I had a celebratory beer with Miklos, Kwon and Sloan. Sandra crashed the party at about beer number five. She had a few with us, then began kissing on me. The rest of the guys exchanged amused glances and left.
Sandra immediately left my lap and sat across from me. I looked at her in surprise.
“Did you chase them off on purpose?” I asked.
“I wanted to talk.”
I sighed. I’d been hoping for more than just talk. “Okay, what’s on your mind?”
“I don’t trust Jasmine.”
I shrugged. “I can understand that.”
“She’s going to tell Crow everything. About the factories, the battle, and our new tactics.”
“That’s called a debriefing, Sandra,” I told her. “I’m expecting her to do that. It would be a dereliction of duty not to inform the good Admiral of every detail.”
Sandra pursed her lips. “You never told me about what went on between you two. I mean, how did we end up taking over her ship?”
I took a long draw on my beer, finishing it. I leaned forward with a roar and slammed it down on the table. The can and the table both crumpled a bit at the impact. I wasn’t angry, I was just feeling good.
“I’m withholding that information,” I said. “Let’s just say that we had a difference of opinion, and I straightened her out concerning her command status.”
“Do you think she’ll report that part? About being demoted to a Captain?”
I chuckled. “I’m not sure. Knowing Jasmine, I think she probably will. She’s usually a stickler for the rules.”
“Then why did she turn on you?”
“That was our fault-I mean Crow and I caused it. We’ve never been clear enough with our subordinates about who has the final authority in any given situation. The truth was, I was so surprised by her action I reacted on gut instinct. I probably could have handled it better.”
“There wasn’t time. You had a battle to fight. Jasmine didn’t know what she was doing.”
“She learned a lot, I think.”
Sandra finally returned to my lap. She kissed me then, and everything felt good for a while.
“Do you still have feelings for her?” she asked suddenly.
I hesitated, blinking and thinking. I knew I’d been tricked. A man’s defenses are always down when a female is in his arms. He’s liable to say things he’ll regret later-or in my case, not to say them fast enough.
Her smile turned into an instant glare. Her hand moved with blurring speed. I knew the slap was coming-but it didn’t land.
Both of us looked at her hand in surprise. I’d reached up and grabbed her wrist, stopping her dead. She struggled to pull away her hand, but I held her tightly. I didn’t want her to haul off and try to hit me again.
She stared at me for a second in confusion. “You aren’t that fast,” she said. “No one is faster than me.”
“I am now.”
“Oh-those baths. Damn that robot. I should take him apart. Let go of my hand.”
“Are we going to kiss or fight?”
She thought about it for a second. She wriggled and I let go of her hand. She crossed her arms and looked annoyed. I waited.
“Okay,” she said finally, her anger melting. “We’ll kiss.”
Half an hour later, we fell asleep together. Neither of us stirred for about ten hours. It had been a long campaign.
The greatest construction project of my career began immediately after my morning shower and breakfast. Finally, at long last, I was ready to build the fortifications I’d envisioned the day I’d found Hel and the ring nearby. It would be a long, difficult effort, but I felt I had the production capacity to do it right now.
My first idea was to take all three of the Macro factories to Hel and begin churning out massive amounts of weaponry. I decided against it, in the end. Instead, I left the facilities I’d set up at the bottom of the mining pit on Eden-11 where they were. That one Nano factory and one Macro factory, being fed a continuous flow of minerals by our own Macro workers, was a production miracle. The operation built new gunships every day, and I liked it that way. If the enemy came at us again, I wanted plenty of fresh ships. I couldn’t run an empire without a fleet.
I frowned as I thought of the word empire. Was that what I was doing? Building an empire? I didn’t really like the term. I preferred federation, or republic.
There were several races involved in this war with us. Certainly, Earth was the only biotic species with a significant military right now, but over time that may well change. There were so many things to work out. I hadn’t even considered trade treaties and the like. Who owned the various terran planets in this system, for example? Were they the sole possessions of the Centaurs?
I tried to push these complexities away. Usually, such matters were above the pay grade of soldiers. I liked it that way. I had enough to worry about just organizing the defeat of the enemy.
Trying to forget about empires, I focused on my original goal. I hauled two Macro production units and two Nano factories out to the frozen rock we’d named Hel. Two of the Nano factories had come from the Centaurs. They’d given them up easily enough when I’d asked. I’d really needed them to match up with a Macro production unit. Together, I could produce new things on a grand scale.
I felt like a kid in a sandbox as I surveyed the frozen rock we called Hel. Fortunately, Macros didn’t need much sunlight or an atmosphere to function. I built a large number of worker bots first, smart ones with nanite tentacles as well as Macro-type claws and drilling heads. The machines dug in, providing a vast bounty of metals, water to break down for fuel and other useful compounds. All I had to do was order the factories to build stuff with the endless minerals.
And build they did. Within a month, the skeleton of the battle station took shape. It was simple enough in design, really. I decided flat surfaces were easier to design and place equipment on than curved ones, so I built a giant cube. As I thought of new things to add, the cube elongated somewhat into a rectangular obelisk. Generators went in first, then weapons. The marines complained, but I didn’t give them more than a few thousand square feet for living space to start. Eventually, they would have hot showers, mess halls and even a theater or two. But to begin with, I wanted firepower. The entire endeavor would be a sick joke if Macros showed up early and attacked something that amounted to the terran equivalent of a Centaur habitat.
So they complained, and I ignored them, and we all kept building. After working on the battle station for two solid months, I got an idea. It had been growing on me over time. Partly, it was due to the grueling cold and discomfort of working in deep space. My men and I could not help but look sunward, eying those lovely planets. We all wondered if we would ever be able to take a sweet vacation on an untouched tropical beach, or hike up a green-carpeted mountain.
My idea was a predatory idea, to some degree, and it made me frown at myself. But I felt the stakes were very high for the future of my race, so I decided to talk to the Centaurs about it. What could it hurt?
I flew closer to the inner planets and sat in a ship among the Centaur worlds. I watched the planet orbit quietly through thick glass, and admired them each in turn as I flew from one to another.
It took nearly a full day to contact members of the Centaur leadership to discuss a serious domestic matter. They were understandably busy with the repopulation of their homeworld.
“Hello, this is Colonel Kyle Riggs,” I said, when I’d finally found someone from their highest council. “Who am I talking to?”
“One who has been chosen to lead many.”
I nodded. They always gave me answers like that. They had names, but they weren’t really much help. They were mostly named after plants they liked to eat, or various shapes of stones, or the soft notes that the wind made. They had about a hundred words each for wind-sounds and rock-shapes.