Swarm

-31-

A force of Macro workers had been gathering secretly in the trees behind us. These workers were equipped differently, with twin lobster-claws protruding from the torso of every unit. My first impression when I spotted them, charging our rear, was that they were built for harvesting of some kind. Probably, they foraged around the domes for metals or maybe even trees—although I had no idea what use the machines would have for wood. In any case they lacked guns of any kind, and they rushed close to attack.

At least half my men were distracted by this flank attack. We fired as they charged from the tree line. Many of the enemy lobster-types didn’t make it to us, but those that did simply plucked men from the ground with their claws. They lifted my men into the air with one claw, then proceeded to snip off their limbs individually. With a final grinding effort, they crushed each victim’s helmet until the skull inside popped.

I tore my eyes from that scene to watch the men charging the dome. In front of us, all around the far side of the crater’s rim, another force of big machines appeared. They had gathered out of our sight. They had probably been swelling in numbers since we arrived at the crater, running in from neighboring patrols and domes. They had bided their time on the far side of the crater, getting together every unit they had, until we approached the dome. It was clear to me that our attack had triggered their counterstrike. They didn’t want us anywhere near their dome.

The men I’d sent forward into the crater never had a chance. I ordered them to turn and run, but it was already too late. Half our men up on the crater rim were firing backward at the lobster-workers who streamed out of the trees behind us. The other half attempted to give covering fire as our men bounded back toward us, but the enemy Macros were too fast. They ignored our fire, which had no real effect on their shielded bodies. I counted twenty-six of the huge, silvery bastards. They rolled over the rim of the crater, overran my men and burned them down. My troops looked like sand castles caught in a tidal wave. Hundreds of belly-turrets blazed at once, and my marines melted. Seeing they were doomed, they stood and fought to the last. The big machines went into a frenzy, shouldering one another and clashing together massive legs in their eagerness to kill. My marines fought until utterly destroyed. They only managed to take out one of the big machines before they were all burnt to ash.

The workers rushing our rear were driven back with heavy losses, but they had done their work. I realized belatedly they had held our attention and kept us pinned down until the big machines had time to get in close and destroy my two forward companies. As I watched, the big machines pulled back beyond the far side of the crater.

“They are resetting the trap!” shouted Major Radovich. “If we all go for the dome now, the workers will come up behind us again and hit us in the back.”

“We have to attack again,” I said.

He looked at me. After watching two companies get slaughtered down there, his bravado had faded.

“We could hold and call for another battlegroup,” he said.

“The nearest is an hour or two away. If we sit here that long, they will launch a missile barrage. For all we know, a mass of missiles is coming here right now.”

“Can’t our birds see—”

“No,” I said, cutting him off. I hadn’t had time to fill him in on the loss of our satellites. I did so now. His face was a shade grimmer by the end of my explanation.

“So, we don’t know if….”

“No,” I said, “we have no idea what’s coming.”

He paused. “What are your orders, sir?”

“We came here to destroy that dome. We will do so or we will all die. I thought we could probe and scout the dome. I was wrong. We’ll leave a company on this ridge, with the cruise missile brigade. The rest of us will roll down there and either take out those machines and that dome or die trying.”

“I thought I was the craziest one here, sir,” he said.

“You’ll have to take a number,” I told him.

“It’s been less than a pleasure serving with you, Colonel.”

“Same.”

We grinned at each other, the smiles of two men who face imminent death. Then we relayed our orders. We stood up with our men, and together we charged down the ridge. Almost immediately, the big machines that had pulled back to the far side of the crater swept forward again to meet us.

“Listen up boys,” I said, broadcasting to everyone, “I want you to get into that dome if you can and destroy whatever is there. Run all out for the dome. We can move faster than they are expecting us to. Engage if you have to, but try to keep moving toward the dome.”

We almost made it. I think they had underestimated our speed. In past battles, with normal humans, men had always run at a certain rate. Their software had not yet made the adjustment. They came at us in a wave, but we were only a few hundred yards from the dome when they met us and a pitched battle began. I shouted orders commanding my men to put up a running fight. We had to shoot and keep moving toward the goal, to move right under them, right through them.

Many of my men failed to follow these orders. When the machines loomed over them, blocking out the sky, they slowed and concentrated fire on the belly-turrets that strafed them. I cursed, seeing this, but then I was in the middle of the battle and felt the same urges. To keep moving was nearly impossible once you were beneath the legs. Huge, looming columns of metal flew around, as if an eight-story building had come to unholy life and had decided it must kill you.

