“Have we got any ships out there?” I asked.
“Two, sir.”
“Get them on the command channel.”
I was down to sixty-one seconds by the time I got the ship captains on the line. “Captain-” I paused to look at his name on the screen. Hiro, that was it. “If those missiles get through, just one of them, we’ll lose a sixth of a biotic species. The seeds to an entire world. I want those missiles stopped.”
“I know sir, we’re firing at the incoming missiles. We’re doing our-”
“Captain Hiro, I can’t order you to block them, but I’m asking you to.”
There was a momentary pause. “Oh…I see, sir. Hiro out.”
That was it. I watched, sweating as the missile count dropped to zero on every world except for the sunward one, that tropical paradise I’d never yet had the pleasure of visiting. There, two missiles were seconds from impact. Suddenly, there was a blinding flash.
“He did it, sir,” Miklos said. His voice sounded troubled. “He’s rammed the missile. Should we contact the second destroyer?”
I shook my head. “There isn’t time left. By the time I explained it to him and he maneuvered his ship…”
We watched as the last missile drove onward, nearing the satellite. I squinted my eyes. I thought I saw a hit with nine seconds to go-but I held my breath. The missile was still on the board. Then it exploded.
“He self-destructed when he took the hit,” I said aloud.
“Who, sir?”
“The Macro pilot. Talk to me, is that satellite ruptured? Order all nearby ships to render assistance.”
Captain Miklos relayed my orders. After a few more minutes, he gave me his report. “Looks like the satellite is damaged, but the hull has maintained integrity. There are leaks, but nothing catastrophic. Most of the Centaurs are going to survive.”
I nodded, and took off my helmet. The attack was over. I smiled at the screens and read the reports. After a while, I caught Miklos staring at me. When I returned his gaze, he dropped his eyes back to his screen.
“What is it, Captain?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. A hard thing to judge.”
“What are you talking about?”
“How many men should die for a Centaur? Is one of our lives worth a million of theirs, a thousand, or only a hundred?”
“Oh,” I said. “I’ve already made those calculations. Depends on who we’re a talking about, of course. In the case of Star Force crews-I put that ratio at about a million of them to one of us.”
With that, I turned around and walked off the command deck. I could feel Miklos’ stunned stare on my back. I smiled grimly and left him wondering if I was serious or not. There were no cold calculations made in these moments, not for me. They were very hot, emotional, gut-wrenching choices.
But I had to admit, I did value one of my marines more than I did a quite large number of Centaurs. I had to. In the end, this was a war for survival, and I was determined that our side would win it. The side of all the biotics, that was.
Hiro had done as I’d asked, because I think he understood this. He’d made the sacrifice for the living. Together, we had to beat the machines-the moving, thinking dead. And we couldn’t do that if we let millions die screaming in space to save our own sorry skins.
But with all that said, Star Force was still the main thing holding back the Macros. We truly were worth thousands of other lives each, because they would all be dead if we didn’t win in the end.
— 13
After their first missile attack, we expected more, but they didn’t come. For another day or two, we did nothing but scramble to build up our anti-missile defenses and patch holes in the damaged satellite. About a hundred thousand civvies had died there from asphyxiation and freezing-but it could have been worse. Much worse.
After I had every satellite bristling with small turrets, I placed unmanned platforms in low orbit. Each bore eight more small guns. They hung just above the atmosphere, about ten miles under every one of the big Centaur habitats. If another attack was launched, these tiny forts would have to be passed by the missiles. They could either expend a missile to destroy them, or ignore them and endure fire from their guns all the way up to the bigger targets.
I had quite a production operation going by this time. We’d learned our way around the star system and found the easiest matter was still the chunks of junk that formed rings around the gas giant. I had sent more collectors to orbit the massive world, dipping their scoops into the dirty rings and sucking up matter that was perfect for our purposes: small, pulverized minerals. I was glad for the supply, as we didn’t have much left we could strip from the Centaur habitats. There were now noticeable holes in the gas giants rings-but I didn’t care. The locals would just have to get used to the new look.
I kept fortifying the satellites until they were ready to stop a hundred missiles or more each. When I finally halted the effort, I wondered what I was doing. I called another meeting, this time with just Miklos, Marvin and myself.
“I think I’m playing into their hands,” I told them.
“How so, sir?” asked Miklos.
“Think about it. They fire up less than a hundred missiles, all told. I then proceeded to turn away from my invasion mission and spend most of this week building defenses. In the meantime, they quietly build their own forces, digging in on every one of these planets. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have stopped building surface-to-space missiles entirely.”
Miklos frowned. “That is not the usual Macro operational profile. They almost succeeded in removing one Centaur habitat. They should press on, repeating the same strategy until it fails utterly.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That is the norm. But I’m sensing more intellect here. I feel like I’m being played. They threw up a feint, and while I’m up here working hard to cover my ass, they are setting up their next move. I’m reacting at this point-and we’ve lost the initiative.”
Miklos nodded thoughtfully.
I turned to Marvin next. “What do you think, Marvin?”
He swung three cameras to cover me. Normally, three would have represented rapt interest. I would have taken it as compliment. But now that he had about a dozen cameras, three wasn’t saying much.
“Judging from their actions, I calculate a high probability you are correct. There is a greater intellect at work. They have had the time to build deeper cognitive structures on these worlds.”
“Some kind of super-brain? Like the thing that ran that big dreadnaught back on Earth?”
“Precisely.”
“That’s great,” I said. “That’s just grand. I have a hard enough time beating their numbers, without them getting all smart and unpredictable on me.”
“Could we locate and target this super-brain?” Miklos asked.
I thought about it, and shook my head. “No. The primary targets are their factories. We’re going to have to go down there and execute Marvin’s original plan. In fact, I’m going for it now. Mass up the ships and make the approach. When can we do it?”
Miklos looked startled. “I–I can’t answer that without looking over all our positions, sir.”
“There you go. They’ve got us scattered. We’ve got ships patching up holes in Centaur balloons and building anti-missile defenses. In the meantime, I bet they are down there building up ground forces to repel our next assault. They panicked us, and are now one step ahead.”
I smashed my armored fists together. Miklos winced. Marvin was watching me with five cameras now.
“We don’t really know-” began Miklos.
“I know enough,” I said, cutting him off. “I know I’ve been sitting up here in space, cowering and worrying about where they might strike next. We had the advantage when we hit them hard-but we didn’t keep up the pressure. They managed to make a counterpunch and put us on the defensive. Well, I’m done defending. We’re going down there. Make it happen, Miklos.”