Probably, this was because they didn’t have an individual in command of the rest. I’d yet to figure out if they had a specialized ‘leader’ class of Macro unit, but I suspected they didn’t. As best I could tell the Macros wirelessly linked together and formed a single mind for their control system. When I talked with ‘Macro Command’ I was talking to all of the individuals in the local networked group.
They seemed to share their command choices automatically the way one of our computers might share the job of running a single program by spreading the work among many processors. Part of each Macro mind must include software dedicated to group decision-making. I suspected this introduced a delay in the case of complex choices and that was why they tended to hesitate when asked something unexpected. They all ran their software, made a choice, and they all went with the group decision as a single entity. There was no arguing, bickering or jockeying for rank or favor. In this way, they were like giant versions of the Nanos.
At times, they did operate as individuals, however. When you fought one, you didn’t get the feeling it was conferring with the rest about every move it made. They definitely were able to function quickly and independently when they needed to.
Once the control lines were linked up to all the laser turrets, we configured the turrets to focus on the incoming shuttles as their highest priority targets. With any luck, the Macro marines would never make it aboard our ship. Thinking that was the likely result of this attack, I ordered Gorski to produce only drones. We had to knock out the ship-killing missiles. Two were still incoming, and more would likely follow if this invasion attempt was halted. The ship-killers were the bigger danger as they moved so much faster. My little turrets were made to burn down something big and slow like the invasion missiles.
“Kwon,” I said, pulling him away from where he was berating a corporal for a dead turret.
“Sorry sir,” he said, coming closer. He gave the corporal his middle finger. The tech sergeant walked away, shaking his head.
“That guy won’t admit it,” Kwon said angrily, “but he set it up wrong.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said, thinking that mentally, Kwon was still a master sergeant, and not a conventional one at that. “I want you to prepare for a possible invasion by Macro marines.”
“Invasion?” he asked.
“Yeah. Our intel says those big missiles are carrying armed Macros, not warheads.”
Kwon nodded. “That’s why they keep slowing down. This is good news.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah. I would rather fight Macros than just get blown up.”
“Right. They probably won’t make it through, but I would expect them to come through the breach first if they do. But we can’t be sure. There are hatches all over the outer hull of the ship. They might be able to unlock them and slip aboard.”
Kwon looked excited. This was the kind of fight he understood. “I’m on it. We’ll weld every hatch shut and put down a squad to repel any invaders. I’ll put a company right here, one outside the bridge and set the rest as a reserve guard force in case they do get in.”
I nodded and blessed his ideas. They were sound. He stomped away, arranging his forces. Another twenty minutes passed, and I was surprised no firing had begun. I returned to the bridge.
“We’ve fired two drones at the last two incoming ship-killer missiles,” said Gorski. He was back in his chair nearby. His eyes never left his computer and his fingers never stopped tapping at it as he spoke. “We’ll have another six drones ready in less than an hour.”
“The shuttles are still slowing down, sir,” Sarin told me. “They are clearly planning to match our course and speed so they can land on our hull.”
“Range?” I asked.
“We can almost reach them,” Gorski said.
“Let’s turn around then,” I said.
“Sir, something-” Sarin said, her voice rising.
She didn’t have to tell me. I felt the shock. It was small, but unmistakable. “What hit us?” I asked.
“I don’t know sir. Some kind of beam-the shuttles are firing on us!”
“Hull integrity?”
“No breach, sir,” Sarin said.
“Bring us around now,” I ordered.
The two of them worked the controls. It seemed to take a long time. I clenched my teeth as I felt the ship tremor with three more impacts.
“Are they in range yet?” I asked. “Put up a range plot and a timer based on current velocity.”
Sarin worked hard on the screen settings. It seemed to take too long. The ship shuddered five more times. I heard a beeping in my helmet. It was Kwon.
“Hold on, Kwon,” I said on the command channel.
“I’ve got it, sir,” Sarin said. I saw an orange, fan-shaped region appear in front of the cruiser’s nose. This was our ships firing cone. The color was brighter near the ship, which I immediately interpreted as our strongest firepower. Further out, it quickly faded to nothing. I could tell right away we didn’t have much range. The enemy ships were a good distance away from that cone, but we were already getting hit.
“They out range us,” I said, watching in panic as they slowed further. “They can sit outside our reach and snipe us to death.”
I heard another beeping in my helmet. “Go ahead, Kwon,” I said.
“Sir, my turrets are falling off the ship when you made that turn,” he said.
“What?” I asked frowning.
“I’ve lost contact with eleven of them.”
I suddenly got the message. “The Macros are knocking out our turrets. They’ll take them all out, then invade. Damn.”
“We could turn around again until they get in range,” Gorski suggested.
I shook my head. “They can see them or sense them somehow. They will just snipe at our engines if we let them. They are in no hurry. We don’t have anything to hit them with.”
“We’ll have another drone in time to fire at them,” Gorski said. “Or we could throw mines.”
“We’re going to need those mines. There’s no evidence the ones we threw at them hit anything, is there?”
“No sir.”
I turned back to the board. Another tiny shock rattled the ship. I realized I didn’t have any choices left. I was out-ranged, and they were stripping away the small armament that I had. I could tell, without Sarin spoon-feeding the data to me, the enemy shuttles had slowed down to a crawl now in relative speeds. I would have done the same. When you outranged an enemy, you sat back and pounded him.
I had no interest in being softened up any further. “Full ahead,” I ordered. “Charge them. Let’s get into range before they destroy every turret we set up.”
I felt the ship move under my feet and had to grip the computer table with my hands. The acceleration had to be tremendous to feel it so strongly while the inertial dampeners were functioning.
“Kwon!” I shouted over the engines, which were thrumming loudly now. “Get your men inside the hull and tell them invaders are likely.”
“Right sir!” Kwon shouted back excitedly.
If I hadn’t been facing sixty-four angry robots I would have laughed. He sounded like a kid let loose in a video game store.
29
We’d lost about eighty percent of our laser turrets by the time we got into range a few minutes later. The ship rocked and shuddered with the impact of the enemy beams. At that point, the four Macro assault shuttles blossomed. It looked like they’d come apart into a mass of red dots.
“Did we knock them all out at once?” I asked in amazement.
Major Sarin shook her head and frowned. “We are close enough for a visual, Colonel.”
She dialed up a close-up of the Macro formation. I watched and immediately felt a sinking sensation. The assault ships were not at all what I’d expected. Rather than being single, sleek vessels with solid hulls, they looked like networks of struts covered with systems and filled with Macros. We could actually see the Macros they carried, exposed inside the cage-like ships.