The noise of the machines was tremendous. They had a smoky smell about them too that reminded me of burning tires. I sighted on a splattering turret and burned it until it ruptured like a light bulb. The effort took nearly two seconds, much too long. It was only luck that I wasn’t crushed or beamed down as I stood in one spot for so long. When combating a pack of angry Macros, two seconds was a lifetime.

“Forward!” I shouted, hoping some of the men could hear and obey me. I ran then, sprinting. The dome was very near. Around me a knot of marines followed.

Something roared and I was knocked flat. For several blinking seconds I didn’t know what had happened. Then I had it: a missile strike. The barrage had come in, finally.

It took me a few more seconds to realize there were very few missile strikes. This wasn’t a barrage, it was just a smattering of missiles. I could see now what was happening. Up above the dome, above the machines and the struggling men, a launcher had arisen. It had many tubes. Periodically, each tube sparked and a missile flashed. Spiraling smoke trails led down toward us. They were firing right into their own machines at point-blank range.

Two men picked me up, and I was dragged, half-running toward the dome. My body was full of metal slivers. When I breathed, liquid bubbled out of my chest as if I were a wet, popped tire. My men dragged me under the last machine that stood between us and the dome. It had run out of belly-turrets by this time and two of its crab-like legs were dragging behind it.

I shouted into my com-unit. “Cruise brigade! Take out that missile turret now!”

I wasn’t sure if they acknowledged or not. I wasn’t even sure if they were still alive. We made it under the dying Macro’s legs and hit the dome. All sounds of the battle cut out.

Stepping under the dome was like entering a cool, calm world. Cut off from the outside completely, I could feel the barrier as I passed through. It felt like I’d walked through some kind of plastic film, as if I’d been swallowed in bubble-wrap. We pushed inward and it pushed back, but gently it gave way. I think it was designed to allow slowly moving things to walk through. How else could the workers easily gain access? I supposed they could have sent in some kind of signal, but signals could be duplicated. Besides, I suspected now that the shield prevented all signals from penetrating. Signals were fast-moving energy, just like the laser beams from my rifle. These domes seemed to stop such emissions.

Once past the barrier, we stood in a gloomy world. A machine hulked in front of us, dimly lit by internal sources. I flipped on my suit lights and stood unaided. I coughed, and that hurt worst of all.

“Colonel?” asked the man next to me in concern. I looked at him in surprise. It was Wilson, not Radovich. I wondered briefly if Radovich was dead.

“Should we fire on that thing, sir?” he asked me.

I tried to get my thoughts together. It wasn’t easy. I’d gone through too many shocks too quickly, and I think that close missile blast, exploding almost in my face, had addled my brains. I realized I was lucky I could still hear anything.

“How many do we have?” I asked, and right away I could see relief on Lieutenant Wilson’s face. He hadn’t wanted to command this final leg of the assault. I didn’t blame him.

“Twenty sir, but more are streaming in.”

Twenty? I thought in shock. Was that all that had made it inside?

“Let’s advance then,” I said, “and see what that thing is.”

I staggered forward. One leg didn’t seem to be operating properly. Wilson gave me a shoulder and I took it. We moved toward the thing that crouched in the center of the dome.

It took me a few dozen steps to recognize it. I had seen it before, or something like it. It resembled one of my own factories—the ones I’d built and left on Andros Island—but it was much larger. A hundred times larger. I could hear it now. It sort of thrummed. It was a deep, steady, ominous sound.

“Men,” I said, struggling not to cough. My lungs burned and itched abominably and it was all I could do to speak clearly. “This thing is a factory. It builds new Macros and whatever else they need, just as I built these guns we are carrying. I’ve never thought about how to destroy one, but I think it’s time we figured it out.”

More men came in, a lot of them. We had maybe a hundred and fifty marines inside the dome. Less than two companies out of ten. The new group reported that most of the big machines outside were destroyed, but most of us had died as well.

“Well, there’s nothing like the direct approach. Everyone button up as best they can. On my mark, everyone fire at that thing. Shoot for the center point of the mass, about ten feet from the base. Everyone now, fire!

We blazed at it. Light like that of a thousand suns bloomed, filling the inside of the dome with brilliance. Despite our darkened shades, I could see the light. It was blinding, painful.

