The Catalyst

-Chapter 2-


After a bit of hand-waving to quiet my excited staff, I opened the link to Macro Command again. Now wasn’t the time to argue with them. Now was the time to figure out what they had in store for us—or at least as much as the Macros felt like telling me.
“Macro Command,” I said in an officious voice. “In order to achieve maximum effectiveness, my ground forces require intel on our target enemy.”
“Enemy species is biotic. Enemy species is space-faring. Enemy species must be eradicated from target system.”
I sighed. It all sounded familiar. They were taking us to smash another planet full of organic life forms like ourselves. My people were too shocked to make intelligible sounds. Some shook their heads and covered their faces with their hands. Most stared into nothingness.
“We need to know more about the nature of the target,” I said. “In order to achieve maximum effectiveness. Tell us about the target planet.”
“No planet in the system is to be targeted. Enemy biotics reside in stationary artificial structures in space.”
I nodded, thinking hard. A null-gravity fight. It sounded like there were several of these structures. Space stations? Artificial habitats?
A light hand touched my elbow. I looked down and saw Captain Sarin’s pretty, frightened eyes looking back up at me. “Sir, you can’t be considering going through with this, can you?” she asked in a whisper. “We aren’t ready to fight again.”
“I’m learning all I can, while I can. Get back to your post, Captain.”
Her hand jerked away from my arm and she turned her face back to the big screen. Her mouth was a small, tight line. I figured she would have plenty of time to get over it later—or we’d be dead, and it wouldn’t matter anyway.
“Macro Command, confirm my assumption: the target enemy species is the Worms, the same species we faced on our first mission.”
“Assertion incorrect.”
Great, I thought. Where did that leave us? We would be fighting somebody else, somebody who lived in space habitats of some kind rather than on planets. In order to live in space, the species had to have good tech. And they would be of a race we hadn’t seen. It did not leave us much to go on.
We spent a few days madly getting organized. Before, I’d had the men working, but not with the urgency of an expected mission on the horizon. Now we were moving like we meant business. Suits and kits were repaired by the factories first. Once I had every marine’s basic needs covered, I set the factories to rebuilding a new set of brainboxes and laser turrets. The men themselves were urged to heal up quickly. The moment they were out of bed, I had them exercising and working in the hold. The bricks were finally reorganized and stacked properly. They no longer resembled a pile of sticks. They now looked like an official Star Force base—but smaller than it used to be.
“New contact sir,” Captain Sarin said, calling me from the bridge.
“On my way,” I said. I raced up there, dropping everything I was working on and leaving it up to Kwon to finish the work in the hold.
“What’s happening?” I asked Sarin as I came up to the console.
Captain Sarin had her long dark hair out of the usual tight bun she kept it in. Her hair was too long for a marine, but I wasn’t complaining. She looked much more womanly today, but I tried not to notice her too much. She worked our new command console with quick, deft motions. She pointed at the big screen. I looked down and immediately saw why she had brought me in. We were approaching another ring in space. A new contact had appeared on the big table. It appeared as a tiny, flickering oval shape on our projection of the star system. I opened a channel to the Macros immediately.
“Macro Command,” I said. “We are approaching a ring. Will it take us directly to the enemy system?”
“Yes.”
I began to feel a little of the panic the rest of my people were feeling. I keyed off the connection to the Macros. “Get everyone to their battle stations. For all we know, we are going in hot. There might be mines waiting for us—like the last time we jumped.”
My staff was jolted into activity. Captain Sarin dialed up the flashers and gave the order for every marine to head for their assigned combat station. I heard clanking magnetic boots running over the roof of the brick we were in. I eyed the ring. It was coming up fast. I doubted we had more than a minute left before we jumped into God knew what.
“Macro Command,” I said. “We request a delay.”
“Request denied,” said the Macro synthesized voice with utterly maddening calm.
“We require time to prepare for null-gravity combat,” I said. “We are not prepared for that type of mission. We must reconfigure.”
