B. Larson - Rebellion

I found myself standing in front of the row of dark bricks that held our factory units. Each one contained one of the strange, programmable duplicating machines. We had only lost one factory brick since the start of the campaign. This was largely due to my prioritization of defense. The factories were the most critical assets we had.

I tapped out an entry code and stepped into the nearest of the factories. It had been churning out a guidance system for a new assault ship. If we had been given another week, I could have doubled the number of assault ships in our arsenal. I doubted we would be given more than another hour before we were called upon to attack, however. The Macros were fanatically punctual.

I stared at the strange machine. We still didn’t understand it, nor did we even know who had built the original. We knew what it took to create one, but only the machines themselves could reproduce more factories. It was as if I were a primitive biologist from the early renaissance period, examining the human body and wondering how it worked. Figuring these things out completely would probably take Earth’s scientists centuries.

I decided to change the program. They’d finished the battle suits now, and we had all the assault ships we could use. What I did need was a way of stopping Macro cruisers from destroying my forces-if we were to turn on them. I had by no means made that decision yet, but if nothing else, if we were down to our last handful of troops we could at least die well. We could blow up this ship, if nothing else.

Explosives? I recalled the mines the Worms had used so effectively, destroying several cruisers. Maybe if we could trail a few out behind us we could get rid of a Macro cruiser.

I set to work, and soon had a new design that I hoped would do the trick. We didn’t have enough radioactives for big charges. The mines could hardly deliver more than a kiloton yield each. But with a tiny brainbox, some magnetic sensors and a mini propulsion system that was only enough to push a magnetic boot through space. I ordered one factory to produce as many as it could.

What seemed like moments later, a hammering came at the door. Kwon appeared in the airlock. I told the factory unit to end our programming session and continue the manufacturing.

“Sir?” said Kwon, poking his blocky helmet into the room.

“Yes, what is it, Kwon?”

“Time to launch, sir. The Macros-they are ordering us to jump out the big doors.”

“Oh, uh-” I said, stunned to hear so much time had passed. “Why didn’t someone call me?”

Kwon pointed to my helmet. I’d taken it off, and switched off my suit radio. The chatter made it hard to think.

“Right,” I said. “Get to your assault ship. I’ll be right there. We launch in five.”

He vanished, and I turned back to the factory. I ordered it to group-link all the factories. They were to make more mines and battle suits in my absence. I didn’t even know how many they could make in the amount of time we had, but I figured it should be enough. I didn’t even know if I was going to use the new equipment or not.

The assault ships, when we finally climbed into them, reminded me somewhat of my original hovertank design. I’d come up with the design back on Earth, with some of these same, shark-like contours. They were sleek and dangerous-looking.

When I reached the assault ship that had saved a seat for me, I barely had time to get the nanite arms to reach up and strap me in before it launched. I looked at the front wall, where beads of metal crawled. Each one indicated where a nearby ship was. The contact representing our ship was green, the rest of the assault ships were faintly yellow. The two big Macro ships were blue and oblong. I could see our green contact was the last one in the chain. We were late to the party.

Behind my ship, as I watched, hundreds of tiny contacts appeared. They were so faint and so numerous, they looked like rippling flaws in the metal wall. I knew they were not mistakes, or static. They were my men. Each man stood in a capsule, with his legs stiff, his body being pressed hard by acceleration. The capsules were little more than two foot-wide parabolic disks with a propulsion unit on the back and a skin of nanites covering the occupant. The tiny capsules guided themselves, but could be set for manual operations, in which case the marine riding it could guide the vehicle by leaning. The men already had several names for them: dishes, skateboards and flying saucers.

Inside the assault ship, dull metal finishes ruled. I’d put in control systems for every individual marine’s seat at the base of the nanite arms that served us as restraints. Normally, Nano ships were controlled by voice, interacting with the brainbox verbally. In this case, I didn’t want to fly my marines into combat with arms gripping them which they couldn’t release on their own. Combat conditions were hard to predict. The brainbox or the pilot could be taken out of the equation, or both. With my design, every man had some level of control of his own situation. If he tapped or kicked a bead of metal, the nanite arms would release him automatically.

“Any incoming fire yet, pilot?” I asked.

“Negative, sir,” she said. The pilot was Lieutenant Joelle Marquis. She was young and inexperienced, but none of that could be heard in her voice. Her words rang with calm authority and a slight, French accent. She was one of the Fleet people I’d brought along in case I’d needed to build a flying force at some point. On Helios, she’d been left manning the walls, but now her piloting skills were sorely needed.

Kwon leaned forward and waved to me, indicating he wanted to touch helmets. I immediately complied, wondering what my second in command might want to say in private. Since the assault ships were not pressurized, we could normally only communicate with radio intercoms. By touching our bulbous faceplates together, vibrations could be carried and voices therefore could be heard, but only by the two people in close contact. I found myself staring into Kwon’s big face, which was grinning. Being so close to another guy was disconcerting, but you got used to it.

“What is it, Captain?” I asked.

“She’s really hot, isn’t she?”

I stared at him. “Who?”

“Joelle,” he said flicking his eyes toward the front of the ship. “I love that frenchie talk.”

I snorted in disbelief. Kwon was a great marine, but he was like a big kid sometimes. I didn’t know if Joelle would go for a guy like Kwon, she was too good-looking and he was a lump in a battle suit. But I decided that if he was happy to dream about her, I was happy for him.

“Go for it, Kwon,” I said, “but wait until after the fighting, all right?”

“Okay, okay!” he said. Still grinning, he sat back. The nano-straps that held us all in seemed excited by his leaning and stretching. They shortened up their hold on him, all but pinning him to the wall of the ship. Nano arms were like mother hens when you were on a mission.

“Incoming fire,” the pilot said. Joelle’s words were calm, but I heard the tension in them. I didn’t blame her for being worried.

We began immediately swerving from side to side. I knew she was firing the lateral propulsion systems we’d rigged up, jinking randomly to avoid getting hit. The enemy had taken a long time to figure out they were in trouble. We were three-quarters of the way there. In another minute or so, the ships would have to flip the engines forward and decelerate or crash into the station directly.

I looked up at the screen. There was the station; it was huge and reddish-brown. It looked like small moon, but was oddly-shaped. Unlike a human structure, this thing was organic-looking in design. It was looped with tubes and swirling flanges. It looked more like a seedpod coated in cobwebs than anything else. I didn’t see any incoming fire on the screen. They must not be firing missiles at us.