Johnny Winger and the Hellas Enigma

by Philip Bosshardt

  Bright took one last look out the nearest porthole and begrudged the final wisps of daylight before Farside was fully enveloped in the nightfall. At that same moment, he heard a beeping from his console and turned his attention back to the array controls.

  What the hell…

  Adam Bright looked over his boards, controlling the positioning of the great radars out on the crater floor and the optical and radio telescopes that accompanied them. He quickly pinpointed the source of the beeping…Nodes 20 through 24…the south lateral array…was picking up some anomaly.

  He massaged the controls and tried to focus the array better, get better resolution on the target. SpaceGuard didn’t beep without reason. Somewhere in its nearly infinite memory were ephemeris data and trajectory details for nearly every detectable piece of space junk in the solar system, out to several billion miles. Like an overprotective mother, SpaceGuard knew where everybody was supposed to be, right down to the nearest centimeter.

  She only beeped and chirped when someone was out of position.

  A quick perusal made the hairs on the back of Adam Bright’s neck stand up. The system displayed a list of likely targets, based on radar imaging and known ephemerides. He scanned the list.

  Right at the top was a well-known traveler: 2351.

  Something had happened to Wilks-Lucayo. The half-mile wide asteroid had changed position, just enough to trigger a SpaceGuard alert.

  Before he could decide what to do next, Bright was interrupted by the sound of a door opening…it was Max Lane, the shift supervisor.

  Lane was a heavy-set bear of a man, who appreciated the Moon’s one-sixth gravity more than most. He had thick eyebrows and a perpetual scowl.

  “What gives? SpaceGuard’s sending out an anomaly alert. What’s on the board?” Lane sat down at a console next to Bright and began tapping at the keyboard.

  Bright shrugged. “She’s indicating Wilks-Lucayo, but that doesn’t make any sense. We don’t have any course corrections scheduled for the next ten days…unless GreenMars has pulled a quick one on us.”

  “Won’t be the first time that’s happened,” Lane muttered. He pointed to a display in front of them. “Check out the delta-vee. That’s almost half a kilometer a second.”

  Bright clucked. “No way their impulse motors could do that. What gives? Can you get a read on the new trajectory?”

  Lane said, “I’m trying…but SpaceGuard’s showing Doppler fluctuations…she’s still thrusting…still changing velocity. Bright, check your east and west arrays. Let’s zero in on the vicinity of the asteroid and see if something’s around that might be tugging her off course. I’ll send this to GreenMars too…they need to know something’s horsing around with their baby.”

  For the next few minutes, the huge radar arrays probed deep space with beams of radio energy. At the moment, Wilks-Lucayo was several hours away by light signal. They wouldn’t get any returns until nearly midnight, local time. In the mean time, Lane washed the raw trajectory feed from the first returns through the computers. “It’ll give us an idea of what we’re dealing with here.”

  The analysis, when it came back an hour later, made their blood run cold.

  Max Lane shook his head. “This can’t be right. It doesn’t make any sense. Better set up another run through SpaceTrack and see if we gave it bad data before.”

  “I don’t know, Chief…the numbers seem to match up.” Bright brought up a projected plot on their main displays. It showed the nominal trajectory the asteroid was following, all the way to Hellas Basin on Mars next summer. A dotted line showed SpaceTrack’s projected new path, after the velocity change had been factored in.

  The path intersected Earth in late May, next year, right before Memorial Day in the U.S., Bright noted. He always took his family to the beach on Memorial Day.

  “This thing’s showing an Earth-intercept path and the doppler shows velocity is still changing. We’d better get GreenMars on the line right away.

  The telecom spanned several hundred thousand miles in a three-way hookup: Farside Observatory patched in with GreenMars offices aboard Phoenix Station and UNIFORCE headquarters in Paris.

  Kaoru Nakamura was the Earthside chief of GreenMars operations. He was emphatic on the screen, as he scrolled through Farside’s data.

  “Gentlemen, you’re sure of these numbers? I mean, I know the data’s good…but believe me, we’ve got no course corrections going on.”

