The Catalyst

-Chapter 23-


We only had a few hours to wait. When the first Macro ship came through the ring, it sailed onward at great speed. We measured the velocity, and calculated it was twenty percent higher than our own. We hadn’t found any damage to the engines, so we had to conclude my little auto pilot box wasn’t perfect. Perhaps it was just being more cautious with acceleration than the Macros were.
The second Macro ship and the third came through about half a minute later. They were spread out, side to side. These formed the broad point of the diamond formation.
Our own ship was making a broad, curving arc, still accelerating. It would take a few days, but we would reach the next ring that hung near the Worm planet we’d named Helios. I wondered if the Worms had detected us yet, and what they might try to do about these Macro cruisers flooding into their system.
“How long until they overtake us?” I asked.
Gorski tapped at his computer screen. “We will be in effective range of their main guns within ten hours.”
“Work on getting more speed out of our seven-armed pilot over there,” I said, gesturing toward the brainbox which had indeed sprouted seven arms by now. In a way, I was not surprised. The Macro control systems seemed intensely complex. I recalled that Macro technicians had many steel mandibles that moved with flashing speed. To them, making an interface that required seven points of contact to control might seem reasonable. If true, that would preclude human hands from operating their ships directly.
“Sir,” Major Sarin said softly. “The enemy are about to run into the minefield.”
I leaned over the screen and stared at it hungrily. Several other techs came closer, craning their necks to peek at what was happening outside the ship. I didn’t chase them away. Their lives were on the line too.
“Are they following our course exactly?”
“So far, sir,” Sarin said.
“Yes,” Gorski added working on the navigational analysis. “They haven’t seen us do anything but run, so they are perhaps becoming more bold. They will plow right into the mines in—about now, sir.”
I could see the truth of his words on the screen. The mines were little yellow dots, a single pixel each. They didn’t look like much, just a slowly spreading conical cloud of specs. Too bad they weren’t dispersed better, or placed a little more tightly at the ring mouth. The fact my ship had been going so fast had made the field less effective. The spread was uneven and placed less than optimally. In fact, it would keep thinning out slowly, because the last, big nanite arm had thrown them in a cone. Every mine, every second was moving away from its fellows.
We hadn’t set it up perfectly. If we survived, we’d do it better next time. I tried to stop worrying I had screwed up. I reminded myself calmly that it was hard to spread out a perfect field when running for your life.
The first ship hit the field dead center. I think the Macro crew had an inkling of what they were running into just before they hit. They veered in a curve, heading upward, out of the plane of the ecliptic. But it was too little and far too late. They slammed into the cloud of mines and dozens of them popped all over the hull. The ship began to break apart, but its momentum carried it further into the field. Within seconds, the cruiser had broken up, and there were secondary explosions as more mines worked on the disintegrating bits.
There was a loud whoop behind me. A huge hand clapped me on the back, making me bend forward despite my exoskeltal suit. I turned back, frowning, but my frown soon melted. It was Kwon of course, who’d appeared out of nowhere and was far away from his station. His grin was infectious, however, so I gave him a smile in return.
I turned back to the big screen. There were three cruisers left, and all of them were better armed and able than we were.
“The second and third ships are taking evasive action,” Sarin said. Her words were cold and clipped. Those words could spell everyone’s doom, but she kept it professional.
I watched the second and third cruisers drift closer to the minefield. These kills were far less certain. They’d started widely apart, not centered as the point ship had been. They knew what was coming and were actively trying to escape their fate.
“Fourth ship, coming through,” Gorski said. “Imagine their surprise! Wait…Macro transmissions detected. They must be talking it over—”
“Contacts two and three are firing, Colonel!” Sarin interjected, losing her cool exterior for a second.
“Firing? Firing what?” I demanded. I looked at the screen as new tiny red slivers appeared. Several came out of each Macro. They could only be missiles or some kind of shuttle.
“I thought they were out of range,” I said. “Gorski?”
He shook his head and shrugged. “Missiles can run out of fuel, but once they are on a trajectory, they will fly forever—just like a ship. And they are already moving faster than we are. With a carefully controlled burn…yeah, they might catch us.”
“That’s great,” I said, watching the battle play out with burning eyes. I wondered how long it had been since I’d slept. I couldn’t remember.
