— 8
I spent a full day dreaming up solutions to the Centaur transportation problem. My staff brought me their own ideas, which I listened to politely. For the most part, they were terrible.
“Drug all the Centaurs and land them in a base camp a hundred miles from their objective,” Sloan suggested.
I nodded and said something like “uh-huh”. That’s just what I wanted, a million or so semi-conscious mountain goats to care for. What would happen when a Macro missile barrage landed in their midst unexpectedly? Were my marines supposed to run away carrying a drugged goat tucked under each arm?
Miklos came up with a Fleet-centered idea: “Just bombard the domes from space with nuclear weapons, Colonel.”
I had to admit, that idea had more merit than the first. But we would have to manufacture thousands of missiles, and the enemy was well-defended against any space-borne assault. That’s why I had equipped these troops. I had planned to drop dirtside fast and deploy a beachhead, then press in against a dome before they could mass and stop us.
“It’s occurred to me, but I don’t think we have enough firepower. Even if we did, I don’t think I would want to unload it all on the Centaur planets. We are supposed to be freeing these worlds, not destroying them.”
Marvin had the most interesting idea of all. He suggested we go in with a small force, secretly operating as commandos. If we could get Marvin himself under one of those domes, he felt he could reprogram the machine to operate under our control.
I rejected everyone’s plan, but thanked them for their valuable input. I then headed back to my own ship to think. After about twenty hours of mulling it over, I became tired and frustrated. I did what I usually did under such circumstances: I drank a six-pack of beer. This move improved my mood dramatically.
Soon, I found myself in Socorro’s observatory. I hummed and admired the view. I spilled a few golden droplets on the ballistic glass surface. The chamber had always been icy cold, and the beer froze into hard amber beads on the glass.
I studied the planet below, so near yet so inaccessible. The chilly ice-cap on every crag was so white, and so bright it almost hurt to look at it. I tapped at the glass with my foot, and it clacked back at me. I frowned. What if…?
Bursting with a new idea, I rushed out of the observatory and called in my staff. It took them long minutes to assemble. They yawned and squinted at me, as it was the middle of a sleeping shift for most of them.
“How much ballistic glass do we have in the system?” I demanded. “I want a full accounting. I want to know about all of it.”
“I don’t know, sir,” Miklos admitted. “Not much. We don’t generally put windows into our ships, except to cover cameras. Most of it is probably in use as visors for our helmets. What do we need it for?”
“We’ll have to manufacture it, then,” I said, beginning to pace. “That will slow down our infantry kit production, but we don’t have any choice. I mean, what good are Centaur infantry kits if the troops all end up insane when we drop them, anyway?”
My staff exchanged confused glances. I waved my hands at them.
“Don’t you see? They want to see big vistas. They want skies and horizons. They don’t want to be blind in a box. They don’t want goggles or hoods over their heads.”
“Yes sir…” Miklos said, looking at me as I were as nuts as a Centaur.
“Well, we’ll give them that view, just for a few minutes, as we drop them down to the surface.”
“I understand your intent,” Marvin said. “It is ingenious-and if it works, it will prove how bizarre biotic mentalities truly are.”
I almost gave him an angry retort about machines that rebuilt themselves every day like fashion models, but decided there wasn’t time.
“We’ve got to try it first, of course,” I said. “We’ll rig up a new version of the landing pod with transparent material and drop a new group tonight.”
My staff looked concerned, except for Marvin, who looked excited. I could tell from the way he whipped his tentacles and cameras around he was curious about the experiment. Would it end as another horrible, bloody failure? Either way, it was new data for his hungry robot mind.
“Do you mean to give them a window, sir?” Miklos asked.
“Not just a window, man. I mean to give them a glass floor. Like my observatory. Something to look at, something to swallow up their eyes and keep them focused on distant horizons. How can anyone feel claustrophobic while standing on what looks like open space?”
“Sounds more frightening than being surrounded by solid walls,” Kwon said doubtfully.
I pointed a finger at him. “For you, maybe. But you’re not a crazy mountain goat. They don’t like walls. Anyway, it’s worth a try.”
Miklos and the others exchanged glances. “But we’ll have to ask another team to-to possibly sacrifice themselves.”
“That doesn’t matter to them. These people will do anything for the herd. I know them. They won’t hesitate to volunteer. In fact, I bet we get about a million volunteers.”
“But that’s not the point, Colonel-”
I turned on him. Maybe it was the beer that was still in my system, but I wasn’t in any mood for misplaced sentimentality. “Listen, Miklos. I know you want to do this the clean way, bombing our way through it. But that will take a lot of nukes, a lot of floating radiation clouds for decades to come and a lot of time and resources we don’t have. At any moment, a fresh Macro fleet could come sailing through a ring and slaughter these people by the billions. We’re going to risk their lives again, and we’re going to do it within the next few hours.”
Miklos looked down, and nodded. He looked back up again a moment later. “We only need a squad of them-just to see if it works.”
I almost let him have this one, but then I shook my head. “A full pod. I need real combat conditions. I want a hundred of them in there, in close quarters. If it doesn’t work, we have to know now, not when we’re in the middle of a live operation.”
Resignedly, my staff at last agreed. We broke up the meeting and went our separate ways. Within an hour, I was back aboard the landing ship, and we were sailing down to the planet. This time, I had us drop on the northern pole. It was closer to the enemy installations, and I knew they’d fire on us again, but that wasn’t the point. All I wanted to know is whether or not the Centaurs could handle it. The moment we touched down, we’d turn around and head back up into space-whether the Centaurs went nuts or not.
At the last minute, Sloan tried to give the Centaurs inactive weapons. I chewed him out and belayed his order.
“This will be a live-fire exercise, marine,” I said.
Grim-faced, we rode down from space with a fresh load of Centaur troops. I didn’t know if they knew what had happened to the last batch. I wasn’t even sure it would matter if they did know. These people were so self- sacrificing when it came to combat, they would suffer any indignity or danger to regain their homeworld-anything except dishonor, that is.
The descent was even worse this time. There was a storm system spiraling over the northern polar region. No one had bothered to tell me. I supposed they knew I’d just tell them to fly the mission anyway, that this was a test under adverse conditions. Maybe they even thought I’d wanted it that way. Rather than abort the operation, I pressed ahead.
We didn’t get hit by one buffeting wind shear-we were struck by at least four. The ship heeled and swerved sickeningly. Even with our dampeners, we were left floating around the ship. I felt like I was jumping up and down inside an express elevator-while the building was going down.
We watched the monitors, and the Centaurs were indeed showing signs of stress. They staggered in place and kicked at one another with their hind legs.
“Maybe we should tell them to put on their hoods and goggles now,” Kwon suggested. “We are almost down. If they go nuts, they are going to make an awful mess crammed in there like that.”
“I appreciate your input, First Sergeant,” I said.
He glanced at me and nodded. Everyone knew what that meant, when it wasn’t followed up by any
