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“Sir,” Sandra said, “the Imperial commander wants to speak with you.”

“Is that right? Open channel.”

“Colonel Riggs?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Imperial Captain Upton, sir. Sir, are you breaking our ceasefire? I count
twelve ships on an attack course toward our lines.”

“Attack course?” I asked. “I’m confused, Upton. We’re moving to set up a standard
patrol. Our SOP is to have a squadron of gunships on both sides of the ring. You,
on the other hand, are on the wrong side of that ring. You’re inside our borders,
Upton. We’ve been wondering if your ships are too damaged to maneuver. Do you need
us to board and render assistance? Possibly, we could provide a towing service.”

“That will not be necessary, Colonel,” Upton said stiffly. “We’ll be withdrawing shortly.”

It took them another twenty minutes to wriggle out through the ring, during which
they were no doubt scanning us with everything they had. Finally, however, we managed
to hustle the last stragglers out the door.

“Post a full squad of gunships on the other side of that ring,” I ordered. “They are
to report back every fifteen minutes, giving us data on Kerr’s fleet in the Helios
system. I want to make sure he doesn’t change his mind. Also, begin immediate deployment
of a new minefield.”

“Sir,” Sarin said, “the gunship crews are reporting in. They’ve found a large number
of active drones orbiting the ring—we believe they’re probes, sir.”

“Take them out. Erase every set of automated eyes Kerr left behind. We want no witnesses
as we begin our next action.”

Miklos came to sit next to me in my command chair. “They don’t trust us, sir.”

“Of course not. But if they can’t see us, they won’t know what we’re up to.”

“We must get the fleet moving in order to set up an optimal defense at the Thor ring.
The window is closing, Colonel. If we leave right now, we’ll only beat the Macros
by fourteen hours.”

I nodded seriously. “Good to know—but we aren’t going to the Thor ring, Miklos. At
least, not the entire fleet will be going.”

He looked at me as if I were insane. I knew the expression all too well.

“But sir—”

“Listen,” I said. “I want Welter at the battle station to set up every gun we have,
and to begin bouncing groups of mines around Hel again. That station beat the Macros
before, and it can do it again, if absolutely necessary.”

“Colonel, are you serious? We’ve only repaired half the weaponry on the battle station.
All our production systems have been building up the fleet!”

“Hmm,” I said. “All right. Then order ten transports to the fly out to Helios immediately.
They’ll be under Welter’s command. That’s over fifteen hundred marines on skateboards—most
of them with four legs and a kamikaze attitude.”

Miklos’ mouth had sagged open again. “What are we going to do with the rest of the
fleet?”

“We have a hundred gunships and a lot of marines left over. That’s enough to make
a serious dent. I think I’ll leave the marines at the Helios ring, however. The destroyers,
too. The gunships are the right vessels for this duty.”

“What duty, sir?” pleaded Miklos. “Tell me you aren’t thinking of chasing after Kerr
with our gunships. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“An intriguing idea, Captain. But no, that wasn’t my plan. We’re flying the core of
the fleet to Eden-12.”

“Eden-12? Whatever for, Colonel?”

“Because, my good man, we are going to bomb the Blues.”

* * *

Sometimes, my own staff meetings became irritating. This was one of those times. In
the case of Star Force meetings, however, the irritation was never due to boardroom
politicking or long, dull speeches. When we had a meeting that went badly, at least
it was always due to a serious disagreement about serious issues.

Today, the issue was our mission. Pretty much no one wanted me to bomb the Blues.
It didn’t make any sense to them. They wrangled and argued, trying to talk me out
of it. I could have told them all beforehand they weren’t going to stop me, but as
a leader, I believe in letting my people have their say. I’m not a tyrant, no matter
what the propaganda vids back home say.

“I’m listening,” I said for perhaps the tenth time.

“No, I don’t think you are, Kyle,” Sandra said. “This is insane.”

Captain Sarin cleared her throat. She was always willing to take a softer approach
when attempting to convince me of something. I had to admit, her method was infinitely
more enjoyable, and possibly more likely to succeed.

“I’m almost always willing to listen,” I said, “but the final judgment is mine alone.”

“We’re going to start another war with a race we don’t fully understand, Colonel,”
Miklos said.

“I know that, but I don’t think we have much choice. The Macros are coming, and by
my estimate, we won’t be able to stop them this time. We have to force the Blues to
honor the deal they made with us and talk the Macros out of attacking.”

“We beat them before, sir,” Jasmine said. “The Macros, I mean.”

“Yes, but they know how we did it. We have more force this time, but so do they—approximately
three times the number of ships. And that’s not the only thing that’s changed this
time. The critical element is they’re going to come through the ring in a slower,
more organized way. They won’t just crash into our defensive line. They know what
to expect, and they’ll fight more effectively.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of wargaming out the battle, sir,” Miklos said.

I looked at him with raised eyebrows. “I’ve done the same, of course. There are too
many variables to get a good simulation—but what were your results, Captain?”

“The Macros lost, sir. But they destroyed the battle station and half our ships. Not
to mention a massive loss of life for our assault marines.”

“Precisely,” I said, “a total disaster.”

“But sir, I said that we
won
. It was costly, but we won the day.”

I shook my head. “We lost half our force, and the battle station. What happens when
the next wave comes? What about when Earth sends another, more intelligently organized
armada our way?”

Miklos shrugged. “We rebuild, and they rebuild.”

“No, I don’t want it to go down that way, not unless we have no other option. I only
see a few possibilities here, people. One: we could stand and fight, losing at least
half our strength and probably the battle station. After the last fight they’ll want
to take it out at all costs, I agree with Miklos on that point. Two: we could run
out of here and surrender to Earth, joining forces against this new threat. Three:
we could bomb the Blues until they honor our deal and get the Macros to stop.”

