Bootstrap Colony

by Hechtl, Chris

  It cocked its head from side to side, using one eye or the other to look at him. Its head was tipped with a beak, but sharp pointy teeth were behind it further up the muzzle. It thrummed almost a low stuttering cluck, and he slowly reached for the defense switch. It shifted about, almost hopping. It flicked its hands, and he could see the claws on the tips of the fingers under the feathers.

  Suddenly something smashed the side of his truck, making him start in fright and lean away instinctively. “DAMN!” The chittered and cawed were loud now. He flicked the switch and was gratified by the charging whine... Then sudden pop of electricity followed by a loud high pitched squeal and rustling. The creature in front postured in agitation, flapping its wing arms like a bird, and then thrashing the claws out in grasping motions at his truck. It dropped its head down low, giving a hissing sound. Another of the creatures stepped on the fallen drone.

  “HEY!” Mitch called in sudden concern and annoyance. In just a second claws tore into the little UAV, then the head dipped down and ripped at it. Bits of metal and plastic dripped from its maw as it looked back up at him. “Damn!” Mitch snarled, punching the truck’s ignition and then stepped on the gas.

  The one animal in front of the truck bolted, but he clipped it sending it spinning. He checked the rear view mirror, watching as a group of the creatures pop their heads up over the stalks and then come out of grass. “Just what I didn’t need, raptors,” he said in fear and anger. He watched as the clipped one cawed, tossing its head feebly, and then struggled to get up. Another was nearby, stumbling along. It fell, and then got up. “Serves you right,” Mitch muttered, and then drove on.

  Cursing he flipped on the Bluetooth. “Security alert. Bipedal bird like creatures one meter tall, three meters long attacked lead vehicle. Tan colored tiger camouflage color scheme, hunted in packs. Alpha predators designate... raptors,” he intoned. He heard a beep.

  “Entry confirmed. Request visual record,” the AI requested.

  He sighed. “No visual record at this time.” He paused to consider. “Access archives Animals, sub category Dinosaur, suborder Therapod Family Raptor.”

  There was a pause before the AI beeped. “Archive unpacked. Therapod Dinosaurs, family Raptor. Please specify genus,”

  He sighed. “Do any of the therapod raptors meet the description?”

  “Checking.” He looked down as his laptop divided into a series of silhouette pictures of each of the species.

  “This one, um, Deinonychus is the closest match. Enter that as a temporary visual record.”

  “Confirmed,” the robotic voice answered.

  “Threat level red. Terminate on sight if approach within ten meters of established perimeter. Be on the lookout for other Therapod predator species. Consider them threats if they approach.”

  He pursed his lips, wondering if the software could handle that until the robot beeped. “Affirmative. Command acknowledged.” He sighed in relief.

  “Report loss of UAV to raptor pack. Update inventory. End transmission.”

  “Acknowledged,” the computer replied. The connection closed with a soft click. He grimaced, thinking back to how it had all begun.

  It had been an interesting first visit and one heck of an entrance the aliens had made one year ago, telling him of Earth’s imminent demise by a massive coal black asteroid in twenty years, and how they would return in one solar revolution to retrieve him and nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine others for “repopulation.”

  He had been fortunate, his gifts had allowed him to acquire a fortune prior to the visit, allowing him time to prepare, and even lay the seeds to Earth’s possible defense and humanities possible survival. He had even discovered a few of the others contacted through their reported to the media, and had set up a trust fund to deliver survival materials to each the morning they were supposed to be picked up. He hoped it would help them survive in this alien landscape. Something told him even those meager gifts would not be enough for long.

  A beep woke him from his wool gathering revere, he cursed at his wool gathering as he sharply turned the wheel around a rock. He checked the mirror, watching the other vehicles adjust their positions behind him. He had brought all six hummers and all six of the tractors, loaded with the very basics. He slowed and flipped the auto pilot on, tentatively letting go of the wheel, keeping his hand near in case he had to.

