by Gray Lanter
It was late. I figured I could use a good night’s sleep. I had a glass of wine with Astrid before going to bed.
Chapter 3
I figured I would not have a peaceful sleep, but I had a dreamless night and didn’t wake up until Astrid tapped me on the shoulder the next morning. She was already in her crisp blue uniform.
“You’re wanted,” she said.
“Can’t be. It’s too early. I’m sure our second in command can handle the problem.”
“The Admiral wants you.”
I sighed and hastily threw on some clothes. I went to my desk and flicked on the screen. The grim face of the admiral stared at me.
“You have an emergency?” I said.
“Not an emergency, major. An incident. More specifically we have a space drone heading for us. It’s still a long ways away but there’s not supposed to be any vehicles in this region of space.”
“Another one of those surprises space always has for us.”
“Yes, we have our shields up and we have the defensive screens up. I’m assuming this drone can track us, or at least send back coordinates to its masters. But with our screens up I doubt it could penetrate. It might fly right past us and not know we’re here.”
“Can we get it on our scanners?”
The admiral shook his head. “It’s so far away we can’t get a picture of it. On a screen it would look like minuscule spot of dust. I must assume it may be looking for us.”
“That thought popped into my mind too. Our opponents have lost a ship, which I’m sure was totally unexpected. But they don’t know who destroyed their ship, although I assume the gold guys may have been in communication with their masters. So after losing a ship, they are sending out drones to find their enemies.”
“That makes sense.”
I frowned. “OK, I’ll be on the bridge in a minute.”
Astrid gave me a crooked smile. “Duty calls.”
“Yes, you know I’m beginning to regret that the retirement thing didn’t work out. Maybe we should try that again.”
She moved over and kissed me. “Maybe we should just call it a vacation. You’ll last about two months in retirement. I’m different than that.”
“Yes, you could have lasted three months in retirement.”
“Think I’m ready for six months in retirement.”
Chapter 4
On the bridge the admiral stared at a huge screen. Unless his eyes were better than mine, he just saw the blackness of space with a few silver, small stars in the background. He raised his hand and pointed at the edge of the picture.
“A small dark object at the northwest corner of the screen. It’s not heading toward us but is traveling in this direction. However, it’s still a long way away. It will take days to get here at the current speed.”
He did have better eyes than I did. I didn’t see a thing.
“Let’s make sure our shields and screens are working to perfection and then let’s amble over toward it, very carefully.”
“You have something in mind.”
“Nothing dramatic. I think we have to take a chance that it won’t pick us up on sensors. This ship should be invisible to the most sophisticated, ultra-high tech space battle drones in the galaxy. So one little drone shouldn’t pick us up.”
“It may be small, but it could be very advanced. We don’t know the full details of the technology of the Destroyers.”
“Yes, that’s a problem, but this is one time when we need to take a chance. If the drone doesn’t pick us up, then it will relay messages back to its headquarters that there is nothing out here. Nothing but black, empty space. That should allay their fears, if they have emotions that is. And it should help to persuade them that the ship that destroyed their fellow gold guys is now heading back to whatever it came. It should calm their gold-coated cyber-nerves, thus preserving our element of surprise.”
The admiral nodded. He looked at the navigational crew. “You heard him, boys. Amber over. Let’s see what it looks like. Maybe we can gain some information just by looking at it. Let me know if anything... unusual happens.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 5
For all of its explosive properties, the planet buster bomb looked pretty much like a routine, non-planet buster bomb. If you’ve seen one bomb I suppose you’ve seen them all. It looked like bloated torpedo, only bigger. It was about six feet, dark gray, with a slight point on one end. It looked totally innocuous. Of course, the first atomic bomb looked innocuous too.
Capt. Anson sat with me but didn’t look happy. But he didn’t gripe or, emotionally, drag his feet. After a brief hesitation, he smiled and you couldn’t tell if he voted with the majority or with the minority. I appreciated that. It showed integrity.
“It doesn’t look all that dramatic,” I said.
“It doesn’t have to. Our scientists weren’t worried about public relations. They just wanted a big boom when it hits the ground. I’ve been looking over the science. The first time is always iffy. But in theory it should work. Of course, there’s always a chance there will be only a plunk when it hits the ground. But as far as I can tell, the science is solid.”
“We only have one?”
“No one expected they’d need more than one. Would there be two planets you wanted to blow up?”
I nodded. “Yes. What’s the range? How far can we get away before it goes boom?”
“About one hundred miles. By the time it hits the earth, we should be in hyper-space.”
“That’s a long way; a hundred miles. It won’t veer off during the descent?”
“It shouldn’t. You can fire it fifty miles if you like. Or twenty miles if you like. We should be gone by the time it hits the ground.”
