“Have fooled us once already today. I’m not giving them a second break. Now, everyone come with me up to the observation deck.”
On top of the officers’ quarters, which doubled as the command post for the base, was an observation deck with thick railing that was perfect for a rifleman to fire over. I inspected it briefly, approving of the design.
“Is this fortification your work, Diaz?” I asked the captain as he clanked after me.
“Yes, colonel. I’ve been experimenting with programming and shaping constructive nanites.”
“Good work. I need creative men. Take a look out eastward. Make sure your autoshades are on.”
We all stood on the upper deck and stared to the east. I could see the nearest of the three central forts. From this distance, the black arms holding the projectors were too small to make out, but I could see the beam projectors aiming toward the distant ships. They hung over the eastern horizon, so large and black against the sky they could be seen easily with some adjustments to our helmet zoom controls.
Periodically, as we watched, the big guns flared. There wasn’t much to see, a streak of burning atmosphere. A dimming of our helmets as the autoshades kicked in. Most of the dangerous light was in the infrared.
“Enough power is being released that those heavy weapons could damage our optic nerves even at this distance.”
“I don’t hear anything,” Sandra said.
“You won’t. Not at this range. They are beam weapons, not cannons firing shells. If you were close enough, you would hear a thunder-like effect as the atmosphere has holes punched through it.”
We stared and suddenly, one of the ships dipped forward, as if it were hung by wires—and one of the wires had just broken. It slid downward then, nose first. Smoke trailed behind it. The ship fell until it vanished below the horizon.
Kwon hooted. “We got one, sir!”
“Where did it go down?” Captain Diaz asked.
“Either over New Providence, or into the sea itself,” I said. “It’s difficult to tell at this distance, even with the helmet zoomed to max. Because of the curvature of the Earth, we can’t see the endpoint of a crash landing.”
“Why does it take so many hits to bring one down?” Kwon asked.
“Because they are at the very limits of our range. We can damage them, but it takes a lot of pounding to do so.”
“What are they doing out there, Kyle?” Sandra asked. “Aren’t they going to move? Are they going to let us just destroy their ships one at a time?”
“Unfortunately, I doubt they will,” Captain Diaz answered her.
I rotated my helmet to look at him. “What do you think they will do, captain?”
He extended an armored arm. I followed his fingertip and zoomed in on the spot. There, engines were flaring. The ships in the farthest northern end of their formation were moving now. And they were coming toward us.
“Looks like they are going to pull back, sir,” Diaz said.
“Good,” I said, presenting a confident exterior that I didn’t really feel. Out of their three options, this was the least helpful. If they’d stood there, we could have had fun blasting them. If they’d advanced and committed themselves, we would have known this was it, the final battle was on. Since they’d retreated, we could concentrate on their burrowing forces, but with the knowledge their fleet could change its course and get into the fight whenever they wished.
“Looks like we’re driving them off, Colonel,” Diaz said.
“Doesn’t matter,” I lied smoothly. “We’re ready for them no matter what they do.”
Unexpectedly, the building we were standing on shook. We all stumbled.
“What the hell was that?” Sandra asked.
We scanned the horizons, looking for a telltale pall of smoke rising up out of the surrounding forest. I didn’t see anything. Another trembler hit, making the building rock and sway under us for a moment.
“Charges sir,” Captain Diaz said suddenly. He was listening to his headset. “They are detonating charges under the base.”
As the base C. O. he had plugged himself into the local tactical channel. I hadn’t done so yet. I worked the setting in my helmet, and it connected almost instantly.
“They’re in bunker eleven, sir!” I heard a voice say. It sounded young, high-pitched and terrified.
Suddenly, I got it. They weren’t going to come up and attack the base directly. They were going to dig into the bunkers where each of the Nano factories were hidden and attack them individually. Using that approach, they could isolate our defensive forces.
“Damn it,” I said aloud. I flipped the override and spoke right over Diaz. “This is Colonel Riggs. I want a squad deployed underground in every bunker with a factory unit in it. Report enemy contact immediately.”
I keyed off my transmission and spoke to Kwon. “Get a platoon together. We’ll play reserve support and rush down to every hotspot.”
Kwon didn’t ask any questions. He took a flying leap off the building, switching on the repellers in his boots. He sailed down into the center of the base and began bellowing orders at every marine in sight.
“Sir,” Diaz said to me, looking alarmed. “That will leave us very thin up top. They could march right into the base.”
“I don’t think that’s their intention,” I told him. “Besides, another full company of reinforcements is due to arrive in—eighteen minutes.”
Diaz began to say something else, but I was already flying after Kwon. I vaulted over the observation deck railing and sailed down into the center of the base. I didn’t much care about Diaz’s objections. I had to protect those factories. Human lives, this base—everything was secondary to that goal.
I sensed in Diaz a certain level of dismay at losing command of this base in the midst of what was probably his first real combat experience. I also sensed he would get over it eventually. And if he didn’t…well, that was just too bad.
-31-
Kwon and I charged down an underground ramp toward bunker eleven. It wasn’t hard to find. The men there were fighting hard. I could hear their grunts, screams and blazing weapons up ahead. When we got there, we were already too late. The last marine fell in the hallway at the bottom of the ramp. His lower half was missing, having been removed by a team of Macros. They were operating in pairs now, one with a heavy weapon on the head, the second with two lobster claw-looking mandibles. I wondered if that was an upgrade they’d come up with just to deal with our battle suits. If so, it was alarming. They were adapting faster than usual to our tactics.
The dead man didn’t know he was dead yet, typical of my people. The upper half of his body fought on, gunning the robot that held him with one gun while the other weapon fired directly into the ceiling, hitting nothing. He was screaming and incoherent. Nanites were building a lower mesh to hold the last of his guts in, I knew, but I doubted he would live much longer. There were limits to what even my men could take.
Kwon and I knelt on the ramp and we concentrated our fire. More beams leapt out over our helmeted heads. At least ten beams caught the macro with the lobster claws and burned right through his armor in less than a second. He slumped down, releasing a gout of oily blue smoke that filled the cramped hallway. The men behind us hopped over our heads and pressed ahead. Kwon and I were right behind them.
The guy in the hallway was the last survivor. There had only been three guards down here, apparently. The other two had been expertly killed. Six more Macros were busy ripping my factory from its moorings. They’d cut through the Nano alloy flooring and a set of thick anchor bolts. The flooring flapped and squirmed where it had been cut open. Being smart-metal, it was upset at being out of contact with its fellow deck plates.