leading the rest of the Nano ships on a merry chase. She didn’t outrun them entirely. In fact, I’d programmed her to gently slow down throughout the journey. I wanted the Nano ships to calculate they were gaining on their quarry. Otherwise, they might lose interest and head back to their station over Eden-12.
But they didn’t. They flew on directly toward the inner planets. I grinned ear to ear as I saw my plan unfold as I’d wished. There was only one problem now-they were following Socorro toward Eden-11, the Centaur homeworld. They’d marked my Earth fleet down as an enemy, since we were in control of the ship that had attacked.
I silently rode with the rest of them through space. After a few hours, a message came in from Rear Admiral Sarin.
“Colonel Riggs,” she said with an excited ring to her voice. “There seems to be a large number of Nano ships behind you, heading toward my position. Can we assume these ships are friendly? Did you negotiate an alliance with the Blues?”
I grimaced. She had a big disappointment coming. I sighed and decided to answer her. She needed to know the truth. As my transmission would take an hour or two to flash across the void between worlds, so I made a full speech of it, explaining what had happened and what I had done. After I was finished, I played it back, made a few edits, then sent it.
I’d dozed off in my seat a few hours later when Alamo told me the response had come back in from the fine-looking admiral. I winced as I told the ship, “Play it.”
“Riggs!” she shouted at me. “What the hell? You started another bloody war? I can’t believe you. I’m not going to be a part of this. Earth is pulling out. I’m flying for the ring. Rear Admiral Sarin out.”
This message grabbed my full attention. I was still more than a day from Eden-11. If she wanted, she could get her cruiser out of the way. I cursed and opened a channel. I needed every ship I had in on this one.
“Negative, Rear Admiral, I repeat, Negative. First of all, we are both ‘Earth’ forces. We are Star Force. As we discussed and you agreed, you are under my command while in this system, as long as I’m still alive. Crow isn’t here, and you will take your orders from me.”
I paused, but didn’t send the message yet. I tried to think. “Jasmine,” I said, softening my tone. “This is important. The Nano ships are chasing Socorro, who is running toward Eden-11. But that is not her final destination. She will veer off, and head toward a new target. You are hereby ordered to wait until Socorro makes her course shift, then leave orbit. You will take every Star Force ship we have with you. Load them all with marines for deployment as assault forces. I would suggest you don’t accelerate too hard, as you don’t want to outrun the Nanos.”
Hoping against hope it would work, I sent the message. Then I waited. Just over an hour later the reply came back in.
“A new target? You have to be talking about the Macro stronghold, Eden-9. You are crazier than I thought. Miklos and I have been working out your strategy. We’ve been wargaming it through on the boards. I think now it is very clear what you are planning, and I must object. How can we hope to win this conflict? If both the Nano ships and the Macro ships are firing on us, how can we win a three-way battle? We are the weakest force in this system.”
I smiled now, believing I had her. At the very least she was curious. I was encouraged that she hadn’t mentioned running out on me once in the entire transmission.
“Rear Admiral,” I said slowly, forcing myself to relax and speak in a confident voice. “I’m glad you’ve figured out my plan. You asked how we can win a three-way battle in this system-the answer to me is clear: by being the last one to the party. We will join the action after the battle has begun, and we will destroy whoever is left standing. Jasmine, we’ve fought together for years in space and planet-side. Let me win this my own way, the only way it can be won. Thanks in advance for your support. You have your orders. Riggs out.”
I waited, trying not to sweat as the message traveled through emptiness to her ship, and she had time to digest it. No response came in for a long time. I began to worry. Many unpleasant scenarios went through my head. Was she trying to talk Welter and Miklos into joining her? Were they arguing-arresting one another? I was out of the loop, and it was agonizing.
I thought of a dozen things to transmit as another hour slipped by without a response. I recorded them, but when I listened to each statement afterward, I could only see that each one made me sound weak. I’d made my argument and given my orders. Prattling on and repeating myself would only remind people I wasn’t there to enforce my words. Command at a long distance was an art form. I wasn’t a master by any means, but I did know you didn’t want to sound needy.
In the end, the answer didn’t come in the form of a transmission. Instead, I witnessed things unfold directly. When Socorro made her banking course change and headed for Eden-9, the Star Force ships left orbit over Eden-11 and set out for the target world. All of them were moving, and all of them were flying with me into the teeth of the Macro fleet.
But even as I began to congratulate myself, a transmission came in from Sarin: “Colonel Riggs. You are not close enough to the forces to run this operation in real time. I request operational command.”
I thought about it for a minute or so, scowling. She had a strong point. If the tactical situation changed dramatically, I could hardly call the shots from several million miles away. Finally, I transmitted my response. “All right, Jasmine. You’ve always wanted a command role in a pitched battle. Well, now you’ve got it. Show me what you can do. Good luck.”
— 36
At first, the trick I’d played on the Nanos worked perfectly. It was hardly surprising. I’d pulled off similar deceptions in the past. These ships tended to be highly predictable. They had certain imperatives built into their software, and one of them was to attack threats immediately. This strategy worked well enough when the ships were in a single group, but when they were far apart and a threat was recognized, they would charge the enemy and arrive at different times. They were much easier to defeat that way, as it is always easier to fight three groups of ten ships at a time, rather than all thirty at once. We’d gotten around such problems back in the early days of Star Force by ordering the ships to attack distant targets, rather than the nearest ones. They accepted the order, as we were still attacking something. By switching targets, we were able to delay engaging with our ships until we were ready to mass up all our ships on a single target.
Their simplistic approach to tactics was a known weakness in the Nano ships. To fix the problem, the Blues had programmed them to pick up local command personnel to give them better ideas. That was how the whole business of kidnapping and testing people had started.
Right now, only one of the Nano ships had a commander-mine. For an experienced robot-baiter such as myself, it was a relatively easy matter to trick the ships into chasing Socorro. But I wasn’t sure how it would all turn out in the end. I wasn’t in direct command of this fleet, and I was forced to fly with them. When the moment of truth came, I hoped they would fight the Macros when they closed to within range. I wasn’t certain they would engage, however. One complication involved my own Star Force ships. We had to head toward the Macros now, and hit them soon after the Nano ships did in order to be most effective. If we waded into the battle too soon, the Nano ships might well start shooting at us instead of our joint enemy, the Macros. If we waited too long, the battle might be over before we arrived.
I sipped water in my ship and tried to relax while the final hours slid past. I wasn’t sure if I would live to see another day, but at least I was going to have a front row seat for all the action. A message came in over the command channel from Star Force when I was about an hour from the Macro line. Up until this point, the enemy had not moved their cruisers. They sat parked in orbit over Eden-9. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t stay there much longer.
“Colonel Riggs?” Miklos asked over a private channel. Our two fleets were close enough to talk with only a few seconds delay between transmissions.
“Miklos? What’s up over there? I see your ships moving toward the enemy. Tell me everything is all right.”
“Maybe sir, maybe. I’m calling about the local command structure. Rear Admiral Sarin has informed all the
