Johnny Winger and the Hellas Enigma

by Philip Bosshardt

  “They’re right, sir,” Johnny Winger added. “ANAD now has the replication algorithm for the quantum generator. It worked at Kolkata…it ought to work with the one at Mars.”

  Linx asked, “What are you proposing? I see from the latest GreenMars report that Wilks will be past the orbit of Mars in less than three weeks, unless we regain control and effect some kind of course change.”

  “A joint mission, sir,” Winger said. “Quantum Corps and Frontier Corps. A joint mission with a new Detachment coordinating with Frontier Corps at Mars. Bring ANAD along and let him bollix up the replication engine of that generator.”

  Linx nodded his big furry head slowly, like a bear sizing up possibilities for his next meal. “And we regain control of the asteroid after that?”

  Drummond replied, “If there are no more surprises from Red Hammer…like extra quantum generators waiting to come on line.”

  Doc Frost had been mulling over that disturbing possibility. “Gentlemen, since we know the Kolkata generator was simply a well coordinated nanobotic swarm acting with highly sophisticated algorithms, then what’s to stop the adversary—this Red Hammer—from assembling multiple generator configs and spotting them in dozens, maybe hundreds of places? ANAD may be able to interfere with the replication algorithm of an existing generator assembly but if the config pattern exists in some processor somewhere or perhaps in multiple copies, we have to find the main processor, the main memory location or the mother copy and destroy it. Something like the Sphere Johnny Winger located at the Paryang monastery ten years ago. Otherwise, it’s like shooting at flies…kill one or kill a million, they keep coming back unless you destroy the nest.”

  “I see your point, Doctor,” Drummond admitted. “And we have no intelligence on where this nest might be.”

  “But we do have reliable intelligence on the existence of another generator on Mars,” Winger said. “According to Farside and GreenMars, if we can knock out that one, they should be able to regain enough control of the asteroid to deflect it away from Earth. But time is short. 2351 Wilks-Lucayo is picking up speed every day and the engineers operating the impulse motors on the asteroid said that within a week to ten days, the asteroid would be going too fast to make much of a deflection with all their motors firing.”

  Drummond nodded. “I saw the same report, Major. There’s a small window of opportunity to use those motors to make the right deflection maneuver. But to do it, they’ve got to get the asteroid free of other forces…we’ve got to stop that second generator from manipulating the string field.”

  “I’ve heard enough,” Linx decided. “Kraft, put together a plan and a new Detachment for a trip to Mars. I’ll clear it with UNSAC and see the orders are cut right away. Get the plan and mission details to me by 1800 hours today. UNSAC will want to see everything.”

  Kraft understood. “Then we should cease shutdown efforts here at Table Top, sir?”

  Linx shook his head. “No, make plans for full shutdown at this base at 2400 hours, 10 October. It’ll be the same for Balzano and Singapore. Prep efforts and outfitting for this joint mission should be centered at the space center at Kourou instead, just in case. We may have to operate under the radar for awhile, to meet or stall Red Hammer’s demands. But one way or another, we’ll get control of that asteroid.”

  Even as CINCQUANT was issuing orders, Winger noticed that ANAD was already changing config. The recruiting poster face was fading out and the swarm was dispersing, moving away from the containment chamber.

  Winger clicked in on the coupler circuit. ANAD…what the hell are you doing? The General hasn’t dismissed us yet…hold your position!

  ANAD’s reply came back: ***ANAD wishes to access tactical database for latest intelligence on asteroid position and velocity transients…computational analysis shows probability of predicting next transient from generator config algorithm…pattern analysis could pinpoint prime locations for generator positioning***

  Okay, ANAD, okay…I guess you know what you’re doing. But if you’re going to become a full nanotrooper, you’ve got to start behaving like one. We don’t walk out on four-star generals in the middle of a briefing.

  ***ANAD expresses standard levels of remorse for not communicating clearly…ANAD desires to run analysis on algorithm patterns…provide better intelligence on locating and disabling quantum generator swarms***

  It was then that several officers noticed the swarm-face had disappeared.

  “Where’d he go?” Kraft asked. “Is the swarm still here? Or has he just run off now that containment no longer applies?”

