[Positions of enemy are extrapolations, but are high probability, based on orbital mechanics and most recent observations]
“That’s fine, Guppy. Our biggest problem will be if the Brazilians play hide and seek behind the asteroids that they’re herding. If they fire their missiles from hiding, they won’t have a lock-in and will have to depend on the missile’s AMI, which we’ve already established is not very smart. We can set our busters to seek-and-destroy, but they don’t have explosive warheads. Without a good head of steam, they won’t be able to penetrate the hull, let alone do any internal damage.”
“If we’re that close, we can use rail guns,” Homer said.
“True, but we have to be careful with our ammo.”
***
We came around the Earth, already doing over 150 km/s. The Brazilian ships might or might not have noticed us right away, but they had six hours to see us and prepare for our arrival. We were still only revealing a maximum 2.5 g acceleration. Let them expend energy wondering how we managed to get behind Earth.
When we were still five minutes away from the lead asteroid, we received a hail from one of the Brazilian ships. I put the call up on the holotank, while Homer observed.
The video was a still image of the Brazilian flag. No avatar, I guess. “You have shown better than we expected from a couple of FAITH babacas. However, now you are coming to us. You will not be so lucky this time. We will litter space with your corpses!”
I looked at Homer in surprise. That’s not Major Medeiros. Who is that?
“This is Commander Riker of the FAITH Space Navy. To whom am I speaking?”
“I am Captain Matias Araújo. I will be the last voice you hear.”
Without further commentary, the sender disconnected.
Homer and I exchanged looks. After a pause, Homer said, “So, what do you think is going on?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know. But that deep scan I did just before we destroyed our pursuers showed all fabrication systems had been removed to make room for the larger SURGE-based missiles. I didn’t think that through at the time, but now it looks like this may have been a last-ditch effort on the part of the Brazilian Empire. Maybe they were getting stomped, and the probe project was all they had left. They ‘volunteered’ some guy—someone disposable—, stuck his replicant into the ships, and tried to use them as gunships.”
Homer cocked his head. “Which might mean they didn’t have time to give this guy a lot of training in being a replicant. And these ships may be all that’s left of the war.”
[Missiles launched]
We checked our telemetry. The Brazilians had launched eight missiles.
“Damn. Exactly what we hoped they wouldn’t do,” Homer said. “Guess they aren’t that inexperienced.”
“Or they’re just pissed. Or they have more missiles. However, their timing is terrible. They waited too long, and we’re now close enough to use the asteroids. Follow my lead.”
Instead of launching countermeasures or attempting to flee, we did a hard turn and dove down below the asteroid. As soon as we were out of line of sight, we fired a load of smaller metal detritus from our aft rail guns, at a speed that left the space junk at a dead stop in our wake. As the pursuing missiles came around the end of the asteroid, they ran head-on into the stationary flotsam. Three missiles detonated immediately, which unfortunately cleared the junk for the trailing missiles.
“Watch forward, while I take out the rest of this batch,” I said to Homer.
As I as preparing my busters for launch, Homer said, “Launches from up front. Looks like they had more missiles. I think we’re screwed.”
I spared a millisecond to review the situation. I had five missiles coming in from the rear. I could take two out, possibly three, with the rail gun. Homer had eight missiles coming in from the front. That meant thirteen missiles against eleven busters, to say nothing of the Brazilian ships which we would still need to deal with. It was very likely that the Brazilians had used everything they had by this point. We were far too close to them for any further missile play.
“We have to cut the numbers of the frontal attack. I’ll give you all my busters, save two. Try to knock as many out with shrapnel as you can.” I launched all my busters and handed control of five over to Homer, who sent them forward.
I concentrated on the five missiles coming up from behind me, sending wave after wave of junk into their path. I had destroyed two when I realized that two of the three remaining missiles had crowded together trying to avoid a volley. I immediately sent a buster toward the nearest one at full acceleration. There was a flash, and both the missile and the buster were destroyed, but yes! The other missile had been knocked out by the explosion. It was drifting aimlessly.
“They’re getting a little close,” Homer said. “Little help, any time…”
“Almost done. Hold tight.”
As I sent a huge wave of shrapnel at the final missile, Homer yelped, “Crap!” and his signal went dead.
I split my attention between my one missile and Homer’s battlefield. Homer had taken out almost all of his missiles, but one had exploded far too close. It appeared to have damaged but not obliterated Heaven-6. However, the ship was adrift with everything offline. A couple of busters had circled around and chased the two final missiles from the front, but only one was anywhere near close enough to do any good.
At that moment, a flash from aft indicated that my last volley had taken out the one remaining chase missile. That left me with one extra buster, but it wouldn’t be able to get around to the front in time.
They’re not very smart. The though came from nowhere, seemingly irrelevant. But original Bob had always trusted his hunches, and I reacted immediately. I fired a salvo of shrapnel, not directly at a missile, but just to the side opposite the pursuing buster. In true reflex action, the missile veered away from the shrapnel stream. That was all the buster needed to catch up.