“You plan to drop the jamming on the ring to allow them to talk to the Macros, then?”

“Yes, after they know we mean business.”

I looked around the table. It was a sea of frowns and resigned, disgusted expressions.
Only Marvin seemed to be unperturbed. He gazed at us in turn, reading our emotions
and no doubt cataloguing them. I’d yet to hear an opinion from him on the situation.

“I want to hear what our science officer thinks,” I said, gesturing toward him.

It took a second for one of Marvin’s cameras to drift in my direction and realize
I was talking about him. “You’re asking for my opinion, Colonel Riggs?”

“Yes, if you would be so kind.”

“I think you’ve made up your mind. I think this meeting is an exercise in futility.
I have, however, enjoyed experiencing the reactions of your staff members. Even now,
my comments seem to be intensifying the facial displays—”

“Thank you, Marvin,” I said loudly, cutting him off. “Does anyone else have another
statement to make before we go into orbit over Eden-12?”

Most of them shook their heads glumly. Kwon was the only major player who wasn’t there.
I wondered what he would have said. If I had to guess, I’d say he wouldn’t have cared
much one way or the other. He enjoyed fighting the machines up close, and anything
else bored him. Fleet actions in general didn’t interest him much, not unless they
involved ship-boarding assaults.

My gunships parked themselves in low orbit over the hazy atmosphere of Eden-12. The
gas giant looked like stirred coffee from up here, coffee with plenty of cream on
top that had gently been mixed in, but not blended.

“Where do we even start, sir?” Miklos asked. “The volume of this world is unbelievable.
Hundreds of Earths could fit within that atmosphere.”

“I’ve done a little exploring. I’ve found the Blues at a depth of nine thousand miles.
If we shoot for that layer and below, I’m sure we’re bound to hit something. Commence
bombardment.”

This last order gained me a series of astounded gasps. “But sir,” Jasmine said, “I
don’t understand. You haven’t even transmitted your demands yet.”

I shrugged my heavily armored shoulders. After the Microbial treatments, I found I
was strong enough to make the armor move and clack back into place when I let it down.
If nothing else, it intimidated normal marines who knew they couldn’t do it.

“They know the deal,” I said, “and they broke it. They slowed the Macros down, but
didn’t stop them. It’s my belief they decided to come in late to clean up after the
Earth ships had done their worst. Well, they miscalculated. Now, they’ll pay the price.”

Miklos spoke up after a brief, stunned silence. “Adjusting guns to target depth, sir.
Might I add something?”

“Go ahead.”

“What if the Blues told the Macros to stop, but the Macros decided just to slow down,
to become more cautious? Perhaps they’re not in control of the Macros, but only feeding
them intelligence data. In that case, they might have fabricated a situation to get
them to stop. They might have told them they were walking into a trap with thousands
of ships. That could explain the increasingly cautious approach of the Macros.”

I frowned fiercely. “That’s an excellent point, Miklos,” I said. “I hadn’t thought
of that one. Stand down the guns for now. Sandra, open a communications channel, all
frequencies. Let’s try to talk to the Blues.”

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. They went back to their consoles, shaking their
heads and blinking their eyes. A few looked as if they were praying.

-31-

We spent the next hour broadcasting a message down into those brown, stirring clouds.
We never heard so much as a ping back. Soon, I grew annoyed.

“Maybe they can’t hear us sir,” Sandra said.

“I don’t buy that. The Macros could hear our transmissions, so could the Nanos. The
Blues created both of them. I believe the Blues like to maintain an aloof exterior,
but I don’t believe they’re unaware of our position in orbit over their world. How
could a species build the Nanos and the Macros, and learn how to use the rings to
communicate, and still not notice their homeworld is being bombarded by radio signals?
I just don’t buy it. I’ve dealt with these people in person, remember. They like to
think of themselves as superior beings. We’re only vaguely interesting to them, like
squawking parrots in a tree, or barking dogs across the street. They normally ignore
us, as if we’re noisy animals. Well, it’s time they learned to respect this backward
race.”

I again ordered the bombardment to begin, and this time no one could talk me out of
it. I stood in the observatory, looking down at the strange, gigantic planet. It filled
the entire glass bottom of the chamber I stood within, and I turned my helmet this
way and that, picking out details of the upper atmosphere. When my boots got in the
way, I stumped around to a new vantage point. I found it hard to believe I’d gone
down there on two occasions and allowed the Blues to ‘experience’ my body.

The gunships fired in unison. I couldn’t feel the recoil on
Actium
, as the destroyer was equipped only with lasers. We didn’t bother to fire beam weapons.
The atmosphere was too thick and deep. Radiation-based weapons couldn’t hope to effectively
penetrate it. But the accelerated mass hurled down by the big belly turrets on my
gunships did the job nicely. A shower of blue spheres flashed downward. The distant
ones resembled falling stars. They fell quickly and were swallowed up by the atmosphere.
I couldn’t even see the impacts—if there were any.

“Keep firing,” I said, “lay down a pattern, and put us into a drifting orbit. I want
to carpet-bomb the interior. We’re bound to hit something eventually. In the meantime,
keep repeating our hailing signal.”

The bombardment continued. After ten minutes, the gunships were no longer firing in
volleys. They were firing as soon as their guns were cool enough to allow another
round to chamber. We’d drifted by this time all the way around the planet.

I heard the door dissolve behind me. Sandra stepped into the observatory, her shoes
clicking on the cold glass. The room itself was kept extremely cold and dry to prevent
condensation from forming on the inside and obscuring the glass.

“I thought I’d find you hiding in here.”

“Far from it,” I said, “I’m witnessing firsthand what I’ve ordered. It’s lovely and
terrible at the same time.”