Empire Ebook Full by B. V. Larson

tumbling in orbit below us. If I had to guess, I would say it’s in decay and
     will crash into the surface of Hel after a few more passes.”
    “A fitting end for those bastards,” Sandra said with feeling.
    “Yes,” I said, frowning fiercely in my helmet. “But what I want to know is: what knocked
     out a dreadnaught after we were already on our knees?”

-9-

    We spent the next several hours cleaning house. We destroyed around thirty Macro technicians
     who were involved in various acts of mischief. They were clearly trying to disable
     any defensive systems we might have left, in preparation for some kind of more significant
     assault.
    What had me worried were the nine or so cruisers that were still out there somewhere.
     They’d had enough time to put on the brakes and turn around. We only had a few hours
     until the main fleet returned, but those hours were going to be long and uncertain.
    “What’s coming next, Colonel?” asked Welter.
    “We’ll find out soon enough,” I said with firm confidence. What I didn’t mention was how we were going to find out. I figured we’d find out when the Macros bothered to clue
     us in on their time schedule of operations. Our tactical situation was beyond grim,
     and I was left with a powerful sense of unease. As our own skeletal crew assembled,
     the rest of my Marines were increasingly pleased as our numbers grew—but I felt our
     forces were pathetic. There were only nine humans plus Marvin left alive on the station.
     The Macros had clearly written us off, not even bothering to pretend we were a credible
     threat.
    “Kyle, I’ve got enough power to operate the primary transmitters now, can’t we just
     contact Fleet and let them know we’re still alive?”
    I looked at Sandra for a second and shook my head. “Best to stay quiet for now. We’ll
     use passive sensors with shielded power. Play dead. When our ships come nosing around,
     we’ll signal them then.”
    “What if the ships aren’t ours?”
    I shrugged and smiled. “Then I suppose we’ll continue to lie low.”
    It was bothering everyone, this business of not knowing what had happened. For all
     we knew, the Macros had pressed on toward the inner planets. We’d destroyed most of
     them, but they still had enough fleet power to do us a lot of damage.
    “I’ll tell you what we will do,” I said, looking around the crowd of dirty, dispirited
     faces. “Sandra, Marvin and you two, go to the damaged deep-com section, and set up
     an antenna. Make sure it isn’t anything the Macros might notice. And for heaven’s
     sake don’t transmit anything, not even an acknowledging blip. With luck, we’ll pick
     up traffic from Fleet and at least be able to glean data on recent events.”
    This idea pleased everyone. At least I’d given them something sensible to do. They
     set about immediately and eagerly. We all wanted to know what the hell had happened.
    “The rest of you follow Welter,” I said. “Commander, I want you to try to get the
     weapons batteries working again, one at a time. Let’s start with the systems disabled
     by the original EMP blast. They’re still intact, except for nanites and power. The
     Macros never bothered to target most of them during the battle.”
    It took hours, but we finally had some pieces rigged up. The heavy beams were all
     destroyed, but we managed to get one railgun battery up and ready. The antenna Sandra
     and Marvin constructed was built of metal rods like rebar from inside the station,
     which gave it the look of a twisted flag of wreckage. It worked well, despite its
     trashed appearance.
    I’d returned to the bridge, as it was well-protected and wired for command and control
     to the entire station. We had some power back, and about half the screens were lit
     with a soft bluish glow. The holotank was still dead, however, and most of the screens
     were blank because the corresponding camera feeds were down.
    Scratchy transmissions came in from Fleet