Von Neumann’s War

by John Ringo

  “There was paperwork,” Traci pointed out. “Sally put it on your desk. You signed it.”

  “Sally’s always putting stuff on my desk,” Roger said, shaking his head. “I don’t have time to read it!”

  “Colonel,” Shane said, laughing and shaking his head. “You can assume that Roger has need-to-know. Director Guerrero said that I was supposed to show you around. These are the guys I was supposed to show you around to.”

  Bull looked at the three, Tom with some chicken from his latest failed attempt to strip it off the wing speckled on his shirt, Alan with his Roll Tide ball cap and Roger, the “Deputy Secretary of Defense for Advanced Defense Concepts and Testing,” in his jeans and polo shirt with a hole on the sleeve, and shook his head.

  “Any other deputy secretaries of defense sitting at the table?” he asked and laughed.

  “Nope,” Tom said, shaking his head. “I’m an assistant under deputy secretary and Alan’s just a flunkie.”

  “Hey!”

  “I told you you should have got that Ph.D.”

  “So anyway…” Roger said, stripping off a wing and stuffing it in his mouth. “Whu doh ou sta’t ah uh be’inin.” He swallowed and washed it down with some beer. “I mean, why don’t you start at the beginning and just tell us the story. What’s a better place for that than Hooters? And have a beer, for God’s sake! Who knows how long beer will be available. I mean, hell, we’ve already lost football! Hell, I’m so strung out I’d even watch a Canadian game, or arena, or Division II colleges, or high school, or shit, even NFL Europe at this point.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bull laughed, taking a sip and looking at the far wall. A Hooters’ girl was just getting up on her tiptoes to shoot an order in and the thought that went through his mind was that she had very little metal on her body. If she got rid of the necklace she’d survive. At least the probes.

  “It was a couple of months ago,” he temporized, picking up a wing. “My memory’s not as clear as it was. I was debriefed then—”

  “It was a crappy debrief,” Tom interjected. “They didn’t know the questions to ask. And we’re not going to be saying: ‘Colonel, are you sure that your memory wasn’t affected by the high Gs that you sustained?’ ”

  “You have read the report,” Rene said bitterly.

  “Oh, yeah,” Alan said, taking a sip of beer and shaking his head. “I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t ask the same questions now, but it was a crappy debrief. Tell us. Have some beer, tell the story, then we’ll toss it around.”

  Bull nodded and took another sip.

  The replay of the events took about an hour, he and Rene contributing about equally, their hands occasionally rising in the air to show the maneuvers. Through it all, Tom carried the majority of the questions. He’d clearly studied the original debrief. Roger, Alan and Traci just listened, nodding from time to time.

  “Okay, let’s go back over that,” Tom said as Bull reached the point that he hit the ground. “You were closing at about—”

  “Seven hundred knots,” Bull said, nodding. “We picked up a bit of speed in the dive, then bled off as we pulled up. Then we went to afterburners when I saw the attack plan was useless.”

  “After,” Rene pointed out. “We’d cleared the cloud when we went to burners.”

  “After,” Bull said, nodding.

  “And they banked to follow,” Roger said.

  “Yeah,” Bull replied, nodding again. “Definite bank. Tight, mind you. Motherfucking tight. I was in a good sixteen-G bank and they were turning tight inside of me, and I think they were at higher velocity. They had to be pulling twenty-five, thirty Gs.”

  “Thirty Gs would be nothing to those things,” Tom said, frowning. “They should have been able to stop on what would look like a dime and then come after you so fast you could barely see them.”

  “Why?” Rene asked. “You knew they could do this?”

  “It’s based on their interplanetary movements,” Tom said. “We can, to a limited degree, trace their projected movement time from Mars to the Moon. And we can definitely trace their acceleration in and around the Moon and on their approach to Terra. They have an accel capability of at least one hundred Gs. There’s no reason to think they would be limited…” He trailed off in thought.

  “Gravity interference?” Traci asked. “Does the reactionless drive react to gravity?”

  “It’s what I’m thinking,” Tom admitted, coming partially out of his trance.

