B. Larson - Conquest

I nodded, he had me there. Looking back on their behavior, they’d fired their weapons in percentages. The first barrage was around half our estimated total. The secondary barrages had been much smaller. From what I could tell now, they probably had one to two hundred shots left. Enough to be a serious threat to our fleet.

I shook my head after mulling for a while. “Good arguments,” I said. “But we still need to kick them out of the system. I can’t start rebuilding our space defenses until they do. Their next fleet could roll right in and finish us any day.”

Crow looked stubborn. His red cheeks bulged and his heavy brows knitted together as he chewed his breakfast. I could tell at a glance he was going to argue for the rest of the morning. It was time to throw him a bone.

“Admiral, I’ve got another concern you can help me with,” I said.

Crow immediately narrowed his eyes in suspicion. He knew by now that if I called him ‘admiral’ I was buttering him up for something.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Only about half our factories at the main production base survived the invasion. I’ve been quite impressed by your hidden production facility under that pond up north. Do you think you could choose two quiet spots on the island, split up our factories into thirds and place them in equally well-hidden locations? I want access to all of them, of course. You’ll have the same. But I really think your system is superior. Rather than putting them all into an armed camp, hide them. If the enemy have no idea what to hit, they probably won’t find any of them.”

Crow smiled proudly and puffed up a bit as my words of praise for his skullduggery sunk in. “Glad you see the strategic benefit of my careful planning, Riggs,” he said.

“We’ll still keep the fortified production facility, but it will be empty.”

“Ah, I like it. Two levels of deception. Keep them guessing.”

“Exactly,” I said, leaning over the table toward him and using my hands for emphasis. I could see I’d captured him by talking about one of his natural obsessions. Hiding valuables underground had been a favorite pastime of pirates throughout history. “We’ve got to get right on this one. In the long run, the factories are our most valuable asset. Everything else can be replaced quickly. We have to hide them now, before more Macros show up and hit us again.”

Crow looked upset at the concept of fresh Macro forces arriving. I could tell he’d been thinking along the lines of most of Star Force. The general belief was that we’d won the round. That we’d earned a breather. But I knew differently. The enemy was still out there in strength. They might show up with two hundred more ships any day. We didn’t have time to sit around.

“Problem though, mate,” Crow said thoughtfully. “What about the Macros out there right now? They are monitoring us, watching us closely. Won’t they see and record our digging? If they know where these new bases are, what’s the bloody point of building them?”

“Hmm,” I said, as if he’d come up with a concern I hadn’t already considered. “I’ll tell you what: I’ll take care of that.”

“You’ll do what? Ah, hold on!”

“No, you hold on. I’ll take the fleet out and push them from our system. You bury our factories where they’ll never be found. Both jobs have to be done before they come at us again.”

Crow sucked air through his teeth. He flashed me a dark look. I knew he suspected he’d been finessed, and he had, but he was having a hard time refuting my logic. The key to the whole thing was I’d given him an excuse to stay on Earth. He didn’t want to lose command of his fleet, but he didn’t want to die, either. If he had a critical job to do on Earth, he could let me take the fleet into battle without looking like a coward. Even better, he wouldn’t be risking his own skin.

“All right,” he said at last. “I’m agreeing to this with reservations, mind you. And I will not appreciate it if you go up there and get my carefully built-up fleet blown out of the sky, mate.”

I smiled at him. “Believe me Admiral, I don’t want to lose a single ship.”

“But you will,” he grumbled.

I couldn’t argue with him there. The odds were grim. I had a few tactical ideas, but I wasn’t sure they would work out. What I was sure of was I couldn’t wait around for the Macros to make the next move. We finally had the initiative, and I planned to force them to react to me for once.

In the end, he agreed to my plan. I had the keys to the fleet, and I had a smile on my face. As I headed straight for the landing pits, Sandra appeared at my side. She’d been gone for a while, I didn’t ask why.

“Don’t you want to know where I’ve been?” she asked.

“Um, sure.”

She frowned at me for a long second. “You are the most frustrating man.”

“But that’s a good thing, right?”

“No.”

“Just tell me where you’ve been and why you are upset.”

She sighed. “I’ve been talking to Jasmine.”

I stopped walking. We’d reached landing pit five. I had been on my way to number seventeen, but I paused to give Sandra a hard look.

“Is Jasmine-okay?” I asked her.

Sandra flapped her hands at me and pursed her lips as if my question was insulting. “Of course she is. I went there to apologize.”

I nodded slowly, keeping all hints of shock off my face. “Ah,” I said. I didn’t say anything else, as I wasn’t sure it was safe to do so.

“I told her I was wrong about her,” Sandra went on. “She might have had feelings for you, but she wasn’t trying to kill us. She was loyal. I was the fool.”

“Really?” I asked. I allowed mild surprise to creep upon my face now, but kept my voice neutral. When the topic of Jasmine came up, I instinctively knew anything I said might be misinterpreted. I therefore let Sandra do all the talking.

“Yes, I should have found out about Barrera sooner,” she said. “It’s my job to protect you. My jealousy blinded me to any suspects other than Jasmine. It wasn’t fair to her, and it was dangerous for you. I failed.”

“Not in the end. In the end, you got your man. Jasmine was on my list of suspects too, and I’d have placed her higher than Barrera.”

She looked at me quizzically. “Really?”

“Yes. Did you think you were the only one trying to figure it out?”

“I thought you didn’t care.”

I laughed and we started walking again, passing more landing pits. “Even I care when assassins jump me.”

“Where are we going?” Sandra asked.

I stopped walking. We’d reached landing pit seventeen. I pointed to the sleek destroyer that waited there, being loaded with marines in battle suits and ordinance. Sandra followed my finger and her face fell.

“You’re going out there, aren’t you?” she asked. She sounded depressed and lost.

“Yeah. This is Captain Miklos’ ship. He’s a good man. I’ve flown with him before. We’ll be fine.”

“Yes, Miklos,” Sandra said. She eyed the ship the way one might eye a giant shark in a tank. “He was the one that flew you up to talk to the Macros.”

“Exactly. I’ll be fine while flying with him.”

She looked at me intently. She reached out a hand and clamped it onto my arm. “Kyle, I don’t want you to go up there today.”

“I’ll be fine,” I chuckled. I wiggled my arm slightly, but she held on. “Miklos and his crew are experienced fliers.”

She shook her head. “You can’t fool me. You’re not going up there to fly around and shoot some lasers at the enemy. You’re going to jump out of the ship and do crazy things.”

“I can’t take you with me this time,” I told her gently. I tried to pluck her hand off my arm. It didn’t budge. Her fingers were like the steel cables of a three-fingered nanite hand.