the officer’s briefing on alien cultures?”
“Yes, of course, sir,” Miklos said, leaning back into his own chair. “But it isn’t every day you meet a new alien species.”
“Well, get used to it,” I told him.
We pursued, watching the two groups of aliens fight it out ahead of us. We were all heading toward the next ring, which linked the Alpha Centauri system to Aldebaran system, the home system of the Worms. Frequently, the Worms made passes at the Macros, harassing and skirmishing with the larger ships. I grinned broadly. Having allies made the universe a brighter place.
It took time for our sensors to figure out everything we were looking at in a new system after crossing through a ring. The distances were immense, and some of the ships presented little or no radar signature. They were only visible when they fired weapons and could thus be counted optically by our sensors and the brainboxes connected to them. After an hour, we had hard numbers. The Worms had started with two hundred and seven ships when we’d entered the system. The Macros had started out with forty-one cruisers. At this point, the Macros were down to thirty-four ships, while the Worms had a hundred and seventy-nine ships left.
Calculating the loss ratios, I realized the Worms were only barely on the winning side thus far. The Macro cannons were taking their toll each time the Worms drove in close to hit them in a sweeping pass. On two occasions as we watched, the Macros fired two barrages of eight missiles. In each case, a few Worm ships were caught and destroyed by the missiles. The Macros were clearly holding back their firepower, and the enemy cruisers only fired their last weapons when they were too badly damaged to keep up with the rest of the pack.
The tactics of the Worms were effective and impressive. They would make a strafing pass, firing at a particular cruiser at the rear of the formation. Targeting the engines, they sought to damage and slow the vessel. When a doomed cruiser lagged behind the protective cover of its fellow it fired its last salvo at its tormentors. Immediately afterward, the cruiser would be set upon by the Worm ships. Like a cloud of swarming piranha, the Worm ships tore the straggler apart.
The Worm weapons were unlike anything I’d ever seen. They appeared to be particle-beam systems. Gushes of hard radiation flared lavender as we watched from afar. The guns seemed effective, but the beams moved at less than the speed of light and didn’t have anywhere near the range that our lasers had. Still, after witnessing their power, I was impressed. If a Worm ship got in close to one of our laser vessels, I had no doubt their ship would win the duel. That was the trick, though-they had to get in close. We calculated their effective range at about twenty percent of the distance our own weapons could reach.
“Just like back home on their homeworld,” I remarked to Captain Miklos. “The Worms like short-ranged, hard-hitting weapons. If we showed them a sawed-off shotgun, I bet they’d heartily approve of the design.”
Captain Miklos nodded, staring intently at the screens. “The Worms are taking serious losses. Are they always this-vicious?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” I said. “But remember, they have good reasons. This fleet is heading away from Earth, but its flying toward their system. They are fighting to defend Helios, not just to help us out.”
“Ah, right. This is fascinating, sir. Do you ever wonder how many civilizations there are out there? How many races like the Worms or abominations like the Macros might exist?”
“All the time, Captain. All the time.”
“Sirs,” the gunner interrupted. “There’s a new unknown contact out there.”
“Why didn’t you pick it up until now?” I snapped.
“The ship has been hanging low, below the plane of the ecliptic,” the gunner explained. “It hasn’t been firing or using visible thrusters. It’s been shadowing all the other ships. I only just picked it up now.”
“Great, a fourth player at this party,” I grumbled. I didn’t like this news at all. We had this battle in hand. In time, the enemy would be taken apart ship by ship. Once we were able to join in the battle, we’d speed up the process. The enemy would either have to turn and make a last stand like a wounded bear brought down by a pack of wolves, or they would be torn apart bit by bit. Any new elements to the equation were not welcome.
It was several minutes before the brainbox interpreting the data gave us input on the ship’s configuration.
“Uh, it looks like one of ours, sir,” the gunner told me in surprise. “Either that, or it’s an odd Nano-ship design.”
I leaned forward. “Put a close-up on my screens.”
The gunner deftly tapped at his boards and my screen lit up with an odd wireframe image in yellow. Green was for known friendlies, red for enemy, blue for structures and yellow for unknowns. Barbarossa’s brainbox didn’t know how to classify this vessel any more than I did. I looked at the lines of it, puzzled. It had curves in the center, in a pattern similar to our own vessels. But it had a large number of oddments hanging off it-almost like they’d been tacked on. Metal struts, parabolic dishes, chunks of metal that appeared to have no obvious purpose.
“What’s all that crap hanging on it?” Captain Miklos asked. “Is it a junkyard hauler?”
I smiled suddenly.
“Sort of,” I said. “He probably picked up a load of broken pieces from the debris we just flew through. He wouldn’t be able to help himself. Chunks blasted off Worm ships-those would be especially enticing.”
“What?” Miklos asked, looking at me as if I were mad.
“It’s Marvin,” I explained. “It has to be.”
— 44
“That crazy robot couldn’t resist a pile of alien junk if it meant his own doom,” I explained to the bemused captain. “He caught the curiosity gene somehow when he was born. He’s got it bad. Maybe it was passed down by the Nanos who formed his original nanite brain.”
“ Born, sir? He’s a machine, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe born is the wrong word. His creation was an accident, to be sure. But couldn’t that be said of most of us?”
Captain Miklos gave me a strange, sidelong glance. I ignored him and smiled at the yellow wireframe sketch of Marvin. In a strange way, I was glad to see he’d survived this long. Here he was, cruising around the Alpha Centauri system picking up more junk. He was part genius and part homeless guy with a shopping cart.
“Let’s contact him and see what he has to say for himself,” I said. “Barbarossa, open a channel to the unknown ship. Its designation is Marvin. You can use standard English when communicating. Transmit my voice without interpretation.”
“Channel request sent…request accepted…” the ship said. After a few more moments, it spoke again. “Channel open.”
“Marvin, you mechanical weasel,” I said. “This is your daddy, Kyle Riggs.”
“Hello, Colonel Riggs,” Marvin said politely. “Are you here to destroy my being?”
“Uh-no Marvin,” I said. “We’re here to destroy the Macros you’re shadowing.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Colonel.”
“Why do you think we’re here to shoot you? Have you been a bad robot?”
“By no means. But I’d calculated a small probability that Star Force was displeased by some of my actions in the recent past.”
“I am annoyed with you for helping take out our mines at Venus,” I said. “But let’s talk seriously, Marvin. You realize the Macros will never do anything other than try to destroy you upon detection from now on, right?”
“Yes-unless some other arrangement was made to their satisfaction.”
I frowned at that. Once again, I thought to myself I had to figure out a way to clip his wings.
“What do you know about the Worm fleet?” I asked. “Did the Worms set up an ambush here at the ring and wait for the Macros to come through?”
“Yes.”
“And how did you talk them out of blasting you?”
“I told them about the approaching Macro fleet.”
