Conquest

-37-

When the enemy had taken losses of approximately thirty percent of their assaulting force, they suddenly withdrew into the trees. I knew it was only temporary. Speculating as to why they had withdrawn, one man’s interpretation was as good as another’s. Perhaps they’d reached a preset loss-limit. I doubted that one, as they were taking out a strongpoint and had to expect heavy losses to begin with. The only other conclusion was they had to regroup and rejoin with supporting forces. I put my money on that possibility, and it later turned out to be correct.

When the enemy pulled back, Sandra was at my side and full of questions.

“I heard from the men that the nuke was set too high,” she said.

“Yes. Somehow, one of the grenades must have malfunctioned.”

“I thought maybe it was because you put four bombs down, not just one.”

“We put down four in case they were detected by the Macros. I wanted to be sure they couldn’t all be knocked out before one went off. The first that detonated should have destroyed all the others.”

Sandra narrowed her eyes. I could tell there were wheels turning up there.

“So either all four malfunctioned,” she said, “or it was a twenty-five percent chance the bad one happened to go off first.”

“Something like that. Time to head to the bunker and check on the overall situation.”

“Not so fast,” she said. “How often does Nano tech equipment fail on you, Kyle?”

“Uh, not very often.”

“Nearly never. How many of the other hunter-killer teams reported this kind of trouble with their grenades?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Try none. I checked with ops.”

“What are you getting at? I can tell you have an idea in your head and you are working up to it.”

Sandra looked at me oddly. I could see her intense expression through her faceplate, but she tried to sound calm. “Nothing,” she said. “I need to go take care of a few things now. I’ll see you at the bunker.”

She sprinted off, and I looked after her in concern. I knew her pretty well by now, and her odd behavior caused alarm bells to go off in my mind. I frowned, wondering at her attitude. She’d clearly reasoned out that someone must have tampered with the grenades, just as I had. But what did she plan to do about it?

The more I thought about her demeanor, the less I liked it. I recalled when she’d brought in Ping like a cat’s kill dropped on a doorstep. She had that predatory attitude right now.

I reached the door of the bunker and hesitated before entering. I’d half-expected to find Sandra doing her gargoyle routine on the roof, but she wasn’t there.

I cursed and turned toward the officers’ barracks. Sandra had headed in that direction.

“What’s wrong, sir?” Kwon asked me.

“I don’t know…” I said, “and I don’t like not knowing.”

“Are we going down now?”

“No,” I said. I turned and headed toward the barracks. I thought I had an inkling of what was going on. Maybe Sandra had reasoned out there had been sabotage. Maybe she believed she knew who was behind it. The last time she’d had such a suspicion, she’d been right, and Ping had died.

I saw a commotion up ahead. Was that laser-fire? I began to run. Kwon chased after me. I jumped into the air and glided over the ground. The scorched sand and ashes swirled and rippled below me as I flew at top speed toward the disturbance.

I saw two lieutenants running out of the officer’s mess.

“What’s going on in there?”

“Some kind of a duel, sir. They ordered us out.”

I threw open the door and walked inside. I supposed when I saw the scene, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but somehow I was. Sandra was there, standing on a mess hall table. In the farthest corner was Major Sarin. She had a beam pistol in her hand. Both wore light nanite armor. Sandra had two knives out, and she had assumed an easy, relaxed pose.

Sunlight streamed in from several holes behind and above her. The holes were bigger than bullet holes, about the size a small beam weapon would make punching through nanite alloy.

Sandra glanced at me as I walked in.

“What the hell is going on?” I roared at them. “Both of you lower your weapons. It’s against Star Force code to fight amongst yourselves in the face of the enemy.”

“But she is the enemy, Kyle,” Sandra said.

“What?”

“You know what happened out there. Someone tampered with those grenades. It had to be someone inside Star Force, who would have had access. An officer with technical knowledge.”

I looked at Jasmine. Her faceplate had cleared enough to allow me to see her eyes. Her sides were heaving and she kept her eyes and her weapon trained on Sandra. Both women watched the other. Sandra was much faster, but she couldn’t outrun a laser beam. As long as Jasmine kept her at a distance, she would be safe. Apparently, that was her intent.

Could Sandra be right? Someone had to be doing this, possibly someone who high-up in my command structure. First, there had been Ping, the infiltrator. Who had let her in? Then the two assassins who’d tried to fry and gut me in my tent. The last straw was the sabotaged grenade.

