Nova Igniter

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “The two-hundred-forty rosette is only capable of approximately five times the speed of light. That will require six months of constant travel to reach a transit corridor. If the GenMechs have reverted to their default code, they will stop at the fallback position to harvest. If they are running a functional subset of EHRIc’s code, the will stop at the fallback position out of spite or to refuel. They must be running one of those two code sets or they would not have the capacity to form FTL-capable rosettes. This will be our final attempt to contain them,” Ziva said.

  “How long until they get to the fallback?”

  “Forty-eight minutes.”

  “How long until we get there?”

  “I am not at my best, but I shall endeavor to reach the fallback position ahead of the GenMechs.”

  “Okay then. Next stop, humanity’s last stand,” Lex said.

  Chapter 21

  The space station Karter had commandeered had settled into a low bizarrely-rapid orbit over a superdense rogue planet streaking through the void. At some point in the distant past of the galactic neighborhood, this planet had broken free from its system and was just wandering in interstellar space. Despite its relatively small size, the gravity was a touch above Earth gravity. It was made almost entirely of nickel and iridium, with little atmosphere to speak of. That allowed the station to keep its lower, faster orbit. The station had its directional cloak active, with the visible artifact pointed to the ground. It would only be detectable from below.

  There was no real source of light. The nearest star was the one that had just exploded. The last of its light, and the first of its destructive radiation burst, wouldn’t show up for another three hours or so. In the meantime, vision was made possible with light-amplification optics and assorted secondary sensors through helmet displays and targeting apparatus.

  Both Silo and Garotte had abandoned direct control of their ships. The vehicles were too beat-up to be much use in a battle anymore, thanks to their sensors having been mostly roasted by the proximity to the star. Instead, the ships were little more than heavily armed sitting ducks, meant to draw fire and take out a few GenMech units before being destroyed. Silo and Garotte were stationed on the surface. Each was sporting a heavily armored spacesuit, a tremendous amount of firepower, and the hovering equivalent of a single-seater all-terrain vehicle. They were small targets, fast movers, and heavy hitters.

  “Weapon cells topped off?” Silo said over her radio.

  “Topped off,” Garotte confirmed.

  “Full complement of EMP grenades?”

  “Six and six,” Garotte said.

  “Ma, how does the QPS network look?”

  “Inbound targets remain the only quantum activity in the appropriate bands. The units approaching are confirmed to be the total population of GenMechs in existence,” Ma said.

  “Okay. We know the plan. EMP weapons primary, energy weapons secondary, ballistic backup. We target tool nodes. Take those out and the GenMech can’t reproduce. Anything else we need to know?” Silo said.

  “Priority defense points are power sources,” Karter said. “This ball of metal is a prime source of material, but it’s difficult to process. It’ll take a group of GenMechs close to forty minutes to make a duplicate out of raw metal, and it’ll seriously deplete their power reserves. All else fails, we destroy power sources and there’s a fighting chance they’ll exhaust themselves trying to eat the planet. That goes for you people, anyway. I’m powering up the 4D transporter for a quick getaway if things get nasty.”

  “Your commitment to the cause is admirable, Karter,” Garotte said.

  A crackling message joined the communication channel.

  “Hello? Hello?” Lex said. “Is anyone there?”

  “Lex! You made it!” Silo said.

  “Barely. Those things are like thirty seconds away,” he said. “What’s the plan?”

  “We’re going to blow them all up. What do you think the plan is?” Karter said. “By the way, I don’t know what happened back there, but I’m blaming you for this little breach regardless.”

  “What is the status if the SOB?” Ma asked.

  “Beat-up and half-blind, but she’s still got some fight in her,” Lex said.

  “Do you feel comfortable taking on the task of patrolling high orbit to ensure no GenMechs escape our attacks?”

  “Works for me.”

  Sensors started blaring. Little flashes of light filled the sky.