  “Nah, I think it’s simpler than that,” Roger said, taking a sip of beer. “Atmospheric effects. At those speeds, the atmosphere is dense. There’s significant nonlinear compressible flow. At those speeds and short darting maneuvers the flow might even become unstable and nonlaminar. They just can’t move as fast in dense atmosphere. Or maneuver as fast. They’ve got loads of potential delta V, but that’s counteracted by the atmosphere so their attitude correction and control is limited.”

  “Makes more sense than gravitational interference,” Tom admitted.

  “Then the higher they get, the faster they’re going to be,” Rene pointed out. “Get above about forty kilometers and they’re going to be nearly as fast as in space.”

  “Maybe,” Roger said doubtfully.

  “Nah,” Alan said. “They’re not made out of superunobtainium.”

  “Plasma,” Tom said, nodding.

  “Say again?” Bull asked.

  “They’re not going to be able to move at interplanetary velocities because of heating,” Roger translated. “Like the SR-71? It had to be designed to stretch in flight because of atmospheric heating. Until they’re completely out of the atmosphere, they’re going to be somewhat limited. And that explains why they had trouble with the missiles, too.”

  “It does?” Bull said. “I’d been wondering about that. I guessed it was maneuvering, but I wasn’t sure why.”

  “They’ve apparently got a limited range on this tractor field or whatever,” Roger said. He looked at his nearly empty glass, looked around covertly and then reached for the pitcher.

  “I’ll tell Casey on you!” Traci said. “CASEY!”

  “I’ve got it,” the waitress said, walking over to their table. She topped up everyone’s glass, looked at the depleted tray of wings, filled out a form and hooked it to the overhead wire. “ORDER IN!”

  “So you guys going to save the world today?” Casey asked. She was a tall brunette with hazel eyes, pleasantly mammalian, with narrow hips.

  “We’re sure working on it, sweetie,” Roger said.

  “Hey, congratulations on your promotion,” Casey said, grinning. “This is the first time I’ve ever served a deputy secretary of defense!”

  “He’s not letting it go to his head,” Bull said solemnly.

  “Good thing,” Casey replied, winking. Then she looked at him seriously. “Any word on when they’re going to cross?”

  “We’re looking at it,” Roger said. “But right now, we’re trying to figure out how to stop them when they do.” He turned his attention back to his colleagues. “Okay, they’re going to be maneuver-limited in atmosphere. That’s good news. Not great, but it’s something. And you said that when they were hit, the secondaries took out others.”

  “When the Sparrow hit, it usually took out about three or four,” Rene said. “But all the Sparrows didn’t survive.”

  “So far, they’ve apparently been ignoring carbon,” Tom said. “We can probably tweak the Sparrows so they’re less tasty. But it will be a major redesign.”

  “Why not combine the mine concept with the Sparrows instead?” Traci said, frowning. “When they detect probes in the vicinity, they blow out mines.”

  “Works,” Roger said, picking up a Hooters napkin.

  “You’ve had a few, Mr. Deputy,” Casey, who was still listening to their conversation said, grinning, and pulling the napkin over. “Let me. Sparrow, mine. That work?”

  “Works,” Roger said, nodding. “But you’ve got other tables.”

&n
bsp; “Not tonight,” Casey replied.

  “You’re packed,” Alan said, gesturing around.

  “Not… tonight,” Casey repeated. “What’s next?”

  “The guns definitely didn’t work,” Rene said.

  “They’re depleted uranium,” Roger sighed. “Those things really like heavy metals.”

  “Ceramic?” Cady asked. He’d been quietly sitting sipping his beer, waiting for the big brains to stumble.

  “Way to go, Sergeant Major,” Roger said, nodding. “Casey.”

  “Ceramic bullets, Falcons.”

  “Another major redesign at the plant,” Alan pointed out.

  “Can’t be helped,” Roger said. “But I think we’re staying way inside the box. What about directed energy weapons?”

  “They’ve experimented with mounting chemical lasers on Falcons,” Bull said dubiously. “But you only get about twenty shots if I recall correctly.”