I was now able to concentrate a burst of shrapnel on the other missile and take it out. I looked back to the one missile left, the one that my buster had caught up with, and realized I had a problem. The busters depended on kinetic energy to destroy their targets—high speed ramming, basically. This buster had instead run down a missile that was just as fast as itself. Now the buster and missile were flying together, with the buster repeatedly and ineffectually bumping the missile. It was interfering with the missile’s trajectory, but not causing any damage.
Stop trying to have sex with it, idjit! I sent a command to the buster, causing its reactor to fail catastrophically. The release of plasma and energy was more than enough to liquefy both units.
I did a quick inventory. I had two busters left. And two enemies. There was no time to deal with Homer at the moment. I called the busters home and did a full ping, trying to locate the Brazilian ships.
One of them was less than two seconds away, heading right for me. With a jolt, I realized he intended to ram. With no time for a formal calculation, I had to wing it. I accelerated upward at a full 5 g. Either the Brazilian would be able to turn to intercept, or he wouldn’t.
Two seconds later, the Brazilian passed by my stern, still attempting to change course. And two milliseconds after that, a buster passed through the Brazilian craft, right where the computer core was located. The Brazilian craft’s drive turned off, and it began to drift.
I pinged again but got no return from the last ship. Either the ship had been destroyed in some unknown manner or it was hiding behind one of the asteroids. We had shown our hands during the battle, so the Brazilian would know that it couldn’t win a straight foot race. That meant it was hiding, hoping to keep the asteroid between us.
I was out of rail gun ammo. I had one buster left, but the buster wasn’t going to be much good if it had to chase the Brazilian around the asteroid. I examined the return from my last ping and spotted what I’d been hoping for—the steel ball from one of the defunct busters. I sent out a couple of roame
rs, collected it, and loaded it into the rail gun. The steel balls had been deliberately sized so that they could double as rail-gun ammo.
I sent the buster out at an angle that should give it a clear view of the other side of the nearest asteroid. Sure enough, remote telemetry spotted the Brazilian ship, just as he spotted the buster. He took off around the asteroid in the opposite direction.
Bangarang, mofo! It took a millisecond to calculate his trajectory. I sent the ball off at full acceleration just as the enemy vessel came into sight. The Brazilian had no chance at all. The steel ball, backed by the full power of my rail gun, punched through the ship at close to relativistic speed. The impact literally tore the ship in two, imparting opposite spins on each half as they drifted away. There was a flash as the reactor lost containment, and one of the segments slumped and deformed from the centrifugal force.
That’s for Homer.
***
My roamers sent back detailed views as they investigated Heaven-6. Homer appeared to have been very lucky. A fluke piece of shrapnel had cut off power to his computer core. Though there was significant structural damage, the actual core systems were intact. The reactor had been able to effect a graceful emergency shutdown when control disappeared.
One of the purposes of the roamers was to repair and maintain the Heaven vessels, and I activated that program for Homer’s roamers.
Pfft. Homer’s roamers. Jeez, I’m starting to sound like him. It occurred to me that I could now decorate my hull as Bob-1 had. Three for me, three for Homer. Better make that a priority.
I had several tasks on the go. While some roamers worked on Heaven-6, others investigated the asteroids to find out how the Brazilians guided them, and a third group collected flotsam from the area of the battle. Raw materials were free for the taking in asteroids, but already refined material was well worth the trouble of scavenging. The Brazilian hulks, in particular, would be good for a lot of salvageable material.
The second group of roamers began to report back, and I examined the scans as they came in. The asteroids, it turned out, were being chivvied by a low-intensity, wide-field SURGE drive. The design ensured that the entire asteroid could be accelerated as a unit, without tidal forces or field drop-off tearing the body apart. It was an ingenious system, and I took copious scans for transmission to Bill. If he hadn’t already started moving Kuiper bodies toward Ragnarök, these designs would be very helpful.
Which was all very interesting, but the asteroids were still heading for Earth. If these bodies all struck the planet, even bacteria wouldn’t survive the results. The Brazilians had set up the trajectory near perfectly, and there was no chance of a miss. I had to hope that I could impart enough sideways thrust on the asteroids using their SURGE drives to change that.
But first, I had to get them to obey me, and I didn’t have the encryption keys that the Brazilians had been using to transmit commands to the asteroid drives. Well, easily fixed. I ordered the roamers to simply rip the drive controllers out and hot-wire the drive systems. No finesse or delicate electronics was required for a straight full-power sideways thrust. It remained to be seen if I was starting too late.
***
“Wake up, buddy. You okay?”
“Auntie Em! Auntie Em!” Homer’s VR came online, smiling. “I guess we got’em.”
I snorted with relief. “And their little dog, too.”
Homer steepled his fingers in a properly evil mastermindish pose. “All their base are belong to us.”
We laughed together, maybe the first time since Homer had been born that we’d been in sync like that. I had a sudden jolt of what might be described as fatherly pride. Okay, that’s weird. Snap out of it!
Homer waved a hand in a vague out there gesture. “So, what do we have?”
“I’m still evaluating. And by the way, in case you haven’t checked, your back is still broken. So don’t be trying to fly anywhere just yet. Guppy estimates three more days to get you shipshape.”