I knew Sandra was becoming increasingly paranoid, but she had a point, someone was behind all this and Major Sarin had the means and the motivation. Could Jasmine be that upset with me and Star Force?

“She nearly killed us all, Kyle,” Sandra said. “Don’t protect her just because you think she’s cute.”

“Jasmine, is there any truth to all this?” I asked.

Jasmine’s attention flicked to me, I could see the hurt in her eyes. Unfortunately, that was all the distraction Sandra needed. She flashed across the room, snatched the pistol out of Jasmine’s hand and placed one of her knives against the smaller woman’s throat.

I took two steps forward. “Hold on now, Sandra. We’ll get to the truth. Let’s do this by the book.”

The two women were nose-to-nose, glaring at each other.

“Since when did you ever do anything by the book?” Sandra asked. “Screw the book. I’m going to cut her head off and mount it on the wall over our bed for you to look at whenever you like.”

“Look down,” Jasmine told Sandra.

We all did, we couldn’t help it. Sandra had removed Jasmine’s pistol, tossed it away and pinned one of Jasmine’s weaker wrists to the wall. But the other hand was still free, however. Jasmine had drawn her combat knife and held it poised at Sandra’s tight belly. It was aimed upward. One quick thrust, and it would be driven into the heart. Nanotized marine reaction times being what they were, I suspected both women would die in an instant if either made the final move. I wasn’t sure if we could patch them up afterward or not.

“Uh-oh,” Kwon said unhelpfully.

“Stay here at the door,” I told him. “Don’t let anyone else inside. We’re going to settle this.”

Sandra looked surprised by Jasmine’s move, but not frightened. By their expressions, I thought neither of them was afraid. Instead, both women appeared to be intensely pissed-off. I drew a breath and let it slowly out. I knew I was partly responsible for all this. I’d been unprofessional, and I’d caused strife among my staff. Probably, this was why most generals didn’t have their spouses in the command post with them. Hell, in the old days they didn’t even let women crew ships because people in close quarters for long periods tended to get funny ideas.

“This is all my fault, ladies,” I said. “Can we possibly disarm and sit around a table to discuss it?”

“It’s not just about you and your cheating, Kyle,” Sandra said. “She nearly killed us. She’s a traitor to Star Force.”

“You’re a psychotic killer, and you aren’t even human anymore,” Jasmine retorted.

I winced. Things weren’t winding down. I got to within ten feet of them, and stopped. I put my arms up, palms forward, hands empty.

“Whoa,” I said. “Let’s take things down a notch or two.”

“You can’t keep us both,” Sandra told me. “I want you to choose. The loser dies—now.”

“Um,” I said, “that’s not reasonable.”

“You have a thing for her, admit it.”

“Sandra, there was one moment—after you’d been in a coma for a long time. It was wrong, I’ve admitted that.”

“Don’t bullshit me. You were making out with her in the command post yesterday. I’m not an idiot.”

“Oh no,” Kwon said in a quiet, groaning voice behind me.

“We were not making out,” I insisted. “We were having a moment of closure. At least, that’s what I would call it.”

Both women glanced at me with questioning expressions.

“That’s what you thought?” Jasmine asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I wanted. I wanted everything to go back to how it was before I screwed it all up. Back on the ship, you two had become friends again, I thought. What happened to that?”

“She changed her mind,” Sandra said. “Women do that, you know. She made another move on you, and then maybe she realized you weren’t going to give her a chance. So, she decided to dump you—permanently.”

“Come on,” I said. “Major Sarin is a professional. She isn’t so petty as to kill me just because she felt spurned.”

Sandra gave her head a tiny shake and made a tsking noise. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

Jasmine remained quiet and continued glaring. Her attitude was beginning to concern me. I wondered if Sandra was right. If she really was innocent, why wasn’t she saying so?

“What do you have to say, Jasmine?” I asked.

“I’m too upset to talk right now,” she said.

Great, I thought. “Come on, we’re all friends and comrades. We’ve fought over a thousand lightyears of space together. Tell us what you have to say. Sandra, pull back that knife so she can think.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, the two women backed away from one another. When they were a foot apart, everyone felt better. They were still glowering at each other like two cats in a sealed trashcan, however.

“Did you let infiltrators onto the island?” I asked her.

“Am I really being interrogated here, sir? Your girlfriend has assaulted me. Maybe she did it.”

“Just answer the questions, Jasmine,” I said. “That’s an order.”

In the face of a direct order, she deflated somewhat. I knew that wouldn’t work with Sandra, but Jasmine had more respect for our chain of command.