  UNIFORCE was represented by a sleepy, rather morose Galen Bosch, the assistant Director-General.

  Any evidence of mass-driver failure? Could one or more of the impulse motors be firing accidentally? Or maybe the asteroid was hit by something…any indications of that?”

  Adam Bright was emphatic. “There’s nothing in the data. Something is or has clearly tugged on Wilks enough to change its delta-v by about three-tenths of a kilometer per second.”

  “And the current trajectory, assuming no more changes…?”

  Bright had checked and re-checked the analysis, washed the data through SpaceTrack half a dozen times. The result was always the same.

  “Earth intercept, sometime in the last week of May…next year. We’re still tracking,” he hastened to add. “And we’re still seeing some velocity change even now. But doppler indicates the rate of change is slowing.”

  Galen Bosch was grim. “Then Red Hammer has made good on their threat. They’ve managed to divert this thing from its intended orbit. Dr. Nakamura…how many impulse motors are installed on this asteroid?”

  Nakamura’s image went off screen while he ran down the number. Momentarily, he reappeared. “Sixty four in all. Mass driver type. They dig into the asteroid’s surface, shape up chunks of soil and rock into little charges and fire them off into space. Specific impulse is small but the fuel supply is inexhaustible. Each motor has its own small reactor plant for power.”

  Bosch was working out an idea in his head. “Then you should be able to counteract this…force, or whatever it is, that’s diverting and tugging on Wilks.”

  Nakamura nodded. “In theory, yes. In fact, I’ve already given this as an option to the Board of Governors. They’re meeting right now at Mariner City. But the devil is in the details. Until we know the nature of the force—is it continuous or intermittent?—what’s the magnitude of the force?--where is the source?...I’m not sure we can counteract. Obviously, something has to be done. But GreenMars has a lot of options and there’s still a lot of time between now and next May.”

  “Any data to help out Dr. Nakamura?” Bosch asked. The A-DG would have to brief UNSAC soon and he wanted as many options as he could get his hands on.

  Adam Bright had noticed additional effects beyond the course change of Wilks-Lucayo. “At the same time we got anomaly alerts from SpaceTrack on Wilks, the system started giving us a bunch of perturbations…everything going haywire in the outer Solar System. Beyond the orbit of Jupiter, it’s like a big gravity wave just pushed everything aside—“ he waved at Lane to pull up the ecliptic plots so the others could see. “—anomalies with almost every satellite, man-made or otherwise. At Saturn, Calypso, Helene and Epimetheus…at Uranus: Ophelia and Caliban. These are just the early ones, the biggest shifts. There are dozens of these. Even the bigger bodies…Oberon and the like, have shown measurable shifts in position and velocity. It’s like something massive just passed through the Solar System. But we’re tracking no unknown or unreported bodies.”

  Galen Bosch was studying something off screen. “Gentlemen, I’m willing to bet the source of all these disturbances is much closer to home. Quantum Corps has been running an op down in Kolkata…some kind of weird quantum disturbances there. I haven’t seen the reports yet but I’m willing to bet there’s a connection.”

  Nakamura was intrigued with the phenomena described by Bright. “There’s a theory about what you’re describing, Farside. I heard a talk on the idea over th
e Net last year…a conference on perturbation effects caused by extra-solar processes. As I recall, the authors of the paper described ways to effect large-scale perturbations by manipulating local cosmic string structure. Like tugging on the basic fabric of the Universe. All very theoretical…there’s no evidence such a thing is even possible.”

  Bosch wasn’t so sure. “Maybe there is, Doctor. At this point, I don’t think we can exclude anything. I’ll brief UNSAC right away. I expect there will be a full meeting of the Security Council after that. Whatever the cause of this shift in the asteroid’s path, the effect is the same: Red Hammer is making good on their threat. Either we find a way to put Wilks-Lucayo back on the right path, or we run out of options pretty fast.”

  He didn’t have to add that one of the cartel’s demands was that Quantum Corps itself be shut down.

