Conquest

-28-

With a fresh shot of nanites I began healing very fast. After two days, I was as good as new except for a few deep scars.

I examined myself in a mirror on a Tuesday morning. I tapped at raised, red seams of crusty flesh on my back where the skin hadn’t quite regrown yet. The recovery had been nothing less than miraculous. I reflected upon how quickly we’d become accustomed to the miracles of the nanites.

If anything, these new nanites were working faster than the old ones. It made sense, as the nanites must cease working now and then. They might run out of power, or become damaged, or simply wear out. Over time, there would be fewer and fewer in a man’s system to do the needed repair work. I was sure my men wouldn’t be happy about it, but they should really have a booster-shot of fresh nanites every year or so. I thought I might have to institute a system of medical nanite replacement, where my marines would have to undergo an oil change, so to speak, periodically.

My body was functioning again. I was whole and strong, but my mind was unhappy. I couldn’t get certain questions out of my head. Who was behind these two attacks, and why? Ping had tried it first with a sweet smile and a bomb. The second pair had been more direct and urgent. It seemed obvious my attackers had had some kind of internal help. How else could men fresh on the base have found my tent, set up a sophisticated trap within it and nearly murdered me all within a single day?

Barrera’s investigation turned up very little. It was too bad Sandra had killed the pair so effectively, instead of capturing them. I couldn’t blame her for that, however. I would have done the same if the situation had been reversed. We’d identified them as ex-members of the KCT—Dutch commandos. Their government claimed they were mercenaries now, and claimed they knew nothing about it. Strangely enough, I believed them. The Netherlands had no cause to go up against Star Force. It would be a senseless, suicidal move for them. Therefore, someone else had to be behind the attempt.

And that was the bad part. The worst thing the assassins did to me was make me doubt my own people. The injuries were healing much faster than the loss of trust. After the second attack I began going through a list of likely suspects in my mind over and over again. I couldn’t help it.

Topping the list was General Kerr and his Pentagon crew. I’d asked them to hold back when the Macro battle fleet arrived. Maybe someone up there on the Potomac River didn’t like that. The Americans had made a few plays to kill me in the past. I still recalled hugging Esmeralda, their failed assassin, as she died in my arms. She had been the first human I’d killed up close and personal. Prior to that, I’d shot a few enemy insurgents back during my brief tour of the Mideast, but they’d died a hundred yards away from me. Fighting to the death hand-to-hand with a woman wasn’t the same.

Kerr and his crew had sent Esmeralda after me, and then they’d sent troops to Andros to take out Star Force the following year. Maybe these attacks were their latest attempts. The possibility could not be ignored.

Next on the list was fine, old Admiral Crow himself. Sure, he was off hiding in his ship behind the Moon right now, but that didn’t give him an airtight alibi in my book. Hadn’t we come to blows just days ago? There had been more than one fight between us that had become physical. The whole attempt seemed overly-sneaky for Crow, however. He tended to move on me very openly when he did it. He would lose his temper and take a swing at me—assassination through third parties had never been his style. He’d never worked through go-betweens, preferring to come at me man-to-man when the mood struck him. In a strange way, I respected that trait. Still, it was impossible to leave him off the list.

If it wasn’t Kerr or Crow, the list became much longer and more disturbing. One of my own marines? Another party I’d yet to identify? One of my officers, seeing their chance to move up the ladder? It could be anyone in that case.

After I’d showered and dressed, I took a deep breath and headed toward the new headquarters building. I was still thinking about my mental list of suspects, and it wasn’t getting any shorter.

The new headquarters building was much less imposing than it had been. Gone was Crow’s four-story castle. Instead, the Star Force command center had been reborn as a single-story structure. It was flat and thickly-built with walls of nanite-coated rubble. Most of the structure was underground now in a deep, anthill-like bunker meant to defend us from another aerial bombardment. The building on the surface served primarily as a secure entrance.

I saw Sandra as I approached. She lifted a hand to wave at me. She was crouching on the low roof of the headquarters bunker, leaning over the entrance and scrutinizing everyone who passed through. She’d been worried about my safety before, and now she was absolutely paranoid.