  Even through the AI was pretty advanced; it was still a new world, and the truck was after all a prototype. When he was sure that he was okay for the moment he turned to the laptop. The drone had arrived at the waterfalls; he pursed his lips and watched, zooming into the caves. “Well well well, home sweet cave home.” The pool at the foot of the waterfall had a layer of mist and bubbling foam from the water’s impact. Some of the caves were massive and deep, one even necked around behind his waterfall. “Perfect.”

  The truck pulled up to within a one hundred meters of the biggest cave where the UAV had landed a half hour later. He checked the perimeter, pulling out his binoculars and checking carefully at every motion, then used the IR to check for anything in the Stygian depth of the caves. Getting a good feeling he stepped out and checked once more, nervously cradling the shotgun as he stepped over to the drone. He was jumpy and nervous he realized the raptor encounter had put him on edge.

  That was probably for the best he realized, keeping an edge was better than getting his head bit off because he was sleep walking. He set the UAV into the launcher, and watched the status bar on the side charge it. He flipped on the Bluetooth. “Command. Security secure the perimeter of this site, one hundred meter radius.” The AI confirmed the command, and then the other vehicles started up once more and then formed a perimeter around him. A trio of robots stepped out off the back of three of the hummers, and then marched out to walk around the perimeter. The CAT security robots were shaped like a jaguar, an outgrowth of the U.S. Military’s DARPA robotics program. These had some Hollywood touched as well; almost Terminator or Transformers Ravage in style and design. He loved it, hell they scared him so he was fairly sure anything they ran into would think twice before tangling with them.

  When the UAV completed its recharge he launched it to fly around the perimeter three hundred meters out. He walked over to the security tractor nearby, and pulled open the doors to find a cornucopia of weapons and equipment. He pulled out a pair of robots, turned them on. While they ran POST he pulled out a larger UAV, broken down into parts for easy storage. The tops of the wings were shiny blue with solar panels, as was the top of the body. The UAV was designed for longer range or longer flight time, with partial solar charge ability.

  He set it up on one of the launchers, locking the wings on with practiced ease before hooking the electrical connections together. A beep from the security truck made him turn; the two robots had completed POST and have stepped out onto the grass. He completed the UAV's assembly, checked its charge, programmed it for perimeter watch four hundred meters out and launched it.

  A beep from his Bluetooth let him know to check the log. He pulled out his tablet and looked. He felt relief that it was just the KITT autopilot AI reporting it now had the path learned and was ready to drive on its own. The path had already been parsed out to all the vehicles through their wireless connections.

  KITT was some techno geek’s idea of a joke. He knew about the acronym and its origin so let it slide. After all, he'd been and still was a science fiction fan. He was glad that they hadn't tried to add personality to the system. Turbo boost would have been nice though.

  The tablets were also wired into the network; they borrowed a lot from science fiction. Known as Blackberries, PDA’s, Iphones, and other devices, they were actually conceived in STNG. Being a Trekkie he preferred the real name for them but bowed to conventional wisdom and called them a tablet. These devices had a bit more abilities then mainstream devices did a laser virtual keyboard, AI, voice address system, solid state memory, along with other toys and aps.

  The two ro
bots nearby were sent into the caves. “Hopefully we won’t have to evict anyone,” he commented softly as he turned to reclaim the small drone and return it to the launch rail. He unhooked the tractors from their trailers, and then ordered them to return to the first location. They trundled off in single file. He checked the perimeter, then the feeds from the robots in the caves.

  Fortunately there didn’t seem to be any big life forms, just the occasional bug, lizard or four winged bat creatures. The six legged armadillo creatures were amusing. The six legged furry rat things... Not so much. The daddy long legged scorpions did give him pause though, making him wonder about what he was going to get himself into.