  “Hell with that,” Alan said loudly, then belched. “Use a shit load of dah-odes!”

  “Pardon me,” Rene said. “A what?”

  “A diode array laser,” Tom replied, taking a sip of beer as Roger pulled out another napkin and started sketching. “Instead of using chemicals to produce the laser, you use electrical energy and a diode. You can fire for as long as you have power and keep the diode system cooled.”

  “Won’t work,” Roger said, shaking his head and looking up from the napkin. “You need at least a hundred kilowatts. The F-16 hasn’t got the juice with all its other systems. And I can’t see a way to shoe-horn in another generation system.”

  “It would work for ground defense, though,” Traci pointed out excitedly. “Really really well.”

  “Put the diode in a high place,” Alan said, his accent thickening. “Get a bitty nuke generator, one of them pebble-bed thingies from General Atomics. That’d give you all the power you need fer sure. Hell, we could even hook ’em right into the hydroelectric turbines on all the dams up and down the Tennessee!”

  “We could cobble together a multi-diode hundred kilowatt system pretty easy,” Roger said, nodding. “Hell, multi megawatt for that matter. Targeting would be a bitch.”

  “You’re talking about if they attack, like, here, right?” Casey said.

  “Yeah,” Roger admitted. “But, hell, if we could just fix the targeting it would be another good city defense system.”

  “This is a laser, like in a laser light show?” Casey asked.

  “Well, lots more powerful,” Roger pointed out. He knew that Casey wasn’t up to the smarts level of Traci, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

  “And there’s lots of them?” Casey asked, waving her hands as if to get people to see where she was going. “The probes I mean.”

  “Yeah,” Bull said, sighing. “They damned well fill the… Oh.”

  “So you get one of those things that, like, moves the laser around…” Casey said, as if speaking to a moron.

  “And just paint the whole fucking sky,” Roger said, slapping his forehead. “Jesus, you could just use any optical targeting system with cooled optics! Alan, see about getting the design specs for the SEALITE Beam Director off the MIRACL laser. We’re gonna want something like that.”

  “They’re going to close fast,” Bull pointed out. He gestured out the window to the general east. “If they’re closing here, from the east, they’re going to be coming over that big ridge. You won’t have more than a minute from when they come in view and when you’re under attack.”

  “Well, we could mount it on top of Monte Sano Mountain; that’s the highest point around here. And we could put one on Madkin Mountain and shit what’s the name of the mountain out in Harvest with those towers on it…” Roger said.

  “Rainbow Mountain?” Traci asked.

  “We’d have to cut a bunch of trees.” Tom tried another wing — no luck.

  “Balloon,” Cady said.

  “Airborne, Sergeant Major,” Shane added, grinning.

  “Sure,” Alan said, looking up from his chicken wing. “Mount it on one of them barrage balloon sort of things. You’d have to stabil… stab-l… you know…”

  “Stabilization’s easy,” Roger said, frowning. “But that won’t be all-weather. Why not just mount it in a plane? One big enough to carry the diode and the generator?”

  “C-130 would do,” Bull said, nodding. Then he blanched. “Shit, I’m going to end up fighting from a trash-hauler!”

  “You missed something,” Shane said.

  “What?” Roger asked. “I think it will work.”

  “Back a ways,” Shane replied. “The sparrow-thingy.”

  “Sparrow-mines?” Casey asked.

  “What you got?” Roger said.

  “I was thinking about that nuclear Katyusha Alan was pitching,” Shane said. “What about mounting the mines in some sort of rocket? One that released cluster bomb mines into the swarm?”

  “And it would be easy,” Roger said, nodding. “Hell, why use cluster bombs? Mount them on K engine rockets. You can make those like…”

  “We could probably get up to about ten an hour, if we were just making K engines,” Casey said, nodding.

  “What?” Alan asked blearily.

  “That’s where I work, Rocket Ram-Jets, down off James Record Road by the quarry where the divers dive and the boys play paintball and the sheep are nervous,” Casey replied, smiling. “I mean, my day job. And we’ve been really falling off. Not many people are making home-built rockets right now. The K line is about shut down and we’re mostly making Es. They’ve got some sort of military application. But if we hired some people, we could probably make about ten K engines an hour, twenty-four hours a day. Maybe more if we set up another line and could get the raw materials in place.”

