mine from the monsters you’ve unleashed. I’ll even provide transport back to Eden-12 for Introspection, if he wants it. All I ask in return is that you release the Nano ships and send them against the Macros. Combined with our fleet, we can overwhelm the enemy and drive them from this system-maybe from every system. What do you say?”
“No.”
“No to what part? Can we come to some kind of agreement? Maybe if I offered-”
“No to all of it.”
I became angry then. I think maybe it had been growing on me throughout the conversation. I think having a headache from the toxic fumes that passed for an atmosphere on this world didn’t help.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” I demanded. “You can’t refuse to help us. You caused this whole thing. We are only asking you to help clean up a mess you made for the rest of us!”
“Your logic is not compelling. You may fail in your struggles against the machines, with or without our help. Let us assert that you do fail. If we help you, we will be targeted by the machines afterward. On the other hand, if we sit back and let you struggle alone, you might win by yourselves, or you might lose. In either case, both sides will be weakened, placing us in the superior position. Is this explanation simple enough for you to comprehend?”
I made a growling sound and slammed my gloved fists together. “Oh yeah,” I said. “I know the words of a coward when I hear them.”
“Good then! We have come to an understanding. Do you wish to discuss something else? I’m interested in your mating habits, and your extremely short lifespans. You must be fast-breeding creatures to withstand the churning turnover of life and death.”
“Maybe another time, Curiosity, but not today. Looks like we are going to have to win this war for you. It’s a good thing for all biotics that Earthlings are not cowardly clouds that hide from their own problems like mice.”
“Mice? I do not comprehend that reference.”
“I don’t have time to make it simple enough for you, gas-bag,” I said, turning on my repellers and heading toward my ship. “I’ve got a war to fight.”
I crawled into my capsule and ordered Alamo to fly upward. I was disgusted. These Blues had unleashed untold horrors on the rest of us, and they felt very little remorse because of it. All my fascination with them had been unwarranted. True, they were very different physiologically. But they were disinterested, aloof, arrogant cowards. I no longer found anything about them to be particularly admirable.
It took long hours to rise up through their thick atmosphere into the space again. The friction of my passage heated the interior of my ship, and soon my suit’s air conditioners were blasting at top output, but still not keeping up. I didn’t ease off the power. I pressed onward, sweating in my suit and cursing the first gas-bag Blue that had ever gotten the bright idea to start exploring space.
Alamo eventually popped out of the cloud cover and glided toward its fellows. The three hundred odd Nano ships still stood on guard duty over the immense greenish world below them. I narrowed my eyes as I reviewed them.
Next, I checked incoming messages from Eden-11. I’d not been able to receive anything while inside the gas giant’s turbulent atmosphere.
The news was not good. The Macros were massing, and most of the ships had taken up a position in orbit over Eden-9. A few more groups were due from the farthest worlds that happened to be orbiting on the other side of the star. When they all got together, it was assumed they would set out for Eden-11, the Centaur homeworld.
I’d come up with a plan by this time, but not even I liked it. After a few minutes of mulling it over, I decided to put it to the test. Maybe it would work, and maybe it wouldn’t. Either way, the fireworks were about to begin. A major battle for the Eden system would be fought.
I signaled my intent to my staff, and set my plan in motion.
— 35
Throughout the first phase of my plan, I sat idly in my ship, watching. Alamo took its place among its peers, floating like the rest of them in orbit over the gas giant. This battle wasn’t going to be my usual fare-at least not until the shooting started.
My first move was to contact Socorro. All this time, the faithful little ship had been sitting a few miles from the line of Nano ships, waiting for me to return. I wasn’t going back aboard her, however. I felt a little bad as I transmitted my instructions to her. I wondered if she understood what was going to happen. I wondered if she cared. If she did, she didn’t give me any indication of it.
“Command accepted,” was the only response.
Immediately, Socorro moved away at speed. She accelerated away from the line of Nano ships. As the ship departed, I watched the Nano ships around me. None of them took action, other than to track the ship with their laser turrets. No one fired, as Socorro had not violated their triggering rules. I admired the discipline of the Nano ships, it was their strength-but it was also a weakness to be completely predictable.
I watched the forward wall of my ship. The ship had unfolded itself by now to its normal, low-pressure configuration. On the wall, every ship in the Nano fleet was represented by a yellowish metallic bead. Socorro was a greenish bead, and it was moving fast. When I’d originally built her, I’d designed the ship with more engine power than was the norm for these vessels. She was a scout, and she excelled at her appointed task. As she was currently configured, she had three engines and only one laser turret, where most Nano ships of this general design had two turrets and two major engines. Socorro was a runner, not a fighter. I smiled as I watched her fly. Her design was perfect for today’s mission.
When she was several hundred thousand miles away, she began to arc upward, out of the plane of the ecliptic. This was part of her instructions. She was no longer flying away from Eden-11, but instead staying at a consistent orbital distance from the planet. Flying in a great arc, she zoomed up and around the world to the opposite side.
I watched the Nano ships around me carefully as Socorro executed this maneuver. This was a critical stage. I hadn’t been sure if they would try to escort the ship, or to move to intercede themselves between Socorro and the planet. Apparently, they recognized that the Macros and the main body of the Earth fleet was the bigger threat. They stayed in orbit on the sunward side of the planet, facing any incoming attack from that angle.
The next part of the plan was tricky. Socorro rolled over and increased her speed dramatically. She dove toward the upper atmosphere of the gas giant.
I watched the other ships around me tensely. I only had a few seconds to wait. The entire force began to shift and swirl like a flock of birds, uncertain which direction it should go. Then, coming to a unanimous decision, the fleet flew up toward the northern pole. They were obviously going to try to intercept.
It was far too late, and they were far too slow. Socorro was accelerating at a shocking rate. All Nano ships were fast and maneuverable, but I was proud to see my design was superior to the original in this instance. She dove to the atmosphere, scudded along the surface of it, then began firing.
Her single gun blazed, stabbing down into the atmosphere. I knew she couldn’t do any harm. The soupy gases would stop any beam from traveling more than a few miles into the interior. The Blues seemed to inhabit a zone thousands of miles deeper. But it didn’t matter. The Nano ships had seen the action, and were sure to register it as an attack.
This was the part that left me sweating and uncertain. Up until this point, Alamo hadn’t even mentioned the ongoing hostilities to me. The ship was flying with the rest of them, zooming for the far side of the gas giant to defend the planet. Alamo would never get there in time, of course, but futility had never stopped a Nano ship from trying.
I chuckled and sent my final transmission to Socorro. It was risky, as the Nano ships might be smart enough to realize they had a traitor amongst their command personnel. But I didn’t think they would. Their AI only went so far.
Socorro broke off the attack, and slid out of the atmosphere. She glided around the planet’s southern pole,
