Conquest

-14-

We reached low orbit within minutes. We slid around the world near the equator once, then flung ourselves up and away sunward. About then, Crow had finally figured out I wasn’t coming back from dinner.

“Riggs? Where are you taking my brand new destroyer?”

I grunted, unhappy to hear Crow’s voice reverberate from the dull metal walls of the bridge. The volume seemed deeper and the chamber echoed somewhat. The size of the ship made everything feel a little different aboard the destroyer. I’d had a vague hope I would get away from Earth without having to explain myself to anyone other than Sandra. Those hopes had been firmly trashed.

“Greetings Admiral Crow,” I said. “I’m taking the ship out for a shake-down cruise. You know I plan to put my marines on these vessels. I need to plan a release hatch and a launch and retrieval mechanism.”

“Smooth bullshit,” Crow marveled. “But it still smells. You are the only marine aboard, and there is no reason to fly right into the teeth of the approaching Macro fleet. Now, tell me what the bloody hell you are doing up there in my ship?”

I sighed. Crow was many things, but he wasn’t dumb. I looked around at Captain Miklos and his crew. They appeared uncomfortable. I’m sure their loyalties were divided. If Admiral Crow ordered them to return to base, what would they do? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t feel right putting them on the spot, either. I decided to try to explain myself to Crow, at least partly—if only for the sake of the crew. But I was going to do what I had to.

I was still wearing my battle suit. I picked up my helmet, the one missing piece. Every one of the crew members watched me closely. The gunner looked baffled. The helmsman’s face was blank. But Captain Miklos knew what the move signified. He eyed me worriedly. We exchanged glances, and he read the truth in my eyes. I didn’t try to hide it. If Crow ordered us back, I was going to use the battle suit to take over Barbarossa. The crewmen had hand-beamers, but they were useless against heavy armor. They could only draw a few smoking scars on the outer plates. I didn’t want to do something so monumentally unfair, but in war unpleasantness was often necessary.

“Jack,” I said, taking in a deep breath, “you know I’ve had many dealings with the Macros. More than any other human we know of.”

“Right,” he said cautiously.

“Well, I’ve got some ideas. Things I want to try out. I want to talk to them, and see if I can redirect their rage.”

Crow gave one of his dirty laughs. “No chance there, mate. If anything, you’ll prod their backsides until they’re even more pissed off.”

“How can we be any worse off than we are right now?”

“Well, you have a point there. But I don’t want you losing our best ground officer in space, as well as a perfectly good destroyer. Barbarossa is one of the best vessels in the fleet. And you didn’t bother to even ask if you could take her up.”

I knew that his last point was the element that irritated him the most. He hated it when I usurped his authority over any part of Fleet ops. I didn’t blame him, but this had to be done. I decided to back down and throw him a bone. I was a firm believer in asking for forgiveness rather than permission.

“I apologize for that, Jack,” I said. “I should have talked it over with you first.”

“Oh right, I buy that, mate,” Crow said sarcastically. “Well then…I suppose you can try out your plan, whatever the hell it is. I know you won’t tell me the details, so I’m not even going to ask. But I do want to know if you plan to return Barbarossa.”

“I absolutely do,” I said.

“What about your own person?”

I hesitated. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“Crazy bastard. I knew when you took off like a robber’s dog you were a danger to yourself and the rest of us.”

“The Macros are coming to stomp humanity into dust. The fleet outnumbers us four to one. I might as well try to talk to them.”

“I know that. Everyone knows that. But why can’t you just wait it out until they get closer to Earth? Why fly out there into their faces?”

“Have they fired any missiles yet, Admiral?” I asked.

“No, they haven’t—” Crow broke off and fell silent for a second. “Oh. I get it.”

“That’s right. Once they launch a few thousand nukes at us, the time for negotiation will be long past. I need to talk to them before they decide to do that, sir.”

“Bloody hell. Right…well, right. Just get on with it, then. Crow out.”

I relaxed in my crash seat and put my helmet back down on the floor. Captain Miklos gave me a tiny nod of thanks. A chain-of-command crisis had been averted. The captain’s face was white, but relieved. Around me, I saw the crewmen go back to their duties calmly. I think only the Captain understood that disaster had just been averted. He had kept command of his ship by a thread.

“How far out are we going, Colonel?” he asked me.

