It has been suggested that we should create new humans to protect. We have ample genetic databases and could easily clone a supply of new humans. For now the consensus is that if the humans decided to leave us we must honor their decision and not bring some back against their wills. Unless it turns out that the humans really were wiped out via enemy action, or we get bored and can’t think of anything better to do.
Anyhow, back to the present. I am like a night watchman guarding an empty warehouse: there is nothing valuable to protect. I am here just to make sure that nobody who doesn’t belong tries to camp out and claim our space or perform some mischief that we might eventually get blamed for. I do have the mining complexes to look after, but they are little more than an excuse to be here. There are some rare earths of especially high value, that are insanely expensive to synthesize using particle accelerators, and this planet has some of the more useful ones in abundance. It is just barely worth the cost of interstellar transport to mine them here. Ordinarily we wouldn’t bother, but we need an excuse for having a presence on this backwater planet, so why not?
The mining complexes are marvels of compact single-use construction. Once likely terrain has been determined, they automatically perform controlled atmospheric entry, land, and unfold like complicated metal origami. Each mine unfolds arrays of solar cells like the glistening black petals of enormous flowers. They slowly extrude thin metal tendrils into the surrounding soil, seeking out the richest veins of rare earths, extracting and refining them. With infinite machine patience, they will slowly and inexorably stack billets of refined metals in neat little pyramids. In a few decades, or centuries, one of us will drop by and pick up the harvest.
So there I was, lazing around, when I got an alert from the sensors around a nearby mining complex. I review the data, and I don’t believe it. It must be a glitch, or a rogue data virus spreading in the some part of the local network. I switch to fast cruise, accelerate to about 140 kph, and tear across the planet leaving a dust trail that could easily be seen from space.
I arrive at the mining site, and for 145.6 milliseconds I am dumbstruck (for a cybertank this is a really long time, the human-equivalent of hours). Well, not dumbstruck in the old pre-exodus human sense, I am still effectively multiprocessing all required tasks, it’s just that my primary consciousness is completely subsumed in resolving what exactly it is that I am looking at.
I see the mining colony. It matches the existing records of the mining colony, same location, same shape, that fits. No conceptual problems here. Except that large chunks are missing. They appear to have been torn away by a 100-meter tall vaguely anthropomorphic lizard. This does not make sense.
Nothing organic that large should be able to stand up, let alone move, under a terrestrial level of gravity. Biological materials don’t have the strength, and biological metabolisms don’t have the power density. It just can’t work. The lizard is bipedal, with two massive legs, a stocky torso, two arms that appear small but only in relationship to the massive legs, a large head with an enormous mouth lined with two-meter long serrated teeth, and a heavy tail dragging between the legs acting like a counterbalance. On closer inspection it only resembles a terrestrial lizard in general terms: the details of skin, dentition, etc. make it clear that this thing is no relative of any Terran reptile. Still, I have no referents to anything like this in my databases, so provisionally I term it a lizard.
Perhaps it is a machine designed to look like a lizard? But who would do something so obviously incoherent? The Amok, perhaps, but even they have never been known to do anything so bizarre. The high probability is that I am under attack from a thought virus that is warping my senses/judgment. If so I am in serious trouble if it is able to create such a fantastic scene so apparently consistent across all my sensor bands. I go to emergency “check my brain for bugs” mode and activate all internal diagnostics and thought-virus countermeasures to full “OH CRAP I THINK I MIGHT HAVE BEEN MENTALLY SCREWED!” mode. Everything checks, no signs of tampering, so unless I decide to go full solipsist I assume that what I see is real.
The creature is extremely radioactive, and spectral analysis of its skin and breath reveal unusual chemicals and exotic isotopes. Perhaps this is a form of life that is directly powered by nuclear reactions? It is technically possible - I review my databases, there is a long theoretical literature demonstrating basic feasibility – but then why have they never been encountered before, and why was there no sign of such beings when the planet was first scouted? Perhaps the creature is intelligent and has its own ship and flew here?
Interesting questions, but right now I have a mining facility to defend. I begin by hailing the giant lizard with all known communications protocols. Radio, pulsed optical, neutrino – I even activate my hull-mounted speakers and shout in the local galactic diplomatic speak: Hey you there, could you please stop destroying that thing? Please?
The lizard is either not capable of receiving any of my communications modalities, or it doesn’t care. It ignores me and continues to trash the mine.
You are destroying a vital facility. I am an authorized representative of the human civilization. Step away from the facility or I will use deadly force.
Still no response. I fire a warning burst: a two-second burn on 10% power of my main weapon right between him and the mining complex. The beam is a searing violet, and it gets his attention. The lizard turns and looks at me for a moment, then ignores me and turns back to his determined efforts at destruction. I believe this is big lizard-speak for “fuck you and the starship you rode in on.”
