The Catalyst

-Chapter 49-


We were less than a hundred thousand miles out from the Macros when they all turned in unison and fired up their engines. I braced myself, gritting my teeth and expecting an attack, but it didn’t happen. Instead, they formed a familiar triangular formation and began accelerating away from us.
“Binary instructions incoming,” Marvin said. “Macro Command instructs the damaged ship to join their formation at the fourth position.”
“What is the target, Marvin?” I asked.
“Earth Command,” Marvin said. “That appears to be their classification for the human base on Andros Island.” He seemed unconcerned, unlike everyone else onboard. We were all sweating hard.
“It looks like they’ve decided they now have the strength to take on Crow’s fleet,” Major Gorski said. “As the fourth cruiser to arrive, we’ve tipped some kind of balance.”
I stared, knowing he was right. I considered turning around and exiting. That would stop the enemy from making their move, but if I did that, they would know we were not a normal Macro cruiser. They might come after us and turn hostile. Worse, they could simply wait for more of their ships to enter the system and make their move then. We’d be forced to fight at that point against a strengthened, wiser enemy.
“Keep flying,” I ordered. “We’ll do as they say. Try to look like a Macro, everyone.”
The entire crew had their battle suits on by this time. In a way, we did look like small, bipedal Macros. We were all bulky armor and indicator lights. We looked as much like robots as we did humans in these suits. I wondered briefly if being full of nanites and covered in exoskeletal armor made us hybrids, rather than pure biotics. I tried to push these thoughts away. There would be time for philosophical meanderings later.
“Major Welter, slow us down a bit so we won’t join them until we reach lunar orbit. At that point, I want to ease into their formation. We’ll be the rear point of the diamond. Take your time about it, however. Make it look natural”
“I’m already working on it, sir,” he said. “It’s hard to get precision out of these controls.”
“I know it is, I tried it myself,” I said. “If anyone can do it, you can. Weapons check, Gorski?”
“We have all our missiles loaded into the tubes now,” Gorski responded. “The Macro controls are simple for me, all I have to do is push these three contacts and swirl my finger here—and the tubes will open.”
I nodded. At least he was on top of things. I knew how hard it was to gain command of a Macro system, so I appreciated everyone’s efforts. Even better, he had managed to gain fire control of the big belly turret on the bottom of the cruiser while we crossed the Alpha Centauri system.
“At least we won’t be flying into this battle unarmed,” I said. “Give me an external screen. Let’s see how the nanites are doing with reshaping our cruiser’s damaged section.”
Major Sarin carefully manipulated her computer. My tablet was chained to her screen, and I watched as the external cameras swiveled downward. The hull still looked damaged, just as it was supposed to. I was impressed. The blown out area below the nose of the ship was still there, but it was not as deep now. The crater on the underside of the ship now had a false bottom. The surface of this crater was really a millimeter-thick shell of nanites, but to a casual observer from a distance, they reflected radar or optical imagery with the correct signature. We still looked damaged, but our launch bay behind the nanite shell was pressurized and disguised.
An even better surprise awaited the enemy behind that shell of nanites: several hundred marines all outfitted with our new exoskeletal armor and riding independent invasion dishes. I could order the false hull of nanites to dissolve and send them roaring out to battle in seconds. I didn’t relish taking on three ships, however. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that—but somehow I thought that it might.
“Looks good,” I said, finishing my inspection of the damaged section. “I’m almost glad you built all those constructive-class nanites without permission, Marvin. We put them to good use.”
My comment gained me the attention of a single camera eye for a moment, but Marvin didn’t reply. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if Marvin was being sour or aloof. I supposed it amounted to the same thing with him. Although I had to admit he’d been very useful lately. He had been cooperating with a level of attention that bordered on enthusiasm. I knew it was because he wanted the prize I’d offered. I still wasn’t sure I would give it to him, however. I didn’t really want Marvin to be an independent flying spacecraft with ideas of his own. He was creepy enough just roaming the ship.
I turned back to my screens, figuring I could deal with Marvin tomorrow—and that there wouldn’t be a tomorrow if the Macros had their way.
