Two men picked me up, and I was dragged, half-running toward the dome. My body was full of metal slivers. When I breathed, liquid bubbled out of my chest as if I were a wet, popped tire. My men dragged me under the last machine that stood between us and the dome. It had run out of belly-turrets by this time and two of its crab-like legs were dragging behind it.
I shouted into my com-unit. “Cruise brigade! Take out that missile turret now!”
I wasn’t sure if they acknowledged or not. I wasn’t even sure if they were still alive. We made it under the dying Macro’s legs and hit the dome. All sounds of the battle cut out.
Stepping under the dome was like entering a cool, calm world. Cut off from the outside completely, I could feel the barrier as I passed through. It felt like I’d walked through some kind of plastic film, as if I’d been swallowed in bubble-wrap. We pushed inward and it pushed back, but gently it gave way. I think it was designed to allow slowly moving things to walk through. How else could the workers easily gain access? I supposed they could have sent in some kind of signal, but signals could be duplicated. Besides, I suspected now that the shield prevented all signals from penetrating. Signals were fast-moving energy, just like the laser beams from my rifle. These domes seemed to stop such emissions.
Once past the barrier, we stood in a gloomy world. A machine hulked in front of us, dimly lit by internal sources. I flipped on my suit lights and stood unaided. I coughed, and that hurt worst of all.
“Colonel?” asked the man next to me in concern. I looked at him in surprise. It was Wilson, not Radovich. I wondered briefly if Radovich was dead.
“Should we fire on that thing, sir?” he asked me.
I tried to get my thoughts together. It wasn’t easy. I’d gone through too many shocks too quickly, and I think that close missile blast, exploding almost in my face, had addled my brains. I realized I was lucky I could still hear anything.
“How many do we have?” I asked, and right away I could see relief on Lieutenant Wilson’s face. He hadn’t wanted to command this final leg of the assault. I didn’t blame him.
“Twenty sir, but more are streaming in.”
Twenty? I thought in shock. Was that all that had made it inside?
“Let’s advance then,” I said, “and see what that thing is.”
I staggered forward. One leg didn’t seem to be operating properly. Wilson gave me a shoulder and I took it. We moved toward the thing that crouched in the center of the dome.
It took me a few dozen steps to recognize it. I had seen it before, or something like it. It resembled one of my own factories—the ones I’d built and left on Andros Island—but it was much larger. A hundred times larger. I could hear it now. It sort of thrummed. It was a deep, steady, ominous sound.
“Men,” I said, struggling not to cough. My lungs burned and itched abominably and it was all I could do to speak clearly. “This thing is a factory. It builds new Macros and whatever else they need, just as I built these guns we are carrying. I’ve never thought about how to destroy one, but I think it’s time we figured it out.”
More men came in, a lot of them. We had maybe a hundred and fifty marines inside the dome. Less than two companies out of ten. The new group reported that most of the big machines outside were destroyed, but most of us had died as well.
“Well, there’s nothing like the direct approach. Everyone button up as best they can. On my mark, everyone fire at that thing. Shoot for the center point of the mass, about ten feet from the base. Everyone now, fire!
We blazed at it. Light like that of a thousand suns bloomed, filling the inside of the dome with brilliance. Despite our darkened shades, I could see the light. It was blinding, painful.
I kept the beam going for five seconds. Everyone followed my lead, and as each second passed, the beams came closer together, focused on a single target area.
“Keep firing. Let’s go another five,” I said, trying to sound calm.
My eyes were squinting lines. My retinas were exploding. The heat coming off my weapon burned my hands right through my gloves. We fired for five more seconds, then another two or three, but I could tell the light was dimming. Either I’d burnt out my retinas, or men and lasers were failing around me. Probably, it was the latter. The heat was tremendous.
“Cease fire!” I shouted. The beams cut out and died down. My vision came back slowly, but with many burnt purple splotches that floated and flared annoyingly. “We don’t want to melt our lasers down, or our hands and eyes.”
We checked out the damage when we were able. There wasn’t much to show for all the effort. A pocked area, blackened and burnt, showed in a ten foot radius on the wall of the machine’s heavy base.
Only a few more men had joined us, the flow of new troops was lighter now. Only two companies or so had survived, out of a thousand men. I figured the troops back on the crater’s rim might have lived as well. There might be wounded outside too, if we had taken out all the big machines. I thought perhaps we had, as none of them had tried to get inside here with us. Maybe they were too big. I had no idea actually. But I was sure I wanted to destroy this factory before it could build a new Macro.
I led the men around to the far side of the machine. Wilson still helped me walk. There it was, on the same spot as the machine back inside my own ship. The intake vent. It was up a ways, perhaps twenty feet off the ground. I was sure the worker Macros would lift up their burdens of raw materials and slide them down that hole into something like the nanite digesters my own factories had.
The marines gathered around. “What are we going to do now, sir?” asked Wilson.
“Well, Lieutenant, we’re going to get inside that intake somehow and destroy this thing.”
“You first, sir,” he said.
I looked at him.
“No offense, sir. But are you serious? What if that thing turns on?”
“I need your help, Wilson. I need your command codes for my suit.”
“What, sir?”
“The safeguards. It takes two officers to release them. I need your secret code for self-destruction. Then I need you to lead these men out of here after we build up a ladder to get me up to the rim of that intake vent.”
“What? I didn’t really mean what I said about you going first.”
I nodded. “I know, Wilson. But we haven’t got any other heavy explosives with us.”
Wilson stared at me. “I’ve got a better idea, sir. We’ll rig up the ignition switch to a command signal. Then we’ll drop a reactor inside there. The rest of the men can evac and the last man out can set it off.”
“He’ll have to stay inside the dome,” I said. “No signals will go through it. We haven’t got the equipment to set up an autodestruct or a time-bomb.”
“Yes sir. I would like to volunteer for that mission, sir.”
I shook my head. He put a hand on my arm.
“Sir,” he said, “Kyle Riggs—I told you I would join up and follow you. I did that sir. And I’m still a man of my word. I’ll do it.”
“I trust you, Lieutenant, but—” I said, but he cut me off.
“We can’t order anyone else to do it. We can’t ask that. But we are playing for keeps here. Difficult situations require difficult choices. I’m willing to take the chance.”
“This is my command,” I said.
“Yes sir, it is.”
I hesitated. Then the machine rumbled. I don’t know what it sounded like—maybe like a locomotive starting up when you had your hands on it and leaned against it. I could feel the deep vibration in my bones. All the men backed away from it instinctively.
“It’s building a new machine, sir,” said Wilson, eyeing me, “you know it is.”