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She walked over to the two of us and joined the conversation. “I don’t buy the idea
that they’d try to trick us,” she said. “The risk would be too high. All we’d have
to do is transmit a single second’s worth of data to take them down with us. I don’t
think the Blues are that brave.”

I nodded. “I agree with your assessment. They are windy dreamers, not tough negotiators.
But if they aren’t selling us out, what’s their motivation with this approach? More
importantly, how are the Macros taking it? Are they braking?”

Marvin and Jasmine went to the command table and pondered the data displayed there.
I caught myself checking out Jasmine, and realized with a start I’d been doing that
without thinking about it. The command table was similar in dimensions to a pool table,
and when a lady wearing tight nanocloth leaned over something at hip-level…well, the
results could be eye-catching.

She turned to me suddenly, and I jumped a bit. I dragged my eyes up to her face and
forced myself to fabricate a neutral expression. Had she caught me? I hoped not.

“I think I have the answer, sir,” she said. “The Macro ships are proceeding toward
us. They have not deviated their course or speed in any way.”

“They’re still coming?” I asked, forgetting about Marvin’s big mouth and her shapely
rear end all at once.

“That’s right. Nothing has changed, sir. How do you want the fleet to deploy?”

“Uh,” I said, blinking and trying to think. “Place the gunships at optimal range from
the Thor ring. Keep them out of the zone traveled by the flying mines. Tell Welter
to prepare his longer range weaponry first, to the determent of his close-range guns.”

“Why is that, sir?” she asked me.

“Because, if that big fleet gets in close, it’s going to be all over anyway.”

Jasmine turned back to her job, but paused and glanced back at me. She adjusted her
nanocloth suit around her hips by tugging at it. It was a futile exercise, of course,
as the nanites quickly detected the gaps and folds and tightened them back up again
right away. I pretended not to notice what she was doing and stared at the big screen
we encircled.

“What about the Centaurs, Colonel?” Miklos asked me. “Where do you want to place them?”

I studied the screen. “That’s an excellent question. Should we mass them at the ring,
allowing them to destroy ships as they come through like living bombs? Or should we
hold them back, in reserve? Opinions, staff?”

They seemed surprised that I’d asked their advice. “I would put them forward, sir,”
Miklos said. “They will take horrid losses, but they should be very effective in the
bottleneck.”

“No, they won’t,” Jasmine said. “They’ll be annihilated. Remember last time? The Macros
pushed through with a nuclear cloud of continuous explosions. They will be vaporized
before a single ship pressed through the ring.”

“Maybe we could park them behind the ring,” Miklos said.

Jasmine shook her head, tapping at the screen. “They won’t have enough acceleration
to catch up with enemy ships after they come through the ring. The only chance they
have of striking the enemy fleet is by getting in front of them.”

I looked at the numbers carefully. The big screen projected scenarios, displaying
yellow shapes and dashed lines that showed where various units could be in near future. 
“I have to agree with Captain Sarin,” I said. “I’m placing the marine assault groups
in a widely dispersed pattern behind the battle station and the front line of gunships.
Essentially, I want them in reserve.”

We went on like this, planning and setting up. On the big board ships floated around
in curved patterns. It was like a beautiful, carefully choreographed dance. Thousands
of dancers on both sides performed their appointed roles in sequence.

I didn’t like the look of the Macro fleet. They had three big dreadnaughts up front,
ready to shoot down anything we sent at them and absorb whatever they couldn’t shoot
down. Behind that came the massed groups of cruisers. I didn’t like the look of any
of these ships. They were clearly an attack group making their final approach.

“What about the Blues, sir?” Miklos asked me. “Those bastards decided to let us fry
out here.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe they just failed to talk the Macros out of their mission.
In any case, we don’t have time to do anything about them now.”

“That’s exactly what they counted on,” Jasmine said. “I can see it all clearly now.
They told us whatever we wanted to hear, whatever would make us go away. They even
bothered to transmit a few pathetic lies to the Macros to show us they were complying
with our demands. But they knew the Macros would ignore it all. Now, they can sit
back and watch the fun as we destroy ourselves, man and machine alike.”

I looked at her, careful to keep my eyes on her eyes. “That’s an excellent analysis.
You’ve developed a healthy sense of paranoia, Captain. But I’m not sure if anyone
needs a twisted reason to fail at convincing the Macros of anything. It’s quite easy
to fail even when you’re really trying.”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Jasmine said. “We can’t be sure, so we can’t bomb them—at
least, not until later.”

“If there is a ‘later’ for us,” Miklos said.

“Yeah,” I said, staring at the screen. “It appears the Lobsters are betting on the
Macros again, too. Look.”

There were new contacts on the board, emerging from the seas of Yale this time. They
lifted up and up, finally cresting out of the cloudy atmosphere that enshrouded the
little water-moon. A swarm of ships, about twenty in all, followed the Macros distantly,
cautiously.

“They look like troop transports, sir,” Miklos said. “They flatter us by copying our
tactics.”

“I’ll make sure to mention that the next time they give us a lecture,” I said bitterly.

“They’re definitely betting on the Macros,” Sandra said. She’d come onto the bridge
late and had missed all the awkward moments between Jasmine and I…fortunately.

“Let’s get those Blues on the line,” I demanded at last. “I want to talk to Intellect—or
one of his relatives.”

There was a serious time lag in the connection, but we managed to get the conversation
going. We watched the enemy approach closely over the next hour, but very little changed.
The only noticeable difference was the heavy acceleration of the Crustacean transports.
They wanted to come in close behind the Macros and ride in on their wake.

“This is the being known as Intellect,” a voice said at last. It sounded odd, coming
through the translator over such a distance.