  Doc Frost was checking his control station. “Nanobotic activity is dispersing…centroid moving toward the door. I’d say ANAD’s in a hurry over something.”

  Linx was puzzled. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry, sir…I was just in coupler contact with ANAD. He’s detected something in the generator swarm pattern, the algorithm. Something that may give us clues as to where these generators are being placed and why.”

  Linx was grimly determined to make the new arrangement he had authorized work somehow. “I see we may need a little more training on nanotrooper basics, Major. Follow up and make sure this is all legitimate mission planning.” CINCQUANT then rubbed his eyes wearily. “Humans and ANADs…we’ve still got a helluva lot to learn about each other.”

  CHAPTER 8

  U.N. Frontier Corps Cruiser UNS Da Vinci

  Cycling Transfer Trajectory M-65

  3 hours from Mars Lander Departure

  September 30, 2080 (Earth U.T.)

  Turbo Fatah and Deeno D’Nunzio stared out the porthole at the onrushing face of Mars.

  “Looks like a puckered orange,” Fatah was saying. He wheezed and coughed a bit in the canned air of the cycler ship’s wardroom. The respirocyte treatment affected people differently. Sometimes the bots inhabiting your bloodstream, ready to boost oxygen supply a hundred fold over the body’s normal process, pushed too much oxygen into your lungs.

  “Yeah,” said D’Nunzio, snacking on a candy bar, “a puckered orange with a fungus. See that big pimple off to the left, lined up with those other pimples…Olympus Mons. Biggest damned volcano in the Solar System.”

  A voice crackled over the loudspeaker in the wardroom. A scattering of Detachment troopers sat or drifted about the rec space, playing cards, watching videos, or just staring out the portholes at their approaching destination. Ship’s crew huddled near holopod beside a vending port, where the ship’s purser and the chief engineer cast virtual dice in a simulated game of craps with the ship’s computer.

  “NOW HEAR THIS…NOW HEAR THIS…All Detachment troops lay aft to the Ops deck…on the double…departure briefing in ten minutes…NOW HEAR THIS….”

  D’Nunzio and Fatah joined a few others in the central gangway and hauled themselves along until they came to the spinning portal labeled OPERATIONS. Timing their entrance, each one shot through the rotating opening into the deck and pounced like cats on the deck wall until centrifugal force grabbed them and made them fast. After a few such gymnastics, the troopers had gotten the hang of maneuvering in and out of the ship’s artificial gravity and were climbing, floating and lunging all over the ship like a circus troupe.

  Major Winger was there, beside a podium and display screen, surrounded by Captain Benes and the First Officer Mendez, Da Vinci’s commanding officer and her exec. One by one, the rest of the Detachment shot into the Ops deck: Calderon, Spivey, Reaves, Barnes and Tsukota…all of them now quite accomplished at scurrying about the ship’s spaces.

  One trooper had already entered some time before the briefing was announced. ANAD (3rd Swarm) had filtered unseen by human eyes along the central gangway from his containment berth four decks below and slid into Ops without disturbing anything. A nanobotic swarm could look like a slightly pale, frizzy human being or a drifting puff of dust motes…it all depended on the configuration of th
e swarm. ANAD hovered in the background alongside the gangway door, a pale, ghostly outline of a bland, featureless face with part of a neck and upper torso below, almost like a bedsheet with eyeholes cut out.

  Captain Benes stood alongside Winger at the podium, with the First Officer Mendez on the other side, eyeing the ANAD swarm with a mixture of curiosity and alarm. It wasn’t everyday a cycler captain had a cloud of intelligent particles drifting freely about his ship.

  “Detachment, listen up. This is your departure briefing. Right now, Da Vinci’s engineering staff is powering up the lander. You’ve got one hour to get all your gear aboard. The lander will be cut loose for a ballistic entry at 1125 hours on the button. I hope you’ve all done your miles on the treadmill and the centrifuge…you’re gonna need it. The lander pulls about 5 g’s during the drop.”

  “Major, Captain…” it was Sheila Reaves, not knowing exactly who to address “—where are we landing?”

