7
The assault ships returned from the rescue mission less than an hour before the Macros had indicated we were expected to launch. We quickly loaded each of the ships with a complement of twenty marines. Less than a hundred and fifty men, and everything depended on them. I ordered the rest to follow in their wakes. Two hundred more marines would fly in their tiny capsules behind each of the assault ships.
Warrant Officer Sloan was among the survivors the ships brought in. I had to smile at that. He had jumped out of his hovertank and survived when it had flipped over right in front of me, back in the Helios campaign. Here, he had survived again, against all odds. He wasn’t even in bad shape, considering he’d spent three days in emergency survival mode, floating in space.
I met with him as they unloaded the ships. I clasped his right hand in both of mine.
“Really good to see you, Sloan,” I said, and I meant it.
“Colonel!” he said, looking tired but joyous at having survived. “Your happiness is nothing compared to mine, let me assure you.”
I chuckled. “I believe you. Tell me, what happened to the thousand-odd Worms you took into the void with you?”
His face clouded for a moment. “I almost felt sorry for them. They weren’t wearing vacc-suits-we were. Mostly, we just kept out of their reach until they died. It took a long time for some of them to stop twitching out there.”
I nodded, visualizing the scene. It was not pretty.
“We calculated you had enough power to run the rebreathers for a week, but what about heat, water, food?”
“Mostly, we starved and dehydrated. A few tried to synthesize Worm meat into distilled water. It just ran their suit power down, as the meat was frozen. We waited out there floating in chains, linking our arms together. We never really thought there would be a rescue, but only a few opened their suits and committed suicide. We told stories and watched the ring. When your ships came through, we started taking turns increasing the power on our suit transmissions, taking the chance someone would hear.”
“If we survive and see Earth again,” I said, “I’m going to see every one of your men get a commendation.”
“At least there are no sharks in space, sir,” Sloan said with a weak grin.
Oh, but there are, I thought, but I laughed at his joke and guided them to the infirmary. Some actually tried to volunteer for assault ship duty, but I refused them. They had to rest up for the next battle. They were my reserve force. They didn’t argue.
I headed back to the command brick with a heavy heart. We had less than half an hour to go before the assault began. In all my recent years of hard decisions, this one topped my list. I realized I would have to decide if the Star Force marines would be a tool in the cold, heartless, metal claws of the Macros once again. I had never created this army for this purpose. I had never meant for things to go this way. I imagined many historical commanders had felt the same dismay I felt right now when they realized their beloved armies had been misused by others. I recalled the German general, Choltitz, who had disobeyed his orders to blow up Paris when forced to retreat.
My decision involved even bigger stakes, however. If I played this badly, I could cause millions back home to die. I hardened my heart. The aliens who were so clearly on their knees here had to suffer, so my own people didn’t suffer. Extinction is a hard thing to be a part of, but I decided I would be the one responsible for the extinction of another species, rather than my own. I cajoled myself with promises. I would try an attack and see how it went. We didn’t have to kill everyone. With luck, they would surrender. Perhaps there would only be one attack required to end this. Such pretty lies we tell ourselves, sometimes.
“How are things shaping up, Gorski?” I asked as I stepped onto the command brick. The big screen showed all twenty-one planets clearly now, all various shapes and sizes. Both the enemy target and the Macro cruisers in the system were centered around the six worlds in the habitable warm-water zone. There was just one cruiser in orbit here, and it was parked on the far side of the planet.
“A lot of things the Macros have hinted at make sense now, sir,” he said. “We are going to sail right by the target. At the exact minute they’ve indicated, we will fire our invasion forces laterally toward the target. The assault ships can glide in over half the distance, more or less invisible in space as small, cold objects. We’ll look like a storm of ice particles. But when they get in close, they’ll have to fire our engines up to slow down, or risk being smashed into the target hull. We’ll see if they sense us and shoot us down then.”
I nodded. “What about the eighth assault ship?” I asked.
“It won’t make it back in time,” Gorski said. “We’ll have to do this op with seven.”
“We don’t have any choice, do we sir?” Major Sarin asked.
“What’s that?” I asked. “We always have a choice, Major.”
Sarin and I locked gazes for a second, then she dropped her eyes back to her screen.
“We’re slave troops, aren’t we, Colonel?” Gorski asked me suddenly.
I turned to him. “What?”
“I used to think we were mercenaries-that was bad enough. But we are worse than that. We have no choices. We get no pay. We must fight or our families die back home. I wonder what kind of deal those people made to stay alive.”
Gorski was looking at the six, beautiful worlds on our screen. My eyes followed his there, and I was as fixated as he was. Somehow, when they were displayed with all their promise of life, perfect sunsets and smiles, it was painful to the human spirit. We were helping the wrong side. It was inarguably clear at that moment. I knew this, but I didn’t see any way out of the situation. In such a grim state of mind, it would be hard for my people to fight, I realized. They would be distracted. They would make mistakes.
I decided to help them out. I decided they needed something to believe in, and the only thing they had left was me. In short, I decided to lie.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told my officers. “I’m working on something. All this is going to turn out fine.”
They stared at me, and visibly brightened. They had hope again, I could see it swimming into their minds. I had infected them with that old monster, the hope-monkey. Even Sandra caught it, I could tell. She had faith in me. Hadn’t I always pulled a rabbit out of every hat in the past? They wanted to believe, so they did. They didn’t even ask what my plan was. It was enough to know I had one. Everyone relaxed and felt more confident-except for me.
Because only I knew I was full of shit.
8
When the assault ships were loading up, I met Kwon on the deck of the hold. The deck curved upward gently, as we were really standing inside the walls of a giant cylinder. The big doors stood open, the four leaves spread like a steel flower. The yawning doors let in the white light reflected up from the ice world as we glided closer. Brilliant yellow starlight from the nearby sun flowed in as well, casting long, stark shadows.
Kwon was wearing one of the new battle suits, as was I. He looked huge and machine-like. His suit had been a special order, as it was the largest size I’d come up with. Not everyone had a suit yet. There weren’t enough to go around. I had decided to put them on the men in the assault shuttles, as they would get to the target first.
“Down here to see us off, Colonel?” Kwon asked me.
“Are you going in one of the ships?” I asked.
“Yes sir.”
“Me too. I’ll fly with Major Welter.”
Kwon looked at me sharply. “I didn’t realize you were coming along.”
“Where else would I be? I don’t like sending my troops into harm’s way without sharing the pain. You know that, Captain Kwon.”
“Sir, permission to speak freely.”
“Granted.”
“Are you out of your freaking mind?” Kwon asked in a low voice. There was more than a hint of exasperation in his tone.