The Catalyst

-Chapter 50-


We hit them a few minutes after we passed the East Coast of the U. S. The Macros followed Crow’s retreating ships down over Cuba, I supposed in case he changed his mind and came up to fight. The Macros never lowered themselves into the range of Star Force’s ground-based beams, however. Instead, the diamond formation veered northeast and glided toward Europe.
I figured it was now or never. We were accelerating over the Atlantic. A battle over water would minimize any collateral damage on the ground. Every minute I waited left Crow’s Fleet further behind. It was still a hard decision to make. We considered waiting until they were bombing Lisbon and Madrid, the first cities on the hit list. I knew Earth had some missiles to fire back up in our direction, and possibly they’d developed enough tech down there to really matter in this fight. After all, the Chinese had managed to knock out a cruiser a year or so back. But I didn’t feel like gambling with millions of lives just to find out what Earth had deployed in our absence.
“Gorski,” I said, walking over to his operations station. “This is going to be your finest hour.”
He looked at me in glassy-eyed determination. I could tell he couldn’t really believe he was in this situation at this very moment. His skills with an alien interface could mean the lives of all his crewmen and a lot of civilians as well. It was an odd feeling that I knew all too well.
“Yes sir,” he said.
I hovered close to him. He was seated in the midst of a nest of computers and instrument panels. The area was the biggest mess on the bridge, but I’d never complained. We could organize it later if we all lived long enough.
“Which one is your turret tracking now?” I asked.
“The one on the left,” he said, “to our north. Are we going for the engines or their belly turrets?”
“Hold on a second,” I said. “You are going to hit two targets. Keep the turret on the one to our north, take out his engines. Next, fire our missiles at the ship on the south flank.”
“Targeted system?”
“Engines again,” I said.
“Why engines?” Gorski asked. “They’ll all hammer us with their guns.”
“I know,” I said. “We’ll take out the guns when the engines are knocked out, if we are able. But in the meantime, Kwon and his marines will sally out of the launch bay and fly to those ships with the newly redesigned mines. If they don’t have engines to maneuver, they can’t escape my marines riding their dishes. They’ll stay more or less on course and in easy reach.”
We’d changed the mines slightly over the last few days. We’d taken off the prongs and simplified them into what amounted to portable charges. Every tenth man in Kwon’s assault team carried one now, and ten of them were more than enough to blow through the Macro hulls. In a way, the mission was easier this time around. We didn’t need to capture the Macro ships. Destroying them was good enough. A single squad of marines with a few well-placed charges could accomplish that. The trick would be to get in close enough.
“What about the lead ship?” Gorski asked. “The one dead ahead?”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “If we are still alive, we’ll take it out. Or Crow’s fleet will.”
He blinked and nodded, dazed. The implications of what I’d said were sinking in. This was a desperate play. We were attacking an enemy force three times our size, with surprise as our only advantage. It was a suicide mission, but we couldn’t let them bomb Earth indiscriminately while we sat here waiting for the perfect moment.
“Colonel!” Major Sarin shouted suddenly. “The Macros are opening their tubes.”
“Macro Command orders us to fire on the first target,” Marvin said.
“What? Are we even in range yet?”
“It’s not optimal, but the missiles should reach,” Gorski said.
“Open tubes!” I ordered.
My only thought was: What the hell was happening? But I knew enough not to blurt that out in front of my crew. When the Macros had bombed Earth in the past, they’d fired when they were directly over the target to effect maximum damage.
“They are firing a barrage against Lisbon, sir,” Major Sarin said in a dead tone of voice.
I stared at her for a second. “Gorski, fire all our drones. Take out those missiles before they reach Europe.”
“Firing sir.”
“Why the hell are they unloading so early?” I asked no one in particular.
Sandra tapped at the big metal situation table. I followed her gaze. I saw then what she was pointing out. A swarm of slivers had appeared over Europe. Earth was firing back. I understood then: the Earth governments had been busy building ship-killer missiles to attack cruisers exactly like ours. Who could blame them? They’d seen China pay a grim price for using theirs, but it was all they could do. It was the only effective armament they had. The Macros had fired early because they wanted to make sure Earth cities were knocked out even if their ships were taken down.
