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.I’ll put a company right here, one outside the bridge and set the rest as a reserve guard force in case they do get in.”I nodded and blessed his ideas.They were sound.He stomped away, arranging his forces.Another twenty minutes passed, and I was surprised no firing had begun.I returned to the bridge.“We’ve fired two drones at the last two incoming ship-killer missiles,” said Gorski.He was back in his chair nearby.His eyes never left his computer and his fingers never stopped tapping at it as he spoke.“We’ll have another six drones ready in less than an hour.”“The shuttles are still slowing down, sir,” Sarin told me.“They are clearly planning to match our course and speed so they can land on our hull.”“Range?” I asked.“We can almost reach them,” Gorski said.“Let’s turn around then,” I said.“Sir, something—” Sarin said, her voice rising.She didn’t have to tell me.I felt the shock.It was small, but unmistakable.“What hit us?” I asked.“I don’t know sir.Some kind of beam—the shuttles are firing on us!”“Hull integrity?”“No breach, sir,” Sarin said.“Bring us around now,” I ordered.The two of them worked the controls.It seemed to take a long time.I clenched my teeth as I felt the ship tremor with three more impacts.“Are they in range yet?” I asked.“Put up a range plot and a timer based on current velocity.”Sarin worked hard on the screen settings.It seemed to take too long.The ship shuddered five more times.I heard a beeping in my helmet.It was Kwon.“Hold on, Kwon,” I said on the command channel.“I’ve got it, sir,” Sarin said.I saw an orange, fan-shaped region appear in front of the cruiser’s nose.This was our ships firing cone.The color was brighter near the ship, which I immediately interpreted as our strongest firepower.Further out, it quickly faded to nothing.I could tell right away we didn’t have much range.The enemy ships were a good distance away from that cone, but we were already getting hit.“They out range us,” I said, watching in panic as they slowed further.“They can sit outside our reach and snipe us to death.”I heard another beeping in my helmet.“Go ahead, Kwon,” I said.“Sir, my turrets are falling off the ship when you made that turn,” he said.“What?” I asked frowning.“I’ve lost contact with eleven of them.”I suddenly got the message.“The Macros are knocking out our turrets.They’ll take them all out, then invade.Damn.”“We could turn around again until they get in range,” Gorski suggested.I shook my head.“They can see them or sense them somehow.They will just snipe at our engines if we let them.They are in no hurry.We don’t have anything to hit them with.”“We’ll have another drone in time to fire at them,” Gorski said.“Or we could throw mines.”“We’re going to need those mines.There’s no evidence the ones we threw at them hit anything, is there?”“No sir.”I turned back to the board.Another tiny shock rattled the ship.I realized I didn’t have any choices left.I was out-ranged, and they were stripping away the small armament that I had.I could tell, without Sarin spoon-feeding the data to me, the enemy shuttles had slowed down to a crawl now in relative speeds.I would have done the same.When you outranged an enemy, you sat back and pounded him.I had no interest in being softened up any further.“Full ahead,” I ordered.“Charge them.Let’s get into range before they destroy every turret we set up.”I felt the ship move under my feet and had to grip the computer table with my hands.The acceleration had to be tremendous to feel it so strongly while the inertial dampeners were functioning.“Kwon!” I shouted over the engines, which were thrumming loudly now.“Get your men inside the hull and tell them invaders are likely.”“Right sir!” Kwon shouted back excitedly.If I hadn’t been facing sixty-four angry robots I would have laughed.He sounded like a kid let loose in a video game store.-29-We’d lost about eighty percent of our laser turrets by the time we got into range a few minutes later.The ship rocked and shuddered with the impact of the enemy beams.At that point, the four Macro assault shuttles blossomed.It looked like they’d come apart into a mass of red dots.“Did we knock them all out at once?” I asked in amazement.Major Sarin shook her head and frowned.“We are close enough for a visual, Colonel.”She dialed up a close-up of the Macro formation.I watched and immediately felt a sinking sensation.The assault ships were not at all what I’d expected.Rather than being single, sleek vessels with solid hulls, they looked like networks of struts covered with systems and filled with Macros.We could actually see the Macros they carried, exposed inside the cage-like ships.The Macro marines were self-mobile.As I watched in shock, they began lifting off from the framework shuttles they were riding.They flew under individual propulsion away from the skeletal assault ships, resembling a swarm of wasps.They came at us with their blue-white engine trails glaring behind them.“The shuttles look like one of those trucks that carry cars,” Gorski said.I nodded in agreement.The enemy ships did resemble truck trailers.They were little more than thick rails with specialized Macros clamping onto them.“Zoom in on one of the marines if you can,” I said.Major Sarin fiddled with the controls.I marveled at her precision.She was much better with these touch systems than I was.Soon our visual was tracking a single Macro.It came in jinking and slewing about from side to side.The head rotated with insectile movements and obvious intelligence.The large nozzle in the face was probably some kind of boring laser.I watched our beams slide past it, drawing lines flickering lines in space.These should have been invisible in the void, but the beams were hitting something.Then I saw the Macro marine had stopped firing its engines.Now it was squirting material around itself.Whatever the stuff was, it looked gaseous.The image of the Macro marine became obscured behind this growing cloud.“What the heck is that?” I asked.“Unknown,” Gorski said.“I would guess it’s some kind of aerosol or gel.Its purpose appears to be defensive.”“Are you telling me it’s squirting out particles to form a shield against laser strikes?” I demanded.“They are making shields against our beams?”“It would appear so.”“Why doesn’t it just fly through it?”“Well—”“Never mind,” I said, having already thought it through.The enemy Macro wasn’t accelerating anymore.Anything it threw out in front of itself would move away from it in space, as there was no air resistance to push it back.If you were to hang out your driver’s side window and squirt paint forward on Earth, it would naturally fire back and splatter you.But in space there was no air to push back
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