“Request denied. Biotic Rigs has assured Macro Command the ground forces are functional.”
“We are functional, but in the absence of intel we had assumed we would be fighting in a similar environment. We require time to reconfigure our weaponry.”
“Request denied,” said the voice, sounding positively cheery.
We all eyed the looming ring with fear. Like most of the rings we’d met in space it was about three miles in diameter. I wondered if the ancient race that had built this mysterious transportation system had ever flown anything through one of these rings that was big enough to fill it. A spacecraft three miles across? The thought was daunting.
When we’d first jumped into the Helios system, we’d hit a long row of mines. The Macros had lost five out of six cruisers just getting to the target world. Now, we were down to one cruiser, and I figured that if the enemy had any kind of an effective defense we might well be destroyed before we could get out of the transport ship.
“We will be less than one hundred percent effective,” I said.
“Effectiveness rating estimate required.”
I thought hard. I could say one percent, but I didn’t want to blow it and make them think we were bullshitting them. I recalled something I’d learned from a software project leader: never give a nice, even number. Odd-sounding estimates were far more believable.
“Uh…” I said. Official-sounding bullshit took time to come up with. “We are at twenty-nine percent effectiveness against a null-gravity target. We need time to reconfigure to achieve maximum effectiveness.”
There was one of those several-second delays during which the ring loomed closer. We couldn’t see the edges of the ring all at once now with our visual sensors. Without being told, my staff switched over to wireframe and the entire scene was laid out. We were even closer than I had thought. I could only hope the artificial neurons of the Macros were firing in our direction.
“Schedule reset. Priority reset.”
What the hell did that mean? We all turned our eyes to the screen for a clue. We felt a shudder and a slight crosswise sensation of movement. The ring, which had been dead ahead, slid slowly to one side.
“We are braking and turning away, sir,” said Captain Sarin.
I could hear the elation in her voice. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. We were standing at death’s door, but we hadn’t knocked and barged inside yet. That was all I had to do to make my staff happy again: keep them alive for a few more hours.
Our relief was short-lived. I thought about asking the Macros for more details, such as how long they would give us to “prepare” but decided it wasn’t a good idea. We would take all the time they gave us, then when they became antsy again, we would act surprised and beg for more. It was the same technique my kids performed flawlessly upon me every night back when I had been a father. When I’d said: Time to go to bed, they had heard: Agree to go to bed, then quietly stay awake until I remember to order you to bed again…go back to step one and repeat.
Thinking of my kids gave me a pang I hadn’t felt in a while. I stood staring at the screen for a full minute. When I noticed my surroundings again, I saw a new face, standing beside me and staring at me. It was Sandra.
“Are you awake now?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“What the hell’s going on? Are we at battle stations or not?”
“No,” I said. I turned to Captain Sarin and instructed her to relay the order to stand down.
“Where’s the rest of the command brick crew?” Sandra asked, looking around. “What about Raphim?”
The bridge crew looked glum. There was only myself, Captain Sarin and three other staffers there, two warrant officers and a non-com staff sergeant named Gorski. He had taken over navigation from the deceased Lieutenant Raphim Shrestha because he’d been an engineering major in college before he signed up.
Gorski lifted a gloved hand and waved at Sandra. He wore a weak smile. “I’m new,” he said. Gorski always appeared to need a shave and his watery blue eyes gave him a permanent expression of surprise.
“Raphim and the others were lost on Helios,” Captain Sarin told Sandra quietly.
“Oh—of course,” Sandra said quickly, with an uncharacteristic hint of embarrassment. She appeared flustered. “I’m sorry. Looks like you need to get some new people in here.”
I nodded. “I thought we were heading for Earth. I figured we could reassign people when we returned to base. But you are right…as this mission isn’t over yet, I need to have a full complement here in the command brick. We’ve lost eighty percent of our officers. An occupational hazard of leading from the front.”
