At my call, a corporal came to me with his com unit floating behind him. It was about the size of an ice chest and was tethered to his waist with a silver line of nanites.
“Now, sir?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Power this thing up and aim it at the closest gathering point.”
He worked the controls, tapping at metal nubs and scratching his armor over beads of metal that moved under his rough touch. In order to make sure the com unit was durable, I’d built the shell entirely of constructive nanites. My marines were clumsy in their suits, especially underwater. We tended to dent equipment, but these systems naturally smoothed themselves out. Smart-metal made an excellent material for infantry equipment.
“Battalion One calling Battalion Three,” I said. “Respond, please.”
I waited for a time and made the request once every thirty seconds. After three repeats, I began to worry slightly, but then a voice came back. It was tinny and difficult to hear using this system.
“…here…” my earpiece squawked, after a period of crackling static.
“Battalion Three,” I said, “calibrate your equipment, please.”
Silence for another half-minute, then finally: “Is that better, Colonel?”
“Much. Who am I talking to, please?”
“Captain Sloan, sir,” came the reply.
I smiled. He had been Warrant Officer Sloan, but after surviving two of my campaigns, I had decided to move him up. He’d shown more smarts than many of my Ivy League champions ever had.
“Sloan, good to hear your voice,” I said. I quickly described the enemy nest we’d tangled with. After ordering him to relay the warning, I asked him if he’d made contact with the enemy.
“Just one machine, sir. We figured it was a foraging scout. We took it out and haven’t seen any enemy response.”
“You probably won’t at this point of the invasion. The enemy is weak now, that’s why we are coming after him. Like ants, they’ll build workers first and—”
“Got it at the briefing, sir,” Sloan said. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve received a call from Battalion Six. Mind if I listen to them?”
“Go right ahead, they might have something interesting to report.”
I waited another minute or two. When Sloan came back, he sounded excited.
“They’ve got another entrance, sir. Just like the one you found, but larger. They are in action now.”
Entrance? I thought. It took about three seconds—sometimes I’m slow. “Captain Sloan, where does the entrance lead?”
“Unknown, sir. Battalion Six reports strong resistance at a cave entrance of some kind. Sounds like what you encountered.”
“Relay this news around the other battalions on the southern flank,” I said. “I want everyone to know what we’re facing. They are to relay back their status and try to maintain their position on the seafloor at their gathering points.”
“I’m on it sir,” Sloan said, “but it will take me a few minutes.”
“Roger that. We’ll do the same with the northern units. Riggs out.”
I handed the set over to the non-com who was dragging it and had him relay my messages. I felt uneasy. I didn’t like being down here at the bottom of the cold dark sea. I didn’t know what was happening to my men. We could be losing this battle, winning it, or perhaps idly standing around, mostly ignored by the Macros.
“Kwon!” I roared.
“Colonel!”
“Take a squad down and investigate the corners of these tunnels. Find out if they go deeper. Do not enter unexplored tunnels, just report back to me. You got that?”
“On it, sir,” Kwon said, bouncing away over the rocky bottom. He rounded up a team and headed down into the holes around us.
I rolled out a computer scroll—it was really like a tablet computer, but mounted on a plastic mat. It filled my faceplate with a blue-white glow. I flattened it on a boulder and looked over the scene. I was in Battalion One, in the center of the formation. There were ten battalions in all. Most of the others were off to the north and south, but several were directly ahead. They’d made the dive first, and had moved the farthest out into the underwater trench. If we were already in contact with the enemy at two points, there might be a pitched battle going in other spots. I now felt I’d screwed up in regards to the hydrophone equipment. One unit per company was not enough. If the unit was lost, the company would be out of contact for the duration. If the Macros caught on, they could target our hydrophones. We could then be divided and swallowed up one company at a time.
Taking a deep breath of stale air, I tried to think clearly. This place was oppressive—worse than space. The trouble was you couldn’t see anything around you. At least in space, there wasn’t much to obscure your view of the enemy. Out there, I’d always had a pretty good idea of what I was up against.
Kwon reported back several minutes later. “No tunnels sir. At least, we didn’t see any. I think they really were mining here.”
“Good going. Prepare the men to move out in three minutes. I’m not standing around here any longer than that.”
“Excellent, Colonel,” Kwon said.
I could tell he didn’t like this place anymore than I did and I’d made his day by giving the order to move out. Moments later, Captain Sloan finally got back to me. By that time, I was ready to demote him.
“Colonel?”
“Riggs here.”
“None of the other battalions have met the enemy, sir.”
I felt immediately relieved.
“But Battalion Ten,” he continued, “the one directly north of you, isn’t responding. No one has been able to get into contact with them.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all. Five companies lost? Or at least, unable to respond?
“Okay Sloan, your team and mine are the closest to Ten’s position. We’ll go investigate, double-time. I want all the other battalions to move to the large cave entrance Battalion Six located. We have a definite enemy contact there, and we have to keep the pressure up.”
Very soon I was gliding through the dark waters again, going deeper still into the ocean. Occasionally, there was a clicking sound in my suit and a fresh trickle of cold seawater ran down to wet my toes. The nanites worked hard to weld the microscopic hole shut again, and all was well. I wondered just how deep these suits could go—how much pressure from the billions of gallons of water above they could take. Would men begin popping like eggs at a given depth? I’d never had the time to test them under these conditions.
But most of all, as I slid through the burbling quiet, I thought about the Macro factories and their protective domes. I’d expected to encounter them by now. Where were they?
-25-
We reached Battalion Ten’s designated gathering spot before Captain Sloan’s team did. We glided swiftly to the area, but everyone along the line slowed down warily as we drew near.
Something was desperately wrong. Instead of a flat area of seabed before us, a great hole presented itself. It was hard to tell at first what we were looking at. It resembled a cliff edge, similar to the one we’d dropped down to get here. The rim was ragged, as if it had broken away recently. Exposed sediment was darker than the bottom we’d been passing over, which consisted of sand intermixed with tumbled stones. When we reached the edge, I ordered a halt and everyone obeyed.
I gazed in both directions, seeing my men line up. Their suit lights could be identified at a hundred yards or more in the cloudy water. I could tell they formed a crescent.
“It’s a pit,” I said. “Kwon?”
“Right here, sir.”
“Send a squad in each direction. Tell them to try to follow the edge of this formation all the way around. If they run into each other on the far side, they are to return. If they keep going for more than five minutes without finding anything, tell them to do an about-face and come back anyway.”