Miklos, Marvin and Kwon, I want all of you in on this. We’ll meet in the troop pod on Barbarossa in thirty minutes.”
Commodore Decker was the last to arrive at the meeting. He paused at the entrance, staring at the assembled group. Captain Miklos was missing large sections of hair and his exposed scalp was covered in purplish-red weals. He’d been pretty badly banged-up in the recent fleet battles with the Macros. It was only due to the miracle-working nanites in his system he was able to sit at the conference table I’d shaped from the floor of the ship for the occasion. Kwon sat across from Miklos, a hulking noncom that looked out of place at any formal meeting. He barely fit into his battle suit, even though it was the largest size we made. Last, and certainly not least, was the freak Marvin had become.
Marvin had given himself another makeover in recent days. To the uninitiated-which definitely included the gaping Commodore-he was horrifying to gaze upon. Formed of a mass of nanite-streams and struts with random pieces of equipment poking out here and there, he was vaguely humanoid in shape. The most disconcerting thing about him had to be the whipping arms. There were seven of them, all of varied lengths. He used these snake-like independent tentacles to drag himself around, slithering like an octopus out of water. In order to keep his mass upright, several of these tentacles tended to grasp the backs of other people’s chairs for support. A dozen camera eyes poked out of his body-mass from his knee-joints and the tips of extra tentacles. Every camera simultaneously moved and tracked something different, adding to the distraction.
“What the hell is that?” Decker asked.
“That’s Marvin,” I said, as if the robot were the most natural thing in the world to encounter. “Don’t be rude, Commodore. I’m considering him for a commission in Star Force.”
“You want to make that contraption into an officer?”
“Excuse me, Commodore,” Marvin interrupted. “Is my appearance somehow disturbing?”
“Positively nightmarish.”
“I apologize. I’d thought by taking on a body mass that approximates human configurations, I would be more acceptable.”
I nodded. “Ignore the Commodore’s bigotry, Marvin. It’s only natural. Once people get to know you, they will be less frightened.”
The Commodore snorted at this. He straightened his spine and took one of the chairs. The entrance vanished behind him, turning into a smooth nanite wall again. I suppressed a smile. Off-handedly referring to him as a cowardly bigot had gotten him to move his butt to the table where I wanted it. In truth, I had sympathy for Decker’s reaction-Marvin was a metal terror. But I didn’t like Decker, and I needed to get him past worrying about Marvin.
“May I make a suggestion, Marvin,” Kwon said, leaning toward the robot.
Several cameras swung toward Kwon, who sat at Marvin’s side. “Of course.”
Of all the people who’d met Marvin, only Kwon seemed undaunted by his current configuration. He hadn’t even made a remark up until this point regarding the robot’s appearance.
“You do look vaguely human in shape, but with extra-things here and there,” Kwon said. “Humans often find large people intimidating. I’m a big man, so I know all about that. Perhaps you could reduce your physical size if you want to put people more at ease.”
I nodded, thinking it was good advice. I listened to Marvin’s response with interest.
“I will consider your suggestion at my next point of reconfiguration. The process of choosing my non-ship form is not yet complete. I must weigh many considerations when redesigning myself. This form has excellent sensory input, but it has poor locomotion capabilities under the influence of gravity. I’d originally designed it for a zero-G environment.”
“The thing designs itself? ” asked Commodore Decker.
“Absolutely,” I said. “He rebuilds his body when it suits him, much as a man might select a new outfit for dinner.”’
Decker’s eyes flicked back to me. “You brought a sumo sergeant and a renegade robot to this meeting? Is this some kind of attempt to intimidate me, Colonel?”
He had figured it out faster than I’d expected. I waved my hand at the group and denied everything. “These are my confidants. The veterans of Star Force. I’m sorry if they don’t meet with your approval.”
Decker heaved a sigh and put his elbows on the table. “Okay, I’m over worrying about your crew, Riggs. Let’s get down to business.”
We all looked at him.
“I’m assuming you received the recall message from headquarters,” Decker said. “In fact, I know you did, and I know exactly what it said.”
My face tightened. I reminded myself to ask Marvin if he’d finished the new secure command messaging system. This business of publicly emailing orders from star system to star system wasn’t going to be acceptable any longer. I’d put up with it so far because the system was only a few weeks old. But now we needed to be able to keep messages private. Especially orders I didn’t like.
My first thought was to yell at the Commodore, delivering a new, perfectly clear message regarding what I thought of his reading everything that came in from Fleet. But I held back, telling myself the situation was better out in the open. He’d come forward and put his cards on the table. I could appreciate that.
“Commodore, you’ll be glad to hear that I’ve decided to comply with the orders.”
Decker looked honestly surprised. I found this amusing. Did I really have that bad of a rep? I supposed that I did.
“Well, I-that’s excellent, Colonel. When do we fly?”
“Immediately,” I said.
Decker demeanor changed from surprised to enthusiastic. I could tell he relished the idea of getting back home to Earth. I couldn’t say I blamed him for that.
“I recommend a column formation,” he gushed. “That way, we will limit our exposure to mines. There are a lot of them out there, most of them undocumented. We can put the destroyers in the vanguard, as they possess our best point-defense weaponry. If-”
I interrupted him with a gauntleted hand, which I raised into the air. “The destroyers won’t be going home, Commodore. At least, not most of them.”
His mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. “What?” he demanded when he managed to absorb my statement.
“Just as I said. Most of the destroyers will be staying. I’m posting one at each ring. Each vessel will contain a full complement of marines in their troop pods. They will provide security and serve to relay messages back to Earth. Then there is this destroyer, Barbarossa — I’ll keep it as a command ship. My own personal ship, Socorro, will be staying as well. Most of the rest of them will be remaining behind as my core task force. I need the ships to mop up the system and defend against any future attempt to reconquer it.”
“You can’t do that! Our orders are clear, Colonel.”
“Indeed they are,” I said. “Let’s review the orders, shall we?”
I read Crow’s words out loud, emphasizing the line: “ Please return as soon as you secure the Eden system. ” Followed by: “ Feel free to leave a few ships behind, including one at each ring for purposes of communication and surveillance. ”
“He didn’t mean you could keep the destroyers!” Decker sputtered. “This will not stand, sir. Mark my words, this will not stand!”
“You can mark them all you want from the deck of your command ship-which will be an empty frigate on the way home, I’m afraid. Dismissed.”
Decker stormed out, leaving me with the rest of them.
“You seem to have upset the Commodore,” Marvin said.
“The Colonel does that all the time,” Kwon said, laughing in his unique, hitching way.
“Kwon, have you secured the ship’s armories?” I asked.
“Yes sir, already done.”
“Marvin, have you rerouted the ship’s messaging system yet?”
“Yes Colonel,” Marvin said. “All communications will go through me now-literally. I’ve automated the system and the processor load should be quite low. I’ve set up a series of key phrases and conditions to flag questionable