“Intellect, why are the Macros still coming? They are about to pass through the ring
and attack us. You have failed to stop them, and we’re going to transmit our records,
proving your treachery to the Macros.”

We waited again. By the time the Blues were able to respond, the Macros were at our
doorstep. It was hard not to get a neck ache while watching them. The tension was
thick aboard my command ship. My crewmen and even some of my senior staffers were
tossing me reproachful looks and muttering to one another. The inference was clear:
they thought I’d finally failed them.

At last, the Blues responded: “Your lack of comprehension is alarming. Do not take
rash action! We are allied with you in the minds of the machines. All is well.”

“That’s it?” I shouted when the transmission ended.

“Yes sir.”

I stared at the screen, dumbfounded. The Blues really had screwed us.
All is well?
I didn’t think so. A thousand ships were at our doorstep and about to pass over it.

“Ready every weapon system,” I said grimly. “Miklos, launch the assault squadrons.
I want half of them out in space, and half of them on reserve. Get them into position
now.”

“Yes sir.”

I felt a touch at my elbow then. It was such a light contact, I almost didn’t notice
it. But I looked down and saw Jasmine’s dark eyes staring back.

“Can I talk to you a moment?” she asked quietly.

I thought about it. We had twenty minutes or so before the first enemy ship came through
the ring. Our scouts had already pulled back to our side. The battle was about to
begin, but this was definitely the calm before the storm.

I nodded to her, and she led me out into the corridor. I looked around guiltily, but
didn’t see Sandra. I looked back down at Jasmine. Her face was wreathed in worry.

“Do you think this is it?” she asked me.

“You mean are we going to lose? No.”

She studied my face, and gave me a flickering smile. “You’re a good liar,” she said.
“What helps is that you do it so quickly. People tend to believe a response when it’s
fast and certain.”

I almost demanded that she tell me what this was about. My second thought was to simply
order her back to her post. But I hesitated. I figured maybe she wanted some final
contact with me before we both died. It was a natural enough thing, I guess.

“Listen,” I said quietly. “I wish things had gone differently, but…”

She frowned, then laughed for a moment. “That’s not why we’re out here. I wanted to
tell you a theory of mine. It might be very wrong. I’m not sold on it myself, but
it would answer some questions.”

I felt a little let-down. I’d been mentally gearing up for a serious goodbye kiss,
at the very least.

“Okay, tell me,” I said.

“Could it be the Blues meant that the Macros are counting us as allied too?” she asked.

I stared at her. “Why would they do that?”

“Maybe that’s how they operate. Maybe they said Star Force surrendered to the Blues,
something like that. That would mark us as friendly in their minds.”

“Even after all we’ve done?”

“You’ve taught me how the machines think. They won’t judge us by our past actions
the way a human would. They’re smart, but not that way.”

I thought about it, and agreed. “You might be onto something,” I said. “We’ve got
to change our plans.”

I began to turn and march back to the bridge. My mind was whirling. I was trying to
come up with a way to test Jasmine’s theory as quickly as possible. I had to stand
down the fleet. We couldn’t fire on the Macros without breaking any possible deal
the Blues had worked out for us. But at the same time, it would be a disaster if we
trusted the machines and everyone held their fire until they came in so close we couldn’t
stop them.

Jasmine’s small hand tugged at my armored elbow, and I paused, turning back around.

“Did you think of something else?” I asked.

She kissed me then. It was only a quick one, but I enjoyed it.

“You shouldn’t do stuff like that,” I said, protesting weakly. “Sandra will freak
out if she catches us.”

“If you wanted this to be such a secret, you shouldn’t stare at my ass all the time,”
she replied. “Even the robot noticed.”

I gave her a guilty nod. I had to admit, she had a good point there.

-34-

We spent the next several long hours traveling away from the sun. We had to beat the
Macros to the battle station if we were going to meet them there with an effective
defense. The G-forces were brutal as we were under heavy acceleration. Fortunately,
my people were tougher than normal humans in this regard. None of them even complained
about the discomfort.

Jasmine had given me new hope. I decided it was a big gamble, but worth a try. When
things looked really, really bad, I tended to take bigger risks. The further down
I was, the bigger the bet had to get me back into the game. The trick was to win the
game in the end, no matter how you did it.

“Miklos,” I said, “does every ship have positional orders for the coming conflict?”

“Yes sir, we had plenty of time to distribute those orders. They aren’t in formation
now, but they will be as soon as we’ve achieved a stable orbit near the ring.”

I checked the external view. The fleet was rapidly decelerating and trying to synch
up with one another and slide into Hel’s orbit. The gunships surrounded my destroyer,
all flaring exhaust out in long plumes. We’d gotten here as fast as we could, and
that meant pulling a lot of Gs in acceleration and deceleration. My teeth still hurt,
and my eyeballs felt like they were too big for their sockets. My crewmen probably
felt worse than I did, but none of them complained. The need for speed was obvious
to everyone.

“Give me one ship you can spare,” I told Miklos. “Something we don’t really need.
Don’t worry about the crew, we’ll let them off. I’m just talking about sacrificing
the ship itself.”

Miklos and several other staffers looked up and frowned at me. Only Jasmine nodded.
I think she understood what I had in mind.

“Ah…yes, sir,” Miklos said, scrambling to comply with my odd request. “I don’t want
to give up a gunship or a destroyer. It would have to be either a frigate, one of
the last small Nano ships we have, or a transport. Which would you rather…sacrifice?”

That was a hard choice. The transports could save lives with their medical facilities
and could even be used for invasions or evacuations. The Nano ships, however, each
had a lot of nanites in them, with specialized equipment and long range lasers. Those
lasers represented firepower that could shoot down incoming enemy missiles. We didn’t
have enough defensive fire like that in the fleet.