  “Game on, folks,” Silo said, clicking a clip into place.

  #

  Lex triple-checked his helmet and gloves. He’d taken the brief respite of the FTL jump to suit up in an intact emergency suit. It was one of the reserve ones, so it was about as sturdy as the sort of thing you’d wrap your sandwiches in, but it was necessary for the hasty plan he, Coal, and Ziva had dreamed up.

  “The seal appears secure,” Ziva said, tugging at the last remaining backup suit, which she had stuffed the remarkably compliant Bork into.

  “That’s a plus,” Lex said. “Coal, give me whatever information you can give on the position of the GenMechs. And start pumping the atmosphere out of the cockpit.”

  “Air-conservation procedure engaged. Limited targeting data displayed,” Coal said. “And while we’re at it, fusion device armed.”

  “Oh, good. You saved one,” Lex said flatly.

  “Atmosphere evacuated,” Coal said.

  A GenMech peeled off from the growing cluster and latched on to the cockpit.

  “Just in time,” Lex said.

  He popped the cockpit hatch, launching the thing free. Another one latched on from below. Ziva gracefully pulled herself from the cockpit and crawled to the outside of the ship. A moment later, the GenMech spiraled away from the belly of the ship, minus one leg.

  “Are we going to be able to use what’s left of our tractor beams to jackhammer these things?”

  “I eagerly anticipate finding out,” Coal said.

  They streaked through the dark sky of the planetoid, Ziva deftly clinging to the exterior to clear away any GenMechs who managed to reach the surface. Lex kept his maneuvers smooth and fluid, lest he shake her free.

  “I’ll get us close, you do the smashing,” he said.

  He picked a small cluster of GenMechs. Lex was mildly disturbed by the fact that he could tell at a glance these mechanisms weren’t working as designed. No one should have had so much contact with them that a few sluggish moves here and delayed reactions there could betray a programming issue. But it was nonetheless evident. The units he’d decided to target were still interlocked, as though they’d failed to get the memo that they were no longer supposed to be in rosette formation. Coal latched on to the central unit in the half-finished rosette and rattled at it.

  “The resonance frequency of the structure is elusive,” Coal said. “Pursuing alternate methods.”

  The GenMech in her grasp was suddenly wrenched from the formation. It whipped back and forth, hammering at the neighboring devices.

  “Direct application of blunt force is proving more effective,” Coal said.

  One of the GenMechs twirled toward the SOB and scrambled at the cockpit hatch. A moment later, Ziva dragged it down from the side and tore its tool node free to hurl at a passing robot.

  “This is a hell of a thing…” Lex muttered, guiding the ship through the hole Coal made and picking a new target.

  #

  “We’ve got a good cluster on decoy two,” Silo said, blazing along the ground below her ship.

  It was moving at a precisely calibrated speed, keeping just ahead of the swarm of GenMechs that were just chomping at the bit to harvest it for parts. She drifted to a stop and raised an energy rifle. Her ship had dragged a healthy percentage of the GenMechs that had already arrived to within weapon range, and most of them were absolutely ravenous for the vehicle. Here and there a few were losing interest and heading for herself or Garotte. She picked the
m off.

  “Sensors indicate eighteen thousand GenMechs in the pursuit formation. Readying EMP blast. Please be prepared to defend the space station, as EMP deployment will temporarily disrupt both cloak and shields,” Ma said over the connection.

  “You on that, Lex?” Garotte said.

  “I’ve sort of got my own cluster of secret admirers, but I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

  “EMP in three… two… one…”

  The space station resolved in the sky. The GenMechs and the ship they were pursuing simultaneously failed, subtle electrical arcs signaling their failure. They streaked down from above, plunging to the surface of the planet to be dashed to pieces on the ground. The other GenMechs reacted to the event like someone had rung a dinner bell. What had formerly been thousands of fellow units were now little more than some top-notch components for harvest. Thousands of them streaked down from above and clattered toward the feast. Those that remained in range of it turned instead to the tantalizing prospect of the space station. A barrage of lasers lanced out from various weapon pods, while a periodic flicker revealed the edge of the struggling shields.