“Gorski,” I said. “This is it. Put our turret on the ship to the north and knock out those engines.”
“But sir—” he objected.
“Let’s stick to the plan,” I said. “Kwon, prepare to sally.”
Kwon acknowledged. Gorski gritted his teeth and pressed control points in rapid succession. The ship quivered under my feet as missiles, drones and cannon rounds all fired at once. We were unloading all the armament we’d prepared.
Gorski couldn’t miss. We were in very close range, firing on an unsuspecting enemy. His cannon had been locked onto the target for some time now. The first shot flew toward the unsuspecting target, hammering the engines. The rear section of the ship to our north blossomed incandescently.
“Drop the nanite shell over the launch bay,” I said. “Kwon, take half your marines to each of the flank ships. Plant your bombs and fly away.”
“Will do, Colonel!” Kwon shouted into my helmet.
I wondered if it was the last time I’d ever hear his voice.
“Missiles away,” Gorski said. His voice cracked with tension. “The ship to our south is slowing down, sir. She’s turning into the fire. We can’t hit the engines now.”
I saw a red spray of pulses strafe our metallic green bead on the big board. No one needed to explain to me what was happening this time. Rippling fire struck all over the ship. Major Sarin was knocked off her feet, but Sandra helped her up. For a crazy moment, I felt glad those two would at least die cooperating.
Another shower of red sparks came from the point Macro. They were all turning their guns on us, but still firing their missiles toward Earth’s cities. My eyes ran over a dozen indicators and I knew we didn’t have long. We didn’t have any time at all.
I looked around the bridge. Welter was tapping his alien boards like a crazed video-game player. His nimble hands flashed from spot to spot, touching an oblong area of color with his left and rotating a virtual circle with a single fingertip of his right. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and I hoped it wouldn’t cost him his life. Gorski worked the complex turret controls, still firing. He was blasting at the point ship now, he’d changed targets without asking. But it was a good call. If all of them had damaged engines, they wouldn’t be able to run from Kwon’s demolition men. If Kwon failed, Crow’s Fleet should be able to finish them before they ate Europe.
The showers of sparks on the big board were flying in every direction. Our engines would have blown already, but they were behind us, as we were the rear ship in the formation and the enemy ships were all in front of us. The hull took a dreadful pounding. The entire ship was being hammered on every side.
“Abandon ship,” I ordered, hitting the emergency override channel. Every helmet in range rang with my command. I knew my words were being repeated and broadcast by the communication center as well. Earth could hear it too, on the open channels. I didn’t care. At least this way, they would all know who we were. Macro Command couldn’t possibly hate us any more than they already did, and Earth’s defenders might figure out which ship to avoid firing upon.
“This is Colonel Kyle Riggs,” I said. “All hands, abandon ship!”
Everything went white shortly after I spoke those words. My visor turned opaque, and I couldn’t see anything. Something smacked me down, then picked me back up and threw me the length of the engine room. My suit kept the explosion from killing me outright, but I knew that this must be what it was like to die inside a doomed starship.
I stayed conscious. I blamed my new-fangled helmet. The world was full of pain and twisted sensations. I was hurt, busted-up inside. Parts of me were numb—my right leg from the hip down and my left shoulder. Other parts screamed with pain. One of my eyes was quite possibly missing. I couldn’t see anything with my left eye.
I howled in my helmet, unable to do anything else. Something had me again, something that pulled hard. I looked around and saw a thin arm wrapped around my midsection. I turned my head—flashes of purple light went off in my skull as I did so.
It was Sandra. She had me tucked under her arm and was carrying me out of the ship. I blinked in confusion. One of her arms was missing. How could that be? The nanites glistened in the wound. I could see them in the fabric too as they worked to close the gap in her suit. She shouldn’t even be conscious, I thought, but here she was, carrying me through the ship like a sack of potatoes with her one remaining arm.
I looked back behind me. Something strange was flying after me down the corridor. It took me a second to recognize Marvin. He was following us.
“What are you doing, Marvin?” I asked.