  A white centipede, three times larger than one of them avoided one of the dark twin tailed monstrosities like its life depended on it. Most likely it did. “Not a good sign,” he muttered. “Guess this is a case for Raid,” he sighed, and then had the robots do a spiral search before returning to the cave mouth for recovery. He stepped into the truck and got down to work.

  The robots discovered snow in some of the inner chambers. Between that, the trees, and the signs of frost he was pretty sure he was on a temperate continent. Lose the extra moons and alien animals and it would be North America he thought as he picked at an MRE.

  Two days later he was tired, sweaty, and sore. Wrestling with the tractor hitches had been a back breaking endeavor, as had feeding and caring for the animals. He knew he needed to get them out of their trailers soon, two days without mucking them out was causing one hellacious stink. He had moved them to the base camp in the first day, along with twenty loads of gear. It would take a week or two to get everything over at this rate. Fortunately he had not seen the raptors since that first encounter, though he had had an uneasy first night's sleep in the motor home.

  Milking the goats and cattle had been a stinky difficult affair, and downright dangerous in the confines of the trailers. He had to do it, too long without a milking and they would dry up, and besides, all that milk had to hurt after a while. He had made sure each of the animals had been impregnated before they had been loaded, he hoped the stress of transit and being cooped up in the trailers hadn't caused many miscarriages in the herds. He had refrigerated what milk he had thought he could use, and then fed most of the remaining milk to animals like the sows that could drink it without causing scours.

  The donks were making his work a little easier, unloading trailers from their flatbeds and arranging them into a perimeter wall. He still had to hitch and unhitch the trucks by hand though, which meant he had to be on both ends of the transit. The robots he had brought along just couldn’t handle the job. Still, with the donks he had a good perimeter, and even a small box corral to release some of the animals in once the he fenced the partially opened face.

  Each of the donks, short for robotic donkeys were actually large robotic forklifts. They were large, about the size of a skip loader, with arms attached to a torso. The prototype was the only one with tracks; all the others had wheels for easier maintenance.

  He checked the perimeter, sighed and continued his log. He had several going, progress, flora, fauna, logistics, and encounters. He was a bit worried about the power reserves, even with the built in solar cells on the roofs of the vehicles he was still twenty percent lower than projected. He bumped up transporting one of the containers of solar panels up a notch in his priority queue. Not that it really mattered; he usually grabbed whatever was nearest when he got to the landing site.

  On a limited power budget the ED robots would have to forgo using their lasers in favor of their built in guns. Until he had the industry set up he was going to have to police the brass they or he used he thought with a pang. Right now he had them mostly remaining still, letting the CAT robots move around for perimeter patrols. They each had clear firing lanes and their various heads scanned the perimeter grid, compiling the various images into a threat map for the security AI to digest.

  He also had to park the Crusher UGV’s. They had used all of their fuel and power towing loads to the base. Until the hydrogen fuel factory had sufficient capacity he was stuck with the CAT’s and ED’s for his defense.

  Bob had been right, he thought with another pang. The Crusher’s were good in theory, but their demand for fuel and power really sucked. The six wheeled army green brutes were each six point one tons, and could tow a four ton trailer. The green CATs on the other hand massed barely eight hundred pounds, and could run at over thirty kilometers per hour. Best of all they were totally electric.

  Stretching he stepped out off the steps of the motor home and looked around. He had sent the tractors back last night after he had unhitched them, they should be fully charged from the batteries at the vehicle park by now. Breakfast had been his usual cereal; he knew he was on borrowed time, the march of the seasons, not to mention animal biology was going to cause havoc to his plans soon. The angry bawl of a cow made him look over to the trailer nearby. “Yeah, I hear you.” The fence truck was nearby; he was almost ready to let the cattle into the pen. He set a GP robot to unload a section of fence, poles and a gate.

  He had planned for this, designing the corral pens and even designing gate hook ups on the corners of the containers that would frame the opening. Of course when plan met reality Murphy would come into play, a half hour of cursing managed to iron out the problems. The robots framed a chute to the gate from the trailer. With luck he could unload the cattle, and then let one of the robots feed them as he went off to get the next load of gear.

