Battle Station

— 38

I disarmed the rest of the bridge crew without any heroics on their part. It was a good thing for them, as I wasn’t in the best mood. My battle suit was dead, but they were only wearing light Nano suits. Their hand beamers couldn’t even hurt me unless they went for a headshot-and none of them had even dared to draw on me. Sometimes, having a bad rep worked in a man’s favor.

I had the newly demoted Captain Sarin order Sandra’s release and summoned her to the bridge immediately. Once Sandra showed up, I handed her my gun and got down to the business of running the battle.

When Sandra had figured out that Jasmine and I had had a disagreement over who was in charge and I’d asserted my authority, she seemed pleased. Anything that drove Jasmine and I apart was a good thing in Sandra’s book.

This bridge was set up in an entirely new arrangement. In the center of the large circular chamber was a globe of glass. I didn’t get it at first-but after I took a look, I realized it was a tank full of what had to be a fine, floating mist of nanites. They had an ability I hadn’t thought of before-the power to light up. By forming clusters, they could illuminate themselves in different colors. These pinpricks of light displayed the relative position of all the ships in the local region of space. Both our vessels and those of the enemy formations were represented.

“This thing is pretty cool,” I said, tapping at the sphere.

“I’m glad you approve,” Sarin said coldly.

The sphere was about eight feet in diameter and all of us sat around it, looking at it. There were no actual windows on the bridge. The walls were solid, opaque metal. But we didn’t really need windows. Everyone had a screen in front of their chair and sat encircling the sphere, which showed the big picture. On the touch screens at every station, I was quickly able to bring up images of any ship in the fleet, or any other sensory or logistical data I needed.

“This can’t be Crow’s work,” I said. “Who came up with this design?”

“I did,” Sarin said. She still wasn’t looking at me.

“Wow, this is really excellent. No wonder he promoted you. I can see the true purpose of this vessel now. It’s a flagship, isn’t it? A central command vessel. I’ve always wanted a ship like this.”

Jasmine still didn’t look pleased. I supposed it would take more than a few compliments to patch things up between us. At least neither of us had punched the other. I hoped the disagreement could be worked out in the future. She hadn’t done anything worse than some of the tricks Crow had pulled in the past. I figured that in time, we might be able to work together again. I also decided some of this command-and-control structure needed to be hammered out and agreed to by all parties. We weren’t just a bunch of pirates anymore. A military that didn’t clearly know who was in charge at all times was a weakling force. I would have to write a document and get everyone to sign onto it. But all that would have to wait until we survived our current predicament.

I worked on the display system, and soon found two critical control touch-points on the screen in front of me. I tapped them both in sequence as soon as I found them. The first brought up an external view of the ship, and the second one projected what was on my screen inside the central sphere for everyone to see.

Sandra was the first to notice the alien forms on the hull and she gasped. “What the hell are those things?”

“Some new kind of enemy, I’m guessing,” I said.

Captain Sarin stared in disbelief. “These things are crawling on the outer hull? How many?”

“Check all the cameras. Do a count.”

For the first time, the bridge crew around me moved with urgency rather than surly discontent. There was nothing like a new deadly threat to get everyone back into line.

“I’ve found seventeen on Goa,” Jasmine said after a few minutes. “So far, there is no indication they’ve breached the ship’s hull. What are we going to do about them?”

“First, alert the rest of the fleet. Every ship should check its external hull for crawlers.”

Jasmine did as I asked, working her carefully designed screens like the expert she was. My next order wasn’t obeyed so quickly, however.

“Now, order the fleet to accelerate,” I said. “We’ll stay in formation, but I want every bit of speed we can get out of the group as a whole.”

She stared at me. “Why?”

“Two reasons,” I said. “First of all, the G-forces might dislodge some of these things we have on the hull. Secondly, we need to get into the battle as soon as possible.”

Up until that point, Captain Sarin had been braking, slowing the fleet’s approach to the conflict. This was a reversal of her plan to come in third and clean up. She looked angry and confused.

“Shouldn’t we at least take these things off our hull first? Maybe we could close formation and shoot them off one another with laser fire.”

“Not a bad idea, but we don’t have time. We need to get to the fight before the Nanos are all destroyed.”

