I thought about that for a second. I didn’t like the sound of it. “All right, I should have suspected that would happen. We’ve been gone for months, and I knew he’d been working with outside militaries. Maybe he just wants to get design input from the most talented people he can find. After all, we were almost wiped out the last time the Macros came to Earth. More cooperation-”
“Don’t you get it, Kyle?” she demanded. “He’s not just building up, he’s setting up some kind of coup.”
I snorted and almost laughed. “A coup? Against whom? I’m not a king, you know. I’m a Colonel who runs the marines.”
“You were the sole commander who fought the Macros to a standstill last time they came. It won’t be the same when you return.”
“What do you want me to do about that?” I asked. “Are you in Jasmine’s camp? Do you want me to go back now and straighten Crow out?”
She heaved a sigh and looked uncertain. “I don’t think so,” she said. “You aren’t strong enough now.”
“Strong enough for what?”
She looked at me intently. “When you go back to Earth, Kyle, you should have a massive fleet behind you. Enough ships to take Earth, if necessary.”
I did laugh this time. “I don’t want to do that! I’ve never even considered such a thing.”
“Then you should bring the Macros home on your tail, like you did last time. Then they will need you. They will let you fight for them, and save them again.”
I shook my head, bemused. I looked into her face, and as far as I could tell, she was serious. “I thought heroes were given a party.”
“Not always. Sometimes they are feared, or blamed for not doing their jobs perfectly.”
I thought about what she was saying. It was true that history was full of heroes who’d been turned into villains by whoever wrote the books later on. Everyone feared the man who marched home with a conquering army. Many had wanted George Washington to be declared King of the United States after the revolution. Others had tried to assassinate him. It was all a matter of perspective.
I reached out and clasped my hand over Sandra’s. She flinched, but then relaxed and smiled at me. I smiled back. Inside, I was full of doubts. But it felt good to have my girlfriend smiling at my touch again. It had been a long time-too long.
“Colonel?” a voice squawked from the ceiling. I knew it wasn’t a speaker that made the sound, but rather the nanite walls that vibrated to recreate the voice.
“Yes, Captain Miklos?”
“Could you come out of the conference room now? We have a situation.”
Heaving a sigh, I stood up. “I’ll be right there.”
I headed toward the wall that led onto the command deck. I never made it. Sandra grabbed me from behind and kissed my neck.
“Let’s do it,” she whispered in my ear. “Right here on this table.”
“Uh,” I said, tempted. “It has to wait for a bit. Can you hold that mood for an hour?”
“Maybe,” she said, still hissing in my ear. I could feel her hot breath on my skin. “But I make no promises.”
We had to leave it at that. I exited the room and Sandra followed. I could tell from her attitude, she was back in bodyguard-mode. She eyed everyone with quiet suspicion.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, but no one bothered to answer me. They just gestured toward the big screen.
The image displayed on the pool-table sized command screen was of the inner planets. Eden-1 to Eden-11 circled the yellow star. At the very outer edge of the map, the gas giant Eden-12 swung around. I looked at the gas giant first. The swarm of Nano ships still hung there in orbit, depicted with a cautionary yellow. The system did that when it wasn’t sure if a contact was friend or foe.
My eyes drifted toward the inner worlds. My own cluster of destroyers sat in a ring around the Centaur habitat satellite. We were displaying most of our gunships. We had built twenty-one now and new ones were produced several times a day.
Last, my eyes moved sunward toward the Macro-controlled worlds. They weren’t all lined up, of course. Some drifted far away, circling around the far side of the star. Three of them were in our general vicinity, Eden-9 being the closest of the pack.
As I watched, new arcs flickered into life on the screen. The Macro ships were on the move. Vessels left orbit from each of the most distant systems. They were moving to Eden-9, to the world orbiting closest to Eden-11, the single planet under our control.
“The Macros are on the move?”
“Yes sir.”
“How many contacts do we have there? I see two ships.”
“Those are groups of ships,” Miklos said. He zoomed in, and I saw that both the arcs coming from the far side were made up of four cruisers in a familiar, diamond-shaped formation.
Alarmed, I reached out and made stretching motions with my fingers. I expanded the section of the nearest world, Eden-9. There had been two ships there yesterday. Now, there were seven. Additionally, they were moving up more ships, sending them forward from all five of their garrisoned planets.
I straightened my spine. “Summarize, Miklos.”
“They are leaving one ship at each planet to guard it, but sending everything else to Eden-9.”
“How many ships total?”
“They will have twenty-nine ships at our doorstep within twenty-four hours, sir. Plus their reserve garrisons and whatever else they produce in the meantime.”
I stared until my eyes stung. They were out producing us after all, and they knew it. If they struck immediately, I had about as many little gunships as they had cruisers. But these ships were not equal in power. Their bigger vessels could take much more punishment and were armed with missiles. I had a sinking feeling.
“Permission to speak freely, sir?” Miklos asked.
“Talk to me.”
“All they have to do is fly over here and smash into us.”
“A typical Macro strategy,” I agreed. “But we have no choice but to defend Eden-11. If we run, they will kill the Centaurs, retake the factories and our production will drop to zero.”
“But even if they lose their entire fleet, they can build another. We have limited manpower and only one big factory.”
“Don’t forget the two Nano factories.”
Miklos shrugged. “They are out producing us ten to one in mass, even if our designs are more efficient. They will overrun us eventually.”
I didn’t argue further, because I couldn’t.
— 30
Rear Admiral Sarin requested another private meeting less than an hour later. I agreed with reservations, and ignored Sandra’s stern gaze. How could I refuse to meet with her? I needed her ship. Goa had the firepower of three destroyers. The ship’s lasers were larger and longer ranged than anything else I had. Those guns could be instrumental in shooting down incoming enemy missiles, if it came down to that. And I felt pretty strongly that it would.
To counter the threat from the Macros, I ordered all my gunships to show themselves in formation. Groups of five were ordered to fly up and down to the planet at various points, and flying back up again from somewhere else. My forces had to appear to be bigger than they really were in order to give the Macros something to worry about. They liked to fight with overwhelming numerical superiority, and they usually waited until they had the numbers. I wanted to make them think twice before attacking.
Still, I knew this delaying tactic, even if successful, wasn’t going to save my forces in the coming battle. They just had too many factories, and they were building cruisers almost as fast as I built gunships. This was because they had so many more factories than we did. I readjusted my previous estimates, and now figured they had three factories per planet. Four factories must be operating on Eden-9 alone, where the transport had fled with the last facility lifted from Eden-11. Even though it took much longer to build a cruiser than it did a gunship, they had an estimated sixteen factories and I couldn’t face that level of output for long.