  CHAPTER 4

  U.N. Quantum Corps Base

  Table Top Mountain, Idaho, USA

  September 11, 2080

  Johnny Winger sat with Colonel Jurgen Kraft in the underground briefing theater at the Ops Center and watched the video feed from Farside Observatory. Table Top was on a multi-site hookup involving Farside and Paris. Standing behind Winger in a loose formation were 1st Nano’s company commanders: Captains Erika Swinks and Nico Simonet and something that resembled a faint sparkling cloud in the vague shape of a human being. Third Swarm ANAD drifted and floated freely in the space above their heads, shimmering and coruscating, while the humans discussed the nature of Red Hammer’s latest threat.

  UNSAC himself was on screen from Paris, having just completed a briefing with the Security Council. The Security Affairs Commissioner was one Jiang Hao Bei, glowering at a report on details of 1st Nano’s after-action report from Kolkata.

  “So I am to understand that the operation failed?” UNSAC said tersely. “The nature of the disturbances was not determined. And the source….this generator you speak of, was not put out of action?”

  Kraft swallowed hard. CINCQUANT himself had flown in by hyperjet overnight from Paris to get a briefing from Alpha Detachment in person. General Wolfus Linx felt compelled to speak up.

  “Sir, I’ve been through the reports and videos of all the action. The Detachment did provide material assistance to the local BioShield force, to help them in dealing with uncontrolled fab use in the region.”

  “But they did fail in their primary mission, did they not, General?” UNSAC’s eyes were hard and unblinking, even over the screen.

  “Sir, the Detachment encountered nanobotic mechanisms of an unknown configuration. I’ve already sent the details to your office—“

  “Yes, yes…I’ve seen them. Shavindra, you’re calling them. All effectors and propulsors…gentlemen, with Quantum Corps’ budget and authority, it’s hard to believe there could be any ‘bot on this world or anywhere else that hadn’t been encountered or characterized. You did bring back specimens to analyze?”

  Linx nodded. “Affirmative, sir. The mechs are in containment now and we’re looking at them. We should have good analysis in a few hours. I’ve also authorized a team headed by Doctor Irwin Frost from Northgate University’s Autonomous Systems Lab to come in too. We need their expertise.”

  UNSAC addressed Johnny Winger directly. “Major, you headed up this Detachment?”

  “Yes, sir…I did.”

  UNSAC’s face was impassive, like a stone Buddha displaying no emotion. “You wrote in your report of a great quantum disturbance emanating from the center of this temple. Elaborate, please…”

  Winger glanced at Kraft and Linx, aware that all eyes were on him.

  “Sir, when my Detachment was at the scene, we located some sort of generator inside the temple. This generator seems to be the center of these disturbances. When it went off…a great wave swept across the temple. It was similar in effect to the Sphere we encountered at the Paryang monastery ten years ago; maybe they’re related devices. As these waves developed and passed by, it was like watching an invisible front move past. Everything the wave touched seemed to vanish or become blurry, kind of smeared out. In some cases, when the waves encountered a column or a wall, the structure broke down and it looked like a million mirrors there, all reflecting off each other.” Winger glanced at Kraft. “The engineers tell me that’s a focused decoherence wave. Everything it touches breaks down and becomes… like a fog of probability states…somehow, the structure loses coherence and reveals every state it could have, momentarily becoming everything and nothing solid at the same moment, if that makes sense. Sir,” Winger admitted, “it’s a strange thing to see. Even stranger to combat. In addition to fighting off the barrier nanobots that filled that chamber, we found it impossible to get any weapons fire on the generator itself. We could never be sure we hit it, or if we did hit it, we couldn’t be sure what we had hit.”

  UNSAC mulled over what Winger had said. The Commissioner’s eyes narrowed to slits. “How do we fight such a device, gentlemen? How do we neutralize it?”

  It was 3rd Swarm ANAD who replied. The swarm had configured part of itself to form acoustic waves, resembling a husky, gravelly human voice.

  ***A quantum device must be fought with quantum methods. Normal combat tactics will not succeed against such devices***

  UNSAC was a bit startled but recovered. Like everyone, he was still getting used to having ‘conversations’ with a fog of sentient nanobotic assemblers.

  “Explain, please, ANAD.”

