Free Swarm by B. V. Larson

to defend one ship is a different matter.”
    “How do we figure out who is targeted?”
    I told him about telling the ship to color your own vessel. “The one being targeted should tell everyone else. That way, we will have the target ship’s name. The rest of us can tell our ships to move toward the targeted ship and cover them.”
    “Good plan, mate!” Crow laughed again. Some of the harshness and confidence was gone from the laugh, however. He sounded a little nervous. I didn’t blame him. Who wasn’t nervous at this point?
    I heard him shout for quiet on the public channel. He gave them the instructions, telling them to sing out if their ship was the one under fire. Before we managed all this, a third ship blew up. Finally, the red lines were on everyone’s wall.
    “Right!” shouted Crow. “Talk to me people, don’t be shy. Who is next on the death list?”
    No one answered.
    “Enemy in range in four minutes,” said the Alamo .
    “Dammit, talk to me before it blows us all up!” screamed Crow.
    “Jack?” I said.
    “What now, Riggs?”
    “Did you color your ship yet?”
    “No, I’ve been too damned busy with your cocked-up plan to—”
    “Jack, it’s you. If no one else can see it’s targeting them, then it must be the one who hasn’t done it yet.”
    One second of silence, then: “Everyone, order your ships to cluster around the Snapper . Do it now.”
    “Alamo, move close to the Snapper ,” I said. “Do it as fast as you can.”
    The fourth little red contact had almost reached us. I watched as, sluggishly, a dozen or so ships moved to cover what must have been the Snapper . Sandra and I watched with our teeth clenched. I hoped I’d guessed right. What if our ships couldn’t shoot down these incoming weapons? What if instead Jack’s ship took us all out in the resulting explosion because we were too close?
    We didn’t have long to wait. Our ship began to shudder. I knew the sensation, it had happened every time the ship fired its beams.
    “Is that our ship shooting? Or are we being hit?” asked Sandra.
    “I think if we were hit, we’d be toast. Our ship is automatically firing at the incoming weapon.”
    The red dot grew very close. It was pointless, but I clenched every muscle in my body. I couldn’t help it.
    Suddenly, the sensation of firing stopped, and the red weapon contact was gone. I couldn’t tell with the intermingling of ships if there was one missing or not.
    “Jack? Jack Crow, are you still there?”
    “Yeah. I’m here. Who’s next? Talk to me.”
    “Enemy in range in three minutes,” said the Alamo .
    More panic people identified themselves. We ordered our ships to gather around each in turn. As we closed with the enemy, the enemy rate of fire seemed to be increasing. The big red ship was retreating now, slowly at first, but picking up speed.
    “They are pulling out, let’s go after them!” shouted Crow. “Everyone, order your ships forward. Increase speed.”
    We chased them, still blowing up each missile as it came in. It only caught one more ship, a woman who screamed and howled for us to get close. She was too far out and hadn’t clustered like the rest of us. Clearly, she hadn’t followed Jack’s orders.
    “See?” demanded Crow as her contact vanished and her cries for help were cut off. “See what happens when we don’t all work together? She was a rogue, and she acted like one, and now she’s dead. We couldn’t save her because she wouldn’t work with the group.”
    I worked on creating a program to cluster around the targeted ship. By giving our ships a carefully worded set of commands, they should automatically move to protect the one that was targeted.
    Soon, we were in range of the big red bastard itself. I wished, right then, that I knew just what it looked like. Our ship began firing. So did the others, according to the reports. We circled around the ship and engulfed it. The big ship tried to pull out, to run, but we were all over it.