Inherited War 3: Retaliation (44 page)

A long robotic arm with a combination shield generator anti-gravity drive at the end moved into position. The electric blue of the shield as it came to life reflected off the shiny-as-chrome ball. The arm extended and slowly pushed it into the center of the sphere. Once in position, it retracted and turned to get the next one.

A Worlder sitting at the controls turned on the manual controls and used the anti gravity drive to move the molten sphere away from the insertion arm and into line with the other ninety nine balls hovering near the external doors. Once in position, he gradually fed power to the shield generator and the sphere began to expand as the shield pushed away from the generator. The sphere expanded like a bubble until it was the same size as the others in line. The surface rippled and moved for a few moments as the liquid metal sought its own level, making the ball perfectly round.

Just as it finally settled down, the last sphere was being maneuvered into place and blown up. Moments later, the job was done and Split was looking at one hundred shimmering balls of mirror like liquid hanging in the room.

“Have the computer monitor movement on the spheres. Every time it detects movement of any kind, restart the clock. Once an hour has passed with no discernible movement, open the doors and cool them down.” The human Captain nodded his head and relayed the order.

“Is this going to work?” Captain Glendale asked. Shortly after Split had arrived back at the fleet with the mining drone in tow and already working on processing the materials, he had transferred his command to
The Justice
.

“You saw the test run. It worked just as we expected,” Split answered.

“Yeah, but even with one hundred of the things, space is a big place. How long will it take to clear out to one hundred thousand miles?” the ships AI chimed in at that point.

“I estimate that in fifteen days we can be out to one hundred fifty thousand miles, enough to accommodate the fleet and other resources,” Justice said. Most AI’s ended up taking the names of the ships they lived in.

“Can we even jump that close?” Glendale asked.

“No,” Split answered. “We will have to move in normal space to arrive there.”

“Have you figured that part out yet?” he asked.

“Yes, we will temporarily divert the spheres to carve a tunnel from Nixa to us and back again, to allow us to enter the system. Once back, they will pick up where they left off and we will hug the planet in a low orbit, falling back as the spheres clean more space,” Glendale grunted.

“As long as the way is cleared for us all to get there in one shot. I don’t want to split up.” Glendale had good reason for keeping his command together. Not but two days ago a Roche supply convoy jumped into the system and as soon as they saw the allied ships, had moved to attack. The battle was short and bloody, bloody for the Roche. The allies chewed them up without so much as a scratch on anyone’s hull. But a few of the cargo haulers got away. Glendale had been looking into the history stored onboard
The Justice
and was concerned. The Roche, for all intents and purposes, numbered in the billions, possibly over a trillion. They weren’t all on that planet, and they all hadn’t been in the fleet he had destroyed. He didn’t want to split his force in two, to have a massive enemy fleet jump in from behind and wipe out the second group.

“It will be a planet sized tunnel through the dust. We all will make it,” Split responded. That was enough for Glendale. He knew Cole trusted this odd alien and he trusted Cole. Split wasn’t in command of the fleet, but he was in charge of the spheres.  They all settled back to wait as the shining spheres settled into their final positions. It took almost six hours for the computer, measuring in micrometers, to fail to detect any movements. The external doors slid open and with no atmo to vent, not a ripple touched the spheres. The heaters turned off and the interior rapidly began to cool. An hour later, the spheres external temperature matched that of local space. Lasers beamed out from the ceiling of the room and measured the exterior of each ball. All were as perfect a circle as was ever made.

Split grabbed the controls from the Worlder on the VR bridge. They sent out commands to rapid fire. All the spheres shot out of the open doorway and into space. Split picked one to lead and had the others fall in line behind. They shot straight out, forming a long chain. As the chain picked up the last ball, it curved up and arched to the left. It continued to follow the curve until all one hundred spheres were formed up in a circle. They stopped in place. Split adjusted their separation and then watched as the circle expanded. They stopped them when the circle reached one hundred miles in diameter. Slowly they moved them toward the dust cloud that surrounded the Nixa homeworld and a good portion of the rest of the system.

Split stopped them right at the edge. He turned on the power and fed electricity to the slivery metal surface. They started low then amped up the volts. Electricity danced across the surface of the spheres as the current fought to even itself out.

“God damn, look at that.” Glendale pointed at the active radar as the giant blob that was the dust cloud began to extend in tendrils towards the spheres. It was working. Split didn’t wait any more. He uploaded the preprogrammed guidance information into the anti gravity drive. The radiation was still playing havoc on their com systems. They couldn’t trust that the guidance from the ship would make it all the way to the spheres. The balls jumped forwards, heading toward Nixa. The gained speed and slowly separated even more. The program would have the spheres set far enough apart that when they arrived at the planet, they would ring the entire world. Then like electrons, protons, or neutrons around an atom, they would begin to orbit the planet. All were programmed for maximum coverage and to not intersect one another. They would start mere inches above the shield and make a few orbits at that elevation to clean the shield so nothing would fall onto the planet when it was turned off. Then after each orbit, they would increase their elevation relative to the shield. Small increments at first, but larger and larger ones as they whirled around the world.

Every particle of radiation, or holding radiation, would be attracted to the spheres. They could draw in particles from a hundred miles away. Once they hit the end of their first stage of passes, enough room should be cleared for the fleet to move into a parking orbit around the world. The spheres would form up in their giant circle, clear a tunnel through the dust to the fleet, and back again. Once back at the planet, they would start their orbits again. The further away from the planet they got, the greater the power output would have to be to their surface.