As I walked through the doors, she hopped down and joined me, matching my measured step. We were going down to a staff meeting to review the state of our defenses. I figured the Macros would assault us within the next week. They would only wait long enough to mass up sufficient forces to overrun the island. Fortunately, we were preparing as well and had a few surprises in store for them.

Nanotized marines didn’t really need elevators. Since they tended to break down under heavy bombardment, we didn’t bother to build any. We walked down steep stairs that rang metallically as my foot touched down on every riser. Each set of steps ended in a long hallway, followed by another stairway. Behind me, Sandra watched everything except me. She watched the ceiling, the floor—even the walls themselves.

Sandra appraised every door that opened as we approached with intense suspicion. Often, when a staffer popped out into the corridor, he was startled when Sandra appeared in his face. Moving with uncanny speed, she placed her body between me and the stranger. The staffers never complained, however. They froze in place, eyes wide, until I passed and Sandra stepped away. They eyed her knives and her steely gaze. They knew how fast she could move, and they didn’t want to end up with their heads bouncing on the metal floors of the corridor due to a misunderstanding. Freezing was the safest move.

As we walked, I kept thinking about the assassination and who was behind it. As annoying as it was, the situation had to be dealt with. Who could it be? In an attempt to make myself feel better I decided to mark down names I did trust. Sandra headed that short list, of course. She had a nightly opportunity to kill me, and if she had wanted the job done it would have happened long ago. Kwon was on the no-way list as well. He’d had just as many chances as Sandra over the years, and he was almost as protective of me as she was. Besides, he simply lacked the imagination to cook up a complex plot like the EMP blast I’d dealt with. There were a few loyal officers I trusted, such as Major Robinson. Unfortunately, they were all dead now.

Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with more names I could absolutely count on. It was depressing. I could only think of two people I could trust with my life under any circumstances. I shook my head slightly and went back to the grim task of sorting out the list of suspects.

After Crow and Kerr, who else could it be? Barrera? Unlikely, but not impossible. He was second in command of the marines and would doubtlessly be chosen as my successor should I be taken out. He’d always supported me with unwavering efficiency, but his naturally cool exterior made him easy to suspect.

The next name my mind conjured up was Major Sarin. I knew she had developed an emotional attachment to me over the last year, which I had foolishly encouraged. I still thought of her as Jasmine in my mind, but didn’t dare speak her first name out loud. Jasmine had been hurt emotionally—as well as physically—when Sandra had awakened from her coma and attacked her. Still, if jealousy was her motivation, wouldn’t Jasmine be more likely to try to take out Sandra than me, if it came to that? Regardless, she just wasn’t the type to try assassination anyway.

Who else was there? As I asked the question, the faces of a dozen other officers swam into my mind. They’d all lost friends, limbs or loved ones. Maybe one of them figured that removing me from command would improve our world’s odds of survival. Perhaps they were right. Moving on to humanity at large, I realized there were the thousands—no, millions of people who’d lost a loved one and might hold a grudge against me. They all had good cause to want me dead.

I heaved a sigh, which caused Sandra to flick her gaze toward me. Finding me healthy, her eyes slid away again to prowl our environment. I opened the door to the new conference room and stepped inside. Sandra followed close behind me, as always. She rarely left my side these days, taking her job as my bodyguard more seriously than ever before. I felt like some kind of nervous dictator. Would I soon be recruiting a look-alike version of Kyle Riggs to sleep in my bed? Would I be shuffling beds from night to night, never sleeping in the same place? I didn’t want that kind of life, I had to get to the bottom of this. But I didn’t really have time to investigate the latest assassination attempt properly. I had a war to run and a coming invasion to repel.

“Colonel,” Barrera said the moment I walked in. “I’m glad you’re here. We have a situation.”

All thoughts of assassins evaporated. I kicked myself mentally for having dwelled on the subject for so long. Again, I’d let my enemies get the best of me by distracting me and making me mistrust my own people. In a way, it made me angrier than the injuries I’d sustained.

“What are they doing?” I asked. “Have they hit land yet?”

