B. Larson - Conquest

“Pretty much, yeah,” I said. “But remember, they have good reasons. This fleet is heading away from Earth, but its flying toward their system. They are fighting to defend Helios, not just to help us out.”

“Ah, right. This is fascinating, sir. Do you ever wonder how many civilizations there are out there? How many races like the Worms or abominations like the Macros might exist?”

“All the time, Captain. All the time.”

“Sirs,” the gunner interrupted. “There’s a new unknown contact out there.”

“Why didn’t you pick it up until now?” I snapped.

“The ship has been hanging low, below the plane of the ecliptic,” the gunner explained. “It hasn’t been firing or using visible thrusters. It’s been shadowing all the other ships. I only just picked it up now.”

“Great, a fourth player at this party,” I grumbled. I didn’t like this news at all. We had this battle in hand. In time, the enemy would be taken apart ship by ship. Once we were able to join in the battle, we’d speed up the process. The enemy would either have to turn and make a last stand like a wounded bear brought down by a pack of wolves, or they would be torn apart bit by bit. Any new elements to the equation were not welcome.

It was several minutes before the brainbox interpreting the data gave us input on the ship’s configuration.

“Uh, it looks like one of ours, sir,” the gunner told me in surprise. “Either that, or it’s an odd Nano-ship design.”

I leaned forward. “Put a close-up on my screens.”

The gunner deftly tapped at his boards and my screen lit up with an odd wireframe image in yellow. Green was for known friendlies, red for enemy, blue for structures and yellow for unknowns. Barbarossa’s brainbox didn’t know how to classify this vessel any more than I did. I looked at the lines of it, puzzled. It had curves in the center, in a pattern similar to our own vessels. But it had a large number of oddments hanging off it-almost like they’d been tacked on. Metal struts, parabolic dishes, chunks of metal that appeared to have no obvious purpose.

“What’s all that crap hanging on it?” Captain Miklos asked. “Is it a junkyard hauler?”

I smiled suddenly.

“Sort of,” I said. “He probably picked up a load of broken pieces from the debris we just flew through. He wouldn’t be able to help himself. Chunks blasted off Worm ships-those would be especially enticing.”

“What?” Miklos asked, looking at me as if I were mad.

“It’s Marvin,” I explained. “It has to be.”

“That crazy robot couldn’t resist a pile of alien junk if it meant his own doom,” I explained to the bemused captain. “He caught the curiosity gene somehow when he was born. He’s got it bad. Maybe it was passed down by the Nanos who formed his original nanite brain.”

“ Born, sir? He’s a machine, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe born is the wrong word. His creation was an accident, to be sure. But couldn’t that be said of most of us?”

Captain Miklos gave me a strange, sidelong glance. I ignored him and smiled at the yellow wireframe sketch of Marvin. In a strange way, I was glad to see he’d survived this long. Here he was, cruising around the Alpha Centauri system picking up more junk. He was part genius and part homeless guy with a shopping cart.

“Let’s contact him and see what he has to say for himself,” I said. “Barbarossa, open a channel to the unknown ship. Its designation is Marvin. You can use standard English when communicating. Transmit my voice without interpretation.”

“Channel request sent…request accepted…” the ship said. After a few more moments, it spoke again. “Channel open.”

“Marvin, you mechanical weasel,” I said. “This is your daddy, Kyle Riggs.”

“Hello, Colonel Riggs,” Marvin said politely. “Are you here to destroy my being?”

“Uh-no Marvin,” I said. “We’re here to destroy the Macros you’re shadowing.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Colonel.”

“Why do you think we’re here to shoot you? Have you been a bad robot?”

“By no means. But I’d calculated a small probability that Star Force was displeased by some of my actions in the recent past.”

“I am annoyed with you for helping take out our mines at Venus,” I said. “But let’s talk seriously, Marvin. You realize the Macros will never do anything other than try to destroy you upon detection from now on, right?”

“Yes-unless some other arrangement was made to their satisfaction.”

I frowned at that. Once again, I thought to myself I had to figure out a way to clip his wings.

“What do you know about the Worm fleet?” I asked. “Did the Worms set up an ambush here at the ring and wait for the Macros to come through?”

“Yes.”

“And how did you talk them out of blasting you?”

“I told them about the approaching Macro fleet.”

I frowned at the walls of Barbarossa from which Marvin’s voice emanated. “Did I get that right? Did you talk the Worms into setting up their ambush?”

“Well, I told them the Macro fleet was coming to their system. They were quite pleased at the prospect of attacking it.”

I laughed. “I bet they were. Good going, Marvin. Maybe I didn’t screw up by letting you loose in the first place.”

“I’m glad you feel that way, Colonel Riggs.”

I glanced over at Captain Miklos. He looked doubtful. He probably thought I should lure Marvin into weapons range and blow him away. I had to admit, that was the safest move. He’d done several odd things and right now I was willing to total them all up as a positive for Star Force, but that could change at any time. I couldn’t let him run around loose forever. I didn’t have an easy way to get him back into my grasp, however.

“Hey Marvin,” I said, “would you mind easing off your engines a little and flying back here to join my fleet?”

He didn’t answer that one right away. I could tell the neural chains in that brainbox of his were recursing deeply, looking for danger. I could almost hear him thinking what’s his angle?

“Why would you suggest that, Colonel Riggs?”

There it was-he didn’t trust me. It was sad, in a way. I tried to come up with a snappy reply. I didn’t want to take a long time to respond. Marvin was smart, and he knew it took us longer to come up with plausible deceptions than it took to tell the truth.

“Actually, I’d like to examine some of the junk you have all over your ship, if you don’t mind,” I said. “We really need to study both Worm and Macro technologies more closely. So far, we’ve never captured a Macro ship and brought it back to Earth in one piece. That is doubly true of Worm technology. We know very little about it. We’ve never even seen one of their spacecraft or their particle weapons up close. Do you have anything like that in your little collection?”

Another hesitation. If he’d been in the room with me, I’d bet he’d be staring at me with at least three of his four cameras. I had his full attention now-or as close to his full attention as any human could warrant.

“I do have samples of Worm technology. In fact, most of my current specimens are scraps of Worm ships. They are quite different, you know. They are more like humans than Macros, being biotics, but they are more-wild, you might say. If that description makes any sense to you. Their technological devices are constructed individually, they are works of art rather than mass-manufactured duplicates.”

“Having met them in battle up-close and personal, that makes perfect sense to me. They do seem to fashion their warrior harnesses and kits in a custom fashion. I didn’t realize this trait extended to their ship designs.”