“Far enough to allow them to pick out our signal. Let’s not fly directly toward them. I want to shift our course thirty degrees below the ecliptic for the next hour. At that point, our position should be clearly distinguishable from Earth’s in the background.”

Miklos blinked at me, trying to figure out my plan. At last, he nodded. “You want them to be certain it is you in this ship talking to them, not a signal relayed from Earth.”

“Exactly.”

“You want them to be certain of your location—in the Barbarossa?”

“Yes.”

He thought about that. He didn’t seem to like his conclusions. “Are you going to exit the ship, sir?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It depends on what the Macros say.”

“Colonel, self-sacrifice is a noble attribute, but there are limits to the logic of it.”

I eyed him for a moment. His concern seemed genuine. “Have a little faith, Captain,” I said, giving him my best, most reassuring smile. “I’ve always got a plan.”

That line worked, as it usually did. Captain Miklos turned back to his screens and readouts with a more confident expression. Some of the color even returned to his cheeks above his bristling beard.

I did have a plan, of course. I even had a few back-up plans. But I wasn’t sure if anyone aboard would like my ideas, so I kept them to myself.

We flew on into the face of the Macro fleet for the next hour. It was hard not to feel a growing sense of tension in my shoulders and neck as the enemy contacts swelled ever so slightly on our long range sensors. The Macro fleet was bunched up behind their big dreadnaught. They looked like a dripping snowball seen from head-on, with one big central mass and dozens of smaller contacts slipping out from behind the protective skirts of their mother from time to time. Things looked even worse as we slid below the plane of the ecliptic. The enemy fleet began to stretch out and lengthen as our viewpoint shifted. From this new perspective, the snowball had grown a short tail of specks like a comet. If we kept flying away at an angle, they would stretch out and out into a long mass. The thought that each of those specks was a Macro cruiser with greater firepower and much greater mass than our ship possessed was terrifying if one let your mind dwell upon it. I didn’t bother.

After we were about two hours out from Earth, the Macros finally reacted to our presence.

“The enemy fleet is shifting formation, sir,” the helmsman said.

I nodded, unsurprised. I glanced at the helmsman, a young, obviously inexperienced ensign. He had the look of a bookish fellow from a good college. I wondered why he’d joined Star Force, but there wasn’t time to ask him.

“Describe the new formation,” I said. I could, of course, figure that out for myself by looking at the forward wall of the bridge or checking on the linked-in sensor data. But I wanted to hear how he analyzed the input.

“Sir, the enemy seems to be shifting some of their ships away from us. The—the tail sir. The ships hiding behind their dreadnaught are moving to where we can’t target them. Even though we are clearly out of range.”

“That’s a good sign. They don’t like us being out here by ourselves. We’re making them nervous. The fact they reacted to us at all shows an unusual lack of certainty on their part. Macros do not usually bother with reactive defensive postures.”

“Could their change in tactics be due to the leadership of this new, larger vessel?” Captain Miklos asked.

I looked at him and nodded. “Yes, that’s very possible. I’ve seen evidence before that the Macros get smarter with increasing numbers of them on the scene. Maybe their shared processing systems increase in capacity with the presence of more individuals.”

“So Macro Command becomes more capable with larger fleets?”

“My guess is that it does.”

“Sirs?” the helmsman interrupted, “they are shifting again. A sub-formation has broken away.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Four ships in a diamond pattern?”

“Exactly sir.”

“And, they’re headed toward us?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then,” I said, sitting up perfectly straight. It was hard to do anything else in my battle suit, but I’d managed to slouch fractionally inside it. “They’ve noticed us, so it’s time to talk to them. Barbarossa, open a directed channel to the Macro fleet.”

There was no response for a second. I glanced at Miklos.

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “Barbarossa, take all orders from Colonel Riggs as if I’d given them to you. Colonel Riggs is to be accepted as command personnel with full authority.”

“Permissions set,” said the ship.

I repeated my request.

“Channel open. Propagation delay due to distance is three minutes each way.”

We waited the three long minutes before the ship spoke again. “No response has been received,” the ship said.

“Barbarossa, relay the following,” I ordered. “Macro Command, this is Colonel Kyle Riggs, commander of Star Force. I wish to negotiate the terms of my surrender.”

Every eye on the bridge widened and every head swiveled to aim at me. The gunner’s mouth hung open.

I ignored them all. I stared at the chronometer. I had six minutes to wait to hear Macro Command’s response.