I called for emergency personnel and found they were already waiting outside my office door. They checked the bomb and declared it defused. Then they took Ping’s body away on a gurney with a sheet over the face. I let them spread the information that a spy had been dealt with. I knew the rest of the staff would be horrified, and when they learned she was actually an assassin who had nearly bombed the building, their horror would turn to fear.
Lunchtime had come and gone. I ordered food brought in while we watched the emergency situation unfold out around Venus. I tried to put Ping out of my mind, but it was difficult. I kept seeing her dead, bloodless face.
I had the roof patched with a barrel of construction nanites, forming a shield which I’d ordered to plane out and form a metal barrier over the entire roof. At least I didn’t have to worry about raindrops soaking the carpet anymore.
Only Crow, Major Sarin and I still circled the big table. Sandra had faded out again at some point. Her self-appointed task was to be my personal security team in addition to performing general snooping. As she had demonstrated with poor Ping, she was very good at both tasks. I knew she was out there somewhere, probably within a few hundred yards of my new office, ghosting around. I sincerely hope she didn’t bring me any more bodies today.
“Admiral Crow,” I said, “it’s time to put the Fleet up into orbit. We need them ready to mass. Depending on how this plays out, a quick strike by our forces could be decisive.”
“It could also be suicidal,” he said.
“Just put up the ships. We can talk about whether we need to use them or not when the time comes.”
Crow shook his head slowly. He stared intently at the table with me. “I don’t know, Colonel. Let’s say only one Macro pokes his nose up at Venus. If we fly all our ships after one scout, he can retreat and report back as to our precise strength.”
I tried not to grind my teeth. “What do you suggest we do then?”
“I’ll send up two squadrons. Enough to chase off a scout. I’ll even start them flying in the direction of Venus. They can always turn around and run if need be.”
I didn’t like the idea of splitting our forces, but Crow had a point. We didn’t have any room for mistakes. And the Macros had in the past made judgments concerning whether or not to attack based on perceived strength or weakness. If they calculated they had enough power to wipe us out, they would not hesitate to move. If, on the other hand, they were not sure they had enough strength, they would wait indefinitely. They didn’t like unknowns, and they didn’t take half-measures. They waited for a sure thing, then they always bet the house.
Crow relayed his orders to Fleet and within minutes ships began to lift off from the island. Darkness gathered over the Caribbean. The rain clouds had thickened, making it nearly black outside. In the gloom, our ships were shadows with gleaming engines. Silver rain trailed out behind each of them as they rose up in single file. They were silent, deadly. But they were nowhere near enough to face the entire Macro battle fleet. I’d once sat in space, facing down that battle fleet with seven hundred smaller ships of my own at my back. I’d calculated their numbers then to be around a thousand. I had been off slightly, as later estimates put the number at somewhere closer to five hundred. But it hardly mattered, as each of their cruisers was worth a squadron of our smallest vessels in combat. We were no match for them. In terms of firepower, they outgunned us a hundred to one.
“Sir?” asked Major Sarin, staring out one of the big ballistic glass windows to the east. “Is that Sandra—outside on the ledge?”
I glanced in the direction Sarin had indicated. I saw my girl out there, crouching on a foot-wide strip of concrete four floors up. Rain dripped off her hair and the tip of her nose. She had the attitude of a listening predator. She watched our ships fly into the sky, then tilted her lovely face to stare downward four floors to the ground. From her vantage, I realized she could watch the sky, the base, and me inside my office. With her heightened senses, I knew she could probably hear our conversation despite the thick glass.
“She likes rooftops, especially during rainstorms,” I said, as if that explained everything. “Since our return from the campaign, I haven’t had time to ask her why yet.”
Crow laughed quietly, shaking his head. “You sure can pick’em Kyle.”
Sandra turned her head toward us then. I realized she had heard us, despite the ballistic glass, the rainstorm and everything. She lifted her hand and extended her middle finger toward Crow in slow motion. I chuckled. That was my girl. She was easily the scariest woman, if not the scariest person, on Earth.
We broke up the meeting at that point, as there wasn’t much else we could do as a team. The office would work well as a battle management center, but at the moment, there wasn’t any battle to manage. I hoped it would be a long time until there would be, but it wasn’t a strong hope.
I headed out of the building toward the mess hall. I’d grown tired of sandwiches and coffee. I wanted a real sit-down meal and a minute or two to think clearly.
Behind me on the sidewalk—we actually had sidewalks now, not just open sand and scrubby beach grasses—I heard a splash and a double-thump. I crouched and whirled. The first thought in my mind was that of assassination. I had plenty of enemies on Earth, not the least of which was Crow himself. Was this the moment? The first attempt on my life since returning to Earth?
It was only Sandra. She stood up quickly, naturally. Her legs weren’t broken, nor even unsteady. She waved to me, smiled, and hurried to catch up.
I looked behind her and upward. I’d just passed by the big windows of my office. She must have jumped down here in a single bound. She’d been physically enhanced much further than the rest of us, due to the combination of nanites and the unknown efforts of the microbiotic aliens. I’d been impressed with her physique and skills in space, but here on Earth with much higher gravity, I hadn’t been sure how she would perform. I could see now she was equally impressive under the pull of a planet’s mass.
“Join me for dinner?” I asked.
“Just try to stop me.”
I reached out my hand and she took it. I walked with her to the mess hall and ordered the best food ever served on a military base. I had turtle soup, followed by a plate of fresh venison. Sandra ordered escargot and a truffle soufflé. Every flavor was marvelous. Of all Crow’s excesses, here was one I could at least enjoy. Sandra and I ate and chatted as lightly as possible. We had a long-standing agreement to try to keep the business of war out of our personal lives. Usually, we failed at this…but not tonight. Maybe it was the very seriousness of our situation that allowed us to suspend talk of weighty things. It was only after a shared dessert of raspberry flan that the subject of our impending doom finally came up.
“I know you have a plan, Kyle,” she said to me finally as our spoons clinked against one another, competing for the last bites of dessert.
“I always do,” I lied smoothly. Sandra knew me pretty well, but I could still pull the wool over her eyes on some things when I needed to. It was part of my theory of military leadership that the troops had to believe in the all-powerful nature of their leader. It gave them hope in the darkest of situations. Only I had to live with the truth.
“What I’m worried about is your self-sacrificing nature. You have a complex about it Kyle. You really do.”
“Have you been reading magazines again?”
She flashed me an annoyed glance. “I don’t read magazines. You know that.”
“Online blogs then.”
“Articles, I read articles. Do you want me to be a fluff?”
“I gave up on that hope long ago.”
“All right then,” she said leaning close. “You have a class A personality. Did you know that?”