The Catalyst

-Chapter 40-


We were scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as equipment went. I was short of everything except laser rifles and packs—so many marines had died, we had extra light weapons. I used these together with our last dozen or so brainboxes, most of them cannibalized from other equipment, to operate as laser turrets on the cruiser’s nose. We were down to a crawling speed as we approached the ring. I knew there were mines there, but I didn’t know what we have to face until we got close.
When we did finally arrive, we found thousands of the little buggers. They were laid out in a tight pattern all over the mouth of the ring. They hadn’t been there when we’d come through to invade the Worm planet in the belly of the Macro invasion ship, but they sure as hell were there now. I could only figure the Worms had been busy setting up their defenses while the Macro cruisers were out of their system. I had to give them big points for persistence. I had the feeling the Worms wouldn’t give up until the last of their kind was dead.
It was weird, but after fighting both the herd peoples we called Centaurs and the Worms, I felt I understood the Worms better. They were more individualistic. They were warriors, and although they attacked as a horde often, they didn’t do it massed in a herd formation that made you think of a plain full of angry sheep. I sensed each Worm had pride as an individual, and that the oldest among them, being the largest, were the most revered. I could understand a social system like that, even admire it. They valued self-sacrifice, but seemed to have a sense of bravado. The Centaurs were much more into group-think and were willing to die just standing around contemplating things. I’d never seen a Worm go down doing anything other than fighting to the last.
We nosed our way through the minefield, my tiny, rigged-up laser turrets popping the mines like metal balloons as we went. We must have blown up hundreds before we had a big enough hole to feel safe. Gorski and I lit up the Macro control board then, putting every finger we had onto it at once to get the ship flying straight and fast through the ring. The mines moved to intercept. I wasn’t sure if they were magnetic or if they had some kind of smart guidance system, but we squeezed through. The laser turrets never stopped firing and the video we got from outside the hull showed dozens of orange fireballs as they shot down incoming mines one after another.
Then we were through the ring, the firing and the exploding mines all stopped. We slowed down again as fast as we could. One of my chief worries had been that my men would have tried to come through the ring after us on their flying dishes and activate the mines as they did so.
They hadn’t come through, which presented a new worry: why had they not at least tried? Had they all died out here, exposed in space? Had the Worms given them some other trick, or had the Macros showed up with fresh forces? The fact none of them had followed the rest of us didn’t bode well for their survival.
I kept all these thoughts to myself, however, as I felt the ship shiver and the stars changed around us. The big red sun of Helios loomed, swollen and grotesque. The sun filled space as far out as Earth’s own orbit. Only the relative coolness of its radiance allowed the planets around not to be burnt to a crispy dead desert. The Worm planet we’d named Helios orbited fairly close to the ring. It was an arid world with sunken, muddy oceans and hot sands covering much of the surface.
As we came through, I ordered radio silence. I wanted to listen for rescue calls. The ship stuttered as the braking jets kept slowing us down.
Nothing. Nothing at all. There were no signals out there—at least nothing we could pick up.
“Gorski,” I said, craning my neck downward. He was twisted up and squatting near me, his head at about even with my chest. “Can’t we program this board to hold the braking pattern until we are stopped?”
“Yeah,” he said, “we can lock it, but I don’t know how to get it to stop braking when we’ve come to a complete stop. We’ll have to do that manually.”
“Okay,” I said, “just do it. I’m tired of holding my arms in this position.”
He locked it, and we backed away from the control boards warily. The ship kept braking, and didn’t heel over into a spin. I smiled.
“I’m getting the hang of this,” I said. “And I don’t like it one bit. I can’t imagine how Welter figured this thing out and flew it solo.”
“He built his own command sequences—” Gorski began, getting to his feet.
“Yeah, yeah, the programmed hot keys. I know that. I meant getting the basic maneuvers down. They are so complex.”
“Well, he had the autopilot to watch. He was driven.”
I nodded. “Sarin? Anything out there?”
“Metallic debris nearby,” she said. “Lots of it. But it’s all drifting, nothing looks like anyone is steering it. Most of it is our equipment, but I’m not getting any radio signals—wait, sir…”
Major Jasmine Sarin stood with both hands working the console interface. She wore an intense expression. Stray strands of dark hair were caught up in her headset, making loops that hung near her chin.