Barrera stared at me for a second then frowned. “Sir? No, sir, I mean we have a situation in space.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. I looked down at the newest big screen. This was a nice unit. I’d had it built with thicker glass this time on top of a solid base of nanite alloys. There were shock-absorbers under the base. This system was ready to ride out a heavy bombardment.

To my surprise, the images on the screen depicted the solar system rather than Andros Island. My heart sank as I scanned the screen. It must be a reinforcing fleet. I looked for distant red contacts, but didn’t see any.

“Are they coming in with fresh Macros ships?” I asked.

“No, look at the outer rim. Look at the Tyche ring, sir.”

Major Sarin helpfully rotated and zoomed the map so I could see the Oort cloud region in question up close. We had sensors out there now among the frozen comets and silent, orbital debris. There had once been a theory in astronomical circles that the Oort cloud harbored a hypothetical planet of significant mass. Unseen for decades despite our searching for it, we only knew that there was a strange gravity well out there that affected the behavior of the chunks of dirty ice we call comets. In the end, when we explored the region in recent years we discovered Tyche didn’t exist. Instead, we found one of the enigmatic rings left behind by unknown ancients who were so technologically advanced they could build a system of instantaneous transport between star systems. The ring was closer in than Tyche had been thought to be, but still seemed to be affecting the orbital behavior of various Oort cloud objects. Although the planet had turned out to be mythical, we’d come to use the name Tyche for the Solar System’s outlying ring.

I examined the big screen closely, as Barrera had suggested. I saw something and tapped at it with my finger. A yellowish contact. It had to be a ship, and it was speeding directly toward the Tyche ring.

“That’s Marvin, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. He came through the Venus ring after the Macro fleet was out of the way and has been quietly flying toward the far side of the Solar System on a wide, curved path. He’s avoiding both the Macros and Earth.”

I nodded. Marvin never liked combat. He was an explorer, not a fighter. But he managed to get himself into plenty of trouble despite his peaceful nature.

Then I noticed a set of small red contacts following Marvin. “The Macros fired on him?” I asked. “Those are missiles following him, right?”

“Yes, they did that while you were incapacitated. The missiles seem low on fuel. They are no longer gaining on him, and they are falling further behind. If I had to guess, I’d say they only have enough power left to make course adjustments and keep following him.”

“So he’s taking them out to the Tyche ring. The mines may well destroy them when he gets there. Do you think he’s going to actually fly through the ring?”

“We were hoping you could tell us that, sir. He’s not responding to our questions. He says things like: ‘all neural chains are currently engaged’ when we hail him.”

I snorted. Marvin fed lines like that to people he didn’t want to bother with. “If we try to talk to him, what’s the delay at this distance?”

“Several hours, sir. He’s pretty far out.”

“Hmm… He’s pretty close to the ring, too. If we transmit to him now, will he have time to get the message and respond before he enters the ring?”

Major Sarin brought up a spreadsheet on the screen in front of her and tapped at it with light, expert touches. She looked cute like that, and I couldn’t help but think of her as Jasmine in my head. I stared at her, waiting for an answer. Jasmine leaned forward and her ponytail fell off her shoulder to hang around her neck attractively.

After about twenty seconds of staring, I became aware of Sandra, who was watching me closely. I didn’t look at her. Instead, I opened up another screen and reviewed our force listings. Sandra’s scrutiny lifted. I wanted to smile, but I didn’t dare.

“He’ll have time for one reply,” Major Sarin said at last. “Given his acceleration rate and current velocity, before we can send him a second message, he’ll be through the ring.”

“Unless I can get him to change course now, before he goes zipping through the Tyche ring?”

Major Sarin nodded. “Right, sir.”

“Open a channel. Let’s see what that crazy robot has to say for himself.”

I took a moment to consider my words. Although he was an AI entity, Marvin could be evasive and touchy. He was likely to take anything I said in the way he preferred to take it. I considered him to be even more self-centered than most humans. I could threaten him, but that might just be taken as a license to do whatever he wished. It was best to keep him tied to us as best I could.