No one spoke at the next two cruisers hit the minefield. They aimed for and hit thinner areas of the clouds of yellow dots, but they couldn’t avoid them completely. They were moving too fast. Just as a car speeding on a highway couldn’t do a U-turn without slowing down first, they couldn’t steer their ships completely away from the field.
Both ships had spun around, turning to aim their main engines toward the minefield and blasting for all they were worth. It was a valiant, but doomed effort. My mines were drawn to them, and those yellow dots drifted right into the blazing engines.
Dozens of strikes shook both ships. Secondary explosions appeared all along the hull of each vessel as well. The ship on the right blew up first, turning into scrap almost instantaneously. The one on the left held out longer. But the mines kept raining down on it, and it kept drifting deeper into the cloud. Finally, it shuddered and disintegrated.
Another cheer went up. I didn’t join in. I stared at the screen instead.
“Where are those missiles headed?” I demanded. The tiny red contacts had not moved much.
“They appear to be flying at angles, trying to avoid the field,” said Gorski.
“I’ll pan the camera angle, Colonel,” Sarin said. She helpfully touched the big screen with the fingertips of both hands and slid them across the image. The computer-generated image whirling sickeningly. We could now see the ship positions edge-on. I saw the missiles crawling outward in various directions.
“They lobbed them at us,” I said. “Like throwing tennis balls over a high wall.
“Essentially sir,” Gorski said.
“Take the image back to an overhead view. I want to see that last cruiser.”
Sarin quickly did as I asked. The last ship had approached the line, but it was slowing down and veering away.
“Where’s it going?” I asked.
Gorski worked with his mathematical navigational models. The computer returned numbers to him, which he rejected and reworked. Another thirty seconds went by and I became agitated, but didn’t yell at him. I really wanted to, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I think they are heading into the spot the last cruiser hit. Maybe they figure the mine density will be lower there, as the other ship absorbed a lot of our mines before it blew up.”
I nodded unhappily. They knew what they were up against. They were already firing their gun to nail as many mines as they could. If they went into the wake of the third ship, their odds of survival were higher. Fortunately, they were going too fast to reverse course entirely, just like their sister ships. That was precisely why I’d waited until we came through the ring to deploy even a single mine. I didn’t want the Macros to have any warning. This last crew had witnessed the deaths of their brethren. This one had a clue.
As the cruiser plowed into the thinnest spot in our deadly web of mines, no one spoke. We all stared. I doubt anyone even blinked, except possibly for Sarin. I saw she had her eyes closed. We all knew how important the next minute would be.
“It’s in the field,” Gorski said.
Sarin opened her eyes again. “Two hits,” she said.
Yellow pixels vanished, replaced with glowing orange bursts that quickly faded. The last ship wasn’t flying in tail-first. She had nosed her way toward this spot, using her engines to guide her. That made her relative velocity higher. These ships also had more armor up front.
“Three hits,” Sarin said.
“She’s almost through,” Gorski said.
There was a big, secondary explosion that rocked the Macro ship. Something inside had been damaged. Kwon made a happy, grunting noise. I steeled myself, realizing that when this baby blew up, he was going to roar with joy. Possibly, I was going to get slapped again. I couldn’t blame him.
“Four hits,” Sarin said.
The ship kept coming. I had no doubt there were huge chunks blown out of its front armor, but it had held together. It was still structurally sound and moving forward.
“It’s through, sir,” Gorski said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “It’s right in the thick of it.” I pointed to the screen. There were swarms of yellow dots all around it. I had been waiting for the big, final ka-boom.
Gorski shook his head. “The field was thin there. They have a clear shot out of it now. The third cruiser drove a hole for them.”
Kwon let out a long, wheezy sigh. He deflated like a balloon. Now I wished I’d heard his shout of victory. I’d been a fool to dread it.
I surveyed the scene. We had sixteen missiles coming at us now. They had fired high and low, avoiding the minefield. Even if they’d gone through it, the missiles might have survived due to their small size and low metallic mass. The magnetics on the mines would not have homed in on them as quickly.
The missiles were curving now, turning and changing their course to pursue us. Maybe they would run out of fuel. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to home in on us at such a great distance…or maybe they would catch us and blow our tail off.
The last cruiser was the big worry. There it was, damaged, but still flying. It came through the last yellow dots representing my mines and doggedly moved to pursue. As best we could tell, it still had its big belly turret and a full magazine of missiles. It had yet to fire a single missile.
Worst of all, this Macro crew had seen my best move. I knew they wouldn’t be so easily tricked next time.