Conquest

-32-

We headed to the central laser-battery fort, the biggest of the three. I’d ordered two companies of marines to support each of the forts and act as a garrison. I saw the men standing around in squads on the loose earth outside the fort. I was pleased they were all wearing our latest battle suits. Most of my men had them now.

Of the three red lines of tunneling Macros, one group had committed themselves at this point. The first line had apparently been digging the longest, and they’d come up to hit my production base. That failure had been costly for both sides, but I had to mark it down as a Macro victory. Although we’d beaten them back, they had damaged or destroyed nearly half my factories. My productions systems took around a month each to build and required many rare earths to construct. They would take much longer to replace than a thousand tunneling Macro troops.

The second line of Macros were trying to dig up into the heart of Fort Pierre, and thus bypass the walls and gun emplacements I’d built up to defend the base. So far, they had been unsuccessful. We’d put a lot of constructive nanites into that soil. They’d killed the local forests, but they’d also made it nearly impossible for the Macros to dig through. Forming tight nets of alloy cable in layer after layer beneath the base, the enemy wasn’t having an easy time of it.

It was the third line of underground attack that worried me most. It hadn’t yet committed itself and wasn’t moving. I suspected it was a reserve force meant to come up upon a target of opportunity. The Macros waited down there in their tunnels, about a mile down underneath the central region of the island. That put them in easy striking distance of several key targets, including all three of my new laser batteries. None of the forts had underground defense systems. We simply hadn’t had time to build them. Just getting the forts operational had taken every marine and crawler I had.

When Sandra, Kwon and I reached the central fort, we leapt out of the open canopy of the flitter and charged into the command post under the big guns. When the garrison CO asked if I expected trouble, I told him to set up listening sensors around the newly built laser batteries and to expect an assault from underground. He paled, then rushed to follow my orders.

The big guns mounted on the fort’s dome angled downward to aim at the sea. They did not fire yet, however. The enemy had not yet shown themselves. Big screens had been rigged up all around the command post. Some monitored radar systems, others provided live vid feed from the beaches. Technicians were all around us, ignoring us and working their controls determinedly. We watched, transfixed as the battle took form. Red contacts showed on radar as formations of large Macro walking machines approached. Our laser turrets were strung out along the beaches. They waited for the approaching enemy and quivered in anticipation.

It was eerie. I knew those sands, I knew those rolling waves and those shifting palms. The enemy’s plan was clear. They were marching up in trenches underwater, keeping themselves low and out of sight as long as they can. My laser turrets were right on the beach, easily within range. They tracked the underwater targets as they came closer.

“Why don’t they fire, Kyle?” Sandra asked beside me.

“They can’t do any damage yet,” I said. “Lasers won’t penetrate a cold, dark ocean. The waves make it even worse. Lots of sediment and foam. The beams wouldn’t be effective for more than a few feet down. They have to wait until the Macros are in water that is too shallow to hide them.”

“I get it,” Kwon said. “Our turrets are smart. They will wait to blast them until they are in close.”

“Not exactly,” I said. “Our turrets are smart enough to know they can’t do any damage, so they are waiting. I would say the Macros are the smart ones this time. By coming under the cover of deep water they will be very close when the surface. They’ll burn down our turrets at point-blank range.”

“Look, they’re stopping all along the line,” Sandra said. She took a step toward the screens and pointed at the main radar display. She turned and looked at me. “They’re waiting under there like spiders, aren’t they? Waiting until all of them are into position, then they’ll all rush us at once.”

I nodded, and contacted Barrera. He answered almost immediately, despite what had to be an overwhelming number of details to worry about.

“Colonel?” he asked.

“I see about twenty of the big machines are poised to strike your position at Fort Pierre. I don’t think you’ll be able to hold.”

“We’ll be all right, sir.”

“No, you won’t. I’m going to back you up. Clear the area of all air traffic.”

“Will do, sir.”

I broke the connection. I called Crow next. I hadn’t talked to him for a day or two, but I knew he was watching the battle unfold like everyone else. It took several minutes to get hold of him, but I finally did so.

“What’s up, Riggs?”

“The end of the world,” I said.

Crow laughed at that. “Always a drama fan, aren’t you?”

“We can’t hold this time, Admiral.”

“Admiral, is it? You must want a big favor, right mate?”

“Yes. Bring your fleet down to cover the island.”

“Suicide. You know that. I thought we’d talked this out by now.”

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. I counted to three before going on, so I wouldn’t curse and scream at him. I knew that wasn’t the best way to get his cooperation.

“You still there, Riggs?”

“You don’t have to engage them. Stay out of range. I need you to be ready to run interference.”

“What if they fire missiles at us?”

“Then you’ve managed to distract them from Andros. That’s a good thing.”

