Battle Station

— 15

When we slid down the fourth cliff of the massive pit, we ran into trouble. I supposed it was bound to happen eventually. All the military Macros nearby were focused on my diversionary destroyers, but there were workers and the like that kept plodding along, performing their mundane duties. It was one of these machines that discovered us.

A heavy earth-mover came along the road at a surprisingly fast clip. It was on its way down from the top, spiraling to the bottom along the endless roadway. It ran on treads, and was made in sections like a caterpillar of burnished metal. The machine made such a racket that we could hardly hear ourselves screaming inside our own helmets.

“Move out!” I shouted, making the hand signal to advance. I was pointing in the general direction of the next cliff-edge-I swear I was. But Kwon didn’t take it that way.

“What?” he asked. His voice was so naturally loud, I could hear him clearly. “Ah yes, sir, attack!”

And that was it. A single misunderstanding was all it took. It was just the sort of misunderstanding Kwon wanted to make, of course. He could hardly stomach leaving one of these machines in a functional state. Sneaking around simply wasn’t his style.

After the first laserbolts splattered on its front plates and knocked out some of its sensors, there wasn’t any way to change the situation. The earth-mover was running us down so fast we didn’t have time to get organized. I knew it would have immediately radioed Macro Command about the incident. At that point, the damage was done. We had been noticed, and the enemy wasn’t going to forget about us when we were this close to a sensitive base.

I joined in with the rest of my marines, firing and scrambling to the sides of the road. I saw my men were planning to allow the machine to run through middle of them-but it suddenly swerved toward the wall. My men were trapped there, between the barreling mass of the earth-mover and the hundred-foot high wall of sludge. They then did what they’d been trained to do: they engaged their repellers and shot up into the air, avoiding death.

Great, I thought. We’d just provided the enemy with new, distinctive emissions signatures. This single action would mark us clearly as Star Force Marines, if this Macro Superior knew its opponents. I figured that it probably did.

“Concentrate fire!” roared Kwon, “take out the outside treads!”

A dozen beams leapt out. Every man carried a heavy gun and the output was startling. The treads were quickly blown apart. Mud, metal shrapnel and superheated steam went everywhere.

The entire vehicle slewed suddenly toward the cliff. It had been rubbing up against the inner wall to crush us, but now that the other side was dragging, it did a rapid, lurching turn in that direction. The destroyed treads made the motion uncontrollable. A second later, it flew off the edge and overturned, crashing down deeper into the pit. We glided to the edge and looked down after it. Rolling over and over, it almost vanished into the deepening haze. Secondary explosions plumed up with flame and vapors. The thing finally came to a hissing stop three levels farther down.

“Well,” I said, “That’s pretty much that. Let’s fly the rest of the way down. We’re not fooling anyone now.”

Kwon shot past me, needing no more encouragement. He flew like cannonball downslope. I took off after him, and even Marvin fully-engaged his repellers, bringing up the rear of the formation. We hadn’t taken any casualties-yet. I made a mental note to point that out later to the survivors. I’d gotten them pretty far into this monster’s mouth before it woke up and started chewing on us-and technically, that wasn’t my fault.

Now that we were flying rather than trotting, we move dramatically faster. The stair-like spiraling levels went by under us, and the sky itself grew darker. I had a sensation of making a very vague contact with something-this stuff, this smoke-like gel, it was incredibly nebulous, but I could tell I was touching something. The sensation was like putting one’s hand into a mass of bubbles in bubble-bath-but even less substantial than that. Could I really be inside one of the Blues? The thought was disturbing.

I received a contact then, a tone in my helmet that indicated a private channel was being requested. I saw it was from Marvin, and decided to ignore it. If he wanted to stop and examine another mud puddle, he could do it on his own time. Right now, I wasn’t in the mood.

“Kwon, get this bee-swarm into a formation. I want four up front on point, with two back up fireteams on either flank. I’ll back up the center with the rest of them.”

Kwon relayed my orders, and the marines shuffled around into a more organized arrangement. We resembled a Macro diamond-formation, with a fireteam flying along at each of the four points. As we flew, we quickly passed over another earth-mover, then a third. These machines took notice of us and moved to intercept, but they were too slow. We flashed past them and flew deeper still.

The sky overhead became ever darker. Soon, we would need our suit lights just to see in the murk. Something up ahead caught my eye then, a glimmer of brightness in this sea of gloom. Could that be the dome?

The connection request tone sounded in my helmet again. It was Marvin again, making another attempt. I opened the channel.

“What is it?”

“Colonel Riggs,” Marvin began, “the entity has made repeated attempts to communicate, and I’m not sure if I can put it off any longer. It may become offended.”

“The entity? What entity?”

“The designation it uses for self-identification corresponds to the concept of Introspection.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Marvin?” I demanded.

“The Blues use such concepts for identification, rather than a traditional name.”

I paused, finally catching on. “Are you telling me this big pile of smoke we’re flying into wants to talk to us?”

“It is curious about the nature of this new intrusion. We are disturbing it-literally. Saying it wishes to talk might be an overstatement of the situation. It questions our intentions and our natures. It wishes to experience us.”

I thought for a second, but not for a long one. I didn’t have a long second right now. I could sort of see its point of view. From its perspective, we were like ants running around on a man’s shoe: vaguely interesting. But we weren’t just ants, because we were inside this giant being, stirring up its guts. Maybe we were causing it pain.

