I leaned forward. “It’s about supplies. We have a limited store here. There’s about double the amount of rare earths and the like at the main base. That’s where the port is, where the ships came in. Our Nano flyers used to bring the materials here with daily deliveries, but we’re not going to get anymore shipments.”
“The earthers took the main base,” he said. “I told you that.”
“Right. So we have use what we have here as efficiently as possible. We have to build the most cost-effective force we can as fast as we can, and take back the main base. We need those supplies to build the fleet.”
“We could do it with flying ships.”
“Yeah. Probably. But it would take longer. Every hour, the U.S. Navy will be steaming down here with more troops. They might be landing them at the north end of the island now, getting ready for another push. We haven’t seen their infantry yet, nor much in the way of air, just one mechanized column that failed.”
Crow rubbed at his cheek. The nanites itched abominably when they healed a face wound. I knew the sensation well, but I couldn’t drum up much sympathy for him.
“I’m trying to think clearly now,” he said, his voice quieter.
“I’m not skipping your ships to keep you grounded, Jack. I’m trying to build maximum firepower to retake the island now. Then we can rebuild your fleet. At that point, they won’t be able to take us out without damaging the factories. We’ll build a strong defense and negotiate a new peace.”
Crow slitted his eyes and stared at me with new suspicion. “Why don’t we just give them the factories?”
I frowned at him. He had some other devilish thought in his head, I could see it, but I couldn’t fathom it. “What are you getting at?”
He shrugged. “Just what I said. We could sell them, or at least make sure they aren’t damaged. You know, if we just threatened to damage them, they would cave pretty fast.”
I thought about that. He might be right. But I didn’t want to raise the stakes any higher. I didn’t want them to think we’d gone totally rogue, that we no longer cared about the planet’s security. “How could we ever forge an alliance with them if we did that? We’d be the pirates they’ve always said we were, selling out all of Earth for our own gain.”
Crow pursed his lips. “So, we have to fight? How much faster can you build tanks compared to spacecraft? How much less materials are involved in producing one mobile gun?”
“Now you are getting down to the numbers that matter. We have supplies enough to build a hundred tanks in less than a week. We would only have a dozen ships by then.”
“Why such a difference?”
“The engines, mostly. They need to fly, not just roll along the ground. That requires much more power, specialized gravity-resistors, lots of stuff that’s hard to make.”
“We have to wait a whole week? They will have six divisions and three carrier groups down here by then. Not to mention hundreds of aircraft.”
“Yeah. We will have to attack when we have the first batch of tanks ready.”
“How many? How long?”
“In about twenty-four hours, I should have ten tanks, maybe a few more.”
He leaned back sighing, thinking. Finally, he nodded. “Well then, you’d better get cracking, Colonel.”
I smiled. “Yes sir.”
I backed out of the building and closed the door behind me. At no point did I take my eyes off Crow or turn my back to him. Once I was out in the sunlight again, Kwon appeared out of nowhere.
“You are the sneakiest giant I know,” I told him.
“What’s the deal, sir?”
I handed back his flask. He shook it and put it away, disappointed. It was empty.
“The deal is we are working together again. We’re going to build something new.”
“What sir?”
“Tanks, Sergeant. A lot of them.”
-13-
Sandra caught up with me about an hour later. She came in quietly, but this time I turned to the door and bounced to my feet. I relaxed when I saw it was her.
She raised her eyebrows at me. “Jumpy?”
“Let’s just say I’m looking over my shoulder from now on.”
Sandra took two bounding steps, then flung herself into the air. She knew I’d catch her. She wrapped her legs around my waist and went to work on my face with her lips. Fortunately, my face was healing fast.
“Crow did this, didn’t he? He’s such an ass.”
“He’s got a temper, that’s all.”
“I saw his face. He looked worse.”
“A man can’t help being born ugly.”
She laughed and went back to kissing me, working over the rough spots tenderly. “I’d be super-pissed if I didn’t know these would heal-up by morning.”
“So would I. Look, love, I need to go back to designing the second step with these new tanks.”
“You need a break.”
She was right, in the end. I did need a break. We made love on a plastic chair in the darkest corner. It was just what I needed, and I think she needed it to. I expected Crow or Robinson or even more likely, Kwon, to rap on the door and interrupt us with some new disaster. But they didn’t.
At the end, she slapped me again. I looked at her questioningly. “That’s for nearly getting yourself killed on a daily basis,” she said. “Being in love with you is nerve-wracking.”
I smiled. “I’ve been thinking along similar lines.”
“Now,” she said, “quit screwing around and get your go-carts built. I bet they will attack again tonight.”
“Maybe.”
“Will these new toys of yours be ready by then?”
“Probably not, but with three beam turrets and about two hundred marines, I’m not worried.”
“Liar,” she said, and flounced outside again.
I watched her leave and hoped she would come back again soon. I turned back to that steel bastard known lovingly as Unit Fourteen. I had all the factories churning by now, or I wouldn’t have taken the time off with Sandra. Most were building heavy reactors, brain-boxes, lasers, sensors and turrets. Essentially, all the components that made the stationary turrets operate. But I needed a few new pieces. I needed engines with driveshafts, locomotion systems and treads. Thinking about these elements, I got an idea. Why use treads?
“Fourteen, respond.”
“Responding.”
“What would it take to build the metal equivalent of human legs?”
Hesitation. A long one. I figured that when they were handing out brains, Fourteen had been back at the messhall eating pancakes. “Insufficient information—” it began. I was hardly surprised.
“Okay, forget that question. I don’t have time to verbally describe the specifics of a walking system anyway.”
I frowned. I had to work with what I had. I didn’t have time to design new pieces, I could only reconfigure a new machine with the components I already had. “Let’s talk about a gravity-resist system that is low-powered. Let’s say one that is about ten percent as powerful as a standard system on a Nano ship. How long would that take one duplication factory to produce such a system?”
“Approximately seven hours.”
I nodded. “And what if we duplicated the treads of a standard tank?”
“Insufficient—”
“Okay, okay. Do you have sensory input from the turret above this shed?”
“Fourteen is not linked with—”
“Link with it then.”
“Done.”
“Now, use the sensory equipment to lock onto the APCs we destroyed earlier today. They lie to the east.”
“Done. Auto-defense program reset and off-line.”