Extinction

-6-

I was surprised to see Kerr. Really, the visit itself was a breach of protocol. We’d agreed that Earth government forces weren’t to move around our island without advanced notice and permission. They were supposed to land back at the main base, and talk to our staffers there if they wanted to go anywhere else. Hell, they weren’t even supposed to know that this ‘secret’ base existed.

But that had all been before my ships had flown off to some other godforsaken rock in the sky with every last one of my Star Force pilots inside their dark, heartless bellies. Now, the earthers had no respect for our arrangements and deals.

“Riggs?” asked Kerr, spotting me and heading in my direction. He lifted a hand to me in greeting. He was a rare man in many ways. The fact that everyone around him could kill him in an instant and might even want to seemed not to bother him in the slightest.

“General Kerr,” I said, shaking his hand gently. I had to remember every time I touched a normal man to be careful.

Kerr smiled, but the smile was tight and official-looking. “Good to see you made it back, Riggs. I knew you would.”

“I was just following your suggestion, sir.”

Kerr snorted and nodded. He looked around the camp while we talked. He noted the two guard towers and the six or seven armed men in sight. He didn’t look overly impressed.

“Can you tell me why you are visiting Star Force, sir?” I asked.

His eyes drifted back to mine. “What the hell happened up there?”

I told him, briefly, of the face-off I’d had with the Macros. I finished with specifics of the deal I’d made with them. He looked impressed.

“Let me get this straight… you promised a race of giant robots that we’d give them sixty-odd tons of our best soldiers? To fight with them?”

“Yes sir. We’ve got one year to produce the troops, or the war will be on again.”

“Who came up with that crazy idea? Crow?”

I thought about telling him the truth, that it had happened accidentally and had been more than half luck. But that didn’t sound cool enough, so I took a few liberties with the story.

“I did the negotiations solo, sir. But let me assure you, if we had engaged the Macro battle fleet we would have lost. Earth would have had no chance.”

Kerr licked his lips. “I believe you.”

I could tell that he did, so I didn’t belabor the point. “Where does that leave us, General?”

“Before I get into that, I want to talk about the Blues.”

“What about them?” I asked.

“How sure are you of your information on them? Do you think they created both the Macros and the Nanos? Do you still think they are stuck on their own planet?”

I shrugged. “To the best of my knowledge, sir.”

He shook his head. “You’re wrong. At least partly.”

“How so?”

Kerr pointed out in the direction of the sea with his chin. “You know we’ve got subs out there, don’t you, Riggs?”

“I suppose.”

“Well, our subs can go down, all the way down to the bottom of the sea. If we build a sub with strong enough walls, we can still breathe and function.”

I blinked and frowned. I was beginning to see where he was going with this. “So, you don’t buy that the Blues are stuck on their world due to the high gravity?”

Kerr shook his head. “No, I don’t. You’re a scientist, but not a physicist. I don’t blame you, I didn’t understand it all right away either. But it’s all about the pressure, not the gravity. If they built a ship with a dense enough, high-pressure atmosphere inside, they should be able to get off their world. That’s what my nerds tell me back home, anyway.”

“Huh,” I said, frowning. Thinking about it, his points made sense. I could see that I’d jumped to unsupported conclusions based upon my conversations with the Alamo. “Well, maybe they had organs that need the gravity, not just the pressure. I wasn’t just thinking of a fish gas-bladder.”

“Admittedly unknown.”

“What about escape velocity?” I asked. “They would have to go through a lot of acceleration and built up a tremendous amount of speed to break free of a big planet’s gravity-well.”

General Kerr shrugged. “We are working on blind conjecture here, but my nerds tell me that doesn’t really matter. They could withstand a lot of acceleration. It would just feel like gravity to them, which they are used to.”

“They aren’t even blue, you know that too, right?”

He laughed. “Yeah. We got that part. Any other speculation as to why the Blues aren’t a space-faring race?”

“I suppose there is no way we can know that without asking them. Maybe they have some kind of religious problem with it. Maybe someone else has promised them death if they leave their world. Who knows?”

“As good a guess as any,” he said.

I looked at him. “Sir, that’s not the only reason you came all this way, is it? To ask me about the Blues?”

Kerr waved my words away. “Of course not. But it gave me the excuse I needed to come down personally.”

“What else did you want to tell me?”

“I think you know that, Riggs.”

I nodded. “Your people want to change our deal, is that it? Sir, I need you to convince the administration that you still need Star Force. I need you to tell them to respect our sovereignty. You realize that just landing here breaks our treaty.”

Kerr met my eyes. “That sort of decision is political. It’s beyond my pay-grade. But I think you’re right, if that’s any consolation.”

I didn’t like the way he sounded. His tone indicated he’d already had this argument on my behalf and lost. There was an uncharacteristic tone of defeat in his voice. I realized suddenly why he was here. He was trying to warn me or discover some fresh reason why the government shouldn’t move in on our little operation.

“General,” I said, “I need time. I need a week. Give me that long to get my fleet back together.”

He frowned. “You think they might come back that fast? We have our new interferometers scopes following them. They are half-way to Jupiter’s orbit now, and still accelerating.”

“Where are they headed?”

“Classified,” he said, then he tilted his head to one side, “but—what the hell. We think they are going to Neptune, or maybe beyond that into the Oort Cloud.”

