We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 3: Chapter 66: Battle Continues

Book 3: Chapter 66: Battle Continues

Bill

April 2257

Sol

I turned as Will popped back in. “How’s it going in the Bellerophon?”

He gave me a sickly smile. “You wouldn’t want to be in the cargo bays with the humans. Neil and Herschel are taking care of it as best they can. Imagine roamers running around with vacuum cleaners in their claws...”

The unexpected image made me smile, but the levity only lasted a moment. Constant updates from the battle brought me back to reality.

“We’re being slowly pushed back, Will. And I think they’ve detected the Bellerophon. It looks like they’re trying to maneuver some Death Asteroids to get a clear shot at Earth.”

“At Earth, or at the Bellerophon?”

“Good question. I guess I don’t actually know. Although I can’t see them figuring out what we’re doing, from this distance.”

“Well, either way, let’s see if we can keep them busy.” Matching actions to words, Will marched over to the status displays. He pointed to the deployment graphic. “They don’t care about zapping us, of course, but they need to have a clear shot with none of their own forces in the way. That means no Others’ defenders between the Death Asteroid and Earth. How can we exploit that?”

“Kill them a lot?”

Will smirked at me. “Can you be more specific?”

“That’s going to weaken our overall defense, Will.”

“I know, Bill.” He shrugged. “But if we lose the Bellerophon, like you said, none of the rest of it really matters.”

Bobs shifted their focus immediately. The area around the Death Asteroids began to look like a Star Wars battle scene, at least on the displays. At the distances we were working with, and in vacuum, the reality was less visually dramatic.

We weren’t able to completely stop the Death Asteroids. They got off several more zaps, and Thor faithfully reported the coordinates to the Bellerophon. But we were definitely bothering them, and a couple of the zaps went extremely wide, to the point that we considered scanning for something we might have missed.

Then, success. Two nukes managed to float in close enough at almost the same time. Twin explosions saturated the cameras for several seconds. When the view cleared, the last of the Death Asteroids attempting to zap the Earth were gone. A cheer went up from all the Bobs present.

Will grinned at me. “It’s not victory yet, of course, but at least we can turn our resources back to the main push. How’s that going, by the way?”

“We’re still being pushed back, Will.” I shook my head. “And we’re running out of options.”

Will came over to look at the status monitors.

“Crap. Well, maybe we can get back on top of it, now. I’ll go check with the other groups, if you’re good here for now.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t hopeful. We might, once again, be depending on a Hail Mary play. Which, by the way, hadn’t worked out, last time, in Delta Pavonis.