“Can it wait? I’m going to set my factories to produce defensive materials.”
“Your factories? Don’t you mean Star Force’s factories?”
“Excuse me.”
Crow threw up his hands. “There I go again. Sorry. Let’s start over on the subject of factories. I’ve got more of them.”
For the first moment of the entire conversation, he had my full attention. Crow smiled. Some of his natural smugness began to shine through again.
“Yeah, you heard me right,” he said. “Did you think you were the only one with a secret base on this island? The only difference is I’ve managed to keep my base an actual secret.”
I heard a muttered curse behind us. Neither of us glanced toward Sandra, who was obviously listening in.
Like Sandra, my first reaction was anger. But I quickly realized that was a foolish response. After all, hadn’t I built my own base of Nanotech power? More importantly, if Crow had factories he could commit to the defensive effort, that would strengthen our position against the Macros. We could shout about who should have told what to whom later on.
Crow watched all these thoughts and emotions play out over my face with amusement.
“How many do you have?” I asked.
“Do you want to come see it? My holiest of holies? My inner sanctum?”
“I didn’t say I wanted to get married.”
Crow produced a harsh laugh. “Don’t worry. You aren’t my type, mate. Come on, let’s take your ship.”
We’d reached pit eighteen. I hopped over the low concrete wall and walked up to the ship. Crow and Sandra trailed behind. I told Socorro to open her hatch and Crow followed me up a short ramp. Sandra hurried quietly after us.
I ordered the ship to create a third chair inside the bridge. Crow climbed onto the raised gleaming shell that had contoured itself into the shape of a crash seat. To normal people it would have been uncomfortable. But nanotized Star Force personnel didn’t care about hard surfaces against their backsides.
“No safety harness?” Crow asked, half-joking.
His seat, being a makeshift facsimile created by the ship, looked more like a steel bathtub than a real padded seat. There were no belts or buckles. Before I could answer, Sandra spoke up.
“Socorro,” she said, “restrain Admiral Crow. Secure him to his seat.”
Six thin black arms rose up, whipping like steel tentacles. They grabbed each limb and the last two crossed his chest. He was held firmly to his seat.
“Happy?” she asked.
“Not at all,” Crow said. “This reminds me of a dentist I once knew in Sydney.” Turning back to me, he said: “Shouldn’t give your girlfriend the keys, mate. Bad policy, that.”
Crow was referring to the Socorro’s command permissions. Sandra was able to order the ship to do things, including flying it in my absence. Sandra opened her mouth to make another snappy reply, but I raised my hand. “I’m the commander on this ship. Socorro, loosen Crow’s restraints. Allow him to adjust or remove them by touch or command. They should function as automated support systems, not shackles.”
“Options set,” said the ship.
“Now, Jack,” I said. “Tell me where to fly.”
Crow gave me the coordinates. We took off and within a few minutes were hovering over the northern edge of the island. We’d never done much with the land up here, it was mostly undeveloped swamp and forestland. Bahaman pines ruled the area, standing out among sprays of tall grass and expanses of sand. Gliding down over a wetland area Crow had us set down in a small body of water.
I went with it, only mildly surprised to be coming down in a pond. In order to have hidden a base for this long, Crow had to have put it underwater or underground. There were simply too many flyovers on Andros Island to hide it for any length of time in any other way.
To my surprise, the pond we descended into opened up and turned black as we came down into it. I had the external cameras on and was able to watch visually during our descent.
“Ah,” as I said, nodding to myself. “There is no pond, is there?”
“Give the man a prize!” Crow said, chuckling.
We continued to descend. Lights glimmered below. I saw concrete and fluorescent lamps that automatically sensed our approach and flickered into life.
“What the hell is going on?” Sandra demanded.
“Nanites,” I explained. “Crow made a false pond with a surface of nanites. As we approached, it opened. Like a giant version of our melting walls aboard any ship.”
“It looked so real.”
Crow leaned forward, plucking away the tiny black arms that attempted to restrain him. He slapped at them and they reluctantly retreated, as per my instructions. “That’s the genius of it,” he said proudly. “There is some water involved. I have the nanites pool up about an inch on the surface of the roof. When a ship comes down, they bud up in the center and push it away automatically. You’re not the only one who can program a mass of nanites, Kyle.”
I nodded. I had to admit, Crow had me beat in the area of deception. “When did you build this place?”
“Quite a while back,” he said. “Remember when you first announced war on the mainland?”
“As I recall, they announced war on Star Force.”
“Well, in any case, I was worried they would get all our factories. I’d already stashed one by then. Since that time, I’ve built more with the first one.”
I craned my neck around to look at the sneaky bastard appreciatively. “How did I lose count of a factory?”
Crow shrugged. “Remember all those ships we lost fighting the Macros? Our original ships? They all had factories of their own you know, every one of them. Now, what if the Macros knocked out a few of those craft without destroying them utterly. Without ruining the factory component….”
“You found one of our downed ships and recovered the factory without telling me about it?”
“Salvage-rights mate. One of the oldest laws of sea, you should look into it.”
“Okay,” I said, shedding complaints and arguments as quickly as they popped into my mind. They didn’t matter now, I kept reminding myself. “What the hell have you been doing with these factories all this time—what’s it been, two years?”
“Nearly that long,” Crow said. “Well, for the most part, I’ve been building more factories.”
I got up out of my seat and put my hands on my hips. I smiled at him, and he slowly grinned back.
“You magnificent bastard,” I said. “I’ve never felt like hugging you before.”
“I’m hoping you never do again,” Sandra said. “What are you two so happy about?”
“I’ll show you,” Crow said. “Open up your ship, Kyle.”
I touched a section of Socorro’s inner hull. The wall and part of the floor melted away. A moment later, a dulling gleaming metal ramp formed leading down to the concrete floor.
“This is where the budget and materials have been going, isn’t it?” I asked. I thought about the extra materials Star Force had been swallowing. All the double-accounting and extravagant prices were suddenly making sense to me. Crow had been hiding massive shipments of materials for his pet project. Building factories didn’t take a lot of bulk, but they took more precious metals and time than anything else we could produce.
“Exactly,” Crow said. “I didn’t hire a hundred extra purchasing clerks to feather my nest with trinkets.”
“Just factories?” I asked. “Is that all you’ve been building?”
“At first, yes,” Crow said, “but—well, let me show you.”
We all stood on a dark section of stained concrete. A single factory was in evidence. The maw at the top of it was aimed upward, clearly waiting to be fed materials through the opening that mimicked a pond overhead. Like every one of these strange systems we called ‘factories’, it was a spheroid about twelve feet in diameter that sat in the center of the structure. It resembled an old-fashioned steel kettle, but the surface was uneven, full of ripples and bulges that hinted the machine was loaded with unimaginable components. The strangely twisting internals made me think of a man’s guts pressing out against a thin, metal skin.