“I did not allow any unauthorized personnel to do anything,” she said.

“Did you help the assassins that entered my tent in any way? Did you know who they were? Have you had any past associations with any of them?”

“No, no and no.”

“What about our nuclear grenades? Did you tamper with them or adjust their settings?”

Jasmine frowned, looking honestly puzzled now. “What happened?”

“Just answer the question!” Sandra shouted at her.

“No, I didn’t tamper with anything!” she shouted back. “I spend all day on duty on the command screens.”

I looked at Sandra questioningly. She made a frustrated growling sound. She stepped back, sheathed her weapon and crossed her arms under her breasts.

“Well?” I asked.

“No change in her pulse—her heart beats like a little bird anyway. No other autonomic shifts I can detect. As far as I can tell, she’s telling the truth. But she still loves you.”

“Excellent,” I said, clapping my armored hands together loudly. I decided it was time to put the best face on this I possibly could and move on. Both women looked at me in cold displeasure. I ignored their expressions and smiled broadly.

“Now that the matter is settled, we can move on to dealing with several thousand robots I’ve noticed roaming around our territory. You two don’t mind doing your jobs, do you? Wonderful. In the future, I want to see a little less paranoia toward my senior staff, Sandra. And Major Sarin, please state your innocence more immediately and keep your personal feelings out of my command post. Actually, that goes for both of you. If either one of you wants to fall in love with the First Sergeant over there, that’s fine with me, but I don’t want to hear about it while I’m trying to handle combat ops.”

Kwon looked alarmed and shook his head vigorously at my suggestion.

No one looked happy after my little speech except for me, and I was faking it. But the scene did quietly break up. We all walked outside and headed for the command bunker. Sandra fell in step beside me. Jasmine and Kwon lagged behind.

“If it wasn’t that little snake, then who tried to kill us with that nuke?” Sandra asked me. “Someone must have done it. You know that.”

“I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.”

“You always say stuff like that.”

“Okay,” I said, stopping and facing her. “Then you do it. I want you to figure out who is behind the security breaches. That’s your job for the next few days. You know it wasn’t Jasmine, so check out everyone else.”

Sandra looked surprised. “Okay,” she said after a few moments thought. “I will find the truth.”

Kwon and Major Sarin had walked up behind us and stood there, looking wary. Perhaps they expected another outburst.

“Kwon, you stay with Colonel Riggs,” Sandra said. “Go everywhere he does. If he orders you away, sneak back when he isn’t looking.”

“Um,” he said, looking at me.

I nodded slightly.

“Okay,” Kwon said brightly. He seemed happy about the assignment.

Sandra nodded too, satisfied with the idea of Kwon performing bodyguard duty again. She turned and left us then, heading toward the ramparts at a shocking pace. Each step took her ten or twenty feet over the ground. To Sandra, Earth’s gravity must have felt like the Moon.

Crawlers and teams of marines were working all around the fort, shoring up the walls. Sandra disappeared among a knot of marines working on the fortifications. I had no idea what was in her head at that moment, but I pitied whoever was next on her suspect list.

I reached the headquarters building and passed inside the entrance. The nanites recognized my touch and dilated an opening in what appeared to be a smooth metal surface. I stepped through into the building. Kwon and Jasmine were recognized and allowed inside as well. Before I reached the first ramp heading down to the bunkers, I heard a familiar voice in my ear.

“They are coming again, marines,” Barrera said.

I’d joined the base defense channel, and since Barrera was running ops, I could hear him like everyone else. I wanted to ask him what they had with them, but before I could transmit over the command channel, he answered my question.

“Looks like they are rolling up new supporters. The big machines that survived our hunter-killer platoons have surrounded Fort Pierre. They’ve suffered over fifty-percent losses, but they are still a viable force.”

I grinned in my helmet at that news. My marines, armed with nuclear grenades, had done more damage than I’d dared to hope for. Still, half an army of giant machines would be powerful in a single mass.

“All the Macros, big and small, will be hitting us shortly,” Barrera’s voice continued in an announcer’s monotone. “In addition, the enemy fleet has decided to advance into range of our position. They are flying cautiously over the ocean toward us from the east. They’ll be in range within—three minutes.”

I made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a grunt. That was it—the end of the game. We couldn’t face the Macro workers, the big invasion machines, and their fleet. The heavy laser forts I’d built to drive back the enemy fleet had all been knocked out.

Fort Pierre was about to fall. After that, Andros Island was doomed.