Conquest

-15-

Macros generally ignored pleas and threats. They especially hated questions. But they were suckers for offers of surrender. If Star Force surrendered to them, that meant less loss to their fleets. That made a material difference to them.

In the end, the Macros were accountants at heart. They were like giant metal spreadsheets. To get their undivided attention, there had to be something sweet in the equation for them. Something that would significantly alter the bottom line. If they could talk me into giving up without a fight, their goals could be met with greater efficiency. That made it worth their time to acknowledge me.

“Incoming message: Surrender offer accepted. Disarm your ship and alter speed and course to match that of the approaching fleet.”

I chuckled. “They aren’t giving us much of an opening offer, eh?” I asked Miklos.

He didn’t respond. He didn’t seem to know what to say, he just gave me a horrified look. I waved an armored hand toward the screen.

“Just listen,” I told him. “Barbarossa, transmit messages from me beginning with the words ‘Macro Command’.”

“Ready.”

“Macro Command, I am offering my own personal surrender. Not the surrender of Earth, my ship or any other Star Force assets. Before I agree to surrender, I must have assurances that all Earth will be spared from any attacks and that your fleet will leave this system peacefully. A state of peace shall then exist between our two peoples.”

We had a long wait after that, so I got up and prepared myself a cool drink in the galley. I avoided alcohol, instead finding some stuff that looked like orange juice, but tasted like sweet plastic. I took a swig and grimaced. I threw the remaining half of the disgusting liquid on the ship’s deck, along with squeeze bottle it came in. The bottle dribbled for a few seconds, then the nanite decking detected it, correctly classified it as trash, and swallowed it. A hump of silvery liquid metal indented, allowing the squeeze bottle to sink into the indentation. Then the deck flowed over the surface of it. I knew that the nanites would release the discarded item into space. You had to be careful what you tossed onto the decks in these ships.

Captain Miklos joined me in the galley. “We’ve got to get better supplies aboard these ships,” I commented to him.

“Sir, I understand your plan, but I don’t agree with it.”

“You don’t, huh?” I asked with vague interest. I glanced at him, my eyebrows raised. “You want to split one of these doughnuts with me? I’m not sure they’re any good, either. With the amount of money Crow wastes, I figured we’d have lobster soufflé on every journey.”

“Sir,” Miklos said insistently. “You don’t have to give yourself up to the enemy. They might well change their minds and destroy Earth anyway. You don’t understand how valuable you are to our world.”

“Very kind words, captain,” I said, handing him half my doughnut. It was glazed with chocolate sprinkles. I preferred plain, but decided it would be too much work with armored gloves to pick off the sprinkles.

“They aren’t just words, Colonel. They are the truth. You provide such a morale boost to the men. They aren’t afraid to fight when you are with them. That is not because they feel safe—”

“Hell no,” I laughed.

“—they know that they will die well in your service, and they feel confident of victory. That confidence you provide them—that is the key. Normally, that would not be enough for the troops to risk their lives, but the stakes here are so much different now. We aren’t fighting over lines on a map, or for a family of monarchs. We are fighting for the existence of our species. The men will therefore die gladly if they know it is not in vain.”

I frowned at Miklos. He was earnest and intense. I had no doubt he absolutely believed what he was saying. Maybe, he was right in a way. But I figured the equation was simpler than that. I was a leader who had learned how to instill confidence through bold action and impenetrable self-assuredness. I had as many doubts as anyone—perhaps more, since I knew the real score—but I didn’t let those feelings bleed through and reach my marines.

“Don’t worry so much,” I told him. “I have a plan. I’ve always got a plan.”

He followed me back out to the main deck, clearly still troubled. “You say that quite often, Colonel.”

I would have shrugged, but my shoulders were encased in about a foot of armor. I noticed I only had a few seconds before the next response was due back from Macro Command. I took my seat and swallowed the last of my doughnut. At least it was fresh.

“Incoming Message: Colonel Kyle Riggs is not the only enemy force in this star system. Your terms are unacceptable.”

“The machines aren’t buying it,” I said. I hadn’t thought it likely they would accept me as the sacrificial lamb and give us an easy out, but figured I had to try. Unfortunately, they had reasoned it through. Clearly, a lot more than one single human had been involved in destroying their cruisers recently. They wanted to eradicate all the cancer and kill everyone who had rebelled against them. It was only reasonable, from their point of view.

“That’s why you brought the battle suit?” the gunner asked me in amazement. “You planned to fly out there to them and give yourself up?”

I nodded. “If they would go for it, sure. Why not? One commander traded for our entire species? A bargain. But unfortunately, they aren’t buying today. They want a bigger pound of flesh than just me. I’m not surprised, but I have to admit, I’m slightly relieved.”

No one looked like they blamed me.

“What are you going to tell them now, sir?” Captain Miklos asked.

“Now, it’s time for plan B. And don’t even ask about plan C. You don’t want to hear about that.”

I raised my voice to gain Barbarossa’s attention. “Macro Command,” I said, “if you agree to accept peace with Earth and leave our star system now, Star Force will agree to the following terms: We will surrender all our ships, equipment and personnel.”

At this point, the crew of the Barbarossa were freaking out. Miklos had stood up from his chair. The gunner was reaching for his sidearm and the helmsman had his eyes closed. He looked like he was praying—or maybe he was passing out, I couldn’t tell which.

“Colonel Riggs!” Miklos shouted.

I put my armored hand in his face. My second hand raised to point at the gunner. At first, the gunner lifted his lip to snarl at me, and then he began to lift his weapon.