I stared and looked at the bomb for a minute. As a military man I am very familiar with guns and other armaments. They don’t bother me a bit. I can put them together and take them apart. Astrid is the nearest and dearest person to me in the galaxy. I have discovered she is an integral part of my life. She has smilingly told me that she has to die first because she doesn’t want to go on alone without me. I feel the same way about her. I do not want to imagine waking up without having her at my side. And every time I start thinking that way, I consider retirement again. The job is too risky for a married man.
But as for inanimate objects, I am most familiar and comfortable with weapons. Many people recoil from them and I can understand that. But I’m as comfortable with a laser rifle and other weapons in my hand as I am with a golf club. And I’m considerably better with weapons, if my last golf score is any indication.
This dumpy-looking thing, for all the massive destruction it could wreak, could possibly save our civilization and everything we held dear.
God bless those scientists.
“Captain, we were pulling a lot of information from Ralph, correct?”
“Yes, and we retrieve some info from the wreckage of the gold ship. Some basic facts about the home planet, things like that. Nothing exceptional and, sadly, nothing that might help us defeat our enemies.”
“Come back with me to my office. I want to ask you something.”
Chapter 6
Anson followed me as we trekked back to my office where my desk was as messy as always. At times Astrid cleans it up and dusts. Dust doesn’t really bother me unless there’s a mile-high pile of it covering papers. It gets to Astrid long before that. When it hits her red zone, she tells me to take any papers that are valuable and put them in a safe place ‘Now!’. I generally say ‘yes, ma’am’, a phrase I use often in the marriage. But when you’ve slogged through swamps, forests, dirt, mountaintops, even a dusty desk in a temperature-controlled environment looks and feels pretty good.
I told Anson to sit down while I lit a cigar.
“Have you constructed a video of the solar system we’re heading to?” I asked.
He nodded. “It’s sparse because it’s based on the little information we have.”
“C
an you call it up?”
“Sure, but it looks ordinary.”
He moved to a computer, punched a few buttons and a sun and five planets visualized on the screen. A red sun shone dimly on the five planets. The three inner planets looked small, about the size of Earth, I guessed. The two outer planets were much larger. Nothing impressive about either of the five.
“Where’s the base?” I said.
“Second planet from the sun,” Anson said, tapping the round ball on the screen. “That’s what Ralph told us. Perhaps there are humanoid entities on the second planet, but we also obtained information from the gold ship that indicated work was being done on the first planet too. But there can’t be any humans or human-like creatures there.”
“Why not?”
“Temperature is too hot. Surface temps on the first planet are about a hundred and twenty-five degrees. A few days of that and you need an air conditioner. Or at least some ice. I imagine it would be impossible to work there. For humans. The gold guys wouldn’t mind it. Their metallic skins could probably work at five hundred degrees. As for the second planet, the temps are much more livable. The average ranges from about 55 to 85 depending on which area of the planet you’re on. Practically any area would be conducive to building or constructing weapons.”
“What about the other three planets?”
“Don’t know. There was no information about any of them from Ralph or from the disabled remains of the gold guys’ ship. They might have set up war workshops on the other three planets too, but we just don’t know. The metallic nature of the robots would allow them to work under extreme heat and extreme cold. The gravity on the large planets might slow them down a bit. The gravity would make it impossible for humans to work, but it would just slow them down a bit.”
“So it takes them three months to build a ship instead of two months.”
“Yes, but I’m guessing such massive gravity would take a toll even on the gold guys. It would be better to have them working on a small planet.”
I blew out some smoke and frowned. “But if we blow up the second planet, the explosive repercussions might take out the first one too and might even damage the other three.”
“Yes, I think so. It will definitely do great damage to the first planet. I can work out the math if you like and tell you exactly the probably repercussions if the bomb goes off.”
“No, that’s all right. If we can just blow up the first and damage the second planet I’ll be satisfied.”
“I think I can guarantee that, if the bomb goes off. It was, after all, still in the testing stage.”
“Thank you, captain. That will be all. I appreciate your help and support although you were overruled.”
He gave a smile. “Yes, but now I’m hoping you were right and the mission will succeed.”
“So am I, captain.
Chapter 7
I flicked up the hologram. I figured this particular battle problem might be beyond the capacities of General Lee, General Rommel and Osceola. So I called up Admiral Ruger Seagrave, one of the finest military minds of the mid-22nd century. He appeared in his black uniform with the silver badges of merit and bravery. He was a tall man, about six-five, with steel-gray eye and a distinctive baritone. You could look at him and tell he had fought his fair share of aliens.
“Admiral Seagrave. How are you?”
“Doing well. Still fighting the good fight, Logan.”
“You might say so. You have analyzed our current situation?”
“I have. You keep finding yourself in unique and dangerous situations, major.”
“Yes, I’m going to try to work on that. I might consider retirement again. I’ll work on my golf swing. But first I have to take care of this little situation.”
“Which may be difficult. I’m not sure this point deals with the specific of the upcoming battle, but one of your problems, major, is you still don’t know who your real enemy is.”
