The Catalyst

-Chapter 18-


The marine the Macro worker had been chewing on didn’t make it. He did live long enough to see us clear the room. But his guts were spread over a five yard area, and not even the nanites could patch him up again.
Kwon was out for a while, but came-to after some help from a corpsman. He had six cracked ribs and a fractured skull, but it was nothing one of my marines couldn’t recover from. I decided my next battle suit would have to be better designed with internal form-fitting foam to prevent injuries to marines who were tossed around in their armor. My current design stopped most penetration, but didn’t give enough padded protection from concussive damage.
Kwon dragged himself to where I was working on a bizarre control panel. I lifted my hand to clap him on the back, but thought the better of it.
“Congratulations on surviving,” I told him.
“Just don’t give me any more promotions,” he said, groaning.
“Don’t worry. Are those nanites itching?”
“Yeah,” he said, running his gloved hands over his chest and helmet. “This is worse than the time I got my foot chopped off. What are you doing, Colonel?”
“Exercising the first useful skill I ever learned: problem-solving.”
Kwon grunted.
“Identification, analysis, design, implementation,” I said. “The engineer’s basic steps. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to figure out this interface and make it work for me. It might take weeks or even years of study.”
“You mean we can’t fly this ship?”
“We can’t, no,” I said. “But we don’t have to. We have little friends to do it for us. I brought along some extra brainboxes and connective materials.”
As I spoke, I showed him what looked like a simple box of nanites, the sort we used for control components on a dozen other devices. From it sprouted seven thick cables that terminated in metal hands. The nanite arms lifted themselves to touch the complex Macro control board, which looked like the cockpit of a jet fighter of the future.
“Can they do it?” he asked, sitting on the floor of the ship. He put his back against a dead Macro worker, as if it were a brick wall.
I shrugged. “They became symbiotic with our bodies very quickly. I suspect the ship controls are a lot simpler than that. I’ve instructed them to go for navigational controls first. We have to get underway.”
Kwon scratched at a gash in his right forearm. The suit had been ripped open, but had now repaired itself. I knew the flesh underneath probably looked worse than the suit. The nanites had their work cut out for them with Kwon.
“But they were studying us for years, I thought you said. They can fix us because they dissected thousands of humans.”
I nodded. “That’s the worrisome part. The Macro and Nano technologies are related, but how much do the Nanos really know about their bigger cousins? It is a mystery we’ll learn more about today.”
Kwon frowned. “You mean, if they can’t figure it out and we are blasted by enemy cruisers, we will know they are not close family, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“So, this is your plan?” he asked. He gestured toward the brainbox and the skinny arms snaking out of it.
“This was all I had.”
Kwon looked around the room. I followed his eyes. The conquest of the cruiser had been costly. Marines were resting or flat on their backs, trying to keep breathing while their nanites repaired their bodies. A few of them were dead and lying in a twisted configurations.
“That’s great, Colonel,” he said. “I’m glad you didn’t tell us before we assaulted this ship.”
“You’re welcome,” I said brightly. Internally, I was as worried as Kwon—maybe more so. This had always been the sticking point. Sure, I figured with a thousand marines I could take a few ships. But could we fly these alien ships? That was the real question.
A few long minutes passed. The brainbox shivered now and then, sending out a new arm to fiddle with a control point. Sometimes, one of the ones it had in play was sucked back into the box where it disappeared. I had no idea if this meant we were one step closer to flying this monster or if we’d failed yet again.
Major Welter contacted me from where he was still camped out on the cruiser’s hull.
“Colonel Riggs?” he called, sounding excited.
I thumbed him up on a private channel. “Tell me this is good news, Major,” I said.
“I don’t think I can do that, sir. I’ve finally gotten through to our people on the invasion ship.”
I shifted nervously and leaned my ear against the padded earpiece. “Talk to me.”
“They blew out the hold doors about two minutes ago, sir. I was able to get a signal to them then. The bricks are floating out now. They must have released the magnetic clamps.”
“What?” I said. My mind raced. It sounded to me as if they’d lost their battle. They had a lot fewer troops than we had here on the cruiser. I cursed myself. I should have split my forces more evenly. If we’d lost one ship out of two, and couldn’t fly the one we held….
“Yeah, more of them are flowing out now. Our bricks, our equipment, men in suits. Sir—it looks like they are abandoning the ship.”
“Give me a video feed,” I ordered. “Link our visors.”
A moment later a scene swam into view. I stared, my heart pounding. Somewhere in that mess of metal and humanity flushing out into space was Sandra. Not only that, but the bricks were the key to our long term survival. Without them, we would run out of food, air, water and be unable to adapt by building new equipment in the factories.
“What is it?” Kwon asked, finally catching on that something was terribly wrong.
I shushed him, making a chopping motion in the air. “Keep the signal going, Welter,” I said.
Things went from bad to worse about ten seconds later.
“Sir?” Major Welter said, “things have gone badly, I’m getting a transmission from Major Sarin…the Macros have engaged some kind of device.”
At least Sarin was alive. But what about Sandra? my mind asked. “Keep feeding me data,” I told him.
About then, the invasion ship blew up. The engines exploded, popping like a fireworks display. The hold area lurched forward, swallowing a few of the escaping bricks and marines that floated away from it. Some were riding dishes, and they flew with desperate surges of speed.
Fortunately, explosions in space are not as far-reaching as they are in a planetary atmosphere. Without air to carry the shockwave, even an atomic explosion has to be very close to kill. There was no air to burn or carry the concussive force to my people. The invasion ship itself came apart in a blossoming ball of radiation and molten metal, killing a number of them.
I watched the silent, expanding sphere of destruction with a sinking heart. I’d watched many friends die, but usually not in a single, helpless instant like this.
Numbly, I switched off the video input from Major Welter’s helmet. I had to do something. What was it?
“Alpha and Delta companies,” I said, my voice sounding faint even to my ears. “Get onto your skateboards. Get out there and drag any and all survivors and equipment you can find back to the cruiser. This ship is our home now.”