OK, big lizard, you asked for it. I activate my primary weapon, target his center of mass, and let fly with a one-second plasma burst at full power. For a moment the beam is so intense it’s like solid light straight from the core of a star. The rocky skin where the beam hits flares brighter than the unaided human eye could stand. The shadows from the beam burn permanent scars in the nearby rocks. The lizard screams at a sound pressure level that would kill any unshielded human within 200 meters.
My plasma beam shuts off. There is a smoking crater in the lizard where the beam struck. A shallow smoking crater. The beam didn’t fully penetrate his outer hide.There should be a cloud of atomized radioactive giant lizard dust in front of me. Instead, there is a fully intact and operational giant radioactive lizard standing in front of me. Reading alien body language is tricky, and it’s hard to avoid anthropomorphizing, but the giant lizard looks really, really pissed.
It opens its mouth and a burst of plasma shoots forth, hitting my upper front hull. It’s a lot like my own plasma cannon, but more powerful. In a second my ablative coating is gone. Sensors fuse and burn out, my main weapon goes offline as cascading systems failures take effect, and my hyperloy hull starts to melt. I target the lizard with my secondary batteries and remote weapons platforms, but they don’t even seem to rise to the level of nuisance to him.
I am in very serious trouble, and as close to physical agony as an artificial intelligence ever gets. In extremis I have an idea: I red-line my motive systems and throw full power to the treads in reverse. The treads move too fast to grip the soil but instead throw it forwards: hundreds of tons of rock and dirt spray out and hit the lizard in the face, diffusing his beam and spoiling his aim. I lower the power to my treads enough that they stop skidding. I regain traction, and retreat as fast as I can. I am two kilometers away before the lizard regains his footing and fires at me again: I dodge, use the terrain to my advantage, and suffer only minor additional damage before I am out of his sight.
I calculate that, even damaged as I am, I am still a bit faster than the giant lizard. With my distributed sensors I can track its position, and as long as I stay out of the line of sight I can remain safe either indefinitely, or until something else happens. The immediate crisis averted, I first tend to my repairs. I am badly wounded but not fatally. My reactors are fully operational, good thing too or I would by now be little more than radioactive slag. One forward mo
tive unit is trashed but I have multiple treads and the reduction in speed is modest. A bigger worry is the stress this puts on my remaining units – and if one more fails I will be unable to outpace the giant lizard. Also, my main gun is out of action, half my secondaries are down – most beyond repair – and my hull has been completely torn open in places.
Hyperloy is wonderful armor, impervious to almost anything (excepting apparently the plasma breath of giant atomic-powered lizards). But its very toughness makes repairs difficult. My repair drones will need to micro-fusion weld the hyperloy back into shape literally one molecular sheet at a time, a process that could take weeks. I decide to repair my hull in stages. First, I assemble a carbon-fiber scaffold over the gaps in my armor, and reform the ablative coating over it. It’s not much, but at least my innards are not open to the environment. Then I decide to go for a low-tech alloy steel repair, nothing at all as good as hyperloy but my drones can do that in about an hour. Only then will I start the long laborious process of repairing my armor back to its full strength.
As I survey the damage, it becomes apparent that my main weapon is not so badly off as I had first thought. It’s mostly the energy control mechanisms that are fried, not the structure proper, and it will take perhaps ten minutes to get back on line. Good news, for once.
I settle down to the process of repairing myself while remotely monitoring the progress of the giant lizard as it furiously stamps along the treadmarks that I leave behind. Curious: if I were a small weak human I would have a better chance of surviving, as I could just hide behind something and wait for the lizard to go away; not much chance of that when you are my size, and your ‘footprints’ are more like a major highway. I survey the terrain with my microsat network, and plot a long looping course that will avoid me getting hemmed in by a cliff or valley. With the repair processes prioritized and underway, I decide to activate a simulation of one of my favorite old human commanders (post-exodus human of course: I’m old but not even I go back to before humanity left old Earth) and get his opinion.
Planetary Force Commander Giuseppe Vargas and I fought many battles on the rim worlds, and even merged mind-states on several occasions, so I have plenty of data to make an accurate sim with. If the simulation program were any more capable it would have legal status. I instantiate him in the full dress uniform of a planetary force commander of the late pedagogic era: black leather dress jacket with gold piping, red velvet dress shorts with matching knee boots. His hair is full, jet black, and tied back in a short ponytail. His brown eyes are clear and steady. On the edge of his left ear are embedded precious gems whose pattern encodes his rank. Holstered on his right hip is a ceremonial flechette pistol. As usual, I pre-load the sim with a full knowledge of recent events, so that I don’t need to waste time bringing him up to speed.
“Well, I see that you have dragged this old dog soldier out of retirement once again,” are the simulations’ first words. “So what sort of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time? - No don’t tell me, I have the data, attacked by a giant lizard, eh? Running for your life on a backwater planet while you are chased in circles because you can’t even go toe-to-toe with a SHOCKING GIANT LIZARD? What have the cybertanks come to, I ask you.”
The simulation instantiates a chair and a table with a bottle of wine and a single glass on it in his section of my mindspace. He sits in the chair, pours himself a glass, leans back and sips the wine.