“Getting them all destroyed was part of my plan,” she said. She took a deep breath, and I knew she was going to try to reason with me.

“Look, Kyle, if we wade in too early, we might be forced to fire on Nano ships. Those ships are owned by the Blues. They might take it as an act of war, meaning we’ve gotten into an expanded conflict. But if the enemy are all destroyed by the Macros, they can’t complain.”

I listened, but didn’t look at her. “Relay the order, then I’ll explain,” I said.

Sarin only hesitated a second, but that was all it took. Sandra stepped up behind her. Her stance was predatory, threatening. I could tell she want to do something bad to Jasmine. She’d been wanting that for a long time.

Jasmine glanced at her. “What are you going to do if I won’t obey? Kill me?”

“No,” Sandra said. “A single smashing blow to the head worked fine last time.”

The two women glared at each other. I tapped at my display, and showed everyone what I’d been working on. It really was a pleasure to work with Jasmine’s system. The woman had quite a mind for building battle system interfaces. I supposed she should, as she had more experience operating tactical displays than anyone else in Star Force.

Inside the sphere between us, three groups of lights gleamed. The Macros had the smallest number of ships. Displayed in red, each of their cruisers was represented by a wedge-shaped object. The Nano ships were yellow, and they were specks of light in comparison. Most of our ships were small and light green, except for the spoon-shaped light cruiser we flew in. I zoomed in on the Nano fleet. They’d moved close enough to be in laser range of the cruisers now, and were firing randomly at whatever ship they could reach.

“Have we got a counter for these guys going?”

Jasmine brought it up, and it displayed 167 in yellow numerals. We all stared.

“They had over three hundred ships,” one of the commanders said.

“Not anymore. We’ll be lucky if there are any left at all by the time we get into range. Check the cruiser numbers now.”

The red readout told the tale. There were still twenty-nine active cruiser. The Nanos were getting slaughtered.

“I don’t understand why they are so ineffective,” Jasmine said. “We’ve wargamed this out for days. They should not die like flies out there-”

“The trouble is,” I said, “Nano ships are not good at tactics. I’d hoped they would do better, but they aren’t up to it. They are explorers, and were never designed as a military force. Like a mob, they don’t fight well. The Macros have learned how to do it better, they are the soldiers. The Nanos need our help.”

“What about the things crawling over our hull? Are you just going to ignore them?”

“You have a few squads of marines aboard, don’t you?” I asked.

Jasmine nodded. Both she and Sandra were looking at me now, with big, worried eyes.

“You leave those crawling things to me,” I said.

“You’ll be exposed,” Sandra complained immediately. “We’re sailing into a battle, and the G-forces alone might tear you off the ship and send you into the exhaust.”

I shrugged. “If we lose our grip on the hull, my marines know how to use their repellers. We can escape. We might even be able to catch up.”

Captain Sarin nodded at last.

Sandra didn’t like the plan, but she nodded too. “I’ll go with you,” she said.

“No Sandra, I need you to keep an eye on things in here.”

Jasmine looked at me with an odd expression that took a moment to decipher. Was she feeling guilty, thoughtful, or insulted? I suspected it was a little of all three.

“You don’t have to leave us under guard, sir,” she said. “I apologize for trying to keep you off this bridge. It’s clear your strategic thinking was ahead of my own. I should not have-disagreed with your orders.”

I smiled. “I accept your apology, Captain. Let’s forget about it for now. I take some responsibility for the, uh, confusion. Crow and I really have to hammer out a command structure for campaigns on distant fronts. In part, you were a victim of our lack of organization. We’re still experiencing growing pains as a military outfit. I imagine many militaries of the past have gone through just such disagreements. In fact, I recall reading about a number of similar conflicts concerning who was in charge of whom back in the colonial era-”

“Sir?” a Commander asked. “I think the things on the hull are making their move. Whatever they are.”

I gestured urgently at him, and he transferred his screen to the sphere between us all. We all frowned at the image that coalesced inside. The things on the ship had clustered now at the rear of the ship. They were near the base of one of the three big engines. I saw a flaring light emission.

“Whatever they are, they are apparently no longer content with riding on the outer hull. They are burning their way in.”

“Maybe they don’t like our acceleration. They are barely moving around out there.”

I nodded. “Does anyone have a spare helmet? I’m going to need it.”