“Well, I figured the gold guys aren’t my friends.”
Seagrave chuckled. He did have a dry sense of humor. “No, they’re not. But looking at the little information I have, it seems to be the gold men would not have created themselves. For all the facts we have, they seem to have been issued orders and then they followed them. From what you tell me they are not one of the advanced AI species. That’s assuming they are AI. They could be highly refined robots without any AI abilities.”
“That’s true. They are good at taking orders. But in our limited time observing them before blowing them up, they don’t seem to show any signs of artificial intelligence. They are, for the lack of a better term, soldier drones, like soldier ants. They have limited, very limited, flexibility on the battle field, but nothing like our MITTs have.”
“So you agree that some other race, human, alien, metal or whatever, must have created them?”
“I would lean toward that conclusion, admiral.”
“Then we need to figure out who that other race is,” he said. “Although I realize that’s not the immediate problem, it has to filter into our calculations. Let’s take the worst case scenario.”
“Why can’t we ever take the best case scenario?” I said.
“That is rarely an option in the military. When have you ever said, ‘Boy, the most wonderful thing just happened. I never would have guessed it in a hundred years. What a delightful surprise. All our enemies just turned around and started running away.’? Never said anything like it in my life.”
I nodded. “I see your point.”
“So, we always have to consider the worst case scenario. Here that means that even if humans, someone managed to annihilate all the gold robots, we’d still have to worry about who created them. If they built one race of gold guys, they can build another and maybe be a little more creative this time. The second time around they might have more information and knowledge about the human race, thus their invasion force will be more effective. Have you thought about that?”
“No, I hadn’t. And I still don’t want to think about it. One thing at a time.”
“Granted, your most immediate problem is the attack on the robot home planet. But after that, human scientists will have to find the masters of the gold robots and kill them. This problem is exceedingly difficult because we have no clue who they are or why they dislike us. The only link we have, it seems to be, is to capture one of the more intelligent gold robots and run his memory banks through that computer that processes such information. That might yield a clue. But right now, although we hope they have not established any type of a defensive perimeter, we don’t know that for a fact. Our knowledge of our enemy is extremely limited.”
“Yes, it is. I need some type of advantage,” I said.
Seagrave nodded. “Yes, you do. But Logan, I have no idea what that might be.”
Chapter 8
My chosen place to think is usually when walking out dogs. We have a very intelligent yellow Lab named Cooper and a brown almost orange cocker spaniel named Sheila. It’s very relaxing to walk them through a park. We generally go about a mile. I am refreshed when we get back to the house and, more than once, an idea or two has popped into my mind. However, I don’t walk holograms of dogs, so that was not an option. The second choice was playing golf.
I watched as Astrid swung and hammered the ball. It shot down the fairway, eased left in her familiar hook and bounced in the middle of the fairway. The first hole was an almost dead-straight away par 4 four hundred and fifty yards from the tee. It should have been an easy hole, but the green was protected by a wide, white front bunker and two other bunkers on the sides. You had to careful place your second shot or it would hit the sand or go over the green.
I grabbed the burgundy driver and walked on the tee. A slight wind blew over the tee, but not enough to sway the ball. I leaned into the drive, but my lack of practice showed. I didn’t trust the whack when the club hit the ball. It was slightly off. Not a solid sound a good golfer wants to hear. When I looked up, the ball was fa
ding left.
“Don’t go in the rough,” I yelled. “Stay in the fairway.”
The ball, though, was not under my command and didn’t take orders well. It bounced on the short grass then ran into the much taller grass on the left side of the fairway.
“Shucks,” I said.
Astrid laughed and grabbed my chin. “I love a man who says ‘shucks’. I think that’s adorable.”
“Then you will really love me when the round is over. Looks like I’m going to be saying ‘shucks’ a lot.”
The ball wasn’t in too bad a lie. It lay on top of the brown semi-weeds. The lie wasn’t as good as being in the fairway, but it could have been a lot worse. It would be difficult to get any spin on the ball, but I should be able to knock it out of the rough without a problem.
Since the four inches shorter and a hundred and twenty point lighter Astrid outdrove me, I shot first. I was about twenty yards behind her.
I looked straight ahead. Three patches of white sand guarded the medium-size green; if I couldn’t get any spin on the ball it would be difficult to stop. If I hit the green, the ball would probably roll off and into the fringe. Which was better than being in one of the bunkers.
The rough was slippery, not like the fairway, but I dug in and swung. I didn’t like the sound of this whack either. As I say, the ball soared skyward and I thought it might land in the bunker. But perhaps a gust of wind helped and propelled it over the sand and onto the green. It hit and rolled. And rolled and rolled and then rolled a little more. I groaned. The ball vanished from sight, meaning it rolled over the green and, if I was fortunate, only in the fringe. If I wasn’t fortunate it was back in the fairway.
“You’re rusty, we have to get you out more,” she said.