“Range?” I asked.
“We could fire our missiles right now,” Gorski said. “Figuring they have only eight ready each, our fresh batch of drones would—”
“Forget it,” I said. “Best case, our entire barrage would take out one of them. Then we would have two on us, and they know how to use their belly guns better than we do. Speaking of which, are we in cannon range yet?”
“Almost,” Gorski said. “We have about three minutes. We’ll need to brake more as we get closer to slide into that formation. They aren’t moving as fast as we are yet.”
“I know,” Major Welter said, “I’m on it.” He looked like he was playing twister again. I figured he hadn’t had time to build a hotkey for matching the speed of accelerating enemy ships yet. He had to do this complex maneuver manually. The ship shivered as he fired the lateral attitude jets, adjusting our speed and course minutely.
Sandra came in through the main hatch then. I frowned. I’d ordered her to put on her battle suit half an hour ago, along with the rest of the crew.
“Where’s your battle suit, Lieutenant?” I asked.
She flounced closer. “I don’t like it,” she said. “It cramps my style.”
“It will also keep you alive,” I said. “What’s wrong with the battle suit? We have enough of them to protect every crewmember now. I’m loving mine. I only hope I get a chance to show it off to Crow before I die or he does. His shocked stare will fill my heart with joy.”
Sandra shook her head. “You’ve got to trust me on this one, Colonel. I can’t move in that thing. I’d rather just wear a normal vacc suit.”
I stared at her in irritation. Everyone had a problem. My first impulse was to loudly demand she suit-up as ordered, but I hesitated. I reminded myself she was different than everyone else now. Her speed was a big factor in her effectiveness. Maybe the exoskeleton did slow her down. I decided to let it go.
“All right then, get your vacc suit on before you suffocate again.”
Sandra’s eyes flashed at me in annoyance. I could tell she didn’t like my pointing out that space exposure had killed her the second time around. Who liked being reminded of their own recent death? I turned back to my screens, deciding she could tough it out. I didn’t like her second-guessing my orders either, so I figured we were even.
“Are we in range now?” I asked.
“Yes sir. Just barely.”
I waited tensely. Everyone did. There was a fair chance the Macros had been bluffing us, just as we had been bluffing them. Sure, let the dumb humans crawl near in their fake ship and cozy up with us in formation. Once we were in range of all three gunships, all they had to do was turn and open fire in unison. The plan was the perfect counter to ours—fortunately, it didn’t happen.
“All three of them are in range now,” Gorski said. “Their belly turrets are tracking us, but that isn’t unusual. Macro turrets track whatever is in range.”
“Okay, you are on then, Gorski,” I said.
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Put your turret on the nearest Macro. Act exactly the way they do.”
“Ah, of course,” he said. He seemed happy about it, actually. He’d figured out how to control the turret, but as yet had never used it to do anything important. Now, at least he could manipulate his new toy. He managed to get it to swivel around and aimed it at the Macro cruiser to our right. After awhile, he swung it over to point at the one on the left.
I nodded in appreciation as I watched on our external vid pickups. He was moving it with smooth, professional precision. Not too hurried, but very decisive motions. Just like a Macro.
We caught up with the Macro formation after another few hours. By the time we had reached the orbit of Mars, about forty-five million miles from Earth, we finally slid into our spot. After a few minutes of holding our breath, we finally realized the Macros weren’t going to turn on us—not yet. I couldn’t think of a reason why they would wait any longer than this to make their move. The tension level on the bridge eased. Acting as much like one more Macro as we could, we flew along with them, accelerating as a group toward Earth.
Each ship was nearly a mile long, and we were several miles apart. Space formations were rarely tight, there was no need for the ships to be close. Maintaining tight formations at high velocity only endangered your sister ships. Marvin didn’t report any individual Macros trying to contact us with their personal transmitters, so we kept quiet.
We watched Crow’s response—or the response of whoever was handling ops for Star Force. They massed-up over Andros and then launched into orbit. More ships than we had expected flew to meet us, to my happy surprise.