  Unloading was a wild affair of bawling animals, snorted, kicking and stomping hooves and occasional brushes against the steel fencing. He had programmed one of the robots to place feed and water troughs inside the corral at the far end from the chute, the scent of the two had the animals crowding into each other get to them. He sighed as the last straggler walked slowly down the chute. Reaching over he gave her a smack on the rump. “Get a long there Bessie!” She snorted and swished her tail as her cloven hooves stepped into the corral. The gate swung shut with a metallic whine. The latch automatically engaging.

  Taking a look into the back of the trailer... “EW! One down, several to go.” He wrinkled his nose at the pong. The donks were completing the corral next door using the side of the first as a starting point. He set the gate in place, then stepped back as robots formed the chute to the next trailer. This one had the horses, alpacas, and donkeys. He opened the door, a kick made him step back carefully as the door swung wildly open, and then a rush as neighing mares rushed out the door, down the ramp and into the chute. The loud chuff of the donks nearby made a few of the animals roll their eyes in fright, but he waved his hat on, smacking his hands together. They bolted into the corral.

  The goats, alpaca, and sheep were easier; once he had most of them inside he looked up and stretched. It was almost mid morning; the sky was clear and blue. He still didn’t have a complete grasp of the time difference; it was at least a twenty eight hour day. It was a cool morning, most likely spring...or hell, hopefully spring.

  If it was autumn it would truly suck, and dim the hopes of survival for most of the people transported he realized. The last goat stepped through the gate and he turned to the general purpose robots. One was already at work, mucking out the empty trailers, bulldozing the oozing mess down the ramp and into neat piles nearby. “Hope that is upwind of the trailer, or I am moving it tonight.” He wrinkled his nose in thought.

  The hogs went into the last corral. He wasn’t about to unload the pens of rabbits, fowl, and other beasties till he had better facilities set up. He turned to the truck; he dusted his gloved hands off, took a sip of water from a canteen, then got in and checked the update. Security was fine, the tractors were all charged and waiting. Sighing he headed off to play human donk.

  He returned around lunch time, or at least noon by the planet’s reckoning. Unhitched the tractors and then he sent them back, then grabbed an MRE and ate it while KITT followed them.

  KITT was the car autopilot
AI for each of the vehicles. An individual robot in its own right, it borrowed many ideas from DARPA and other programs. It wasn’t quite up to the television version, but enough to suit his purposes. Each vehicle had built in cameras, laser range finders, IR sensors, and other sensing devices to allow the AI to guide the vehicle. The range finders flicked about almost like eyes, constantly scanning the terrain around the vehicle.

  Darpa was the U.S. Military's research think tank, taking on any techno project to better the U.S. Armed forces over the next century. It had been running open challenges for various projects for over a decade now. One of them was an auto pilot system for ground vehicles in all terrain and urban environments.

  He glanced about, watching for animals, feeling like a tourist in an African safari adventure ride. There was little going around, the herds were off in the distance north and south, most were heading north. A tractor had reported having to stop when a few of the animals had blocked its path; he had checked the visual feed, surprised that it had been a herd of bison and auroch.

  So far he had seen a curious mix of alien, dinosaur, and ice age animals, the occasional elk at the edge of the forest line, and a few shadowy shapes of giants in the woods beyond. The mammals were large; he had even seen a woolly rhino. The birds were odd; a few had four wings, almost like the ancient ancestors did back when the dinos roamed Earth. No sign of the raptors though. He knew they would home into the smells of his animals soon, or other predators would, it was only a matter of time before something or someone stumbled over him.

  At the park he muttered a “Let’s try this again.” He directed one of the tractors to back into the hitch of the flatbed with the combine on it. He was amazed when it managed to dock with only a minimum of intervention. “Well well,” he muttered in approval, locking the hitch down and attaching the brake, electrical lines, and safety chain.