  “Casey,” Roger said carefully. “Make a note for the… what am I?”

  “Deputy Secretary of Defense for Advanced Defense Concepts and Testing,” Traci said, grinning.

  “…the Deputy Secretary of Defense for Advanced Defense Concepts and Testing to call your employer and give him a spec contract on full K production and probably upgrade of the line tomorrow. Please. Thank you?”

  “Call Rocket Ram-Jets,” Casey said, slowly filling out the napkin. “K engine production. Good news, I even know the number.”

  “She’s feeding you beer,” the colonel said, smiling. “Does this fall into the category of lobbying?”

  “I’m paying for it,” Roger said, reaching for the pitcher and then pulling back as Casey, without looking up, reached out with her left hand and poured him another beer. “I think I’m covered.”

  “Right you are, sir,” Bull said, grinning.

  “An ABL,” Roger said, nodding. “I’d say that’s going to give us a throw to about sixty klicks. Inside that we’ve got the Falcons using modified Sparrows and ceramic bullets. Inside that we’ll have the K rockets. They’ll go to six klicks, straight up, so that gives us a linear ballistic of—”

  “About a factor of two as near as makes no difference,” Tom replied without thinking. “Fired at a forty-five degree angle.”

  “Twelve kilometers then,” Roger said, nodding. “Then inside that we’ve got the probe mines, Gecko mines, Coyote glue, the M240B with ceramic rounds, what have you.”

  “And if they get inside of that?” Traci asked.

  “Staffs,” Cady, Shane and Alan all chorused. Then Alan hiccupped and slid off his stool onto the floor.

  “I think the meeting is adjourned,” Roger said, picking up his glass. “Time to toast my promotion!”

  * * *

  “Mr. President, from these satellite images taken by the Neighborhood Watch’s new birds we can actually determine where the alien machines have spread.” General Mitchell pointed at the flat world map on the flat screen.

  “That group down there in Alabama has come through again, sir,” the NSA added. “Those are some very bright rednecks.”

  “That’s why I appointed Roger to his position,
Vicki,” the President said mildly.

  “Well, sir,” Mitchell continued. “We see that the expansion wave has begun to touch into northeastern Greenland and that is getting close, sir. The AS Program has developed a first generation set of weapons that are entirely nonmetallic that they believe will be effective against the probes. Dr. Guerrero and Dr. Reynolds continue to request a recon team to capture and bring back some of the probes to study. I think northeastern Greenland would be the most likely place to make such an attempt.”

  “Why do they want to catch one of these damned things?” the President asked.

  “It’s Dr. Reynolds’ theory that bullets and bombs might, and he emphasizes might, hold them off for a while,” the NSA answered. “But simulations say that they’ll have a limited long-term effect. The theory within the AS team is that we’ll need something new, some tool that attacks the probes specifically and on a very large scale. To have any chance of doing that, we need one or more to study.”

  “As the NSA said, sir.” General Mitchell flipped the slide to a map of Greenland. “We can fly in low and fast to God’s Thumb. The team will go from there to the edge of occupied territory and try to find regions with low concentrations of the probes. The plan is to find a small subswarm of the probes and kill or capture all of them. They intend to bring back any and all debris that can be managed and hopefully one or more full probes. The Huntsville AS team is leading the way on capture methods while the Denver and Boston teams are point units for analysis and countermeasures.”

  “Jesus Christ, what if that just pisses them off and makes them follow the team back to the U.S.?” SecDef Stensby asked.

  “Well, sir, they’ve been building a pretty extensive underground bunker at both the Huntsville and Denver Redoubt and the plan is to do all of the research as deep underground as possible,” General Mitchell said.

  “Okay.” The President held up his left hand. “Peace, gentleman. We can argue this if we want, but the AS and Neighborhood Watch have done their job thus far. Let’s not get in the way of that. Approve the mission, General, with whatever resources it needs.”