  The fog throbbed and undulated, twinkling like fireflies on a misty summer night.

  ***Acoustic and electromagnetic signals indicate that generator is a swarm object…even as this collective focuses acoustic waves to create sound you call voice…generator collective focuses quantum waves to create distant effects***

  Johnny Winger was supposed to be 3rd Swarm’s battalion commander. He figured he’d better step in and be a commander. ANAD didn’t always observe the niceties of the chain of command.

  “ANAD, you’re saying that generator wasn’t a solid object? That it too was a swarm object?”

  ***Affirmative, Major…You could not detect or target the device because it has ability to manipulate probability states…device can be anywhere anytime all at the same time***

  “But we saw it…it had structure…we probed the generator in all bands…EM, thermal, acoustic—“

  ***Major, you saw a swarm of assemblers shaped by an algorithm…that which you call generator has no structure…it is a collective of agents…as are all ANAD***

  “If that’s true,” said General Linx, “then Red Hammer, or whoever’s behind this device, has assembler technology we can only dream of. How could they have advanced so far…especially when we destroyed the Paryang monastery ten years ago? How could they have the expertise to do this sort of thing?”

  Kraft said, “Maybe we’re not dealing with Red Hammer anymore.”

  UNSAC was intrigued. “Go on, Colonel. Explain.”

  Kraft warmed to the idea. “We all saw Galen Bosch’s report, including that theory mentioned by Dr. Nakamura at GreenMars. The one about quantum perturbations affecting the underlying string structure of the Solar System. Suppose that’s what this device at Kolkata is…some kind of means of dragging the fabric of spacetime and causing objects to change course. That could explain what’s happening with Wilks-Lucayo.”

  UNSAC was skeptical. “Bosch briefed me on this idea last night. There’s no real evidence…it’s just a theory. Even it was true, General Linx is right. How could Red Hammer have the ability to do something like this? It doesn’t square with what Intelligence tells me of their capabilities.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Winger spoke up, earning a glare from Kraft. Majors just did not interrupt UNSAC unless they were directly questioned. The atomgrabber explained something he had encountered in the Amazon Vector case years ago.

  “Red Hammer had programmed some of their swarms to assume human…or at l
east, para-human form. We first ran into these buggers in Valencia. We called them demonios…they looked like misshapen or half-grown skeletons…just swarms of bots trying to look like us, but not quite succeeding…like their programming or config control was a little off—“

  Behind Winger, 3rd Swarm ANAD brightened noticeably and stirred as if a slight breeze had briefly scattered the bots.

  “We always wondered what these creatures were doing…why had Red Hammer bothered to experiment with such configs. Was it some kind of experiment…of course, now, with ANAD and the Containment Laws, we see these kind of configs all the time…it’s not so unusual to see swarms drifting down the street and wandering around town. But back then, it was creepy.”

  UNSAC was a busy man. “Your point is…what, exactly, major?”

  “Sorry, sir…that was just background. I discussed these buggers…er, swarms, with Doc Frost at Northgate. He had dug into their processor architecture and found algorithms he’d never seen before. After awhile, we both began to wonder if Red Hammer wasn’t getting some help with their programming.”

  “Help…what kind of help?”

  “Maybe from some place off-Earth…someplace not even human.”

  UNSAC’s normally narrow eyes opened at that revelation. “Extraterrestrial help, you’re saying, Major? Aliens?”

  Winger nodded faintly. “Yes, sir…it was one of several theories he had. Honestly, Doc Frost was skeptical but I always thought there might be something to it.” He didn’t explain some of the dreams or images he had encountered when engaging Amazon Vector.

  General Linx was tightlipped. “I suppose we shouldn’t discount anything, Commissioner. I find this…theory…unconvincing, to say the least, in the absence of any additional evidence. But were it true, it could help explain how Red Hammer can do something like move asteroids around with no visible means.”

  “Or how they developed the quantum coupler in the first place,” UNSAC said. “Assistance from another intelligence…another race…” The Commissioner tried on the idea and had to admit it couldn’t be safely discounted. “This would magnify the threat quite a bit. And what does our friend ANAD think of this—“