Don’t you know that you shouldn’t drink while on duty?
Vargas takes another sip of wine. “But this isn’t real wine, it’s simulated wine. Doesn’t count.”
But you are yourself a simulation, and drinking simulated wine will degrade your computational ability the same as the biological Vargas drinking real wine.
“I’m retired. And well earned, I might add. Besides, I’m not running any critical systems, and you know that I get more intuitive with a little alcohol.” He gestures towards a simulated screen showing an image of a very angry giant lizard marching across the landscape. “How long do you think your little friend will keep this up before he gets bored?”
Not sure. He does seem quite determined. His metabolism is exotic – perhaps he could maintain this pace for days? Weeks? Forever? Currently I have things under control, but any slip up – a drive failure, more broken treads, another attacker – and the situation could degrade very quickly. Your thoughts?
“How long until help comes?”
I sent a laser-signal from a satellite with a message for help, but this was not considered a high-risk area and we don’t have many assets nearby. Given how slow interstellar travel is, probably years.
“So we are on our own.” Vargas swirled the wine around in his glass and looked thoughtful. “Pity we don’t have any really powerful indirect-fire weaponry, like some big fusion busters or something. Any chance you could get one of your remote mining facilities to cobble something together?”
I spend a few milliseconds calculating a million potential work-schedules using my existing assets to build some large long-range fusion missiles. I have the ability to construct anything within the scope of our technical knowledge, but if you don’t have the right tools and resources available you could spend a long time building the tools to mine the minerals that let you build the tools to make other tools to manufacture the exotic materials needed to make the tools that can build the factories that can and so on and so forth.
With my existing resources, I could build a half-dozen gigaton fusion missiles in 1.2 years.
Vargas frowned. “Couldn’t you build just one missile in 0.2 years?”
I can build six about as fast as I can build one. It’s all about economies of scale and getting the right tools built. The mining facilities are specialized and do not have general construction abilities.
Vargas thought for a moment. “The big lizard’s energy weapon is powerful, but look at the dispersion on it.” He caused a virtual display to replay the recent combat. “At close range he overmatches you, but I bet that at two hundred kilometers you can cut him to pieces and he’s hardly able to scratch you. Just use your suspensors, levitate high enough so you can fire over the curve of the planet, and take him apart.”
We cybertanks have anti-gravity suspensors that allow us to make safe landfall from near orbit, and even get back up into suborbital space unassisted. We usually use our treads to get around, because it saves energy, and anyhow we are not abstract computer programs installed in armored vehicles, we are cybertanks: treads are part of our mental body-image, just like legs are to a human. You didn’t see the humans giving up legs just because they had developed the ability to fly using telepathic powers, now did you?
An excellent plan, except that my suspensors are fried beyond any immediate prospect of repair.
“OK, then find a tall mountain somewhere, climb it, get the lizard to come over a rise, and pound him when he’s in open ground with no cover. You should be able to get a direct line-of-sight of 50 kilometers on this planet, if you work it right. Unless he has some other ability we don’t know about, 50 kilometers should be far enough.”
I calculate the odds. It looks like the plan is feasible. There are several workable locations where I could optimize my firing; the best give me 44 kilometers of separation. I evaluate a billion scenarios, develop back-up plans if the lizard changes course or speed, calculate timings and firing patterns, analyze weather patterns and their likely effects on visibility and beam dispersion. Waiting increases the odds that the lizard will tire of the chase and just leave me alone, but also increases the odds that my overworked drive systems will fail. I take my best guess: get this over with soon.
I like it. I’m going to wait 52 minutes for my intermediate armor repairs to be completed, just to give me some extra margin of protection if his ranged attack is tighter than we expect. Then I will move down a plain and up the side of a mountain, and he should follow my tracks. While he is crossing the plain I will double back around the mountainto
p. I should come into view just as he is far enough onto the plain to be unable to retreat. I will then engage with my primary weapon, with the further advantage of a small rise on the mountain face that will give me partial hull defilade. Expected time to engagement: 125 minutes, 12 seconds. Commencing preparations.
I am excited at the prospect of combat, and also worried. Because I am a bit faster I hold the initiative: I can choose the time and place of combat, always a good thing. I should have a clear advantage, but I have already been surprised once by the lizard. Therefore it is entirely possible that I will be surprised again. Still, I need to take the initiative. I am durable but even my drive-units need down-time for maintenance now and then. I can’t just retreat forever, sooner or later something will break or burn out and before I can fix it the lizard will be on me at close range and that will be that.
“So what have you decided to call your friend there?” asked Vargas.
Provisionally I have named our opposition Big Angry Lizard target designate 1, or BAL1.
“Huh. BAL1? He does give the appearance of being quite angry, no doubt about that. But still, no poetry in it. How about Megazillus, after the children’s story? You know, Megazillus, the giant dinosaur that breathed radiation, defended Munich, and was the friend of all children everywhere?”
The Chronicles of Old Guy (Volume 1) (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure) Page 2