Rebellion Ebook Full Read Online Free PDF

wanted to work near his cubicle, but if you let him snap himself until his skin was red, he would produce code that worked every time.
    “How about three propulsion units?” Gorski negotiated at last when he was done sucking his teeth. “One big one for thrust, then two smaller ones that rotate around the center for directional control.”
    “Why not just one?”
    He shook his head. “Because it will take too long to reposition. If they need to avoid an incoming missile or make fine adjustments when making their final approach, a single large unit couldn’t realign fast enough.”
    I nodded and agreed with his plan. We would go with three repellers for the assault ships. Once we had the design set, we set our surviving factories to build the needed components. If we had time after the first eight were perfect, we would build more. Next, we gave the nanite hulls their shaping instructions. It was like molding clay. I ran my gloves over the hulls, shaping it and guiding it into the shape I wanted. It was easier to do it that way than to explain to some dull-witted brainbox what you wanted in English. Once you had the nanite walls shaped, you could just tell them to remember the shape and they could reconfigure into that form perfectly. Smart metal was a wonderful thing.
    I climbed inside the first assault ship. It was sleek, and I felt a certain sense of pride in the design. Gorski felt it too, and followed me into the interior. The ship was designed with two rows of seats facing one another. Nanite arms were all I needed for harnesses. With a single, shaped-metal chair for the pilot up front and the big laser, the generator and the engine in back, the shuttle was straightforward in purpose and design. All it needed was a pilot and a platoon of marines in the seats, and we were in business.
    “Push that wall out, and smooth every surface with a gentle curve,” I told him.
    “To provide structural integrity?” he asked.
    I shook my head. “If we take a hard hit in one of these things, the men are all dead anyway, but I don’t want them smashing into hard edges if the ride gets bumpy. Even if everything goes perfectly, they are likely to slam their helmets into these walls when they impact with the target. Let’s not give them anything to injure themselves on.”
    There was a central rib that pressed into the hull like a belt around the entire ship. This was the track the directional repeller would move along. I took time with my gloved hands to guide the nanites over it, covering it with glittering particles. I felt like a sculptor. I supposed, in a way, that’s what I was.
    When we were finally satisfied with the design, we only had room for twenty marines in each ship. That meant a total force of one hundred and sixty marines in eight assault ships. It sounded like an absurdly small force, but I had to remind myself these were not the only men I had going out there. In fact, these few might be the lucky ones. Most of my troops would not be this well-protected. They would be going solo in a cloud behind these assault ships.
    The second day we spent designing the solo capsules. They amounted to a bullet-shaped cocoon of nanites wrapped around each marine. A flat disk under each man’s feet was a repeller, his only means of propulsion. Gorski and I designed these in less than an hour and set the factories to churning out the only elements we needed more of: the disk-shaped mini-repellers and a tiny brainbox for each to control it.
    Gorski and I eyed one another. I saw the guilt in his eyes. I felt it too.
    “These are death-traps,” he said quietly.
    “I know, Captain,” I said.
    He blinked at me. “Captain? I was a sergeant two days ago, Colonel. And I believe you might have skipped over first lieutenant.”
    “Yeah,” I said, running my hands over the interior of the capsule, looking for rough edges to smooth out. “But anyone who effectively helps me with design gets rank in my outfit. Besides, remember