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We scanned it the moment it emerged, of course. I examined every reading, and everything
showed green. The ship was armed, but it wasn’t a flying bomb stuffed with fusion
warheads. There were radioactive elements aboard, but that was to be expected. The
type and amount of dangerous components wasn’t out of the norm for a cruiser of this
size. If it did fire a missile into our base at extremely close range, it would definitely
damage us, but at the cost of having us destroy a nice ship. I was confident in the
layered armor and layered systems in my battle station. We could withstand a hard
blow if it came down to that. I didn’t think we had any choice, we had to let him
come close to talk to us. The risk of an attack was small, and was worth the chance
of normalizing relations with these prickly neutrals.

The alien ship decelerated rapidly as it made its final approach. It had been slowing
down for hours, as if it intended to dock when it reached our station. The design
was new to me and oddly-shaped. Rather than a geometric configuration, or even a symmetrical
one, the ship had humps here and there seemingly at random. It looked off-balance,
but I supposed to the Crustaceans it was sleek and beautiful.

“The ship is passing through the primary minefield,” Welter said, adjusting the tracking
controls on the holographic tank.

I looked around at my crew with a new thought. Most of them weren’t doing anything
other than standing around watching. “Staff, I want everyone to scatter. Sandra and
Welter, you stay here. Lester, head down to engineering. Pramrod, get yourself to
maintenance. The rest of you, choose a weapons battery and set up camp. You can sip
coffee and watch the secondary screens from there.”

They stared at me for a second, then picked up their things and shuffled out of their
seats. No one questioned me aloud, but there were a large number of baffled looks.
I frowned. They were well-trained, but too slow for my taste.

 “
Move
, people!” I roared suddenly, clapping my hands together. “In ten seconds, I don’t
want to see so much as your suited butts walking away. I want you all
gone
.”

 This got their attention. Everyone rushed out of the bridge and jostled into the
various corridors and elevators that led out to remote parts of the station. After
they’d left, I noticed Sandra was watching me rather than the holotank. The Lobster
ship was about half way between the ring and the station.

“What was all that about, Kyle?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. But when I saw Marvin take himself out of here, it occurred
to me that maybe he was smarter than the rest of us. What if you only had one ship,
and could only make one suicidal attack? Where would you hit us?”

She looked at me, her eyes widening. “The bridge?”

“Why not?”

“But they can’t know—” Sandra began.

“Alien ship docking in ninety seconds,” Welter interrupted in a loud, but calm voice.
He was at the helmsman’s post even though the battle station wasn’t capable of independent
flight. He could still adjust its tilt and yaw, swinging its massive girth in space.
These controls were designed to bring fresh weaponry to bear in a serious fight, when
one side of the station might be scorched and battered. I hoped to never find out
if those rotational systems would operate as planned under fire.

Sandra glanced at him, then back to me. She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper.
“They can’t know we only have a handful of people aboard.”

“No, they can’t,” I said. “But maybe they do anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for
a peaceful chat with them. Maybe they’ve realized it’s time to start kissing human
behinds for protection. I can respect that. But they attacked us before, and forgive
me if I’m not willing to let them sucker-punch us twice in a row.”

She nodded, and together we watched as the ship slowed to crawl in front of us and
came in to dock. The external cameras cut out and regional optics in the belly section
took up the feed as the ship came very close. Finally, the holotank showed the ship
had merged with us, and the only camera that could pick it up was the one in the landing
bay itself. Located like a drawer in the gut of the station, the bay doors yawned
wide to receive it.

I signaled for Sandra to open a channel to the Crustacean ship.

“You’ve arrived, Ambassador,” I said. “Now that you’re here, perhaps you can at least
tell us your name?”

The viewscreen responded with a bluish glow that grew until I could make out the outline
of a Crustacean sitting in a chamber that bubbled and surged with floating debris.
I knew in an instant the creature was in a tank full of seawater. Flecks like brownish
snowflakes drifted in swirls around its antennae. The Ambassador was dimly lit, as
was comfortable for him, I imagined. A deep sea creature would not be accustomed to
bright light.

“Ambassador?” the alien said. “Yes. That title could be construed as appropriate.
I am a Senior Fellow, a female of the Fifth Rank. I have bestowed great honor upon
you by coming here, by allowing you to view my person. Are you capable of comprehending
the magnitude of the gift my physical presence represents?”

I felt a sudden tightness in my shoulders. These arrogant shellfish really had a way
of getting to you. I forced a smile, trying to see the funny side of it all. I took
a breath and relaxed, deciding to play along.

“We are overwhelmed, your worship,” I said. “Words can’t express how pleased we are
with your magnificence.”

The antennae waved for a moment, then floated a trifle higher in the water around
the ambassador’s thorny head. I suspected the translation was just coming in, and
she liked it.

“Excellent. It is best that the lesser creatures grasp the magnitude of the sacrifice
they are about to witness. Anything else would be inappropriate.”

My smile slipped away as I tried to decipher the creature’s meaning. Oftentimes, aliens
used idioms and wandering patterns of speech that didn’t make sense at first, until
you got to know them.

“Perhaps it’s time we get down to the purpose of your mission,” I said. “Please Enlighten
us.”

The antennae moved again, then stilled. “Agreed,” said the aquatic creature.

I opened my mouth to say something else, but within an instant the thought was driven
forever from my mind. From that day to this, I’m unable to recall what I’d been about
to say.

Because in that fraction of a second, the Crustacean Ambassador’s ship exploded.