The AI’s thought they could get it high enough that the spheres could pull in radiation from a few thousand miles away. The power cores would burn out rather quickly doing that though, so the hope was to get between a hundred to one hundred fifty thousand mile diameter around the planet cleaned. After all, Split had a whole planet to put in orbit around Nixa. He needed the room.

CHAPTER 23

Sky collapsed on top of Cole, and they both lay breathing hard and enjoying the feeling of each other’s closeness. Finally Sky rolled off to Cole’s right and curled up against him, placing her head on his shoulder. The only sound in the room was that of them breathing for a while as they both enjoyed their time together.

Room, which had been at a premium, was now there for the taking. Everyone but the combat personnel, supply soldiers, and the medics had been split up and sent to other underground bunkers around the world. They had just begun to fortify the first levels of the underground in preparation for the inevitable retreat. One of those preps had been sending West and his men to another city.

He hadn’t liked it, and had argued with Cole for a good hour before Cole told him to shut up and follow orders. He reiterated that if this went south, he wanted someone he could trust at the head of the military, and he wanted West away from this lost cause. No one but West knew that’s what Cole thought this last stand was. He wouldn’t tell anyone else, ever, but he needed to get West moving out. Cole let out a small sigh and closed his eyes. He also pulled Sky closer to his side.

“Have you given any thought to what we are going to do after?” she asked him. Cole knew what she meant, but was going to give her a hard time anyway.

“Well, I was going to close my eyes and get some sleep. You’re very tiring, you know,” he said to her. She gave him a smack on the leg.

“No, dummy, after this is all over.” To be honest he’d never thought further than the here and now, unless it pertained to tactics then he could think more than a few moves ahead. He told her just that.

“Honestly, no I haven’t given it much thought. Since this whole thing started, I have just been trying to stay alive. I guess I just figured that when it calmed down, things would get easier. That I would have time to plan things out a little more. I’ve got to relocate my people, make good on my promises to our allies, and do another half a million things after those.” He was messing with her again, and she knew it.

“So no room for me then? Have your way with me and toss me out for someone prettier?” Sky said.

“Shit,” Cole blurted out. “That’s not possible.” He knew he had the right answer when he got a kiss, not a smack. “Of course you’re a part of all that. I don’t want to leave you again.”

“Good, because I spent twenty years watching your planet, and I saw all the rituals that went on down there to join two people together. If you think that just because your planet is gone I don’t want a big elaborate ceremony, you’re wrong,” Sky said.

“Yes, I will,” Cole replied and Sky paused in confusion.

“Yes you will what?” she asked.

“It sounded to me like you just asked me to marry you. I said yes.” He got another smack.

“Not likely, you will do the asking bub. Big, flowery, embarrassing. Everything you would have done for a human girl on Earth.”

“Ouch, okay, okay. I will once this is over, deal?” he replied.

“Of course, do you think I want it down here in this dungeon? Like I said, flowery and embarrassing—for you, not me. What about kids, how many do you want? I remember once when we first met and we talked about you wanting to leave something that your children could be proud of.”

“Let’s just say I don’t mind trying as much as possible to have a bunch of little rug rats. We need to repopulate humanity, remember? I think I’m up for trying.” He turned his head and kissed her forehead in an attempt to stave off another swat. She smiled quietly in the dark.

“Good, me too.” They lapsed into silence and Cole began to drift off to sleep when an urgent chime began to ring in his room. He slid out from under Sky who managed to sleep right through the incessant chirping of the com buzzer. Cole placed his feet on his discarded suit and activated it. It pooled around his feet and then began to rapidly climb his body until it enveloped him from head to toe. He answered his com.

“What is it?” he asked into the open frequency. He skipped asking the obvious question. It had to be important or they wouldn’t have called.

“Sir, you are needed urgently topside. Something’s happening,” the com officer said rapidly.

“On my way,” Cole said and turned back to the bed. Sky had indeed woken at some point because she had assumed a sitting position. The blankets pooled around her legs, leaving her torso bare. She looked good—real good. Cole turned up the gain on his low light vision.

“Men,” Sky snorted and grabbed the sheets and covered herself. Cole deactivated his helmet and reached out to turn the lights on.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I am a visual creature.” She waved her hand at him to stop screwing around.

“What is it, is it bad?” she asked.

“Dunno, they need me up top. Get dressed and meet me up in the plaza,” he told her.

“Right behind you.” Cole didn’t stick around for the show. He turned and was out the door, sprinting down the hallway. He made it upstairs in record time. He ignored everyone and rushed into the command center.

“What is it?” he asked as he entered.

“This Sir, they are pulling back.” Maybe not bad news after all, Cole thought. Cole linked into the ground radar that they were using to track the Roche and Esii in the city and around it. The radar tech was right. Streams of Roche were leaving the city in an orderly fashion. What the hell was going on?

“What do you think they are doing, Sir?” someone asked him.

“Not the foggiest. Why the hell would they pull back? Wait, look, the southernmost army is splitting and heading around the city to the north.” Cole was at a loss. What in the hell were they doing?

“Why would they move to the north and leave us a route out in the south?” Cole asked out loud. No one seemed to have an answer. “Is there any planetary reason they would do that? Geysers that erupt there this time of year, herds of wild monsters come down to feed before winter? Anything at all? No matter how small.” He looked around the room to find blank stares, on all but one face.