“Update our count on Star Force Fleet strength,” I said.
“Two more ships have launched from behind Luna,” Major Sarin said. “They must have been hiding in craters. They are small ones, though. Nano-sized, single-pilot ships. Three bigger ships are rising off Andros now. They are the newly-designed destroyers. They must have been hidden from our sensors on the ground.”
“Good old Crow and his tricks,” I said. “We’d only counted seventeen ships before. We’re up to twenty-two now?”
“That’s right sir,” Gorski said, “But the long range sensors indicate the destroyers only have a single weapon mounted on each. It’s a bigger gun than the Nano-class boats, but we can’t count on them as having too much firepower.”
I nodded. Crow’s strategy had been to produce numbers and the appearance of strength first, to scare the Macros. It had worked in the past. But now, when it looked like things were going to go down in a big way, I wished we really had the guns to back up the display of vessels. I did the math quickly. Against just three cruisers, our Star Force Fleet power was pathetic. Normally, it took around forty small ships to bring down a single cruiser, and we were coming at them with four. Crow had to be crapping his pants. But at least he was coming up to fight the good fight. I had to give him that.
“Incoming transmission from Star Force,” Major Sarin said. “It’s in binary. They are trying to talk to the Macros.”
“What’s the gist of it?” I asked.
“Talk about our treaty. Talk of giving them twice as many marines. Crow is pleading, with them, Colonel.”
“Macro Command response?” I asked.
“Nothing. No transmissions.”
I shook my head. I felt bad for Crow. I wished there was some way I could tell him I was flying one of these cruisers, but I couldn’t without tipping my hand to the Macros.
“When are we going to hit them, sir?” Gorski asked.
I looked at him. He had his fire control interface up and was anxious to try it out.
“Hold on,” I told him. “I want to be close enough for Star Force to be able to give us a hand.”
We waited. It took hours. Space is big, even when crossing our own Solar System in an alien cruiser. Eventually, we were close to the orbit of the Moon. We’d all taken breaks and refreshed ourselves. We figured something would go down when we reached Luna’s orbit, as Crow was massing his forces there. Maybe he had a few more ships hidden on the Moon. I hoped that he did.
What happened next did surprise me, but I suppose in retrospect that it shouldn’t have. Long before we got into shooting range, Crow turned his fleet around and headed back toward Andros.
I hissed through my teeth.
“He’s running, sir,” Gorski said.
“It was all a bluff,” I said. “Damn.”
“He was probably hoping the Macros would turn back or buy into his talk of renewed alliances,” Gorski offered.
“I wonder if he even knows why the war has started up again,” Major Sarin said.
I ignored them both and stared at the metal table. A mass of metallic green beads retreated toward Earth. Our red diamond pursued.
Everyone watched me, waiting for orders. I was uncertain. If we hit them now, Crow might turn around and join the fight. But then again, he might stand back and let us do as much damage as possible before coming in to clean up. That sounded more like the Crow I knew. I hadn’t come all this way just to die in Earth orbit.
“Damn that man,” I said.
“He doesn’t know we’re here, sir,” Gorski said. “It looks like a hopeless fight against four cruisers to him.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but I know him. He’s going to go down into the upper atmosphere and hug close to his laser turrets on Andros Island. He’ll stay in low orbit and try to get the Macros to attack him where his strength is.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Gorski said.
I shook my head. “It would be, but there is no way Macro Command is going to fall for it.”
Marvin, who had been quiet for a long time, finally spoke up. “Incoming orders from Macro Command. Target has changed.”
“New target?” I asked.
Marvin began to list off cities. Mostly, they were in southern Europe, but they spanned on toward Moscow and beyond. We were to do a bombing run over Earth, destroying millions. Crow’s fleet would not be allowed to spring their trap. Macro Command clearly had figured it out. Star Force would have to come face us in the open, or Earth would suffer the consequences.
In the meantime, we were Macro ship number four, and had orders to fire on our own civilians. If we didn’t do it, Macro Command would know who we really were, and the fight would be on.