I mumbled something about chicken admirals and tried to think. As long as these cruisers were still in the system we weren’t out of danger yet. I shifted my attention to the Tongue of the Ocean, the undersea playground our Macro friends had decided to turn into a breeding ground. I frowned as I saw several green contacts moving around down there.
“What are those?”
“Subs, sir,” Jasmine said. “They’ve been nuking the seabed. They found the enemy factories. Apparently, their domes don’t work properly that far down underwater. U. S. British, French and Russian subs have destroyed their production capacity.”
I made an appreciative, low whistle. “That’s very thoughtful of them. They must have been building up sub support in the area while we fought the Macros. Makes sense. They were effective against the early missile barrage.”
“Either that,” Sandra said, “or they’ve always been out there, lurking around, waiting for a weak moment on our part.”
I looked at her. “Waiting for a good moment to slip onto Andros and grab our factories?”
“Exactly.”
I nodded slowly. I didn’t like her theory, but it was a realistic one. In any case, I was happy to have the help. It was quite a change, not having to do everything to defend Earth. Star Force had needed help this time, and the governments of Earth had backed us up. I wouldn’t forget that. In a way, it healed over some of the wounds from their earlier attempts to take us out of the picture.
I returned my attention to the higher ground. We appeared to be mopping up on Earth, but we did not yet rule the entire Solar System. I stared at the enemy cruisers. They could not be allowed to sit out there, to fester.
“Get Admiral Crow on the line,” I ordered.
Eventually, I got him to answer my calls. He sounded like he’d been sleeping. Somehow, this pissed me off. Sure, it was two a. m., and he’d doubtlessly been awake for many hours. But it seemed wrong that he’d be taking a break now while our home space was still full of enemy ships.
“Crow? Get to your ship, man. Get all your crews to their ships. I’ll be sending along marines to board all of them, too. The freshest men I have.”
“Uh…what are you on about, Riggs?”
“What do you think I’m on about?” I demanded. “We’ve got forty-one Macro cruisers hanging out there, no doubt waiting for reinforcements to come and support them so they can start the next assault. We have the advantage now, and I mean to press it home. We’re flying out there and chasing them out of our system.”
“Don’t you ever take a break, mate?”
“No.”
-41-
In the end, we didn’t mount the pursuit until the next day. By then, I was yawning and getting tired of Crow’s complaints.
“There’s no real need for this, Kyle. We’ve driven them off. Let’s build up everything we can and chase them when we’ve got two hundred ships. We’ll take lower losses that way.”
“And if enemy reinforcements show up at Venus?” I asked.
“We’ll launch the minute that happens. I promise you.”
I thought about it. There was some logic to Crow’s caution, but I didn’t like it. We needed to get out there and put our minefield back into place to stop the next invading force. Next time, they wouldn’t conveniently go for Andros Island. They’d come at Earth without any reservations.
We were having an early breakfast, and dawn hadn’t yet broken over the ocean outside. Crow was having a stack of overly-syrupy waffles while I stirred my fork in an omelet packed with big Caribbean shrimp.
“We can’t afford to wait, Crow,” I told him.
“I’ll have another squadron of nine destroyers out in a week or so, mate. At least wait for that.”
“Right now, the cruisers can’t do much against our fleet. Those cannons are showy, but they can be dodged. They’re really only good for planetary bombardment. Our lasers outrange them and we’re more maneuverable, too.”
“They’ve still got missiles left,” Crow argued. “We’ve calculated the numbers carefully over here at Fleet—yes, we can do sums. We figure they’ve kept around four hundred missiles in reserve. That’s enough to do a lot of damage to my light ships.”
I grimaced. Crow was right on this point. Four hundred missiles were enough to wipe out our entire force. We couldn’t shoot down that many coming at us all at once.
“Very unlikely,” I said. “If you count a standard allotment of sixteen missiles on each ship and they’d fired only half, you’d be right. But they’ve fired more than half of them. Besides, if they had so many in their magazines, why haven’t they used them up until now?”
“Did you think they might have been waiting for this very situation, Kyle?” Crow asked me intently. “They know the missiles are their only real ship-to-ship weapon. Once they fire the last ones, they are helpless.”
I nodded, he had me there. Looking back on their behavior, they’d fired their weapons in percentages. The first barrage was around half our estimated total. The secondary barrages had been much smaller. From what I could tell now, they probably had one to two hundred shots left. Enough to be a serious threat to our fleet.
I shook my head after mulling for a while. “Good arguments,” I said. “But we still need to kick them out of the system. I can’t start rebuilding our space defenses until they do. Their next fleet could roll right in and finish us any day.”
Crow looked stubborn. His red cheeks bulged and his heavy brows knitted together as he chewed his breakfast. I could tell at a glance he was going to argue for the rest of the morning. It was time to throw him a bone.
“Admiral, I’ve got another concern you can help me with,” I said.
Crow immediately narrowed his eyes in suspicion. He knew by now that if I called him ‘admiral’ I was buttering him up for something.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Only about half our factories at the main production base survived the invasion. I’ve been quite impressed by your hidden production facility under that pond up north. Do you think you could choose two quiet spots on the island, split up our factories into thirds and place them in equally well-hidden locations? I want access to all of them, of course. You’ll have the same. But I really think your system is superior. Rather than putting them all into an armed camp, hide them. If the enemy have no idea what to hit, they probably won’t find any of them.”
Crow smiled proudly and puffed up a bit as my words of praise for his skullduggery sunk in. “Glad you see the strategic benefit of my careful planning, Riggs,” he said.
“We’ll still keep the fortified production facility, but it will be empty.”
“Ah, I like it. Two levels of deception. Keep them guessing.”
“Exactly,” I said, leaning over the table toward him and using my hands for emphasis. I could see I’d captured him by talking about one of his natural obsessions. Hiding valuables underground had been a favorite pastime of pirates throughout history. “We’ve got to get right on this one. In the long run, the factories are our most valuable asset. Everything else can be replaced quickly. We have to hide them now, before more Macros show up and hit us again.”
Crow looked upset at the concept of fresh Macro forces arriving. I could tell he’d been thinking along the lines of most of Star Force. The general belief was that we’d won the round. That we’d earned a breather. But I knew differently. The enemy was still out there in strength. They might show up with two hundred more ships any day. We didn’t have time to sit around.
“Problem though, mate,” Crow said thoughtfully. “What about the Macros out there right now? They are monitoring us, watching us closely. Won’t they see and record our digging? If they know where these new bases are, what’s the bloody point of building them?”