“Following you,” he said.
“What for?”
“You must survive to fulfill your commitments.”
It took me a dazed second to realize he was talking about his homemade spaceship fantasy. I would have laughed if I wasn’t nearly dead. “Go back and rescue everyone you can. Get them out of the ship. Then we’ll talk about building your dream body.”
He did a U-turn and sped away. Sandra paused and pressed her faceplate against mine.
“You’re awake,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I wish I wasn’t. Get us out of here.”
“My suit radio is broken,” she said.
“I figured.”
“I’m firing the airlock bolts now,” she said. “I need you to use your good hand to clamp my suit closed. The nanites haven’t sealed it completely yet.”
I frowned. Several things about her statement concerned me. One worry was her use of the phrase your good hand—which indicated I had a bad one. I quickly figured my left side was the bad one, because it didn’t move when my nerves sent signals to it to do so. I reached up with my right to grasp the dangling scraps of cloth around her stump. Another major worry was the implication she was about to launch us into space. Her flapping suit made this a bad idea.
“This won’t hold,” I said. “I can’t make a good enough seal.”
“Hold on,” she said.
Hearing her words, my first thought was she had meant to wait a second while she fixed the situation, but she didn’t mean that at all. She meant literally: hold on.
The air in the lock gushed out, and we gushed out with it into space. Sandra and I twirled out into a freezing void. We tumbled, but my suit jets automatically fired, steadying us. I grabbed up a handful of Sandra’s suit material and held onto it for all I was worth. It was like a cinched bag in my hand. We weren’t in a good position to touch helmets again, so I couldn’t hear her if she was talking. She pointed downward.
I hurt my neck in order to take a look. There was quite a drama playing out down there. Three ships were left in the fight. The fourth one, the Macro ship that had been to our north, was floating scrap. Our own ship was trailing fire and explosions. The cannon was still blazing, however. I figured the sparks along our hull were due to the continuous, hammering impacts from the enemy cannons. Tiny figures swam away in every direction out of my ship. I craned my neck around, and after my vision cleared, I saw my marines swarming over both the Macro vessels, setting their charges.
I smiled and listened as my men signaled each other. The plan was working—sort of. They were destroying them all. As I watched, they laid bombs on their hulls and sprang away like fleas jumping off a dying dog. We were the swarm plaguing them, now.
I turned my head back toward Sandra. She was watching the scene with me. It was silent, colorful and terrifying all at once. My fingers were still holding the cloth of her suit together. I knew if the nanites were in close proximity, they were more likely to meet and chain up into an airtight surface. Apparently, they had made a good enough seal, because she was still alive. We’d spun around to watch the battle, and I was able to twist enough to click my faceplate against hers.
“What happened to your other arm?” I asked.
“It hurts,” she said.
“Hurts? I’ve got some bad news…”
“It will be fine.”
“You should have listened. You should have kept your battle suit on.”
“Don’t start with me, Kyle,” she said. “My arm will be fine.”
“It’s been blown clean off, girl!” I shouted. “It’s about to burn up in that dying ship.”
Our old cruiser was sagging now, flying upside down like a dead goldfish. The top of it ran with streaks of fire and thick vapors as it scudded against the mesosphere, the layer of Earth’s atmosphere where most meteors burned up. The friction would soon melt the hull to slag. I was sorry to see it go down.
“No it isn’t,” she said, rummaging in her utility pack.
Sandra grunted and pulled something into view. It was a stiff, feminine arm. “See, here it is. Frozen solid, but with some hard-working nanites and microbial-loving, it will work again. You’ll see. I’ll give you a massage with this by Christmas.”
“Microbials?” I asked. “I thought we left them all on Jolly Rodger.”
“I’ve still got some inside—trust me.”
I didn’t know what to say. Maybe she could reattach her limb. I turned back to watch the battle. Things had taken a welcome turn. Earth’s missiles took out one of the last two cruisers and finally, at the very last, Crow’s Fleet showed up and made a production of destroying the last limping Macro ship. I figured Crow would award himself a medal for saving the day.
Something flipped off inside my brain then, and I blacked out.