I looked at her. She had a strange look of concern. Her eyes widened. “I’m getting radio lock-on. Someone is aiming at us.”
It took me a second before I figured it out. Sometimes I’m slow. “Hook me up to a general broadcast channel,” I snapped.
“You are connected,” Sandra said. She was back on as my com officer and more business-like than before. I supposed being in a near-death coma for a few days will do that to a person.
The attack began before I could start talking. A hundred tiny contacts lit up and began converging on our position.
“They are attacking, sir,” Major Sarin said with her eyes wide.
I put my hand up and she fell quiet.
“This is Colonel Riggs of Star Force. We are on a rescue mission. The Macro cruiser you see now is under my command.”
The tiny ships kept coming. There were more of them all the time. I knew what they were, of course. For several seconds, they kept coming without any contact.
I waved to Gorski urgently. “Disconnect the laser turrets on the nose. They are on automatic.”
“They shouldn’t shoot down our own people,” he said.
“Just move, those brainboxes are young and inexperienced.”
Silvery nanite control lines ran from sparse bridge in the engine room all the way up to the outer hull where the sensor arrays and rigged up laser turrets had been setup. The cable of chained nanite was over two miles long. Gorski plugged into the line and talked to the laser turrets, telling them to stand down.
“Colonel Riggs?” a voice came from the void.
I frowned. “Welter? Major Welter, is that you, man?”
Major Welter laughed. “We were so going to invade your ship. You know that, don’t you?”
I smiled. “You gave us a scare. Nice ambush. And you’re going to have to tell me how you survived out here so long without me. This was supposed to be a rescue, and it’s turning into a meet-and-greet. I’m feeling unappreciated.”
“Don’t worry about that, Colonel. We need you! Permission to land on the hull of our new cruiser.”
“Permission granted,” I said. “Try flying toward the prow. There’s a big hole on the left side, underneath.” I found myself grinning for the first time since we’d taken the ship. A few hundred more marines were still breathing. I reminded myself to never discount the capacity of my men to survive.
I picked up a tablet and watched them all fly into the open maw at the front of my cruiser. Something odd seemed to be following them, however.
“Uh, Major Welter?” I called. “What is that thing on your six?”
Welter came back with a crackling radio communication. “That’s a surprise, sir. Someone else survived that you had probably counted out. And he’s rebuilt himself. He must be a hundred feet long now.”
The words, what the hell? ran through my mind. I used my fingers to zoom in on the formation. “Are those some of our bricks in that mass?” I asked. “What do you make of that, Major Sarin?”
“It appears to be a chain of linked bricks, with several of our flying dishes attached for propulsion,” she said. “I’m at a loss to explain it.”
I stared, frowning in concern for several seconds until I knew what it had to be. When I had it, I wasn’t happy with what I was thinking.
“Patch me through to the broadcast channel again. Short-range.”
Major Sarin signaled me when she had it set up.
“Marvin, give me your position, please.”
“That is an imprecise statement. Please give me a relative point for frame of reference.”
I chuckled despite myself. “Just tell me what you are flying aboard my ship.”
“I’ve subsumed a large number of items from salvaged debris. That which is approaching your vessel is known as Marvin.”
“Sir, two of those bricks are factories,” Gorski whispered. His voice gave away his excitement.
“Marvin,” I said. “I thank you for retrieving these articles of equipment. They will be very useful to us. I’m not quite sure how you did it, but you’ve done us a great service.”
There was a momentary pause. “I am familiar with your salvage laws, Colonel Riggs. My new sub-system components were lost in unowned space, and are therefore the property of the finder.”
I stared at the conglomeration. I knew that I had built this intelligent machine—or at least allowed it to build itself. Was this how the Blues must have felt, at some critical moment in the past? Had they turned around one day and seen a Macro looming close to them? At this moment, I had a taste of what it must have felt like to be in their shoes. It wasn’t good.
“Yeah…” I said. “Okay Marvin. I’m coming down there. I think we’re going to have to have a little chat.”