  “I can answer that,” Benes said. “Once Da Vinci makes her next course change, you’ll be targeted for Mariner City, North Landing Pad. Mendez here—“ he indicated the First Officer “will be your pilot. He’s done dozens of drops…only pranged a few dozen ships.” Benes chuckled, until he realized his attempt at humor had failed completely. He cleared his throat, his tone seriously official. “First Officer Mendez is an accomplished lander pilot with many years of experience at drops. Don’t worry, Sergeant, we’ll get you down.”

  The briefing went on for another five minutes. Benes covered the separation maneuver, pre-entry procedures, the aerobraking and ballistic descent, all of which would take place over an hour’s time once the lander had left Da Vinci. When he was done, Winger added a few points.

  “Remember that Alpha Detachment is detailed to Frontier Corps on this mission. We follow their lead here. I’m meeting with Inspector Duncan Price at Mariner City at 2100 hours this evening, local time. The rest of you will bivouac inside the dome, at the Armory, along with our gear. Once we’re down, there will be a brief reception at the Landing Pad—all the politicos and dignitaries, so look sharp and show ‘em what real nanotroopers are like—then we head into the City and set up. ANAD—“

  The swarm face brightened at the mention of its name.

  ***ANAD responding, Major Winger--***

  “ANAD, you assume config C-12…I made sure Doc Frost loaded that one before we shipped out. I want you looking your best when we meet the big wigs. None of this free swarming while we’re on Mars. Keep that config until I tell you otherwise…is that understood?”

  ***Affirmative, Major Winger…ANAD parses command to assume C-12 and retain config until further instructions***

  The swarm wavered, throbbed and pulsed with light, as if it were some kind of underwater apparition.

  “That’s it, then…move out! Get your gear and let’s get aboard the lander. Departure in fifty-two minutes.”

  There was a flurry of activity all about Da Vinci as the nanotroopers of Alpha Detachment gathered up their gear, pods full of ammo, coilguns and the HERF weapons, hypersuit harnesses, MOB canisters, SuperFly launchers, camou-fog generators, and assorted fabs---all the equipment a nanotrooper detachment would need for tactical missions. Only a few hypersuits had been brought along, as the Detachment had all undergone the respirocyte treatment and could travel about the Martian surface in only masks and skinsuits.

  Mighty Mites Barnes swore loudly as she pushed and dragged her gear packs and gunny sacks along the central gangway toward the lander bay.

  “Jesus H. Christ…we could have brought the whole freakin’ Table Top Mountain with us, if we’d tried a little harder.”

  “Yeah…” muttered Ray Spivey, practically lost amid all the bags and trunks he was herding along. “They could shut down the Mountain but who would notice…we got all the gear with us.”

  One by one, the troopers drifted through the airlock and hatch into the lander and stowed their gear. Da Vinci’s lander was a fat truncated cone, with a biconic outer aeroshell for protection and maneuvering once the thing slammed into Mars’ atmosphere. The cycler crew had christened the little ship with the unlikely name of Pinocchio.

  Half an hour after everybody was through bitching and moaning and had gotten themselves secured and strapped in, Pinocchio’s pilot, Lieutenant Mendez, punched up the departure program on the ship’s computer and counted down the last seconds before separation.

  “Five…four…three…two…one…bingo!”

  There was brief shudder and lurch as Pinocchio’s thrusters fired to make a positive separation.

  “Pinocchio away…”he announced. Seated directly behind the First Officer on the command deck were Johnny Winger and Dana Tallant. Both watched through the forward windscreen as the gaping mouth of Da Vinci’s forward docking ring receded into the distance. From two miles off, when Mendez had stopped their motion and re-oriented Pinocchio for de-orbit, the great cycler ship looked like a massive bird soaring off into the heavens. Da Vinci never slowed into orbit around any planet on her itinerary. Her trajectory took her scooting by Venus, Earth and Mars on a repeating loop around the Sun every sixteen months, an interplanetary busline making endless trips through the void. It was up to little ships like Pinocchio to get people and supplies up and down to huge cycler ship.

  Mendez counted down the moments to the initial burn that would start Pinocchio on her long curving descent into the atmosphere of Mars. Like a big rock, she would skip first off the top of the atmosphere, then on each succeeding trip around, she would bite deeper and deeper into the air, slowing down on each pass, adjusting her path, until her velocity had dropped enough to glide into the lower atmosphere and scout out her landing site.

