“Yes sir,” Miklos said after another brief pause.
I could hear a familiar tone in his voice. He thought I was crazy. But I also heard something else: resignation. All my officers had learned to do crazy things after spending enough time under my command. If you lived long enough on my team, you were sure to be given insane orders at some point.
The first sign I had that the beams were hitting us was the dimming of my visor. I didn’t detect the laser itself, as most of the power was not in the visible spectrum. But it did come down unerringly to burn my tank. It was almost impossible for them to miss as I was providing them with a radio signal to sight on.
The scrabbling noises on the hull intensified.
“Increase power!” I shouted. “Miklos, double down on that burn, same duration and area, but more power.”
My visor blackened out entirely. I wasn’t sure for a moment if the Macros had covered us entirely, blotting out the light, or if the lasers from the destroyer had done it. I reasoned it had to be the destroyer, as I would have been able to see the suit lights of my fellow marines otherwise.
“Colonel Riggs, we are close to the edge of the dome,” Marvin said.
This entire time, he’d been piloting the tank without wavering from his post. That was one good thing about having a robot for a pilot: they didn’t panic on you.
The scrabbling on the roof of the tank subsided. I figured the Macros were melting to slag out there. We were still bumping and heaving as we slowly traveled over their countless bodies, however.
“Miklos!” I shouted. “Can you still hear me?”
There was a quiet second or two. I was worried, as I knew once we entered the dome all communications would be cut out. Another possible disaster included the high probability that our com system had been damaged by the bombardment.
“…Riggs…contact…”
“Miklos, listen to me: I want you to send down everything we have. I need ground, air and space support. Kill these machines and meet me inside the dome. This is our new base. Bring the Centaurs. Bring everyone.”
There was only some buzzing in response. “Marvin, send my last message again and again. Keep sending it until we are inside the dome.”
“Transmission sent.”
“Good. Now send it again.”
I was rewarded with a single, curious camera eye. “Transmission sent,” he said.
I snorted. Even the robot thought I was crazy. But didn’t care. It was beginning to look like we were going to live to a see another day.
— 18
We hit the dome going too fast. It was an easy mistake to make, but Marvin almost killed us. I was gripping the wheel of the upper hatch with only one gauntlet at that moment, having let go with the other hand to tap Kwon’s shoulder. I shouldn’t have bothered, as he couldn’t feel me through the armor even if I slapped him hard.
In any case, when we hit the Macro dome, some law of physics was violated. We were moving too fast, and it was like hitting a concrete wall instead of a soap bubble. Everyone was thrown forward. For the four of us in the upper compartment, with no straps, nano-arms or other restraints, it was a worst case scenario. Marvin was at the bottom of the heap, crushed down on the control bars. I was second, entangled with Sloan who ended up with his helmet shoved under my armpit. Last came Kwon, crashing into the stack like a sledgehammer. He had held on a fraction of a second longer than the rest of us, which only served to put him on top of the sandwich.
My neck and right arm were twisted and my visor was starred again. My suit nanites had barely affected repairs since the lashing of the Blue’s dust storm, and now they had new hairline cracks to deal with. Fortunately, I’d designed the suits for absorbing impact. As bad as this pile-up was, it was nothing compared to a collision in space. We simply weren’t moving fast enough to cause serious damage.
I heard a whuffing sound. Kwon was laughing his ass off. “This is pretty comfy,” he said. “You guys are like a pile of cushions.”
“Get your fat butt off my neck,” Sloan complained.
“We are proceeding into the Macro dome,” Marvin said. “It would be advisable to return to your stations, sirs.”
Grunting and straining, we untangled ourselves. Soon afterward, the exterior sounds of thrashing Macros vanished entirely. Judging by the instant silence that fell over the tank, I knew we had made it back under the protection of the dome.
“We’re inside, Colonel Riggs,” Marvin said.
“Kwon? How many of the enemy do we have on the hull?”
“I’m not sure,” Kwon said, swiveling his turret.
“They might be too close to see, but I’m not-wait a minute,” Sloan said.
He fired, but something went wrong. Instead of an intense light, a gush of heat and fumes from the chemical laser backwashed into the tank. Fortunately, we were in our suits or we would have been in trouble.
“Looks like my vents are clogged,” he said.
“Cease firing. We have to flush out the blockage. Everyone, keep your suits on.” I didn’t think any of them were dumb enough to open their helmets, but I gave the order as a precaution.
“I see one now,” Kwon said. “They are coming through dome, sir.”
I opened a channel to the marines in the troop pod. “Marines, I want you to get out there and clear the hull of this tank. Engage anything coming through the dome. We’ll provided supporting fire from here when you clear our vents.”
Kwon slid away from his turret and cranked open the top hatch.
“Where do you think you’re going, First Sergeant?” I demanded.
“With the men, sir. Could you man my turret?”
I heard the marines moving out below. The back ramp dropped with a crash and heavy boots pounded. There were flashes and snapping sounds almost immediately, as the marines engaged the enemy.
“Hold on a second,” I told Kwon. The tank was nearly finished as a mobile platform, but I wanted it farther from the edge of the dome. “Marvin, take us closer to the factory. Move slowly.”
The big gears ground and clattered. The tank was moving again, but I could tell the treads on the right side were failing. Marvin fought the controls, as the levers were only power-assisted. They gave a lot of feedback, I hadn’t had time to design anything more sophisticated. Macro design was basic and over-built. It reminded me of old-fashion Soviet designs. When in doubt about stresses and tolerances, Macros just carpeted an extra layer of steel over everything.
The big machine made it almost to the factory when I called for it to halt. All this time, Kwon had been manning his turret, but when we finally halted he scrambled for the hatch again. I knew he couldn’t wait to get outside and smoke a few of those machines personally.
“All right,” I said. “Sloan, you man your turret. Marvin, you man Kwon’s. Kwon and I are going outside.”
Everyone looked happy with these assignments, especially Sloan. I could tell by his wide-open eyes he’d been worried I would take him outside with the machines. I almost chuckled-maybe he was the smartest one of the bunch.
We didn’t get far before we were caught up in the firefight outside. Kwon threw open the top hatch, and used his repellers to fly straight upward. He was firing at something on the ground, I could tell that. I climbed out after him and took a leap to the ground. My rifle was in my hand and I had the trigger depressed before Kwon came down again.
“Take cover, First Sergeant!” I ordered. “Stop showboating up there.”
“Sorry sir,” Kwon said, letting himself drift down beside the tipping tank.
After a flashing firefight, my marines managed to drive back the ten or so Macro workers with lasers who’d followed us under the dome. The rest really didn’t have a chance. Without ranged weapons, they snipped at the
