B. Larson - Rebellion

Sandra came in through the main hatch then. I frowned. I’d ordered her to put on her battle suit half an hour ago, along with the rest of the crew.

“Where’s your battle suit, Lieutenant?” I asked.

She flounced closer. “I don’t like it,” she said. “It cramps my style.”

“It will also keep you alive,” I said. “What’s wrong with the battle suit? We have enough of them to protect every crewmember now. I’m loving mine. I only hope I get a chance to show it off to Crow before I die or he does. His shocked stare will fill my heart with joy.”

Sandra shook her head. “You’ve got to trust me on this one, Colonel. I can’t move in that thing. I’d rather just wear a normal vacc suit.”

I stared at her in irritation. Everyone had a problem. My first impulse was to loudly demand she suit-up as ordered, but I hesitated. I reminded myself she was different than everyone else now. Her speed was a big factor in her effectiveness. Maybe the exoskeleton did slow her down. I decided to let it go.

“All right then, get your vacc suit on before you suffocate again.”

Sandra’s eyes flashed at me in annoyance. I could tell she didn’t like my pointing out that space exposure had killed her the second time around. Who liked being reminded of their own recent death? I turned back to my screens, deciding she could tough it out. I didn’t like her second-guessing my orders either, so I figured we were even.

“Are we in range now?” I asked.

“Yes sir. Just barely.”

I waited tensely. Everyone did. There was a fair chance the Macros had been bluffing us, just as we had been bluffing them. Sure, let the dumb humans crawl near in their fake ship and cozy up with us in formation. Once we were in range of all three gunships, all they had to do was turn and open fire in unison. The plan was the perfect counter to ours-fortunately, it didn’t happen.

“All three of them are in range now,” Gorski said. “Their belly turrets are tracking us, but that isn’t unusual. Macro turrets track whatever is in range.”

“Okay, you are on then, Gorski,” I said.

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Put your turret on the nearest Macro. Act exactly the way they do.”

“Ah, of course,” he said. He seemed happy about it, actually. He’d figured out how to control the turret, but as yet had never used it to do anything important. Now, at least he could manipulate his new toy. He managed to get it to swivel around and aimed it at the Macro cruiser to our right. After awhile, he swung it over to point at the one on the left.

I nodded in appreciation as I watched on our external vid pickups. He was moving it with smooth, professional precision. Not too hurried, but very decisive motions. Just like a Macro.

We caught up with the Macro formation after another few hours. By the time we had reached the orbit of Mars, about forty-five million miles from Earth, we finally slid into our spot. After a few minutes of holding our breath, we finally realized the Macros weren’t going to turn on us-not yet. I couldn’t think of a reason why they would wait any longer than this to make their move. The tension level on the bridge eased. Acting as much like one more Macro as we could, we flew along with them, accelerating as a group toward Earth.

Each ship was nearly a mile long, and we were several miles apart. Space formations were rarely tight, there was no need for the ships to be close. Maintaining tight formations at high velocity only endangered your sister ships. Marvin didn’t report any individual Macros trying to contact us with their personal transmitters, so we kept quiet.

We watched Crow’s response-or the response of whoever was handling ops for Star Force. They massed-up over Andros and then launched into orbit. More ships than we had expected flew to meet us, to my happy surprise.

“Update our count on Star Force Fleet strength,” I said.

“Two more ships have launched from behind Luna,” Major Sarin said. “They must have been hiding in craters. They are small ones, though. Nano-sized, single-pilot ships. Three bigger ships are rising off Andros now. They are the newly-designed destroyers. They must have been hidden from our sensors on the ground.”

“Good old Crow and his tricks,” I said. “We’d only counted seventeen ships before. We’re up to twenty-two now?”

“That’s right sir,” Gorski said, “But the long range sensors indicate the destroyers only have a single weapon mounted on each. It’s a bigger gun than the Nano-class boats, but we can’t count on them as having too much firepower.”

I nodded. Crow’s strategy had been to produce numbers and the appearance of strength first, to scare the Macros. It had worked in the past. But now, when it looked like things were going to go down in a big way, I wished we really had the guns to back up the display of vessels. I did the math quickly. Against just three cruisers, our Star Force Fleet power was pathetic. Normally, it took around forty small ships to bring down a single cruiser, and we were coming at them with four. Crow had to be crapping his pants. But at least he was coming up to fight the good fight. I had to give him that.

“Incoming transmission from Star Force,” Major Sarin said. “It’s in binary. They are trying to talk to the Macros.”

“What’s the gist of it?” I asked.

“Talk about our treaty. Talk of giving them twice as many marines. Crow is pleading, with them, Colonel.”

“Macro Command response?” I asked.

“Nothing. No transmissions.”

I shook my head. I felt bad for Crow. I wished there was some way I could tell him I was flying one of these cruisers, but I couldn’t without tipping my hand to the Macros.

“When are we going to hit them, sir?” Gorski asked.

I looked at him. He had his fire control interface up and was anxious to try it out.

“Hold on,” I told him. “I want to be close enough for Star Force to be able to give us a hand.”

We waited. It took hours. Space is big, even when crossing our own Solar System in an alien cruiser. Eventually, we were close to the orbit of the Moon. We’d all taken breaks and refreshed ourselves. We figured something would go down when we reached Luna’s orbit, as Crow was massing his forces there. Maybe he had a few more ships hidden on the Moon. I hoped that he did.

What happened next did surprise me, but I suppose in retrospect that it shouldn’t have. Long before we got into shooting range, Crow turned his fleet around and headed back toward Andros.

I hissed through my teeth.

“He’s running, sir,” Gorski said.

“It was all a bluff,” I said. “Damn.”

“He was probably hoping the Macros would turn back or buy into his talk of renewed alliances,” Gorski offered.

“I wonder if he even knows why the war has started up again,” Major Sarin said.

I ignored them both and stared at the metal table. A mass of metallic green beads retreated toward Earth. Our red diamond pursued.

Everyone watched me, waiting for orders. I was uncertain. If we hit them now, Crow might turn around and join the fight. But then again, he might stand back and let us do as much damage as possible before coming in to clean up. That sounded more like the Crow I knew. I hadn’t come all this way just to die in Earth orbit.

“Damn that man,” I said.

“He doesn’t know we’re here, sir,” Gorski said. “It looks like a hopeless fight against four cruisers to him.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but I know him. He’s going to go down into the upper atmosphere and hug close to his laser turrets on Andros Island. He’ll stay in low orbit and try to get the Macros to attack him where his strength is.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Gorski said.