Crow grumbled about being outnumbered and outgunned. I ignored most of it. I’d heard it all before.

“Why did you build all those ships in the first place if you meant to hide behind the Moon?” I demanded at last in exasperation.

“If I had four times as many ships as I have now, you wouldn’t be asking that. You’d be cheering me on as I blasted the enemy out of the sky. As long as these ships survive, they are an asset. Blown up, they aren’t worth a damn to you or me.”

Crow had a good point, but I was desperate. I could see the Macros were not cooperating with any of my plans. They were coming at me methodically, and I wasn’t winning any of the skirmishes so far. I could sense doom approaching, and I wanted every ounce of firepower I could get on the table to stop it.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll set up a gun emplacement on top of your little secret base. It’ll take potshots at enemy Macros until they come to investigate.”

“You wouldn’t do that. Those factories are our ace in the hole.”

“This entire island is everything we have. We can’t lose just half of it. If they overrun us, we’re all dead anyway. Are you in this mess or not?”

More grumbling ensued, but after another few minutes he said he would come down and provide cover fire for us.

“But let me tell you straight,” he said, “if they fire bloody missiles at us and we can’t shoot them down, we’re going to run again.”

“Just get down here and support us.”

He finally agreed and I broke the channel. I heaved a long sigh. Dealing with Crow was one of the worst things about my job. Having him hanging out behind the Moon had been like a vacation. I would have left him out there if I hadn’t needed him so desperately.

“Colonel?” the fort CO called to me. “They are starting to stand up.”

I frowned, not knowing at first what he meant. Then I saw the forward screens. The Macros had apparently come up as close to the beach as they could in a crouched position, moving like crabs with their legs bent. Now they stood up together, water gushing off their metal bodies. Our lasers flashed and their guns answered. The night was split apart with brilliant streaks of light. Our coastal turrets fired a dozen stabbing beams at once at the invasion Macros as they crawled up out of the sea. The enemy methodically returned fire. We watched the Macros as their legs churned the ocean below them. Explosive impact points flared and gushed vapor as intense beams touched cold, wet metal. They shrugged off the hits however, and did not stop advancing. They returned fire, frequently knocking out our small turrets with a few good hits.

Sandra stood directly under the main screen, staring up at it. “I know that cove,” she said. “They’ll wreck it.”

I had to agree. I called to the fort CO. The captain turned to stare at me with wide eyes. I figured he wasn’t excited about the order I was about to give him.

“Captain,” I said. “Target the machines closest to Fort Pierre and burn them down.”

Nodding an acknowledgement, he relayed my orders to his operators. The big guns wobbled as the black nanite arms that held them shifted slightly. I could hear them move out there, grinding metal against metal and making the entire building creak and groan. First one projector spoke, then more fired. Soon, the guns were going off rhythmically in a slow, repetitive pattern. Big lasers fired more slowly, as they took longer for the chemical gases to dissipate from the firing chamber. They also generated a lot more heat. Liquid nitrogen was puffed into the chambers after each shot, cooling the tanks before the next big gout of energy was released.

I was surprised to feel recoil from these guns. They were so large, and released so much energy that they actually rocked the installation when they went off. This made them slower as well, because the arms that aimed them had to stabilize and retarget the projectors slightly. Each shot burned for a duration of around five hundred milliseconds, then took about ten more seconds to reset and fire again. The effects were impressive, however.

“Wow,” Sandra said. “Look at that, a hit!”

For all their ponderousness, the guns were effective. We watched as one of the big machines took a direct hit in the upper plating. Unlike the lighter fire of our coastal laser turrets, the fort’s cannons didn’t just gouge the armor of the big machines. Instead, they burned right through it. The stricken machine was at first shrouded in a plume of flaring light green vapor, but as it cleared, I saw it was badly damaged. Two of the six massive legs no longer operated. It was tipping and dragging its upper body through the surf. Like a wounded man, it struggled to make it to shore.

Another big beam struck the smoking invader. A secondary explosion inside finished it, and it crashed down on the beach. A whoop went up around the control room. It was our first kill.

I smiled tightly, but didn’t share in the enthusiasm of those around me. It had taken nearly two minutes to bring down a single machine, and there were hundreds of them rising up all along the coastline now. My coastal turrets were almost ineffective, and once the enemy machines reached the land, they would be harder for the big cannons to hit as they crashed through the forests.

Now that my central forts had demonstrated their long-range firepower, I knew the enemy would want to destroy them. Despite that, I had decided to commit them. I did not regret the decision. After all, what was the point of a military asset if you were too scared to use it?

I watched as the battle unfolded before us. My neck ached from tension, but I didn’t dare try to massage it while wearing my battle suit. The gloves would probably rip my skin off.