“Barbarossa, open the floor of this pod!” I roared. “Dissolve it now, all of it!”
I think it was the last command the ship ever executed. We dropped out into open space, the wind whistling over our armor in a buffeting, screaming rush. We were in free-fall when the streaking missiles plowed into the ship and the pod above us-one hit each. It was more than enough firepower. Both the ship and the pod fireballed and fell apart in burning scraps.
We fell faster than the debris overhead, being lower and denser than the rain of burning, squirming smart metal.
“No one apply any thrust!” I ordered over our short-range, tactical com system. “Just fall with the rest of the debris. Wait until they engage someone else.”
My men obeyed me. We fell the last three or so miles to the surface in a relative peace and quiet. The wind whistled, and raindrops formed a slipstream over my armor.
While we fell, the world swam up to us with sickening, spiraling speed. It looked ugly down there-all charcoal and dirty, grinding machines.
I had time enough to wonder about the Macros and their targeting. Had someone told them it was me in that ship? Had I blown my own cover somehow? I wasn’t sure, but if I lived for another few hours, I was determined to find out.
— 14
We applied power only when we had to, braking hard at the end so as not to crash into the planet’s crust with killing force. When we did finally thump our boots down on the crunchy surface of silt and mud, we scattered as quickly as we could, taking cover. I eyed my sensors and the sky overhead, hunching my shoulders reflexively in my suit. I hoped they hadn’t prioritized our group of small, power-emitting targets. Just in case we were more important than we thought we were, I headed for distant cover. Everyone else had the same idea and we didn’t stop running in every direction like rats until we went to ground and crouched there, sides heaving, watching the skies.
I didn’t see anything nearby on my scope, my HUD or by visually scanning the skies. No flaring streaks of death rained down on my squad. Up above the cloud cover, however, it was a different story. Tight flocks of eight missiles sought one ship after another. The Fleet people were adjusting to this tactic. They regrouped themselves, and now moved into a cone-like formation. They arranged their ships so the open mouth of the cone was directed toward the oncoming source of fire. This provided every ship with a clear field of fire at the missiles as they entered the cone. The beams were intense, lighting up the air with blasts of radiation. The raindrops were instantly turned to plasma when the hot energy passed through them and turned into puffs of superheated steam.
The beams had to be held on longer to burn through the growing murk and the enemy countermeasures. Using less power for a longer duration beam was an effective way to overwhelm defenses and strike through to the missiles one at a time. Unfortunately, it slowed down the rate of fire. Twice, one got through and another ship was lost.
Part of me wished I was up there with the squadron of destroyers-only seven were left out of the nine, now. But I could tell their commander knew what he was doing. He had them all linked and firing in unison. Each missile was being struck from all sides by over twenty probing beams. Each one popped, then the turrets retargeted and popped the next. Following their orders, the ships pressed toward the source of the missiles, all firing as they went.
I turned away from the action overhead and waved to my men, who’d begun to gather themselves and their fallen equipment.
“Any casualties?” I asked.
“No sir, all accounted for,” Kwon answered.
I smiled. I’d asked for a squad of volunteers, and I shouldn’t have been surprised at who had jumped at the chance to go on this mission. “Kwon, let’s spread out and march toward the pit. Keep a good firing distance between each man.”
Kwon stumped off, shouting orders. I followed my squad and found Sloan at my side. He signaled me.
“What is it, Captain?”
“You should check out Marvin,” he said.
I looked around, not seeing the robot. Sloan pointed to a large mound of charcoal. I headed that way and found Marvin sprawled on the far side of the mound in a muddy puddle. Rain ran down over his metal body and pooled up on the dished out spots on his back. A half-dozen black tentacles squirmed under his body, making splashing sounds.
“What are you doing in that mud-hole, robot?”
“I prefer the designation artificial person,” Marvin said. He didn’t turn even a single camera in my direction as he said it.
I came forward grunting and levering my laser projector over to my left hand. These battle suits had exoskeletal strength, but this kit was extremely heavy and we’d added the most powerful generator kits we had. I’d expected to be fighting building-sized Macros, and I’d wanted the firepower to deal with them effectively.
I splashed into his mud-hole and peered over his shoulder-if you could call it that. The structure under his head was more of a sprouting point for a knot of three extra tentacles. My proximity earned me the attention of a single camera.
“You are obscuring my light source, Colonel Riggs.”
“Don’t you have a flashlight built into that owl-trap of yours?” I asked.
A second camera eyed me, then panned away. He seemed to be studying the watery mud under him, sampling it, zooming in on it and-I don’t know, but I thought he was tasting it, too.
“I don’t want to introduce unnatural radiation. It will spoil the specimen.”
“Have you gone naturalist on me, Marvin?”
“I’m testing this spot as a likely discovery zone. I believe biotic life should be flourishing here.”
“Microbes are everywhere,” I said. “I’ve probably got more of them in me than I do nanites.”
Three cameras. “No, you don’t. The nanites destroy most of them. Only the most beneficial are allowed to survive.”
“Humph,” I said. “I didn’t know that. Anyway, why are you looking for microbes?”
“Not microbes. Specialized biotic residue.”
I started to open my mouth, then closed it again. Suddenly, I figured I had the answer. He was looking for the smart bugs, the microbes we’d found when we’d last been in this system. They’d been held captive in a large gurgling tank of liquid on a captured Macro cruiser. I’d spoken to them briefly through Marvin-before the ship had been destroyed. We’d never encountered them again. As far as I knew, the only ones I knew about were the ones still living in Sandra’s body.
“Sir?” Kwon called, coming over the ridge. He stopped when he saw the two of us crouching over the mud and studying it with great interest. “Ah,” he said. “That must be a Macro footprint, right?”
“What?” I asked. “Uh, no. I don’t know. Marvin is looking for bacteria.”
Kwon’s helmet tilted a fraction, giving him a quizzical pose. “Well, Sloan sent me after you. He didn’t want to turn up his radio to call for you. He says to tell you we are still in a combat zone and his survival instincts tell him to keep moving.”
“Right,” I said. “Marvin, slurp up some of that water to study later. We are moving out.”
“I might damage the ecosystem.”
I gestured around us. “I hate to break this to you, but the Macros beat you to it.”
“No, I mean the tenuous thread these creatures have on life.”
I sighed. “All right. We are moving out. You can huddle down here as long as you like. If you don’t show up at the Macro dome, I’ll try to reprogram it myself.”
Marvin made a variety of protests, but we trudged away over the squelching mud. Finally, he came gliding along behind us. He didn’t say anything, but I suspected he was annoyed with me. That was just too damned bad.