Annihilation (Star Force Series) (29 page)

“I think you might be right,” I said.

-24-

The following few minutes were tense. The Fourth had reached the crown and taken it solo, as it turned out. The other battalions had been slowed by heavier resistance on the lower ridgelines.

What that meant in practical terms was that we were the only ones up here to face this new arrival on the battlefield.

“Let’s get those damned Lobsters on the line,” I said. “They should be coming from that direction. I don’t see any kind of fire down there.”

“Neither do I, sir,” Major Sloan said.

He was flat on his belly beside me. We were both peeking over the cliff wall down toward the horde of metallic shapes that moved up the mountain toward us.

Kwon walked up munching on something. He stood on the edge of the cliff and gazed downward.

“What are you doing, Kwon?” I asked. “You’ve got your visor open!”

“I was hungry.”

“Well, get down here in the dirt before you get your nose shot off.”

“By who? I thought those Lobsters were our allies.”

I stared at him for a second or two, then looked back down at the metallic humps below. I fiddled with my visor, trying to get the infrared contrast up. The night vision on these things was far from perfect. The visors were more concerned with protecting our eyes from laser fire than they were with enhancing our sight in darkness.

The shapes below
were
rather lobster-like. But their suits were different than the ones I’d met up with in the past. They were bulky and armored, rather than bag-like survival suits full of liquids.

I stood up slowly, exchanging glances with Major Sloan.

“Right you are, Kwon,” I said.

Kwon flipped his visor open again and pushed a snack bar into it. He chewed for a few seconds before he finally caught on.

“You guys thought they were machines, didn’t you?” he asked.

Major Sloan looked embarrassed. “My fault. Those suits—they didn’t look like anything in the briefing.”

“That’s true, Major,” I said. “They must have built a new armor prototype. In fact, they look rather like us. It wouldn’t be the first time the Crustacean’s copied our technology.”

Kwon produced his huffing laugh and wandered off. I looked after him in annoyance. There was a definite discipline problem in my outfit. I guessed it was due to working on the front for so long together. In our case, the lines between officer and non-com had been blurred.

I soon forgot about it and went back to working with Major Sloan. We had to consolidate our position. After going through so much effort to take these islands, it would be unacceptable to lose them again.

I spent the following hours reorganizing troops, distributing supplies and talking to Fleet. I also talked to the Crustacean High Command and thanked them for their help. After reviewing the data Captain Sarin had gathered, I saw that the native troops had indeed contributed. They’d marched up the hill against only light resistance, but had served to cut off any route of retreat for the trapped enemy. They’d performed as an anvil against the Fourth’s hammer, and that was good enough for me today. They were in the fight now, one way or the other.

In typical fashion, the machines had fought down to the last kicking, grasshopper-shaped metal marine without asking for quarter. That was fine with me, as I hadn’t been in a merciful mood anyway.

By the end of second night, I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing. Sure, we’d lost a thousand marines and a few fighters. But we’d given the enemy a bloody nose. If we kept up the pressure, we would eradicate them all in time.

But, as I soon learned, that wasn’t how this war was going to play out.

It was about an hour after dawn that the enemy made the next move. Captain Sarin alerted me, as she was in the sky, ever vigilant and on the lookout for new threats.

“Colonel Riggs?” she said into my ear. “We have a serious problem, sir.”

I threw my hand up in the face of the Lieutenant that was reporting to me about our supply situation, and turned away. I listened to the feminine voice in my helmet, and to gain privacy, I flipped my visor back down.

“Go ahead, Jasmine,” I said.

“The machines—they’re coming to take the island back.”

“Which one?”

“Tango—the island you’re on now, sir.”

“Okay…” I said, stepping out of the command tent and looking around. I didn’t see anything. I took a moment to examine my computer screens, but they were empty as well.

“I’m not sensing anything,” I said.

“They’re in the water, sir. They’ve been building up under their domes. They’re marching—big machines, about two hundred of them so far.”

“So far?” I asked in surprise. “Two hundred, and they’re still being deployed? Am I reading you right, Captain?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. I’ll transmit the latest data down to your command post. The readings are new.”

I felt a wave of—something. I almost felt sick. We’d fought so hard, and it had looked as if the enemy had been beaten back. But now that I’d taken this mountain, now that I sat upon its lofty crown—I was going to have to defend it.

Captain Sarin was still talking, but I was no longer listening. While she did so, the computer scroll spread out on a makeshift table in my command tent began to update. It now showed dozens—no,
hundreds
of large red contacts. They were in the sea, and they were coming up toward us slowly, marching on the bottom. They were going to surface all around the island and assault it, just as we’d done ten hours earlier.

“I’m sorry,” I said, tuning back into Captain Sarin’s report. “Could you give me that updated count again?”

I was shocked when I got the final numbers. Somewhere between three hundred and five hundred of the big ones were coming. We had the high ground now, and we had the Crustaceans backing us up—but that was a whole lot of giant robots. With a veteran crew, it took a platoon a minute or two to take down one of the big ones. Theoretically, we could beat them all, given time.

But it wasn’t going to happen that way. When they had numbers, when they had the crushing weight of massed machines, they would break my lines. It would be the machines that were ganging up on platoons of men, not the other way around. I’d seen them do it before, most vividly during the South American Campaign. It would be a feeding frenzy, with each machine competing to see how many of my troops it could kill.

“I’m not sure we can hold against those numbers, Captain,” I said.

She hesitated. “I know. What are your orders, sir?”

