“Bull, you’ve got to get your people out of there,” Admiral Absen commed. “We have all the intel and the FTL drive components, and the sleds are standing by.”
Bull panted as he talked. Absen figured he must be running, or whatever they called it in zero G. “Sir, we’re falling back, but all the Scourges just went crazy. They’re attacking suicidally and a lot of these kids are green. If I try to conduct a fighting withdrawal, some of them will break and rout and we’ll get plowed under. Better to hold in place and ride out the storm.”
“All right, Colonel. You know best. Absen out.” The admiral addressed the AI. “Can you get him some help?”
“Already on it, sir,” Conquest said in his ear. “I’m converging the Recluses on the heaviest engagements. However, my calculations show that they’re not going to make it. The swarm will be here in twenty-nine minutes. Mr. Ford is already warming up his primaries, but there’s half a million coming. We’re barely going to make a dent in them before they get here.”
“Even if we use an Exploder?”
“Won’t do it, sir. Its kill radius isn’t large enough. The swarm’s diameter exceeds a thousand kilometers. Even when they funnel in for a landing, we can only get so many. Unless...”
Absen sighed. “Unless we write off every Marine aboard and lay an Exploder on the mothership as the swarm lands. No way. Conquest, pull out all the stops and get them off. That’s your only priority right now.”
“Sir...it won’t matter. I can only do what I can do. But maybe you can do something.”
“Me? What?”
“Call the Meme. Ask them for help.”
Absen thought furiously. Why would the Meme help them? For the past three hours the remaining five Destroyers had been sitting out there eating and healing. What could he do to induce them to risk their slimy necks again?
“Call them,” he said.
“Channel open.”
“SystemLord of the Meme,” Absen said, “this is Earth’s SystemLord. I am aboard the dreadnought near the Scourge mothership core. I request your help in defeating the approaching swarm. I know you have taken heavy casualties already, and have no reason to risk yourself further, so I offer you an inducement. My forces have captured information relating to the Scourges’ faster-than-light drive system. If you assist, I will turn over copies of that information to you.”
After a perceptible delay, the sexless, translated voice came back. “I agree.” Then the channel closed.
Abruptly Absen felt VR time slow to a crawl, and then Michelle's avatar appeared in front of him. “Sir, you can’t do that! It’s one thing to give away the lightspeed drive to seal an alliance with the Meme, but now you’re trading an even more valuable technology for the lives of a few hundred Marines. That’s insane!”
“You’re out of line, Lieutenant. I’ve made the decision.”
The avatar stared daggers at him, and Absen stared back. She seemed to be hyperventilating, her face a mask of fury. Would this be the moment that fulfilled all his fears?
“I could –” Michelle made a strangled sound as she choked her words off.
“You could prevent me, yes. I’m stuck in VR space. You could take over and do whatever you wanted, and I’d never even know for sure, would I?” Absen said flatly. “Just as Bull could snap my neck like a twig when I give him an order he doesn’t like, or Tobias could put a bullet through my head. You’re a commissioned EarthFleet officer now, Lieutenant, like me. You raised your hand and took an oath even stronger and more binding than you did when I first warranted you. The people we’re sworn to protect hand us power. They trust us to do the right thing. What’s your oath worth to you? Are you truly a cybernetic human being, or just a megalomaniacal machine that does what’s expedient rather than what’s moral?”
Michelle’s mouth worked like a fish, and then she turned her back. “I’m human,” she whispered. “I’m human!”
Absen waited a moment, watching her breathe and letting her deal with her dilemma until she got control of herself. “I know you are, Michelle. That’s why it crossed your mind to mutiny. A computer never would wonder about that. It would either do it, or never consider it. It’s easy to be a computer and just follow orders. It’s also tempting to do what you feel like and ignore them. It’s hard to be an officer caught in the middle, making tough decisions.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Yes, sir. Aye aye, sir. I’ll go now.”
“Lieutenant.”
Michelle turned to face him, face frozen.
Absen leaned forward, resting his elbows on the arms of his chair and folding his hands. “You chose right. I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you, sir,” she husked.
He sat back. “Dismissed.”
The speed of time resumed.
Ford was already firing the railguns, technically the longest-ranged weapons on the ship as the projectiles would fly until they struck something or the universe died...but the odds of hitting things at over a million klicks were negligible. Still, with half a million targets, now and again the blast of an impact showed on sensors, and railgun shot was cheap.
“I’m using the canister shot, sir,” Ford said as Absen went over to stand above him at the console. “Stuff is fired like normal but each fragments into a hundred pieces or so.”
“Save it for when we’re closer, Commander. Have you already deployed the stealth mines?”
“Yes, sir. Wish we had more.”
“Wishes, fishes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Absen clapped Ford on the shoulder and then moved to look at the holotank. “Come on, Bull,” he whispered. “Get them out.” Already some of the sleds were returning, but not enough and not fast.
“He knows, sir,” Rick Johnstone said in a strained voice. He was no doubt in special agony, as his wife was the brigade CSM. As one of the key leaders she would undoubtedly insist on extracting last.
***
Repeth slapped a Marine’s helmet to get his attention. “Fall back!” She lobbed another grenade into the mass of attackers and yanked on the man’s backrack. “Come on!”
Instead, he ignored her, pouring fire into the enemy and muttering to himself. Repeth had seen it before, battle madness so acute that troops forgot everything around them. Overriding the man’s battlesuit with her command code, she froze him and used the power of her Avenger armor to pick him up and bodily launch him backward. In zero G he flew across the room like a doll to strike the back wall.
Then she hopped rearward herself and fired a long burst with her pulse gun. The recoil accelerated her and jets stabilized her so that she alighted next to the digger she’d tossed.
As she landed, a penetrator slammed into the man, spinning him around as it deeply dented his thigh. The armor held, but the leg was surely bruised, maybe broken. Cursing, she grabbed him and flew backward again just as a Soldier’s plasma cannon blew the spot where they had been to kingdom come.
“Come on, Smaj,” Lieutenant Rostov said, waving her and her burden toward a tunnel entrance they defended.
Repeth continued on past to keep the leapfrogging withdrawal going. Inside the tunnel she saw Massimo with his remaining laser, siting it to cover the opening. She slapped him on the shoulder as she went past, heading for the next firing position where she would set up with whoever she found. Units were intermixed now, and so many Recluse drones had been lost that comms were spotty.
She wondered how the battle had gone so wrong. Just when it seemed they had been winning, the Scourges had gone berserk. Their surprise suicide charge had proven Napoleon’s maxim that morale was often more important than firepower as some of the Marine units had broken and routed. The only thing that had saved them were the veteran NCOs from Conquest sprinkled among the troops and a few surprisingly good transfers like Rostov.
That one would go far, if she lived.