“We have another situation. Can I display it?”
“Of course.”
I watched in growing alarm as he showed me the bottom of the Centaur satellite. A strange, thin tube was extruding from it. I opened my mouth to ask him what the hell that was-when I realized I already knew the answer.
“They must have enough nanites now. I didn’t realize they’d been stockpiling.”
“Yes, the Eden-11 satellite is ready to be evacuated. The herds have alerted us, and begun the operation at the same time.”
“Not waiting around for our approval, huh?” I asked. “Well I can’t say that I blame them. They’ve been cooped up in that floating tin can for years. I know how they think, and they’ve got to be wild to get out onto their open grasslands again. How long until the shaft touches the planet’s surface?”
“Not long, sir. The nanites are building very fast. The shaft should be complete within a single day.”
I nodded. I expected thousands of Centaurs to begin pouring out of the bottom of that tube as soon as it touched down. They were nothing if not personally brave. Except for their fear of enclosed spaces-which appeared to be a deep-seated instinct from their past-they’d never backed down in the face of anything.
“There is another development, sir,” Miklos said.
“A good one, I hope?”
“Not at all, I’m afraid.”
I gestured impatiently, and he tapped at the screen. Soon I saw what he was talking about. A Macro cruiser now hung in orbit over Eden-8. As I watched, a second moved to join it. I began breathing harder. Suddenly, sweat tickled under my armpits. This was it, the moment we’d been waiting for, but hoped would never come.
“They are launching their fleets,” I said. “Any sign they are moving on the Centaur habitats?”
“Not yet.”
Over the next hour, more and more cruisers nosed up out of the cloud cover and slid into orbit above all five worlds. The Macros were finally showing their hand. Before they were done, thirteen brand new vessels floated in various orbits. Was that everything they had? Probably, I figured. The Macros weren’t famous for their subtlety. But we couldn’t be sure. Why had they chosen this moment to put their strength on display? Probably to scare us, or to scare the Nanos. Either that, or the sight of escaping Centaurs on Eden-11 had so upset them they’d decided to launch and prevent it.
In the end, the ‘why now’ question was irrelevant. They’d put their cards on the table. It was my turn to do the same.
“Captain, order all our pilots to man the gunships. I want them to take landing pods from the destroyers. Every pilot must begin running missions. They’ll carry down Centaur civilians to the surface on a continuous basis from now on.”
“Why now, sir?” he asked. “We’ve worked so long to keep our numbers secret. They will count our ships.”
“I’m sure they will. I’m hoping the count will worry them and make them change their minds about attacking today. I need more time. Also, we’ll have insured that a few Centaurs survive in case things go badly. Lastly, we’ll give our pilots some much needed flight time in their new ships.”
Sighing heavily, Miklos did as I asked without further complaint. I could tell he didn’t entirely approve, but I didn’t care.
Our biggest fear early on was that the Macros would gather into a single force and attack the Centaur satellites, destroying them and billions of biotic allies. But they didn’t-at least not right away. As usual, they didn’t mind ignoring a helpless target. They knew they could always come back and destroy it later. They were very single minded machines, and I was sure they had Nano ships and human ships on those one-track electronic brains of theirs, not helpless Centaurs.
A few days dragged by. The Centaurs made it down to the surface with their shaft of smart metal and began pouring out onto their empty grasslands. It was a true exodus. Combined with my ships, which flew sortie after sortie, the big habitat emptied quickly. Marvin had assured me the Microbes that had been used to sterilize the planet of Centaurs were now harmless, having long since mutated into a benign form of pond scum.
Each of the three fleets in the star system was now left hanging in tight orbits over seven different worlds. It was like some kind of quiet, three-way cold war. We stared at one other, taking careful counts and measurements with countless pinging probes. It was nerve-racking. In a way, I was glad for the stand-off. The new design of my ships was untested in combat, but I thought they would hold their own when the time came. Still, we were clearly in third place in this contest, and we needed the time to catch up. I figured I was building my little gunships much faster than the Macros were building their cruisers, and as far as we could tell the Nano ships were frozen in number. Therefore, we grew in relative strength every day.
Some of my officers dared to hope the aliens would never attack, but I wasn’t fooled. Lulls in wars were not unknown. After Germany and Russia took apart Poland in WWII, the Allies had declared war on them. But Germany didn’t move on France for seven long months. Only a few shots were fired over the border in skirmishes. The newspapers took to calling it “the phony war”. History soon taught them their error. I knew the Macros were coming eventually, and when they did move, it would be with terrifying certainty of purpose.
The Nano ships weren’t filling me with any kind of deep inner confidence, either. The Crustaceans-if they were still operating those ships-weren’t talking. We sent them every form of communication we could think of, with Marvin as our chief translator. They were so quiet, so unresponsive, I began to think Marvin might be sabotaging the communications. I had Miklos go over his transmissions carefully, and he declared them to be genuine.
“I simply don’t understand it,” I said on the eleventh day of the three-way stand-off. “Why aren’t the Nano ships talking to us? They were interested in a dialog before. Now, their pilots remind me of clams, rather than lobsters.”
“Very funny, Colonel,” Miklos said, without the slightest hint of amusement in his voice. “They remind me of Russians. They run from a force they fear, but behave as predators when they sense weakness.”
“Maybe so,” I said. “But I want to try something new.”
Miklos immediately looked alarmed. “I don’t think it is a good idea to provoke them, Colonel.”
“Who said anything about provoking them?”
“I only thought…”
I began to pace in my armor. Each boot rang on Actium’s metal deck. “We’ve got a lot of gunships now. About thirty of them. Combined with the destroyers and our marine assault teams, we will soon be a match for either enemy fleet.”
“But not both. I don’t think we need to start a conflict-”
“I didn’t say I was going to slap them in the face with a glove, Captain,” I snapped. “Really, the Nanos are the ones that are acting illogically. They should have attacked when they first entered the system. They had the advantage then, with enough firepower to take us all out. Every day, we grow stronger while their strength stays the same.”
Miklos looked like he wanted to caution me further, but he kept quiet. His eyes were wide, betraying his nervousness. Why did everyone think I was about to start a fresh fight? I rarely did that. But I did tend to finish them.
“Open a channel to the Nano ships,” I ordered.
Miklos looked comically surprised now. “We don’t have Marvin here. He’s down on the planet, inside the dome.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “He’s probably playing with his mud puddles down there. But we don’t need him this time. I’m going to attempt to contact them as Nano ships-not in the Crustacean language.”
“I see,” Miklos said. Resignedly, he opened the channel. He moved with the air of a condemned man, and I was faintly insulted. I ignored his lack of confidence and addressed the ship in a manner I hadn’t done in a long time.
Back when I’d first worked with the Nano ships, before they’d run off on us and abandoned Earth, I’d learned a nice trick. We generally didn’t use it now, with our newly built Nano ships. But Alamo had allowed me to make contact directly, using nanites in my body to transmit radio signals. I used this system now, having our ship’s