  Silo turned from the spectacle. She simply didn’t have the firepower or range to deal with that problem. She switched to her grenade launcher and lobbed an EMP grenade into the flood of robots approaching from behind. A swath of them deactivated and served as a brief distraction to those behind. She took full advantage to guide herself up and over the wave of mechanisms and rained two more grenades onto the growing mound of robots trying to harvest their inert brethren. Her brain worked itself into a tight cycle of picking off individual threats, waiting for more to pour in to feast, and pulsing them to convert them from threat to bait.

  “Ma, sweetie, can we get a real-time tally of remaining GenMechs on our HUDs, please?” she said. “I’d like to know the score.”

  “Updating,” Ma said.

  A small red indicator appeared in her peripheral vision: 110,456 of 168,960. She fired another grenade into the mound. The number dropped by six thousand, then slowly started creeping up again.

  “We’ve got to act fast. They’re pulling themselves back together.”

  “Working on it!” Lex said. “Heads up, I’m bringing you a present.”

  The SOB streaked down from its patrol near the space station, dragging away about half of the attackers to follow him instead. As he passed over the pile of feasting robots, the heat dumpers blossomed and his ship belched out a pulse that sent them falling like meteors into the pile.

  “That’s my boy!” Garotte said. “We’re below a hundred thousand. Keep the pressure up. I do believe I’ll have a few more thousand to cross off momentarily.”

  #

  Garotte crouched low on his speeder. While he was not without training on the heavier weapons in use here, they were far from his preferred equipment. He did well with snipers and pistols. Things that required precision. In short, he had precisely the opposite set of skills for this specific task. But he was nothing if not flexible. Right now, his focus was split between keeping himself in one piece and making the absolute best use of his ship.

  Rather than issuing orders and hoping the enfeebled ship would be able to obey them automatically, he chose to control it far more directly. This let him loop it through the increasing number of individual GenMechs to gather a far larger group, but had thus far caused several near misses with ground-based attacks trying to make a snack of his vehicle. He tapped among the settings on the wrist-mounted controller, preparing a self-destruct, but he wanted to ensure he made the best use of the ship. His personal target was twenty-five thousand. He stole a glance at the swarm before taking a potshot at one clattering after him.

  “This is rather more like guessing the number of jellybeans in a jar than I would prefer.”

  An alarm indicator popped up. The ship was experiencing communication issues. He looked to the ship and found that one of the GenMechs had collided with it from the front and was industriously tearing pieces off.

  “Quickly, quickly,” he muttered, watching the self-destruct power levels rise.

  Guidance system failing, the controller warned.

  “Well, we’ll need to find somewhere to park it,” he said.

  His enhanced visuals through his helmet indicated a fault in the jagged landscape. He directed the ship down into the fault and issued the self-destruct command to complete when possible. The ship’s data connection cut off shortly after it vanished from view into the fissure. Then came the blast. The ground beneath his speeder trembled. A shaft of plasma burst up from the ground. The mechanisms nearest to the explosion were vaporized. The next wave of them were blasted upward, where they shredded through the wave behind that. By the time the blast had finished doing its damage, the count of remaining GenMechs was at 43,344.

  “I choose to believe precisely twenty-five thousand of those kills were mine,” Garotte said.

  He shifted his speeder and started picking off some of the scattered robots that weren’t caught in the blast.

  “Where is the largest concentration?” he said.

  “Presently the largest concentrations of GenMechs, accounting for forty-eight percent of the remaining units, are those assaulting the space station. A hull breach is detected.”

  “That is troubling, Ma,” Garotte said. “You are our ride home.”

  “We are currently deploying countermeasures.”

