trusted, such as Major Robinson. Unfortunately, they were all dead now.
Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with more names I could absolutely count on. It was depressing. I could only think of two people I could trust with my life under any circumstances. I shook my head slightly and went back to the grim task of sorting out the list of suspects.
After Crow and Kerr, who else could it be? Barrera? Unlikely, but not impossible. He was second in command of the marines and would doubtlessly be chosen as my successor should I be taken out. He’d always supported me with unwavering efficiency, but his naturally cool exterior made him easy to suspect.
The next name my mind conjured up was Major Sarin. I knew she had developed an emotional attachment to me over the last year, which I had foolishly encouraged. I still thought of her as Jasmine in my mind, but didn’t dare speak her first name out loud. Jasmine had been hurt emotionally-as well as physically-when Sandra had awakened from her coma and attacked her. Still, if jealousy was her motivation, wouldn’t Jasmine be more likely to try to take out Sandra than me, if it came to that? Regardless, she just wasn’t the type to try assassination anyway.
Who else was there? As I asked the question, the faces of a dozen other officers swam into my mind. They’d all lost friends, limbs or loved ones. Maybe one of them figured that removing me from command would improve our world’s odds of survival. Perhaps they were right. Moving on to humanity at large, I realized there were the thousands-no, millions of people who’d lost a loved one and might hold a grudge against me. They all had good cause to want me dead.
I heaved a sigh, which caused Sandra to flick her gaze toward me. Finding me healthy, her eyes slid away again to prowl our environment. I opened the door to the new conference room and stepped inside. Sandra followed close behind me, as always. She rarely left my side these days, taking her job as my bodyguard more seriously than ever before. I felt like some kind of nervous dictator. Would I soon be recruiting a look-alike version of Kyle Riggs to sleep in my bed? Would I be shuffling beds from night to night, never sleeping in the same place? I didn’t want that kind of life, I had to get to the bottom of this. But I didn’t really have time to investigate the latest assassination attempt properly. I had a war to run and a coming invasion to repel.
“Colonel,” Barrera said the moment I walked in. “I’m glad you’re here. We have a situation.”
All thoughts of assassins evaporated. I kicked myself mentally for having dwelled on the subject for so long. Again, I’d let my enemies get the best of me by distracting me and making me mistrust my own people. In a way, it made me angrier than the injuries I’d sustained.
“What are they doing?” I asked. “Have they hit land yet?”
Barrera stared at me for a second then frowned. “Sir? No, sir, I mean we have a situation in space.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. I looked down at the newest big screen. This was a nice unit. I’d had it built with thicker glass this time on top of a solid base of nanite alloys. There were shock-absorbers under the base. This system was ready to ride out a heavy bombardment.
To my surprise, the images on the screen depicted the solar system rather than Andros Island. My heart sank as I scanned the screen. It must be a reinforcing fleet. I looked for distant red contacts, but didn’t see any.
“Are they coming in with fresh Macros ships?” I asked.
“No, look at the outer rim. Look at the Tyche ring, sir.”
Major Sarin helpfully rotated and zoomed the map so I could see the Oort cloud region in question up close. We had sensors out there now among the frozen comets and silent, orbital debris. There had once been a theory in astronomical circles that the Oort cloud harbored a hypothetical planet of significant mass. Unseen for decades despite our searching for it, we only knew that there was a strange gravity well out there that affected the behavior of the chunks of dirty ice we call comets. In the end, when we explored the region in recent years we discovered Tyche didn’t exist. Instead, we found one of the enigmatic rings left behind by unknown ancients who were so technologically advanced they could build a system of instantaneous transport between star systems. The ring was closer in than Tyche had been thought to be, but still seemed to be affecting the orbital behavior of various Oort cloud objects. Although the planet had turned out to be mythical, we’d come to use the name Tyche for the Solar System’s outlying ring.
I examined the big screen closely, as Barrera had suggested. I saw something and tapped at it with my finger. A yellowish contact. It had to be a ship, and it was speeding directly toward the Tyche ring.
“That’s Marvin, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. He came through the Venus ring after the Macro fleet was out of the way and has been quietly flying toward the far side of the Solar System on a wide, curved path. He’s avoiding both the Macros and Earth.”
I nodded. Marvin never liked combat. He was an explorer, not a fighter. But he managed to get himself into plenty of trouble despite his peaceful nature.
Then I noticed a set of small red contacts following Marvin. “The Macros fired on him?” I asked. “Those are missiles following him, right?”
“Yes, they did that while you were incapacitated. The missiles seem low on fuel. They are no longer gaining on him, and they are falling further behind. If I had to guess, I’d say they only have enough power left to make course adjustments and keep following him.”
“So he’s taking them out to the Tyche ring. The mines may well destroy them when he gets there. Do you think he’s going to actually fly through the ring?”
“We were hoping you could tell us that, sir. He’s not responding to our questions. He says things like: ‘all neural chains are currently engaged’ when we hail him.”
I snorted. Marvin fed lines like that to people he didn’t want to bother with. “If we try to talk to him, what’s the delay at this distance?”
“Several hours, sir. He’s pretty far out.”
“Hmm… He’s pretty close to the ring, too. If we transmit to him now, will he have time to get the message and respond before he enters the ring?”
Major Sarin brought up a spreadsheet on the screen in front of her and tapped at it with light, expert touches. She looked cute like that, and I couldn’t help but think of her as Jasmine in my head. I stared at her, waiting for an answer. Jasmine leaned forward and her ponytail fell off her shoulder to hang around her neck attractively.
After about twenty seconds of staring, I became aware of Sandra, who was watching me closely. I didn’t look at her. Instead, I opened up another screen and reviewed our force listings. Sandra’s scrutiny lifted. I wanted to smile, but I didn’t dare.
“He’ll have time for one reply,” Major Sarin said at last. “Given his acceleration rate and current velocity, before we can send him a second message, he’ll be through the ring.”
“Unless I can get him to change course now, before he goes zipping through the Tyche ring?”
Major Sarin nodded. “Right, sir.”
“Open a channel. Let’s see what that crazy robot has to say for himself.”
I took a moment to consider my words. Although he was an AI entity, Marvin could be evasive and touchy. He was likely to take anything I said in the way he preferred to take it. I considered him to be even more self- centered than most humans. I could threaten him, but that might just be taken as a license to do whatever he wished. It was best to keep him tied to us as best I could.
As I composed my words in my head, I found myself wishing I’d never given him a spaceship body. That had been a mistake. If I caught hold of him again, I’d strip his wings for good. Maybe he sensed that, and thus kept far out of my reach.
I knew most of my command staff had long since convicted him of treason, but the jury was still out on Marvin as far as I was concerned. He had proven himself to be a loyal friend on many occasions, but almost as often he’d given us a royal problem to solve. In the case of the Macros, he’d nearly dismantled our minefield, but at the same time had caused them to come through early and lose many ships which they might not have lost otherwise. The Macros were obviously out to destroy him now, and would never trust him again. I considered that a very positive development. Of all the trouble he could get into in the future, making friends with the enemy was no longer on the list.
I saw everyone else looking at me, frowning. Even Major Sarin looked like she smelled a big nanite-brained rat. I sympathized, and wondered if I’d been too forgiving with Marvin. Was I projecting a sense of friendship on