-3-

In the first few moments after the explosion, I’d smiled grimly. The ruse had been
a good one:  they’d gotten in close and blown a hole in our central hold. But the
attack was far from fatal. In fact, it was rather pathetic. I calculated it had to
be less than a megaton warhead by the way the station only shivered, rather than swayed
and shook under my feet.

“Well, we’ve been ‘enlightened’, all right,” Welter said.

I nodded. “I don’t see what their objective—” I began, but I didn’t finish.

Every system on the bridge dimmed, and then died. My sentence died with the equipment.
It took several seconds for the change to work itself through the instrumentation
and power systems. Our jaws sagged and our heads swiveled this way and that.
Everything
was dying, or was already dead.

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.

“Some kind of system virus?” Sandra offered. Her eyes were big and I saw something
there I’d rarely seen in her since the battle for Andros Island: fear.

“I don’t know what it is,” Welter said, fighting the controls, “but I think the corruption
is affecting the entire station.”

As we spoke, the central holotank went dark and the nanites inside slid down into
a fine gray sand at the bottom of the vessel. I stared at them. It was as if they
had all suddenly been shut off. Trillions of nanites…

“EMP blast?” I asked aloud.

“Either that, or a very fast-acting virus,” Welter answer.

“Sandra, order the systems to isolate themselves.”

“I’ve been trying to do that, but the primary console is not responding, Kyle. We’re
cut off.”

I nodded and slammed my fist down on the console. It dented slightly, a common side
effect after being smashed by an angry officer with altered musculature. This was
nothing new to me, but two details struck through as unusual. First of all, the console
didn’t reinflate itself like a balloon, returning to its original form. Secondly,
smashing my fist down on the metal surface
hurt
.

I lifted my gauntleted hand and blinked at it. Nanites and blood trickled together
down from my arm. It looked like a mix of fresh red paint and mercury. The flight
suits I’d designed for comfortable service-work aboard the station were made primarily
of nanite fabric. As I watched, the nanites were disintegrating. I realized that the
nanites in my body were dying too, turning to waste metals in my bloodstream. I had
to be careful, they could reach toxic levels. We all needed fresh nanites if only
to dig the old ones out. Otherwise, they could form deadly clots.

“We should have reported the transgression to Earth when we had the chance,” Welter
complained. “Now, our communications have been knocked out and we can’t tell anyone
what hit us.”

I glared at him for a moment. “Every time an alarm goes off on this station, in the
back of my mind, I think of Earth first. But our relations with our homeworld have
gone badly since I refused Crow’s recall order. I’ve sent messages, loads of them.
Diplomatic apologies, explanations and even full reports—but there’s been no response.
I requested reinforcements just last week. No answer.”

Commander Welter didn’t say anything. I knew the silence from Earth had everyone on
my command staff tense. After all, we were supposedly Earth’s border guards. What
did it mean to that mission, if Earth wouldn’t even talk to us? My people weren’t
sure what it all meant, but they knew it couldn’t be good. Some had been whispering,
speculating that Earth had been lost to another Macro fleet coming from the Blue giant
system, via the Venus ring. I rejected this. I was sure Crow would have sent a new
message in such a situation, begging for our aid if he was in real trouble.

But he hadn’t. He’d stopped sending requests and reports out to us. He hadn’t responded
to our queries, so I’d stopped sending them myself. Now, we were in a sort of diplomatic
limbo. Everyone was wondering and waiting. It was beginning to eat at my men. On this
side of the war, some muttered that we’d built the battle station on the wrong end
of the chain of rings, that we should have put it on the side facing Earth. I’d done
my best to make sure such talk was squashed, but I’d never managed to stop the conversation
in dimly lit passages. The talk had lowered to a dark murmur, but had never entirely
gone away.

Sandra cursed about two minutes after the EMP blast first hit us, causing Welter and
I to look at her. Her clothing unraveled before our eyes. I realized then that my
own outfit was slipping away from me. Everyone’s body-hugging clothing was falling
apart. It was as if we we’d all been wearing strips of cloth taped to our bodies and
the tape had suddenly let go all at once. The adhesion of the fabric was gone. The
nanocloth unwrapped itself, billions of components relaxing in death. They fell to
the floor around us and we stood in thin, sheer undergarments. I reflected it was
lucky most of us still wore undergarments.

Sandra kicked at her clothing and clucked her tongue in disgust. “Treacherous little
bastards. When you really need them, they shut off on you.”

“They aren’t the traitors here,” I said. “The Crustaceans did this on purpose. They
hit us with something, and we have to assume the whole station is knocked out of action.
Have we got any old tech lying around? Something as simple as a transistor radio?”

A bit of scrambling went on, and Welter found it first. I’d placed primitive tech
systems here and there all over the station. I’d always suspected too much nano-based
tech was vulnerable to an attack that neutralized it. In the tradition of the Macros
themselves, I had backup systems. They were woefully inadequate however, allowing
only basic communications.

Within a minute, I had an emergency handset in my fingers. I tried to raise the rest
of the crew in their remote locations but got no response. I turned the com system
out toward space next. We still had two ships out there and I wanted to talk to them.

“This is P-niner, calling base, please respond.”

“Pilot?” I asked, grabbing the microphone from Welter’s hand. It felt strange to grasp
simple molded plastic again. “Identify yourself.”

“I’m Marine Lieutenant Becker, sir,” said a female voice. The radio crackled, but
it worked.

“Okay Becker. Good to hear your voice. What is your status?”

“My ship is fine. I seem to have been outside the range of whatever effect damaged
the station.”

“What did you witness, Becker? Any clue what hit us?”

“No sir, not exactly. There was an energy surge—like a small explosion. My guess is
it was an electromagnetic wave generated by the Lobster ship. They suckered us, sir.
Is the battle station operational?”