  #

  Karter cursed under his breath as he stalked into the armory. “These idiots had one job. Keep the thousands of self-replicating robots from hitting us during the twenty-nine seconds we were exposed,” he grumbled.

  “It is a difficult job,” Ma remarked.

  “Don’t make excuses,” he griped. “They’re going to make a beeline for the reactor, right?”

  “Yes. External countermeasures have warded off most assaults, but there is a single hull breach in quadrant three. They are now assaulting bulkhead C-12.”

  “Plot me a least-resistance route through the station from the breach to the reactor.”

  “Plotting,” Ma said. “An estimated twenty-five GenMechs will make it past internal countermeasures. For safety reasons, there are no countermeasures in range of the reactor.”

  “This is why safety precautions are stupid,” he said.

  “I am charging a generalized EMP burst. If you can protect the reactor until discharge, the total number of operational units will be below ten thousand.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He selected a pair of large energy pistols and stomped like an angry toddler. The locations of the GenMechs rushing the reactor traced out their erratic lines in the feed running from his artificial eye. There were only about forty-five seconds remaining by the time he got in position. The interior of a locked bulkhead had a point of cherry red that was slowly tracing a circle. He planted his feet and raised the weapons.

  “Let’s get this over with.”

  The center of the bulkhead dropped away. He opened fire with the pistol in his right hand. The first blast cleared a GenMech, but his accuracy, even at this range, was less than superb. Soon the GenMechs were scrabbling through the bulkhead in twos and threes, clattering across the walls and ceiling of the claustrophobic corridor between the breached entryway and Lex.

  “How much time, Ma?”

  “One hundred twelve seconds.”

  He gritted his teeth and shut his organic eye. “May as well give this a try. Activating autotargeting.”

  His left arm jerked straight in front of him. With motions far faster and far more rigid than any human should be capable of, he took aim at each GenMech and fired. His cybernetic arm translated the targeting information from his eye into firing solutions without any intervention from his brain, perfectly blasting each of the GenMechs.

  “Time,” Karter shouted.

  “Ninety-one seconds.”

  The GenMechs started to pile up, blocking the corridor,
then briefly paused to harvest the parts.

  “I’m going to do a manual reroute.”

  “Now is a terrible time for multitasking, Karter. Focus on defense.”

  “It’s not a great time for lecturing your creator either.”

  He took a step back and pulled down a control panel. While his left arm continued aiming and firing, his right hand danced across the menus.

  “I’m going to dump a direct feed into the capacitors for the EMP generator. It’ll blow them, but it’ll also give us one hell of a boom.”

  “Preparing for discharge.”

  #

  Lex anxiously awaited his ship’s EM pulse to recharge as he kept just ahead of the trail of GenMechs working their thrusters to keep pace.

  “Attention. In fifteen seconds, an overcharged EM pulse will activate. Please ensure all vehicles are stationary or can endure a full power cycle before impact,” Ma stated.

  “Wait, what range?” Lex said.

  “Anything within range of this signal.”

  He checked his altitude. At moments like this, it may as well have had two readings. “Will leave a crater” or “will not leave a crater.” He was not on the happy side of that particular threshold.

  “Crap! Crap, crap, crap,” he yelped.

  There was no use heading for the ground. The only way he could get close enough for a safe landing would be to accelerate downward, and he wouldn’t have time to slow down at the bottom of the dive, so he’d just hit the ground at greater than terminal velocity. The only other choice was to try to get enough hang time out of his fall to restart before impact.

  “This is really not the kind of moment that should give a guy déjà vu.”

  “I am shutting down my system in order to speed recovery,” Coal said. “Full manual control in four seconds. Good luck!”

  “I shall do the same,” Ziva said, locking her fingers onto the struts of the cockpit. “Please avoid a cockpit-first collision.”

  Both of his computerized associates shut down. The minor amount of autostabilization Coal offered vanished. Lex quickly compensated and continued to climb.