Sandra frowned at the big board and looked sorry she had brought the matter up. Everyone was in a state of shock, thinking about a new campaign.
I sucked in a breath of air and shook my head. I needed to stop daydreaming and get people moving. Dwelling about the fact most of us were dead and we were about to face another unknown enemy wasn’t helping anything. It was time to take command again.
“All right,” I said, looking around the room. Dim-lit faces looked back at me, reflecting the bluish glow of a dozen screens. “You are all second lieutenants now, except for Captain Jasmine Sarin, who I hereby promote to Major. Congratulations Jasmine, you will be my new exec, replacing Robinson.”
“What about me?” Sandra asked, smiling.
I could tell she was half-joking, but I looked at her seriously. “Didn’t you hear me? You are a second lieutenant now. You know your way around the command brick as well as anyone else I’ve got left. You were working my office communications, but I’m expanding your job description. Now you will run the com board for the entire unit.”
The crew looked surprised, but no one objected to any of the changes. I could see in their eyes they all felt they’d earned their promotions. I agreed. Under these conditions, knowing how to survive was a trait I wanted in all my officers. Even Sandra had fought hand-to-hand back on Helios. How many humans back on Earth had killed an alien barehanded? Not many. She had never finished her college degree due to the war, but she was as qualified as anyone. I ordered a staff meeting, and summoned Major Sarin, Lieutenant Gorski and Staff Sergeant Kwon to my office. The second I saw him, I promoted Kwon to Captain, over his objections.
“I have no education, sir,” he complained. “I won’t know what fork to put on the table at the officer’s mess!”
“You are under a mistaken impression, Captain,” I said. “Star Force officers don’t use forks.”
“Oh,” Kwon said, looking honestly surprised. “I will have no trouble then.”
“Excellent. I need an experienced field officer to give me input on the ground forces. If we have to invade these artificial satellites—which I take to be space stations of some kind—it will be all infantry work. We won’t be able to use armored hovertanks aboard an enemy structure.”
Everyone eyed me in alarm. I think it was the first time they’d seriously considered what the Macros wanted us to do. Running around with a rifle on a planet was one thing…invading an enemy orbital base while it was presumably shooting at you was a different matter entirely.
“Sir,” Major Sarin said, speaking up for the first time. “I don’t understand how we are supposed to gain access to the enemy base—whatever it is.”
“That’s on the list of reasons we are having this meeting. I want ideas, people.”
Everyone looked at Kwon, as he was the infantry man present. Kwon stuck up a set of his thick fingers. “We’ve got suits. Worst case, we float over and burn a way inside.”
“Worst case,” I agreed.
“Better idea,” Kwon continued, “we build some kind of invasion craft.”
I thought about it, and nodded. “How big?”
Kwon shrugged. “One-man, or tank-sized. Whatever is easiest.”
I thought about it further. “We’ve got a few drill-tanks left,” I said. “They would do nicely as a platform. But they can’t carry everyone. They can only carry about twenty marines each. But if we alter the propulsion and guidance systems, they can fly to the targets and use their big drilling lasers to burn breaches through the enemy hulls.”
“Good idea, sir,” Kwon said, nodding.
Sarin and Gorski watched this interchange with shocked expressions. They stared at us as if Kwon and I were the aliens at the table.
“What are you two thinking?” I demanded.
“Honestly, Colonel?” Sarin asked.
I nodded.
“I can’t believe we are actually planning to do this. We have no idea what the hell the enemy look like, or what their space stations will look like—not even what kind of defensive fire they will be throwing back at us.”
“Right,” I said, nodding. “Keep going.”
“So, how can we plan an attack with so little intel?”
“Because we have no choice. The Macros don’t like questions. They aren’t going to give us an infinite allotment of time to prepare, either. We will prepare for this mission, as full of unknowns as it is, as quickly as possible. We will then use every additional second we are allotted to gather more intel and improve upon our plans.”
