***Engaging now…closing on first wave…will arm bond disrupters….***
Unseen by human eyes, the battle was joined. Simonets fought back the shrieking airstream, blood seeping out of his ears, distended eyeballs…all to study what Smithers was sending back…the barest outlines of the enemy mechs were visible in radar wavelengths, forming a shadowy image on his display. Even with the fuzzy shapes flitting across the screen, and the pops and flashes of bond disrupters going off left and right, he could just make out the multi-lobed structure of the MARTOP bots…effectors and grabbers festooning every patch of surface, propulsors at either end, of a type he had never seen before. Even ISAAC couldn’t find a match in its archives. Whatever they were, wherever they had come from, the MARTOP swarm was a different beast and Simonets would tell that Smithers was having a hell of time in the battle.
A hundred meters behind A deck, Captain Amirante and several other crewmen were trying their best to patch the hull breaches threatening Bacon.
Amirante had planted himself alongside the entrance to the mast tunnel that went back to C deck. Entrained debris and loose gear swirled around the breach; already a white fog had formed and was thickening. Emergency air blasted into the compartment and the shriek pierced ears and made orders and commands impossible.
“Suttles! Chin! Get back up to B deck!” Amirante yelled. “I’ve got ISAAC releasing more bots…I can patch this one! Just make sure the pressure doors are shut upstream! We gotta keep pressure up in B deck…it’s the hab spaces, the galley…get up there and cycle the hatch!!”
The two crewmen crawled up the tunnel , clawing against the on-rushing air, grabbing EAB masks as they went. Once the hatch was secure, Amirante went to work, guiding the patchbot swarm toward the breach.
Flickering lights could barely be made out through the cold fog. ISAAC was running the swarm master, commanding configs and replication cycles to keep the swarm from disintegrating in the maelstrom. Slowly, gradually, revving propulsors to max, ISAAC and Amirante worked together to lay the swarm against the hull inner bulkhead plates and close over the pinhole breach. To make matters worse, MARTOP bots had already infiltrated inside the compartment and ISAAC had to pinch off a small element, change their config and send them off like a posse to hunt down and disable the intruder bots.
All around Amirante’s head, shrieking air and pelting debris slammed into the breached area.
It’s slackening. It’s lessening. He told himself that was true, even if it wasn’t. He chanced a peek, having to duck and cover himself to keep from being clobbered, and saw it wasn’t his imagination. The white fog had dimmed, dispersed a little. No. He hadn’t imagined it. The shriek was dying off. A bubbling mass foamed and percolated around the breach hole as ISAAC drove more and more bots into the patch, bit by bit, slowly but surely thickening the mass like stirring soup in a pot. After a few moments, the shriek had fallen to a whistle, then a fainter rustle.
The patch was working.
And behind Amirante’s head, ISAAC was still trying to corral the MARTOP bots that had infiltrated the ship.
***Captain, recommending all personnel evacuate the mast tunnel and isolate themselves on B or A decks. I will endeavor to replicate max density swarm…force intruder bots into a confined space***
Amirante understood what the AI was saying. “A clampdown? We don’t have Frankie back yet, ISAAC. Gurstens, Pham, even Smithers are still off-ship.”
Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary Page 14