Instantly, I knew what she was thinking. It was time to pull out. That made me angry. I didn’t want to give up this island. Why had we fought all the way to the highest peak and lost so many good marines if we were going to run away back into space a few hours later? I didn’t want those earlier sacrifices to have been made in vain.

At the same time, I wasn’t sure that I had any choice. The machines weren’t going to just wait around until I made my decision. They weren’t charging up the beaches yet, but when they had their entire force positioned, they would.

“Prepare for evacuation, Captain Sarin.”

“I took the liberty of drawing up a plan for our withdrawal, Colonel. Do you want to see it?”

I compressed my lips tightly. Had she predicted this? Maybe up there, safe in space with Fleet, she would pass her hat around to collect on her bets.

But no, I knew that wasn’t how we’d gotten to this point. Sarin was a good officer. It was her job to anticipate contingencies. There was always a chance we would fail, and she was the type who thought of everything.

“How long ago did you draw up these plans?” I asked her.

“Before you dropped, sir. I’ve been updating them steadily as the campaign has progressed.”

“Of course you have,” I said with a hint of bitterness.

“I didn’t develop the plans because I had no faith in you, Colonel,” she said. “I felt it was my duty.”

“I know, I know. I’m just sorry things turned out this way. We don’t seem to have the strength to battle the machines this time. We didn’t have time to build armor or enough specialized equipment.”

I’d forgotten just what kind of a sidekick Captain Sarin was. She wasn’t a masterful strategist who looked for enemy weaknesses, but she was a logistical wizard. As was the case with most wizardry, she achieved her results through hard work and discipline.

“I’m glad you drew up plans,” I told her, “but I’m changing them. We aren’t withdrawing from Yale. We’re withdrawing from Tango. We’ll shift our force over to the Big Island and set up heavy defenses there. With all our troops in one place—”

“Sir, Sandra is requesting to join the channel.”

I sighed.

“She’s insisting, sir.”

“I bet she is. Okay, switch me over and get to work on prepping the escape. We don’t have much time.”

“Kyle?” Sandra asked a moment later.

“What is it, hon?”

“I hear you’re coming back up here. I want to see you the moment you arrive.”

I hesitated for a second, wondering if I should tell her about the change of plans. I had no intention of withdrawing from Yale just yet. At the end of my one second’s pause, I decided
not
to tell her. Now was not the time to start a domestic argument.

“Yes,” I said enthusiastically, “we’re wrapping this up. It’ll be good to see you again. Anything else? I’ve got to—”

“There is something else,” she said. “There are a couple of things, in fact. One is Alexa.”

My voice grew cautious. “Is she still alive?”

“Of course she is, Kyle! What a terrible thing to say. We’re getting along quite well now. She seems sweet, in a military way. She’s told me a lot about life under the Empire.”

I smiled. That was just like Sandra, to be jealous of another woman, then make friends with her later on. She got along well with other women, but she had trouble when they paid too much attention to me.

“That’s good,” I said, making my second play to disconnect, “but I’ve got to—”

“There’s something else. It’s about Marvin. He’s been acting weird—even for Marvin. I think you should have a talk with him.”

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s roaming around outside the ship. He’s been out there crawling on the hull all day. It sounds like we have giant metal rats. I’m sure he’s scarred up the ship. The nanites are worked up about it, and the ceiling in our quarters never stops shimmering now.”

I frowned. “What’s he doing crawling on the hull of the ship?”

“He says he can get a better signal out there, whatever that means.”

“A better signal?” I asked, my frown deepening.

When Marvin began behaving oddly and went off on his own, that sometimes signaled a dramatic shift in the tactical situation. The robot was often sneaky, especially when he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to.

“Connect me over to Marvin, immediately,” I said, my irritation growing. First it looked like we were going to be kicked off this island, and now Marvin was up to something nefarious. I couldn’t believe my misfortune.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Sandra asked.

“What? Oh yeah—I love you.”

“Good. I do too. Here’s that crazy robot.”

There were a few odd sounds, then Marvin’s voice came in. He sounded distracted.

“Hello…Colonel Riggs.”

“What are you up to, Marvin?” I demanded. “Have you been talking to the Macros? I’m seeing a lot of evidence down here that they’re building equipment that reminds me of your designs.”

I’d finally said it. I’d been thinking about it for a long time, but I’d finally gotten around to telling Marvin about my suspicions. I reminded myself that they weren’t just my suspicions, several people had noticed the similarities between new Macro equipment designs and Marvin himself.

“I’m taken aback, Colonel,” Marvin said. “If I did contact the Macros directly and independently, I’m sure they wouldn’t trust me enough to take my advice on self-design.”

It was a pretty good argument, but I pressed ahead. “You haven’t directly answered the question. Have you been engaging in independent communications with the Macros?”

“Not lately, sir.”

I ground my molars together. “Not lately? That’s another dodge, Marvin.”

“I did have contact with them some months ago. It is possible they misconstrued my efforts to transmit data through the rings as a communications exchange.”

I frowned. “What?”

“Recall that I pioneered the technology we all now use for instant, interstellar communications—”

“Not exactly,” I said, “you pioneered the effort to steal the technology from the Blues.”

“A minor, but noteworthy detail. In any case, when I transmitted data to test the system, I did so at that time using an unprotected data format.”

“Ah,” I said, catching on. “So the Macros were listening to you? Is that it? What did you tell them by accident? Did you happen to send along a roster of our ships, or our personnel records?”