B. Larson - Conquest

As there was nothing better to do, I headed back into the troop pod and played games on rolled-up screens with the marines. Kwon and I had a drink or two-the man never entered battle without a body-warm flask of something on him. When I grew tired I headed back to the bridge to sleep in my command chair with Captain Miklos and his crew.

I noticed how the marines and flight crew didn’t really mix. I thought about urging them to sit down together, but decided against it. We were about to get into a death fight with more cruisers than we’d ever dealt with before. If these men didn’t want to cozy up with one another, that was their business.

I fell asleep for an entire shift in my chair. I probably couldn’t have done it without the help of Kwon’s rotgut. When I woke up, I saw Miklos’ face near mine. He was tapping on my visor.

My armored hand reached up and batted away his hand. I saw him wince in pain. When a battle-suited hand slapped you, it hurt.

“Sorry,” Captain Miklos said, withdrawing out of my face.

“Me too,” I said, groaning and stretching. “What’s up?”

“There’s an incoming message, sir.”

“From who?”

“The Worms. They are repeating a message over and over.”

Frowning, I pulled up the symbol set on my computer. The first one was the grub-thing which I’d seen before. It meant buddy or hunting-partner. The next one was an image of something big and round. The last one was some kind of odd organ. If I had to guess, it might have been an eyeball. But that was only a guess.

“What the hell are these things?” I asked no one in particular. I needed a hot shower, my brain was slightly fuzzy.

“Barbarossa has no clue,” Miklos said.

“I thought these ships could speak Worm.”

“They know everything we’ve recorded from past transactions. But the last two of these symbols are new to us, and the ships.”

“How long until we reach the enemy line?” I asked.

“A little under two hours.”

I shook my head. “That’s cutting it close. You should have awakened me sooner.”

Miklos and the helmsman exchanged glances and shrugged. I heaved myself to a standing position and made irritated noises. I headed for the elimination chamber and struggled to get my helmet off. I gulped coffee and thought about a shower. There wasn’t really enough time.

“Barbarossa,” I shouted. “Forward that message to Marvin. Request a translation.”

“Message sent,” said the ship.

“Sirs?” the helmsman spoke up suddenly. “The Macros are changing formation.”

I stumbled out the elimination chamber and climbed back into my crash seat. I shook my head to clear it. “What the hell are they doing?”

No one answered. As we watched, the enemy fleet spread out, seemingly in every direction. Ships went, up, down and sideways. They were slowing, too.

“We have them!” I said. “They have decided not to dare another ring. They are going to turn and fight. We’ve run them up the proverbial tree, gentlemen.”

Miklos didn’t answer. He looked less convinced of victory and more worried than I was.

“Full deceleration,” the helmsman said. “Scattered pattern. Could they be running into something?”

I frowned at him, then addressed the ship. “Any answer from Marvin yet, Barbarossa?”

“Incoming now.”

I heard Marvin’s voice next. “Symbol translations vary. The first one indicates a hunting party or comradery.”

“I know that.”

“The second symbol is the image of their sun, the red giant known to humans as Aldebaran.”

“Okay, what does it mean?”

“It means many things. Life, heat, danger. It depends on context.”

“Wonderful. What about the last one?”

“That is an image of a Worm organ. Specifically, the optical organ located in the anterior portion of Worm physiology.”

“Huh,” I said, trying to puzzle that one out. Hunting-partner, sun, eyeball… No wonder Barbarossa had no clue. “What does it all mean in this context, Marvin?”

“I could only guess.”

“Then guess!”

“Since we are close to combat, I would assume the sun means danger. I would also hazard that the eyeball means either watchfulness, or a forward perspective.”

I suddenly had it. “Are you telling me the Worms are saying, ‘Friends, danger ahead?’”

“Yes,” Marvin said. “That would summarize the concepts nicely.”

“Well,” Miklos said. “The enemy are directly ahead of us. And they are turning to fight now.”

“Yeah, but they sent this even before the Macros started turning around.”

“Colonel,” the helmsman said. “There’s something else. The Macros-one of them just blew up, sir.”

“Why?”

“Nuclear explosive, low-yield. They probably hit a mine.”

I stared at him for a long second, thinking.

“Mines,” I said. “The Worms put a mine field out here in the middle of open space, on the likely path between the two rings. That way, the enemy couldn’t just blow them up the way they’ve been doing with tightly placed fields right in front of the rings.”

“Two more explosions. One more Macro destroyed, another damaged.”

“New message incoming from the Worms, sir.”

Worried, I examined the new symbol-set on the screen. The first and second symbols were the same. The last one, however, was a full-sized worm warrior.

“Tell me what this is, Marvin.”

“Friend, danger, and the raging worm warrior,” Marvin mused. “In this case, I think they are marveling at our bravery. It is a compliment, sir.”

“Our bravery? Why the hell are the complimenting us now?”

Captain Miklos made a strangled sound, then turned to me with a white face. “We must be in it, sir. The minefield.”

I nodded. That had to be it. “Hit the brakes!” I shouted. “Turn us around for full thrust deceleration. Helmsman, give me numbers. How long until we are within effective range?”

“Less than ten minutes sir. They are ahead of us on the deceleration curve. In fact, we are going to plow right into them, even while braking at full power.”

I struggled with my helmet. I clanked back to the troop pods. The door melted away and a platoon of startled marines looked at me. No one was buttoned up, not even Kwon.

“This is it, marines!” I roared. “Suit-up tight, double-time. Check your gear and say your prayers. We’ve got about ten minutes to live.”

Barbarossa began firing her lasers automatically when we reached effective range. By then, two of our destroyers and four smaller ships had eaten a mine. The only consolation was that the enemy had lost three more cruisers.

I noted with chagrin that the Worm ships remained unscathed. No doubt they had a friend-or-foe recognition system which prevented the mines from detonating against their hulls. Bitterly, I watched my ships vanish one after another in puffs of white brilliance. No wonder they thought we were brave. They’d warned us about the danger, but we’d plowed ahead, determined to battle the machines in the midst of a widespread low-density minefield. I supposed I could have asked them for the code and the signal frequency of their mine-recognition system, but it would have taken days. We could barely communicate at this point, and no doubt they were as puzzled by our symbol translations as we were theirs. Transferring technical information was out of the question. There simply wasn’t time.

The enemy were down to less than thirty cruisers when we came within range of their cannons. At that point, the Macros pulled an unexpected move. They trained their guns on Barbarossa and poured fire into my destroyer.

As closely as I could figure, they must have caught our radio signals and listened in. They clearly knew Barbarossa was the command ship, the one sending out orders to the others. Either that, or it was blind luck when Macro Command picked my ship to concentrate upon. I don’t believe in that kind of luck, so as our ship took a hammering, I cursed wildly in my helmet. Our communications were too open, our encoding weak.