I kept the beam going for five seconds. Everyone followed my lead, and as each second passed, the beams came closer together, focused on a single target area.

“Keep firing. Let’s go another five,” I said, trying to sound calm.

My eyes were squinting lines. My retinas were exploding. The heat coming off my weapon burned my hands right through my gloves. We fired for five more seconds, then another two or three, but I could tell the light was dimming. Either I’d burnt out my retinas, or men and lasers were failing around me. Probably, it was the latter. The heat was tremendous.

“Cease fire!” I shouted. The beams cut out and died down. My vision came back slowly, but with many burnt purple splotches that floated and flared annoyingly. “We don’t want to melt our lasers down, or our hands and eyes.”

We checked out the damage when we were able. There wasn’t much to show for all the effort. A pocked area, blackened and burnt, showed in a ten foot radius on the wall of the machine’s heavy base.

Only a few more men had joined us, the flow of new troops was lighter now. Only two companies or so had survived, out of a thousand men. I figured the troops back on the crater’s rim might have lived as well. There might be wounded outside too, if we had taken out all the big machines. I thought perhaps we had, as none of them had tried to get inside here with us. Maybe they were too big. I had no idea actually. But I was sure I wanted to destroy this factory before it could build a new Macro.

I led the men around to the far side of the machine. Wilson still helped me walk. There it was, on the same spot as the machine back inside my own ship. The intake vent. It was up a ways, perhaps twenty feet off the ground. I was sure the worker Macros would lift up their burdens of raw materials and slide them down that hole into something like the nanite digesters my own factories had.

The marines gathered around. “What are we going to do now, sir?” asked Wilson.

“Well, Lieutenant, we’re going to get inside that intake somehow and destroy this thing.”

“You first, sir,” he said.

I looked at him.

“No offense, sir. But are you serious? What if that thing turns on?”

“I need your help, Wilson. I need your command codes for my suit.”

“What, sir?”

“The safeguards. It takes two officers to release them. I need your secret code for self-destruction. Then I need you to lead these men out of here after we build up a ladder to get me up to the rim of that intake vent.”

“What? I didn’t really mean what I said about you going first.”

I nodded. “I know, Wilson. But we haven’t got any other heavy explosives with us.”

Wilson stared at me. “I’ve got a better idea, sir. We’ll rig up the ignition switch to a command signal. Then we’ll drop a reactor inside there. The rest of the men can evac and the last man out can set it off.”

“He’ll have to stay inside the dome,” I said. “No signals will go through it. We haven’t got the equipment to set up an autodestruct or a time-bomb.”

“Yes sir. I would like to volunteer for that mission, sir.”

I shook my head. He put a hand on my arm.

“Sir,” he said, “Kyle Riggs—I told you I would join up and follow you. I did that sir. And I’m still a man of my word. I’ll do it.”

“I trust you, Lieutenant, but—” I said, but he cut me off.

“We can’t order anyone else to do it. We can’t ask that. But we are playing for keeps here. Difficult situations require difficult choices. I’m willing to take the chance.”

“This is my command,” I said.

“Yes sir, it is.”

I hesitated. Then the machine rumbled. I don’t know what it sounded like—maybe like a locomotive starting up when you had your hands on it and leaned against it. I could feel the deep vibration in my bones. All the men backed away from it instinctively.

“It’s building a new machine, sir,” said Wilson, eyeing me, “you know it is.”

I sighed and coughed. “Okay. Do it.”

We threw Wilson’s armed reactor pack up into its maw, and light flared out to consume it. I hoped it would still operate. I ordered everyone out of the dome. I was one of the last to wave to Wilson, who urgently made pushing motions at me. The machine was indeed giving birth to something… something large. It had to be one of the big fighting machines. I wondered how long it took to generate such a monster, given all the required materials.

I didn’t even make it all the way through the shield bubble before it popped and vanished forever. I never even heard the explosion itself. It was completely dampened by the shield, held inside there and contained. Then the force field collapsed to nothing, revealing only smoking wreckage inside.

Outside, we were met by the cruise missile boys and the company that had covered them. They had pulled through. The two companies I’d led into the dome were the only other survivors. But the dome and the factory inside had been destroyed. It was a blackened hulk of twisted metal.

I had my people search, but we couldn’t find Wilson. There was no sign of him. Nothing at all.