Under different circumstances, I would have apologized, halted our advanced and sat down to have a good, old-fashioned heart-to-heart with this mammoth creature. But right now, I was on a mission and the lives of my entire team were in jeopardy.

“Tell it we can’t talk right now. We’ve come here in peace as far as it is concerned. We mean it no harm, but we are in combat with the Macros. They are our enemies.”

Marvin hesitated, and I assumed incorrectly that he was relaying my message. “Are you sure you wish to communicate these concepts, Colonel Riggs?” he asked.

“Yes, dammit. Why not?”

“What if the creature is in league with the Macros?”

“I thought you told me it was a prisoner.”

“Yes. But have you considered why it would submit to such a status?”

“I don’t have time to debate that, Marvin. Transmit my message. That’s an order.”

There was a brief pause. “Message sent,” he said.

We reached the last cliff and slowed down. There still hadn’t been any Macro resistance. I looked down and ahead, seeing what could only be a Macro dome. It was a force field of surprising power. It repelled anything it didn’t approve of, I knew, up to and including artillery shells. The shield essentially halted fast-moving objects or energy emissions. In the past, we’d only managed to break these defensive systems in one of two ways. We’d either launched a number of nuclear explosives at them, overwhelming the shield, or we’d crept in slowly on foot. Today, we would have to try the latter approach.

“I don’t see any Macros,” I said. “Let’s advance.”

Before we’d gone another dozen feet, however, the situation changed dramatically. A howling wind rose up, and the world around us darkened.

“What the heck is this?” Kwon asked.

“I don’t know, maybe it will let up if we get into the dome.”

It didn’t let up. In fact, it grew in intensity. Soon, we could hardly see one another

“It’s this air-it’s like soup, sir!” Kwon said.

“Tighten up the formation! I want everyone in a group.”

Things went from bad to worse. We were lifted up and tossed around like leaves in a storm. Making further progress was out of the question. We couldn’t even see the dome anymore. The winds picked up sifting masses of material from the pit and threw it at us.

“What the hell is going on, sir?” Kwon shouted.

“I’m not sure, but I have an idea. Marvin, talk to me.”

“Yes, Colonel Riggs?” Marvin asked calmly. He sounded remarkably unconcerned despite the fact he was orbiting us now in the swirling, dark mass of dust, smoky-aerogel and stiff winds. Only by using our repellers were we able to maintain our relative positions.

“Link arms,” I shouted to men I could no longer see, “form a circle and hold on tight. Marvin, contact this smoke-monster of yours.”

“Reference unclear,” he said, drifting past me. “Do you possibly mean the entity known as Introspection?”

“Yes, dammit. Get in contact with him.”

“Referring to him as male may be inappropriate for these beings-”

“I don’t care, Marvin. Just connect me to him and translate.”

“Done. Converse when ready. I simply wanted to point out that avoidable cultural misunderstandings might-”

“Point taken. Transmit this: being known as Introspection, we respectfully request that you stop blasting us with wind.”

“Done. However, wind isn’t an accurate description, Colonel Riggs,” Marvin said. “I believe we are experiencing the creature’s digestive processes.”

We’d managed to get into a circle now, and I peered from side to side to count noses-or rather faceplates. Kwon had them sound off. I thought some were missing.

“Two lost, sir,” Kwon said. “No response on their com-links.”

I now understood why the area was empty of other Macros. Usually, the region around Macro factories was churning with small, worker-type machines. The only ones I’d seen in this pit had been a few huge earth-movers. Maybe the smaller models had been off-handedly crushed by this creature when it became angry-or hungry. It was a chilling thought. If we couldn’t get this crazy thing to settle down, it might well kill us.

“What’s it saying, Marvin?” I shouted.

“It is projecting an emotion, rather than strings of symbolic concepts.”

“What emotion?” I demanded, my voice cracking to be heard over the wind. My helmet was slashed with handfuls of grit every few seconds now. The sound reminded me of being in an automatic carwash.

“Disinterest.”

“Marvin, you know a little about these creatures. Tell it we can free it from the Macros. Tell it we can free the entire system, and allow the Blues to roam the cosmos again.”

“Ah, a new emotion is coming through now, Colonel: fear. Concern-for-safety and- determination, I think. Yes, that’s it.”

The storm grew in intensity. I felt my arms slipping now and then. “Tighten up, men!” I shouted. I thought I heard Kwon relay the order, but no one needed to be told what to do now. We all clung to one another in the most powerful dirt-storm I’d ever imagined.

I was one second from ordering my people to abandon their kits and fly straight up to exit this cloud of angry debris. Maybe some of us could make it. But I held on, and tried to think of what would get through to a creature that called itself Introspection.

“You are an unjust being!” I shouted. “I want you to know that. It was your people who released this plague upon the universe! You created the Macros and the Nanos, and let them destroy countless biotic beings such as ourselves. They killed my children, and millions of others. We are here to fix your mess, to right your wrongs!”

Marvin didn’t have to translate the answer to that one. The storm intensified. I could no longer see anything. It was all black with occasional flashes of gray, as if I’d been buried under ashes. I couldn’t hear anything either, other than the roar of the endless, angry winds.

But then, just when I’d given up hope and decided I would die here in the churning guts of an angry Blue, the living storm relented. I looked around, and saw my men were in a huddled mass. We were up to our waists in fine, swirling dust.

“What did you do, Colonel?” Kwon asked when we could hear each other again.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I made it feel bad.”