boss.
Major Barrera appeared at the entrance and knocked at the doors, which I’d left standing open all morning.
“Come on in, Major,” I said.
He walked briskly inside and stood at attention in front of my massive desk. I saw his eyes wander, however. He took stock of my new office, looking around in concern. The hole in the ceiling was now letting in a drizzle of tropical rain, rather than plaster dust.
“At ease,” I said. “Talk to me.”
“Colonel, we have a situation,” Barrera said. His voice was quiet, his tones as flat as always. He was the perfect straight man.
“I know, but it’s only rain,” I assured him, attempting a joke. I leaned back in Crow’s big leather chair and pointed up at the hole Sandra had cut into the ceiling. “Haven’t had a second to get it fixed yet. I hated the orange carpet, anyway.”
“No, sir, I’m not talking about the carpet or the rain. We’ve received reports of unexplained shutdowns.”
“Do you think Crow is up to something?”
“No, sir,” Barrera said. His voice remained flat and unexcited.
“Well then, can it wait until the general staff meeting at noon?”
“No, sir.”
I frowned. “What’s shutting down?”
“The mines sir, the ones we set near the Venus ring.”
I stood up and leaned on the desk. I tapped at it, but the computer didn’t respond to my touches. I muttered curses. “Have Macro ships come through the ring? What have our probes detected?”
“No ships. Nothing yet, sir. The mines are just deactivating, apparently on their own.”
“I don’t know how to work this desk yet,” I complained, still working my fingers on the giant computer. I managed to get a login box, but that was it. “Can you bring up the situation on this screen?”
“I don’t know how to operate it, either.”
I tapped at it angrily. The interface worked differently than the ones I’d used before, and Crow had put a password on everything. I wiped away a gray muddy coating of plaster dust and rainwater. It looked like paste and smeared the screen.
“Get some of those surviving clerks in here. Put them to work cleaning this thing and getting it operating. Call Major Sarin. Call everyone, we’re having the meeting right now.”
“Including Admiral Crow?”
I only hesitated a second. “Yeah. Get him in here too.”
Barrera hurried out the doors, leaving them open. He had his com-link plugged into his ear and tapped out codes to contact my key staff. I knew he’d round them up and get them in here faster than I could.
I took what I suspected might be a final moment of calm to stand up and walk around my new office. I stepped to the big windows and stared outside. Crow had specially built these windows. They were more than a dozen feet high, cut at a slant at the top to meet the roof. They were made of inch-thick ballistic glass. He’d had them custom-made to order in Luxemburg and imported. I didn’t even want to know what they’d cost Star Force. The windows went from his ugly carpet up to the rafters. They were absurd in a way, but they afforded a fantastic view.
Outside, the forest was verdant and every palm frond whipped in the brisk winds. A mild rainstorm was passing through, freshening up the air. Pacing, I crossed the office to the sea side and watched the surf pound the sands with whitecaps. Sandra and I had hoped to have a date out on the beach soon, but now it looked like that wasn’t going to happen.
I stared at the base and the darkening sea. Many of the buildings were made of smart-metal now, alloys generated by constructive nanites. They had the look of brushed stainless steel, with a yellowy hint of bronze in the mix. After a year in space, I’d only just begun to enjoy the feeling of being home on Earth again. It had been less than two weeks. That was all the time the enemy had seen fit to give me.
I lifted my gaze up to the clouds. Silver rain fell in sheets from the heavens. I realized how beautiful real rain was. Unlike the worlds I’d visited over the last year, there was something magical about an earthly rainstorm. I still marveled every time I witnessed one.
I couldn’t see the stars, but I knew they were up there beyond the rainclouds, cold white lights hanging in space. Those stars were timeless and immortal when compared to pathetic biotics like me, creatures who scrabbled and fought over these cast-off stellar pebbles which we called planets.
In my heart of hearts, I was sure the Macros were gathering out there in space. They had returned.
— 3
Twenty minutes after I’d sent Barrera out to round people up, I had a small tense group in my office. Major Sarin, Sandra, Kwon and Barrera himself were all there. The only important player that was still missing was Crow. He was probably at the officer’s club, scheming over a pint.
The big desk was clean now, but not yet functional. I tasked Major Sarin with resetting the software and removing all the passwords.
“I want this thing in public, multi-user mode,” I said. “We need to have an operational center and this is going to be it.”
“Give me a few minutes, sir,” Sarin said. She bent over the table, working with both hands intently. She had a virtual keyboard out on the screen and tapped at it. Occasionally, a speaker I couldn’t see beeped or bonked.
“Kwon, give me the device,” I said, extending my hand.
Everyone looked up at that, eyes widening in alarm. Kwon’s right arm swung up. In his gloved fist he held one spike of a strange, star-shaped object. It looked like an old-fashioned caltrops, a set of spikes welded together that presented a sharp point aiming upward no matter how you threw it down. They’d used them to stop cavalry charges in the old days. But the spikes on this caltrop were over a foot long and at the center was a brainbox, attached to a micro-nuclear explosive charge.
Every eye in the place tracked the mine as Kwon handed it over to me. Even Major Sarin stopped tapping at the computer. I lifted the weapon and shook it experimentally.
“You know, if you threw one of these things at a man,” I said, “the spikes might well kill him. It wouldn’t even have to explode.”
Major Sarin opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“What is it, Major?”
“That thing isn’t armed, is it?”
“Sure it is. But it’s not activated. You have to press this button right here.” I demonstrated, letting my thumb hover over a blue oval stud on one of the spikes.
I smiled as they all watched nervously. I wasn’t sure if I should feel insulted or not. “Stop worrying,” I told them. “If it goes off, you won’t feel a thing.”
“Are we starting the meeting yet, sir?” Major Barrera asked. “I should close the doors.”
I shook my head. “I’m waiting for Crow. Go get him.”
Major Barrera turned around, but before he reached the door, I called him back. “On second thought, I need you here. Kwon, take a team of marines in gear and collect the Admiral, will you. Tell him we have an emergency. The Macros are back.”
That last line got everyone to look at me rather than the mine in my fist.
“That’s right,” I said, “and that leads us to this bizarre object. This is the only thing we’ve got defending our borders right now.”
“Colonel,” Major Sarin said. “I think I’ve got the screen working now. At least, we can display Star Force data coming from the probes and ships.”