A midshipman led me toward the aft of the ship. Along the way, we passed the crumpled form of the Ensign I’d bashed on my way to the bridge.

“What happened to him?” the Midshipman asked. “Are those things inside now?”

“Nah,” I said. “I was in a bad mood when I first came aboard. He’ll sleep it off.”

The Midshipman gave me a wide-eyed stare, which I ignored. He led me to the troop pods and left me there. He vanished back down the passage quickly, glancing over his shoulder as if I might run him down and kill him.

I took a deep breath and touched the hatchway that led into the troop pods. It dissolved, revealing a number of surprised-looking marines. They were playing cards, and they all froze for a second when they saw me. The moment of shock passed and they all jumped to their feet.

I walked inside and began shouting orders. Within four minutes, I had a squad ready to head out the hatches. I wished Kwon was with me, but he was still aboard Miklos’ ship. They’d all been warned about the things that might be lurking on their hulls. I suspected Kwon was knocking heads and leading a team outside to investigate by now, just as I was.

I’d taken just long enough to change out my generator unit and snap on a fresh helmet. I was glad they had spare equipment. Goa was so big there was plenty of storage space for such extras.

I pulled down a fresh helmet, heard the click and hiss of it locking into place, and smiled. The smell was different-very plastic and clean. In a way, I kind of liked it. After a moment the HUD activated and flashed all green bars. I was good to go.

“Okay men, I’ll take point. Follow me out onto the hull then spread out. Keep your magnetics on full when you walk out there, as we will be experiencing several Gs of acceleration.”

I climbed out the sally portal and was instantly struck by a wall of force. On my hands and knees, I dragged myself over the hull, heading aft toward the engines. It was like having a stiff tailwind that was so strong it almost knocked me over.

“On second thought,” I transmitted to my men, “don’t even try to stand up. Just stay low, and crawl like they do.”

I paused as I saw an unexpected result of my transmission. The things that had clustered around the base of the engine strut reacted to my words. They spread out, shuffling like crabs. There couldn’t be any doubt about it, they’d heard me.

About then, the engine they’d been messing with stuttered. Its output had been interrupted. The blue exhaust plume flashed on and off three times-then went out entirely.

The ship lurched under my hands. Since the engine had quit the other two were now out of balance. They were pushing the ship off-course.

“They’ve damaged engine number three,” a Staff Sergeant told me. “What should we do, sir?”

I glanced around me, about half the squad had come out to join me.

“Blast them,” I said.

The flashes began, and the enemy reacted in a predictable fashion: they fired back.

It had been a long time since I’d been in a firefight on the hull of moving ship. It was even less fun than I’d remembered. My guts were in a knot. There was no real cover out here, and we were at close range. Only the lurching of the ship was providing any distraction, screwing up everyone’s aim.

Overall, the crawlers seemed better at aiming under these conditions than we did. Within the first thirty seconds, two marines went twirling off into space. One was struggling with his repellers to return to the ship. The other was spinning and limp.

“Concentrate your fire!” I shouted. “Noncoms mark your targets. I want three beams on every crawler until it dies.”

We fried two of them, but then lost another marine. This one stayed clamped onto the hull. His magnetics still worked, but the rest of him flopped and waved with the G-forces like a flag in the wind.

“Call up squad two. Use the starboard sally port. We need more firepower!”

More men crawled around me. A bolt struck me in the shoulder. There was a gouge in my nice new helmet, too. I thought they must have hit an air tube, as the interior of my battle suit had a hot, melted plastic smell to it.

With better tactics and a wider spread of men, we began to drive them back. Our greatest advantage was our superior numbers. More marines kept coming out onto the hull, while the enemy’s number was finite.

Finally, they must have realized they weren’t going to win this one. As a group, they sprang up into space. I watched as they floated away quickly behind the ship. We all fired after them, but they were gone in a second and we hit nothing.

Crawling forward, we inspected the damaged engine and I ordered the men to repair what they could. If they could get the third engine running again, we’d be in a much better state to enter the next stage of the battle.

I was fortunate enough to discover something else other than twisted, blackened metal at the base of the engine mount. I found one of the enemy, with its crab-like feet caught in the hole they’d been burning into.

It was then that I finally realized what we were up against.