“The Oort Cloud…” I said, trying to recall my single college course in astronomy.

“A fancy name for a bunch of comets and chunks of crap that fly around out past Pluto. Anyway, there might be another ah—another spot out there. Another connection point.”

“Ah,” I said, understanding. “Like the gathering spot near Venus.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“I figured they couldn’t be heading directly to another star,” I said. “Even at the speed of light, they wouldn’t make it there for years. Everyone aboard would be dead by then. That would leave the Nanos with no practice dummies for the next world.”

“Keep in mind that we’re just guessing,” Kerr cautioned me.

I nodded. “Thanks for the information in any case. Still, it doesn’t matter. My request stands. I need you to respect our sovereignty. I know that certain people stateside might have ideas. But you can put them off. I only need a few days, sir.”

Kerr eyed me strangely. His eyes slid to the corrugated steel buildings that surrounded us. He knew what was inside, I was sure of that. Slowly, he nodded. I could tell he’d figured it out. I could tell he understood I was working to rebuild my fleet as fast as possible.

“A week? That fast, eh?” he grunted. He stared at me and sighed. “I wish I could give you the time, Riggs, but I’m not in charge of this situation. I’m absolutely convinced that you are the best man for the job, that you can pull together a new fleet faster than anyone can—if anyone else can. But this isn’t about time anymore, it’s about position. It’s all a matter of relative strengths. You understand what I’m saying, son?”

I stared back at him. I understood all right. The decision had already been made. The administration had gotten greedy. They wanted my machines for their own use.

Suddenly, seeing the General’s dark, troubled eyes, I knew the truth. Washington wanted the factories secured now. They wanted them all. They were going to move even faster than I had anticipated. They were going to move preemptively, before any other power on Earth got smart and had time to think about it and make their own move. Probably, there were assets out there in the ocean around my island paradise, sliding quietly into position. Hadn’t the General just said something about subs? Had that been a hint I’d been too dumb to pick up on? Maybe they’d been out there for months, waiting patiently for the right moment to move in.

I thought of the assassin, Esmeralda. I no longer believed she’d been a rogue, or a mistake. She’d been a probe, a feint. She had managed to maintain—what did the politicians call it? Plausible deniability... but now I knew the truth.

I nodded to Kerr. “I understand fully, General. Well, do what you can to help me out, if you think that’s in the world’s best interest.”

Kerr took another deep breath and let it out slowly. When he spoke again, it was in a lower tone of voice. “Why don’t you come in with me, Kyle?” he asked.

“Sir?”

“There’s no need for you to get caught up in all this. You are a hero back home, you know. Come on home with me. No one here will think less of you. Let me take you back to Washington to plead your case. Let me work you back into the program, in a new, official capacity. The entire planet owes you that much. More importantly, we could really use your help.”

“But not independently. Not on my terms,” I said.

He shook his head slowly.

“Thanks for the offer—and I mean that. I’ll think about it, sir. I’ll be in touch.”

The General took a few steps toward the west, where the sun was beginning to set out over the sea. “Okay. I’m not going to argue with you. But don’t think too long, Kyle.”

I followed his eyes toward the orange ball of the sun. Tonight then, I thought suddenly. They’ll come tonight.

My heart accelerated in my chest. I had no time to lose. I had no time at all.

“I’ve got to get back to work, General. Thanks for the visit,” I said, and I walked back toward Shed Fourteen. It was time for a change of orders.

I could feel Kerr’s eyes on my back as I left him there on the sand. “Don’t do anything stupid, Riggs!” he shouted after me. “Don’t get yourself killed for nothing!”

“I don’t die easily, sir!” I shouted back over my shoulder.

I slammed the shed door and leaned back against it. In front of me was Unit Fourteen and the marine I’d chewed out earlier. He was working his tablet again, flicking at it. He startled as I came in and he put it down. I wondered briefly what game he’d been playing this time.

“Out,” I said.

“Sir?”

“Hit the lines. Full gear. Get the entire platoon buttoned up and on alert. I want half the garrison patrolling the forest a hundred meters out. Have Kwon contact me for details.”

He stood up, looking stunned. “Um, what’s going on, sir?”

“We’re about to be attacked, soldier. Do you want a memo, or are you going to get your butt into your hazard suit and charge your beamer?”

“Yes sir!” he shouted, and rushed out. He straight-armed the door on the way. It popped open so hard it wouldn’t quite close right after that. I ignored him and the rest of the camp, which quickly became noisy as my orders were relayed.

“Unit Fourteen, activate group-link.”

“Group-link active,” Fourteen responded.

I stood there for a few seconds, thinking hard. I had to assume I had only a few hours left. They wouldn’t nuke us. They wouldn’t even dare use conventional bombs. The whole point was to steal the factories intact, not to blow them up. How would they do it? Commandos, most likely. Perhaps the subs were surfacing and they were unloading into the jungle right now. Maybe choppers were carrying them in from the sea. Maybe they were already out there in the trees, forming up at prearranged gathering points.

Snipers, I thought suddenly. High-velocity rounds. A few dozen of them could do it. I wasn’t sure if a sniper round would go through a nanite-coated skull, but nanites or not, my men couldn’t fight with their brains dented in.

I stared at Fourteen and licked my lips. What the hell could I build in a few hours that would stop them?