while standing out over the ocean. From that position, they directed their more heavily armored snouts toward us.
Major Sarin had the counter up by now I glanced at it and my cheek twitched. We’d lost twelve turrets already. We hadn’t taken out a single cruiser yet.
“Barrera,” I shouted, “release the reserves. Send half the hovertanks to the east coast of the island. We need more firepower.”
“Relaying that, sir,” Barrera said. He sounded self-assured again, now that we were firing.
The laser turret count dipped down, they’d destroyed sixteen. Then suddenly, almost at the same moment, three of the enemy cruisers fell from the sky, burning. One exploded in a white flash.
A happy sound swept around the table. “Got a few of them, anyway,” Kwon said expelling his breath as if he’d been holding it since the beginning. Maybe he had been.
I watched as the cruisers halted fully. It would be long minutes before the hovertanks could come out of their bunkers and fly to the east coast. I didn’t like committing reserves so early, but I couldn’t help but worry they’d demolish our defenses on one side of the island, then slowly swing around, cleaning off my ring of defenses. It was all a matter of attrition now, whichever side could take out the other faster would win.
The enemy fire was a shower of orange sparks that came down from each ship in continuous, pulsing streams from nearly a hundred cannons. In return, our fire was represented on the screen as green lances that drew thin lines from a spot on Andros up to the attacking ships. The green lines drew fans from many guns to each cruiser’s belly. As soon as a ship went down, the beams cut out and moments later retargeted another ship and fired again. The cruisers came in a fraction closer, and I saw a new set of beams leap up to greet them. These were from the defensive grid around Fort Pierre itself. The laser turret count leapt upward by forty-one guns.
“They are in our range now,” Sandra said happily.
“Yeah,” Kwon said, “but that means they will begin pounding this base in return.”
As if he were a prophet of doom, the impacts began seconds later. I’d been under fire many times, all of us had. But this was the worst bombardment I’d ever experienced. The walls shook and buckled. The computer table flickered as base power was cut out and the system automatically switched to backup fusion generators located in the bunker itself. I hoped our nanite lines which had dug themselves through the soil to sensor systems on the surface wouldn’t be cut. The sensors themselves were unlikely to be knocked out as they were placed a half-mile out in the empty forest that surrounded the base.
The battle raged on, and I was pretty much helpless to do much about it. The enemy had lost twenty-one cruisers, but our count of active turrets had dropped to about one hundred forty. I calculated our odds, and didn’t like them. They were at eight percent, while we were down to fifty. Once they broke the coastal defenses, they could cruise up or down the beach, outgunning us over every mile of beach. I began to sweat and to wish I’d had the foresight to place a massive central fortification in the middle of the island that could not be out maneuvered. If I’d built longer range lasers in the center, it would be much harder to break Andros. Unfortunately, I’d originally fortified the island with human enemies in mind. Those days seemed very distant now-almost absurd.
The walls shook and buckled. Everyone staggered in their suits.
“A direct hit,” I said. “what’s happening topside, Major Sarin?”
“The headquarters building is gone, sir. We’ll have to dig out after this.”
I nodded. I looked around at the walls, which now bulged in spots. The nanites weren’t able to keep back the pressure from the surrounding earth as it pressed in on our bunker. I turned to Kwon.
“Bring your marines down to this level. We’ll all be safer down here.”
He clanked off and began shouting up the stairs. His platoon hurried down to his call and crowded into the command post around us.
“Just stay back, stay quiet and don’t bump the table, marines,” I told them.
They stood around awkwardly, trying to follow my instructions. When we were down to less than one
