It took another hour for my brainbox to gain basic navigational control of the Macro cruiser, and by that time every Macro in the star system had to be heading our way. We had no weapons control, but the big gun was knocked out anyway so that didn’t matter much. I still would have liked to have some defensive lasers and missiles operating. But I didn’t. All we could do was run for it.
When the brainbox figured out how to get the ship moving, I didn’t hesitate. I signaled an all-points alert, relaying it up to the guys on the vessel’s surface and those few who were still doing rescue missions. Everyone was to get inside the cruiser hull and secure themselves for acceleration. I wasn’t sure if the magnetic clamps would manage to hold our bricks to the outside of the ship, so I told my marines to strap them down with nano-arms and get inside the hull.
There was a beeping communication from the medical brick. Normally at a moment like this, I would have ignored it, but I opened the channel.
“Colonel Riggs?” asked Carlson. “Should we bring the-ah, the incapacitated out of the medical brick and down into the cruiser?”
“Can they survive outside their little coffins?” I asked.
“Not for long, sir.”
“Then don’t bother.”
“Should I stay with them, sir?”
“That’s up to you, Carlson,” I said.
I thought I probably should have ordered him to come below. We could use his skills if the medical brick was lost. But I couldn’t order a man to abandon Sandra. I just couldn’t. Bringing her on this mission had been a big mistake, as I had suspected it would turn out to be.
“I’ll stay, sir,” he said after a pause.
“All right. We burn in ninety seconds.”
When the engines first fired, they stuttered and the ship weaved. The nano brainbox slid three-fingered, cable-like hands over the interface panel. We soon straightened out and began to leave orbit.
20
We didn’t have a navigational interface working for another two hours. The command brick had been lost, so we didn’t really have a good way to display and analyze the data feeds we were getting from sensor arrays planted on the cruiser’s hull. I was certain the Macro warship had excellent data systems-but we had no way of getting to any of them. The computer systems were built by aliens for their own purposes. Our brainbox could only operate basic engine and attitude controls, enough to fly the ship toward the ring. Enough to flee, nothing else.
I decided to build my own bridge inside the ship to fly this thing. We rigged up the biggest screen I could find-which was about the size of a kitchen table-and set it up in the engine room. I had marines with welding guns and nanite repair buckets roaming all around the area fixing the damage we’d done. We sealed and pressurized that region of the ship first. The cruiser was humming with activity. Owning a real warship was exhilarating for the men. I was in too sour of a mood to enjoy anything, and kept thinking of Sandra in her steel coffin. The Macro carcasses were getting in the way of my new bridge setup. Realizing they were made of tough alloys, I had them fed into my factories as raw materials. I felt it was a fitting end for them.
When we finally did manage to connect a sensor module on the outer hull to our new screen, I was glad we’d been blind up until now. Doom followed us in the form of four cruisers. They weren’t coming in as fast as they could, fortunately. They were going to make sure we were dead this time. The four ships had timed their rendezvous. In six hours they would form the classic diamond formation and pour on the speed. They were already moving faster than we were, proving we didn’t have full control of our cruiser. Maybe we’d damaged it in the boarding battle. Maybe my brainbox was still learning the ropes. I didn’t know which it was, and I didn’t much care. What mattered was we were barely going to make it to the ring before they caught us. Once we entered the Helios system-assuming those bastard Worms hadn’t set up new defenses somehow in our absence-the Macros would follow us through and fire at us in unison. I’d decided to name my first big ship Jolly Rodger. Unfortunately, Jolly Rodger had about ten hours left to run, by my best estimates, before we all died in space.
Major Sarin worked the big screen with me. It was just like old times, but with a lot more people in a lot bigger room. I’d sent Gorski up to configure the factories that were still clamped to the outer hull. I had him make raw constructive nanites. Barrels of them. He didn’t ask why, he just did it. I liked that about him.
Major Welter had taken to hanging around with me near the big screen and our multi-armed brainbox pilot. I welcomed the company, as the brainbox wasn’t much of a conversationalist, and Sarin was too sick with worry to talk much.
“Do you see a way out of this, Colonel?” Major Welter asked me.
“Of course,” I said.
His sharp eyes flicked to me. We’d managed by now to pressurize and heat the engine room. It was heaven to take my helmet off and scratch my head. Sometimes in war the simplest comforts were the best.
“You’re not bullshitting, are you sir?” he asked, lowering his voice. “I’ve got to know.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I’ve always got a move, Major,” I said. “Always.”
Major Welter smiled. The hope-monkey had gotten him, right there and then. He believed. It was rare when I got the chance to see it as it happened. He shook his head and walked away, greatly relieved. I noticed he didn’t ask me what my move was. Truly desperate men rarely did. They didn’t want to take the chance their new found hope would burst in their faces like a giant soap bubble.
The funny thing was I did have a move. I went up onto the hull of the cruiser to check on it. Moving around out there wasn’t easy. We were under about six Gs of acceleration, and even while crawling with three nanite arms clinging to your belt hooks, it was hard going.
Gorski was gritting his teeth and trying to think while he talked to one of our last two factories. He was trying to program the system to digest a Macro worker and produce constructive nanites from the remains.
The job wasn’t that difficult for a programmer, but the environment wasn’t the best. The acceleration forces out here on the surface were rough. Inside the cruiser we had inertial dampeners operating and only felt a fraction of the Gs we were really pulling. Out on the hull in the bricks, it was a different matter.
Gorski was pasted up against the back wall of the brick. His teeth were gritted not out of frustration, but as a reaction to the intense forces pressing him onto a flat wall. I made it through the airlock and dragged myself, hand-over-hand, to flop next to him on the wall. We both lay there, breathing and listening to the machine while it ate a Macro carcass a giant cargo arm fed into its maw up on top of the brick. Only the thickest black nanite arms had the strength to feed the Macro into the factory’s maw while under acceleration. I didn’t think my men could have done it at all with just muscle-power.
“How’s it going?” I asked after removing my helmet.
“I’ve got it chewing,” he said. “But the nanites are coming out slowly.”
I nodded. I immediately regretted the nod. It strained my neck muscles and caused my head to bump the wall. Besides which, Gorski couldn’t really turn his head to face me, and thus missed the nod entirely, making it a wasted effort. We were laying on the wall, moving minimally. I was reminded of my misspent youth. I’d often gone to lie like this on the hood of a car to watch planes take off at night from Castle Air Force Base in California. That was back before they’d closed down most of the bases. I wondered vaguely if they were rebuilding bases back in the states now. I suspected they were.