  That, at least, was theory behind Frontier Corps aerobraking maneuvers.

  “Ten seconds to PDI,” the First Officer announced. He checked over his console: track, engine status, attitude…everything seemed ready. “Get ready for a major kick in the ass—“

  The burn, when it came, made Pinocchio shake and shudder like a wet dog. Johnny Winger felt the acceleration build up rapidly. After a few weeks of microgravity, the ship’s descent felt like an elephant had planted its posterior right on his chest. He forced a sideways glance at Tallant in the next seat.

  The nanotrooper was exhaling out in quick, forced breaths, as they had been trained. She met Winger’s eyes and grunted back.

  “Wings…remind me to…put in…for a…transfer…when we get back….”

  Mendez watched the trajectory plot on his board carefully as Pinocchio began her first aerobraking approach to the upper reaches of Mars’ atmosphere. The plot showed several lines, indicating nominal and actual course, all converging on an actual window in space, the entry point, where the lander would take her first big bite into the atmosphere, slowing the ship down for subsequent passes.

  Mendez frowned as he studied the plot. “Something’s wrong—“ he muttered. His fingers flew over the keyboard, cycling through several displays. “—what the hell…my state vector’s on the money…engines are good but—“ The pilot hurriedly scanned more displays, tapped more keys. “—come on, come on,” he said. Then he stabbed the ENGINE button and the ship’s engines fell silent.

  Unseen by Winger or Tallant, Pinocchio’s first burn had gone perfectly according to plan. But her actual course was rapidly diverging from the expected plot. Mendez was nonplussed.

  “Jeez…what the hell’s going on here…did Mars suddenly gain mass…or change gravity?”

  Winger leaned forward in his seat to see. “What is it, Lieutenant? What’s wrong?”

  Mendez laid his hands with exaggerated care on his seat armrest, careful not to touch any more keys. In training, lander pilots were taught like doctors: first, do no harm. Don’t make the situation any worse.

  “Burn was nominal, Major. I’ve got almost no residuals. But according to my plot here, we’ve somehow gone way off course.
” Mendez cleared his throat. “And if I don’t do something quick, we’re gonna slam right into the atmosphere at too steep an angle…fry ourselves to cinders. Prepare to execute Missed Approach procedure.”

  Mendez cycled the displays and began pecking out new commands as fast as he could. Pinocchio plunged rapidly toward the atmosphere at an ever-steepening angle. Through the forward windscreen, the tan and ocher limb of Mars grew larger by the second.

  “Forty-five seconds to entry interface,” Mendez announced. “I’m going to pull us out of this descent and put us back into a low orbit…if I can—“

  Pinocchio’s engines stuttered to life once more and the ship slowly began to pull out of her descent trajectory. Winger dead-reckoned on the limb of Mars visible through the windscreen, expecting to see Mars drop lower and lower in the sky as Pinocchio regained altitude.

  But after a three-minute burn, they had gained no more altitude. Mars came rushing up at them faster than ever.

  The burn had no effect.

  SpaceGuard Center, Farside Observatory

  Korolev Crater, the Moon

  Adam Bright nodded grimly at the Farside Array tracking display on his console. Max Lane, the shift supervisor, stood behind him, seeing the same thing.

  “The latest pulse,” Bright told him. He fiddled with the display, superimposing trajectories. “Before and after, Max. Wilks is staying on course, no matter what we do.”

  Lane took a deep breath. “The last advisory I saw from GreenMars said their impulse motors were about out of raw material for fuel. They’ve chewed up a third of the asteroid just trying to get her back on course. Now, with Wilks so close, any burn is costly.”

  “There’s something else you should know about,” Bright noted. “When I played the pulse back, there seemed to be a real epicenter near Mars for these decoherence waves. I read the reports from GreenMars about Quantum Corps taking down that transmitter—or whatever the hell it was—in India. Data showed there had to be another one within a couple of hundred million miles—most evidence pointed to an installation on or around Mars. I think we can be pretty safe in saying here’s the proof.”