Homer bobbed his head, and I continued, “The signs of war are everywhere. Nukes were definitely used, both planetside and spaceside, and I mean a lot! It looks like everyone just went toe to toe and started throwing punches, until only one side was left standing. As far as I can tell, the only technological force left in the whole system was a small group of Brazilian probes that had been modified for war. I found the manufacturing area—it had broken down, and the Araújos couldn’t repair it because they hadn’t been loaded with the autofactory software or equipment. They couldn’t land and bring someone upstairs to fix it—not that I’m sure there’s anyone left to do it anyway—and they couldn’t build a lander or shuttle, because no autofactory. Classic catch-22.”
“So they were doing what? Running around smashing things instead?” Homer grimaced.
“Pretty much. Taking revenge on their enemies. The asteroids had all been timed to target China, so I’m guessing that’s who took out the Brazilian Empire.”
“Took out? How bad?”
“Pretty bad. It’s actually kind of hard to tell exactly how much damage there is because of all the cloud and dust cover. Asteroid strikes and nukes kicked up a lot of dust and it’s just trashed the weather patterns.”
“There were other asteroid strikes? These weren’t the first?”
“No, not by a long shot. But these were the biggest, I think. I’ve been able to make out dozens of impact sites, most around the size of the Barringer crater. These four would have been extinction-level. Yucatan crater size.”
“Four of them.”
“Yeah.” I shook my head in disbelief. “I can’t believe anyone would think that this was a reasonable response to anything. I feel no regret or guilt for ending those guys.”
“Is anyone left on Earth?”
I put a globe of the Earth up in the holotank, and sent a copy to Homer. “I haven’t been able to pick up any radio transmissions or reactor signatures. But then, you wouldn’t expect anyone to want to attract attention. I’m sure the Araújo gang dropped a rock on anyone they detected. By now everyone still alive has gone to ground.”
Homer rubbed his forehead, his eyes unfocused. “What’ll we do? I guess we could transmit an announcement, but some might just see that as a trick.” He idly poked a finger at his copy of the globe and spun it to show different views. He sat back after a few seconds, then put his hand to his chin and resumed staring into space.
I waited, content to let him work through whatever he was wrestling with.
Finally, he looked up. “We can use SUDDAR to a certain extent. But atmosphere and planetary mass will play hell with the resolution. What about the exploration scouts that Bill came up with?”
“Funny you should ask,” I responded with a smile. “I’m building some as fast as I can.” I stopped smiling and continued in a more serious tone. “We need to sweep for surviving groups as quickly as possible. Between the nukes that were used and the rocks that were dropped, Earth looks like it might be spiraling into a nuclear winter. Anyone still alive might starve to death over the next couple of years.”
“But what will we be able to do if we find survivors?”
“I don’t know, Homer.” I shook my head, reluctant to meet his gaze. “We’re going to have to take this one step at a time.”
***
We watched as the fourth and last asteroid slid past the Earth. Although we’d known for a while that they would miss, this was an emotional moment. The original drive controllers had been replaced with more cooperative hardware, which was now programmed to gradually push the asteroids into long-period orbits with a high inclination that wouldn’t intersect Earth’s orbit in the future.
“One less thing to worry about,” Homer said with a smile.
[We are being hailed]
We looked at each other in surprise. “What now?”
Bill – September 2151 – Epsilon Eridani
All that’s really missing is a good artificial intelligence to control the whole process
. And that’s the trick, isn’t it? These types of blue-sky discussions always assume certain advances for a successful implementation. Unfortunately, A.I. is the bottleneck in this case. We’re close with the replication and manufacturing processes, and we could probably build sufficiently effective ion drives if we had the budget. But we lack a way to provide enough intelligence for the probe to handle all the situations that it could face.
… Eduard Guijpers, from the Convention panel Designing a Von Neumann Probe
I listened carefully to the telemetry coming over the radio link. Garfield was over five light-minutes away and receding at a respectable 2000 km/s. The time signal in his telemetry fell behind at a steady, predictable rate. Well, I hadn’t really expected to prove ol’ Einstein wrong at this late date.
It was the other signal that I was excited about. I was receiving a subspace signal from Garfield that originated with the same telemetry, transmitted at the same time. But the timestamp on that signal still exactly synchronized with mine to the limit of accuracy of our systems.
I could tell I was grinning like an idiot. VR had long since become so realistic that it might as well have been real life. And that included aching facial muscles.
“Okay, Garfield. Radio telemetry has you coming up on six light-minutes away. Can you confirm my echo?”
“Yep. The return is just over 11.5 minutes behind my transmission.” Garfield’s voice held the same excitement. He’d been working with me for several years now on multiple projects, including this one. We’d turned into a regular Skunk Works, and this was our biggest breakthrough by far.
“Cut the transceiver loose, Garfield, and come on back. We’ll let the unit continue outbound for a few weeks and see what the dropout is like.”
“No problem.”
Without warning, Garfield popped up in my VR, sitting in his bean bag chair.
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1) Page 14