As I composed my words in my head, I found myself wishing I’d never given him a spaceship body. That had been a mistake. If I caught hold of him again, I’d strip his wings for good. Maybe he sensed that, and thus kept far out of my reach.

I knew most of my command staff had long since convicted him of treason, but the jury was still out on Marvin as far as I was concerned. He had proven himself to be a loyal friend on many occasions, but almost as often he’d given us a royal problem to solve. In the case of the Macros, he’d nearly dismantled our minefield, but at the same time had caused them to come through early and lose many ships which they might not have lost otherwise. The Macros were obviously out to destroy him now, and would never trust him again. I considered that a very positive development. Of all the trouble he could get into in the future, making friends with the enemy was no longer on the list.

I saw everyone else looking at me, frowning. Even Major Sarin looked like she smelled a big nanite-brained rat. I sympathized, and wondered if I’d been too forgiving with Marvin. Was I projecting a sense of friendship on an intelligent machine he didn’t deserve? I knew that our close involvement on the return trip from Eden had somehow created a soft spot in my normally hard mind for Marvin. Was it because I had helped him survive and watched him grow and build himself, both mentally and physically? What would a psych officer say about that? I didn’t think I wanted to know.

“Open channel,” I said at last. “Marvin, this is Colonel Kyle Riggs. You are a part of Star Force, and I am your commanding officer. I want to thank you for your successful ruse played against the Macros. They were severely damaged by your action. By destroying Macro ships, you proved you are on the side of Star Force and the enemy of the Macros. They will never stop trying to destroy you now, while we will remain your loyal friends.”

I stopped to take a breath, but lifted my hand to prevent Jasmine from sending the message prematurely. “We are aware of your current circumstances. The enemy missiles chasing you probably can’t overtake you at this point if you keep running. We see that you are heading in the direction of Tyche ring. We’d prefer you stayed in the Solar System. We need your help against the Macro Fleet. Please respect our wishes in this regard. Riggs out.”

“Send it?” Major Sarin asked.

“Yeah, send it.”

“Kyle,” Sandra said, “why didn’t you order him to stop what he was doing? If he goes through that ring we don’t know what he might do.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But if I did order him to do that and he disobeyed, we’d have lost our hold over him. He’s not like a regular human soldier. He’s a free spirit, so to speak.”

Barrera shook his head.

“Would you like to add something, Lieutenant Colonel?” I asked him sharply.

“No, sir.”

I could tell he disapproved. They all did. I figured they didn’t understand Marvin the way I did. If he didn’t obey orders, they wanted to destroy him. But he wasn’t a recruit, or a normal robot. He was Marvin, and he was unique.

We planned our defenses while we waited for Marvin’s response. It took all day and hours into the night to come back. By that time, I’d reviewed our defensive posture. Fort Pierre was much stronger than it had ever been. New laser turrets had sprung up by the hundreds. We had at least a thousand guns on the island now, and most of them were on the east coast facing the dark trench known as the Tongue of the Ocean.

I’d built new defensive fortifications in the center of the island as well. If they brought in their ships again, they’d have a harder time of it now. The Macros had been building as well, I knew. I knew their rate of production was phenomenal. And the next time they came, they would have ground support from the sea.

Finally Marvin’s response came in. “Friend Riggs, I am so glad to learn of your continued survival. Upon my eventual return, I will accept the offered commission in the Star Force Fleet. Can you make me a captain, please? No matter what my rank may be, I will help Star Force defeat the Macros. I am exiting the system now to evade the enemy missiles, but I also have another purpose. Do not worry! I will not disappoint you. Marvin out.”

My staff exchanged disgusted glances which I did my best to ignore. I didn’t bother sending Marvin another message. He wouldn’t get it before he left the star system. We all watched as he flew through the Tyche ring and vanished some time later. The enemy missiles winked out as well. Our mines had destroyed them, but ignored Marvin due to his friend-or-foe signaling system.

Marvin had ignored my request to stay in the Solar System. That fact made my jaws flex and ache the more I thought about it. If he did wander back to Earth someday and came within my reach again, I wondered what I would do.

I knew that at the very least, I would clip his wings. Right now, I was leaning toward blasting him out of space.