I nodded thoughtfully. Maybe we’d invaded their outer farm regions. If their plants operated as ours did via photosynthesis, they would need to be near the surface to collect energy from their star. Possibly, that was why we’d seen such a geyser of vapor. Water, air, relative heat and pressure-it all added up to a blast of steamy air.
“Move, everyone!” I shouted. “Get in there before they blow this section of their station back into space!”
My men surged, and soon it was my turn into the breach. I was very glad my suit was tough and impregnated with a self-repairing nanite layer. The breach was like a hot blade. We got through it, however, and one-by-one we floated inside. I had everyone leave their skateboards magnetically tethered to the external skin of the station. Whoever made it back out could use them to escape. Behind me, more and more marines kept pouring in. We’d only managed four breaches, and two or three hundred marines were going into each one.
“Sir?” boomed a familiar voice.
I turned and saw Kwon. I wasn’t surprised to see him, it was one out of four he’d end up here, and I knew he’d try to follow me if he could. I was surprised however, to see who he had with him.
“Lieutenant Marquis?” I asked.
“Yes sir. Glad to be here, sir,” she said. The woman was of normal height, but she looked like a kid standing next to Kwon. A shapely kid.
“You thought Joelle was dead, didn’t you?” asked Kwon. “I caught her.”
“You caught her?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” Lieutenant Marquis confirmed.
“I had one of those two-man skateboards,” Kwon said. “You know, the ones made for carrying heavier equipment. Anyway, I saw the ship blow up, and I knew she didn’t have time to get onto a dish, if she had lived. So, I watched for her and caught her when she went by.”
I stared. We’d built a slightly larger unit for some marines, most of them were used by medics to help carry their extra loads. In Kwon’s case, he was an extra load all by himself. I narrowed my eyes, finding a flaw in his story. “She should have been thrown out at an angle, or at least be heading toward the station at a lower velocity than you were.”
Kwon shrugged. “Yeah. I braked some and found her.”
“Risky, Kwon,” I said. I looked at Lieutenant Marquis. “Sounds like you owe him a drink.”
She nodded. “It’s a date.”
I turned away, shaking my head. “Well, you’re both alive in any case. Pull out your pistol, Lieutenant. You are assigned to scout duty.”
Kwon didn’t complain, and neither did Lieutenant Marquis. I directed her into a corridor. There were at least twenty tubes leading out of this hydroponic garden, and I wanted all of them explored before we moved. So far, we hadn’t made contact with any enemy aliens.
But that was about to change.
10
For me, it was something of a shock when the first charge came. I’d fought with this enemy before, but it had been a long, long time.
The aliens stood about four feet tall and had four hooves. They had hands after a fashion, each with three opposing digits. Their hands looked like tripods of thumbs. On top of their heads they had blade-shaped horns that thrust up like a set of antlers.
Unlike the Centaurs I’d fought aboard the Alamos when I’d first been taken prisoner so very long ago, these aliens were not caught in their bare, cinnamon-brown fur. They had suits on and they carried guns.
Four of them came galloping after one of my scouts out of a high flying tube and chased him into our midst. The aliens gunned my scout down, reducing his legs to smoking stumps. Their weapons appeared to be beam-based, similar to our own. I saw with shock of alarm they were very much like our own. They had backpacks that obviously contained reactors and beam projectors in their stubby hands. Thick cables ran back to the packs, just as our projectors were connected to our own packs. After they burned my scout down, they hardly had time to look up before my own men opened up on them and returned the favor.
“Well, there won’t be any questioning that group,” I said sourly. I couldn’t be too upset, however. After watching them murder one of our marines, I couldn’t expect my people to be full of mercy and waving flags of truce.
“They have our weapons, sir,” Kwon said, marveling at the steaming carcasses.
“Yeah. Because the Nanos gave them the same tech they gave us.”
Kwon didn’t reply. I suspected he was confused by all this. I gave him my surefire cure for confusion: I ordered him to mount an advance through the tunnel these Centaurs had come from to secure it.
“Don’t shoot everything you see, men,” I said. “We’re not here to exterminate them, as far as I know.”
That brought me to the next, unpleasant task. I needed to talk to Macro Command. As far as I was concerned, we’d achieved our objectives. We had penetrated the enemy structure as promised. Calling it captured might be a stretch, but maybe the Macros wouldn’t know any better.
I took up one of the communications boxes I’d loaded on each assault ship and connected it to a strand of nanites that led to the surface of the station. “Macro Command, this is Kyle Riggs reporting.”
Dead air. It was nice to be appreciated.
“Macro Command, we have achieved our objectives. We will now move back to our ships.”
“Mission Incomplete.”
“We’ve penetrated the enemy satellite. We’ve killed all the defenders that have attacked us. Our mission is complete.”
“Mission Incomplete.”
“Define requirements to complete this mission,” I asked, hoping against hope they didn’t want us to slaughter a million-odd Centaur civilians. I wasn’t even sure we could do it, given that their weaponry was as good as ours.
“Capture the enemy structure.”
I figured maybe we had another of our little ‘misunderstandings’ going. “What part of the structure would mark this structure as captured?” I asked.
“Interrogatives are not permitted-”
“Ignore that request, damn it,” I said, realizing I’d accidentally asked a question. From down the tube where I’d sent my marines, I could see flashes of light and shouts over the com-link channels. We’d engaged with another patrol, I suspected. It looked like these troops were firing back.
“Give me a destination point which I must reach to capture this structure,” I said in a commanding tone.
There was a hesitation. “There are several such points.”
“Specify the nearest.”
“Drive propulsion centers for orbital suspension are located less than one mile inside the central cavity.”
I blinked. The engines for orbital suspension?
“Give me another destination point,” I asked, but I was already beginning to get a funny feeling…
“The thinnest point of the hull which would allow the venting of the central cavity into space is six miles distant, on the portion of the structure closest to the planetary surface.”
I had it then. I didn’t need a third hint. Option A was to destroy the engines that kept this station from falling down onto the planet. Option B was to blow a hole in the central area and depressurize the whole thing.
They didn’t want me to capture this place. They didn’t want me to kill all the armed defenders and force a surrender. They wanted me to destroy it. To kill everyone aboard. Maybe, for the Macros, the concepts of capture and destroy were synonymous.
Thinking hard, I ordered my men to stop their advance. I had to figure out what to do next.
“Colonel Riggs?” came a shout from the com-link a minute or so later. “Colonel Riggs, sir?”
“Here,” I said. It was Lieutenant Marquis. “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
“I’m down here standing on some kind of grate. I think you should come see this, sir.”
“I’m a little busy. What is it, Lieutenant?”
Silence.
I stood up, thinking of Kwon and his drink. I didn’t want to disappoint him. “Lieutenant Marquis? Joelle?”