“Don’t,” Miklos said. He pointed toward my battle suit arms. Both arms ended in beam weapons equivalent to a heavy beamer. The gunner was unaccustomed to them and had not understood the threat, but at this moment my twin projectors were activated and aiming at the crewmen. If I fired them at this close range, the crewmen would have the upper half of their torsos burned and blasted away within a second by the fantastic release of energy. The gunner lowered his weapon slowly.

I hadn’t figured they would draw on me. I should have put my helmet on first. I was impressed that they had the guts to take such an action, but it didn’t really matter, as the situation would be set in stone very soon.

“Furthermore,” I continued, keeping both men under scrutiny. “Star Force will surrender Andros Island, our base on planet Earth. We will lay down our arms and obey Macro Command. End transmission.”

“You can’t do this, sir!” Captain Miklos hissed at me.

I lowered my arms. The moment my laser guns weren’t aimed into their faces, the gunner brought up his weapon again.

“I won’t let you surrender this ship, sir,” the gunner told me, shaking with emotion. “I didn’t join Star Force to serve the machines again. I understand you made that deal the first time without knowing the full consequences. But we can’t lie down and do it all over again.”

I tried futilely to shush him. He didn’t calm down.

“He is your superior officer,” Captain Miklos said.

“He can’t just unilaterally consign our entire species to slavery,” the gunner answered. “My entire family was killed by Macros. I won’t serve them.”

I looked from one man to the next, then glanced to the helmsman. He was still praying.

“Ensign,” I said, addressing the gunner. “I like you. If we live long enough to return to Earth, I’m going to give you a promotion. Possibly, a command of your own. Captain, I’m impressed with you and your crew. Even your helmsman, because at least he’s still manning his post and following orders.”

They all looked confused. “Is this some kind of joke, sir?” Miklos asked.

“In a way, yes. But we won’t know who has the last laugh for another two minutes.”

They gave me blank looks, so I pointed to the chronometer. The next Macro reply was due in very soon.

Not knowing what to say, the men returned to their stations. Miklos looked like his cat had just died, while the gunner glared at me off and on. I didn’t care. I was beyond caring. It was all up to the Macros now. Would they accept my terms or not?

It was a very long two minutes. Finally, the response came in.

“Terms accepted.”

I whooped and laughed. I clapped my armored hands together, and the metal made a booming report in the enclosed space. The other men winced.

“I don’t understand what there is to be happy about, Colonel,” Miklos said.

I grinned at him. “Macro Command,” I shouted, unable to contain my exuberance, “Star Force has changed its mind. Star Force has gone rogue. Star Force is entirely contained on the land mass known as Andros Island, plus a few Fleet elements in space such as this ship. Riggs out. Barbarossa, send that and close the channel.”

If I’d thought the crew were surprised before, now they were positively baffled. Even the helmsman’s eyes were open again. He stared at me with the wary certainty of a one who knows he’s looking at a madman.

“Colonel Riggs?” the gunner asked me. “So that’s it? All of this was a big joke? Just to have some fun with the Macros?”

“Reason it through, ensign,” I said.

Captain Miklos nodded slowly, thinking it over. But the helmsman, who’d kept quiet up until now, spoke first.

“I get it,” he said. “When the Macros agreed to your terms, they agreed to classify all of Earth as peaceful. When you said Star Force has broken the deal, only we became possible hostiles.”

“Correct,” I said. “We entered into an agreement with them. They marked all humanity as peaceful slaves in their database somewhere. The next moment Star Force went rogue—”

“Which means when they get to Earth,” Captain Miklos said, a new light dawning in his eyes, “they will only attack Star Force.”

“You tricked them?” the gunner asked incredulously.

“Sort of,” I said. “I’d call it a work-around. Like getting a computer to delete a file it doesn’t want to by doing it in a manner that isn’t blocked. The machine doesn’t become angry, or feel tricked. All I did was talk them into classifying all Earth as peaceful. Once they accepted that, I reassigned this ship and all of Star Force as hostile. In a way, I reprogrammed the Macros.”

“But won’t they simply ignore everything we’ve said?”

I shook my head. “I’ve dealt with them before. Using a similar trick, I managed to get them to leave the annihilation of China to Star Force. Remember that? To work with them, you have to think like a hacker. These shenanigans would never work with a human being. But the Macros don’t get emotional about it the way we do.”

“Do you think they’ll learn to stop falling for such deceptions someday?” Miklos asked me.

“Possibly, but I don’t care right now, I—”

“Sirs,” the helmsman broke in. “We’ve got missiles incoming. The Macros have fired upon us.”

“There, you see?” I asked them. “They made a follow-up decision I should have seen coming. Well, don’t look so pale, the missiles are about fifty million miles off. They won’t get to us for a long time. Barbarossa, attention.”

“Ready.”

“Reverse course. Take us back to Earth at flank speed. Hold on, everyone.”

Skinny black arms spit up out of the floor and grabbed us, acting as emergency harnesses. The ship heaved under our feet. The engines on this ship were very powerful, and even with stabilizers, we felt at least three Gs of force tossing us about as the ship flipped over and applied all the thrust she had.

“Course laid,” said the ship.

“Barbarossa,” Captain Miklos said, picking himself up off the deck and crawling into his command chair, “remove Colonel Riggs from the command personnel list unless I’m incapacitated.”

“Options set.”

I nodded to him, deciding it wasn’t worth arguing about. I had boarded this vessel with the understanding I was visiting brass, not the operational commander. I’d taken liberties. Lots of them.

“I’m sorry, Colonel Riggs,” he said.

He didn’t look very sorry. I nodded and smiled.

“I understand,” I said. “This is your ship…just one more thing.”

“What’s that, Colonel?”

“Have you got any beer?”