Gorski cleared his throat. Up until this point, he had been quiet. I nodded to him.
“Sir,” Gorski said, “I think there is another option we aren’t considering.”
We all stared at him. Major Sarin fidgeted uncomfortably. Kwon grinned with broad teeth. We all knew what Gorski was going to say.
“Tell us about it, Lieutenant,” I said.
“We could take this ship instead. If we are going to build a force to fight in null-gravity and vacuum anyway, why not turn it on the Macros?”
I nodded slowly. Everyone had thought of this before. “There is something inherently frightening and foul-feeling about turning upon your allies,” I began, “no matter how unpleasant those allies might be. But don’t think for a minute I have never considered the idea. If it were only us involved in the equation, I would have done it long ago. But I’m not thinking of just us here. I’m thinking about everyone else back home on Earth.”
I ran my eyes over everyone. They stared back, troubled.
“If we screw up out here,” I said, “then the Macros will attack Earth. We can’t doubt that for a second. We will have restarted a war that cost hundreds of millions of lives during the last round.”
“But,” Gorski said, speaking up again. “If we are successful, I doubt the rest of the Macro Empire would even know about it, sir.”
I looked at him.
“This is like piracy on the high seas, Colonel,” Gorski said. “Space is big. There are no witnesses out here that we know of. If we took this ship and ran it back home or blew it up, why wouldn’t they blame the Worms?”
“I like the way you think, Gorski,” I said, smiling at him. “I did the right thing, making you into a lieutenant. In fact, I’m going to promote you again if you survive another few days.”
“Um…thank you, Colonel,” Gorski said with a flicker of a smile.
“There is a big problem with your plan, however,” I said.
“Sir?”
“The cruiser,” I said. “If we take the invasion ship, the cruiser will turn around and blow us out of the sky. They will not negotiate, nor try to take the ship back. They will fire, and keep firing, until one of us is hot vapor and dust. You do understand that, don’t you?”
Gorski nodded. “Yes. But we should realize something else. They aren’t going to stop taking us on missions. I think that’s clear.”
I frowned and gestured for him to go on.
“They are going to keep grinding us down, sir. Just as they would with their own robotic troops. They don’t care if we all die. They don’t even understand concepts like morale and despair. They would fight to the last unit without a concern. They assume we will do the same. They will keep invading new worlds until the last one of us is dead, or the year of service is up.”
I eyed him, thinking he was probably right, but not wanting to say so. “We aren’t certain of that, Gorski.”
“But it seems like a logical conclusion, doesn’t it sir?”
“It does. The primary problem still stands, however: Earth isn’t ready for round two with the Macros. We are buying them time to get ready. In short, we are expendable.”
I swept the room with my eyes. No one looked happy, but they weren’t arguing anymore, either.
“You’ve given me a lot to consider, I thank you all,” I said. “We’ll proceed to regroup into ship-assault teams—no matter what, it seems like we are going to be doing some hostile boarding missions. Kwon, get onto reconfiguring the drill-tanks. And start running null-gee combat drills in the hold. Everyone is dismissed.”
My new staff stood up and left. When they were gone, I sat there in my office staring at the metal walls. They had the same look nanite-built walls always did. Dimly lit, flat metallic surfaces. They weren’t shiny like chrome, but had more of a brushed-aluminum look to them. I realized I’d spent years now staring at walls like these, ever since the night the Nanos had shown up at my farm. I wondered vaguely where the Nanos and their creators were. Were we anywhere close, or were we a thousand lightyears away from them? I had no way of knowing.
My office door dissolved open, interrupting my thoughts. I blinked. It was Sandra. She had a funny look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
She tapped at the hatch behind her and made sure it was closed before she answered. “Gorski was right,” she said. “You have to take this ship. And the cruiser too, if necessary.”
I stared at her. “You weren’t at the meeting. How did you hear about that?”
“I listened in,” she said, as if I were slow-witted. “I’m your new com officer, remember?”