by B. V. Larson
Hansen frowned fiercely, and for a second I didn’t think he would answer. Finally, he shook his head. “I look where I’m going, not at the obstacle.”
“Exactly. When it’s time to fight, killing enemy ships is our objective. But until then, our goal is to get through that ring. Firepower is just a means to that end.”
Hansen slowly nodded. “Okay. I get it. So…how are we going to get through the ring?”
“I wish I knew. But,” I held up my index finger and raised my voice to normal again, “I do see an opportunity here.”
“Opportunity?” he echoed.
“Look at Matterhorn 3 with the ring that goes to the Pandas.” I gestured to the half of the holotank that showed the rest of the system.
“There aren’t any ships there.”
“Exactly.”
“But…” he rubbed his face. “Okay, how is it an opportunity when the entire enemy strength seems to be blocking our way out?”
“Seems to be is the key. To figure out what the enemy will do, you have to put yourself in his place. If you were the Lithos, would you just park your whole fleet at that exit if the goal was to kill us?”
“I guess not. So what are they doing?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I don’t believe it has much to do with us. What does it look like to you?”
Hansen rubbed his jaw. “Guarding the ring…from someone getting ready to invade them?”
“That’s one possibility I thought of. The other is that they’re getting ready to invade someone else.”
“Someone else? But who?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out. But now do you understand what I meant when I said this is an opportunity? Either way, there’s going to be a fight.” I rubbed my hands together. “Hansen, did you ever play strategy games when you were a kid?”
“You mean those online multiplayer things, where you build up and fight everyone until one guy is left?”
“Sure, like that. If you’re the weakest guy in a three-way game, what’s your strategy?”
Turning to look at me then back to the holotank, he said, “You get the two bigger guys to fight it out, and then you come in to finish off the winner.”
“Exactly!” I slapped my fist with my palm. “Except the situation is even better for us. If the Lithos win, we might be able to wipe out their remaining strength and save the day for the other guys, in which case we’ll be heroes to them. If the other guys look like they’re winning, we can swoop in and contribute, showing that we’re a potential ally or at least, anti-Litho.”
“What if they’re fighting the Macros?” Hansen asked.
That stopped me for a moment. “That’s a smart question, something I hadn’t thought of. Hmm. In that case, my instinct would be to make sure the Lithos don’t lose, and I’ll tell you why. If we’d been facing forty Macro cruisers and all the resources of a Macro-owned system, we’d be dead by now. If the next system is Macro-owned, and the Lithos are making a push, we need to slip through behind them. We’ll shadow them like jackals following lions as they hunt.”
“You seem to have everything figured out, sir.”
I looked sharply at Hansen, trying to tell if he was being honest, sarcastic, or a kiss-ass. “I’m sure I don’t. It’s part of your job as XO to ask me hard questions so keep it up.”
“No problem.”
I wondered if Hansen was going to work out as my Exec in the long term. I’d hoped he’d either be a compliant, steady hand on the tiller, or a workhorse like Sakura. But right now he seemed to be too upset about having an inexperienced captain to focus on his job. Unfortunately, I didn’t know of anyone better, unless I pulled Sakura out of engineering, which I wasn’t prepared to do.
If only Olivia were here instead of Adrienne, she would be my perfect XO. My heart clenched once more within my chest, and I took a deep breath to shake off the threatening melancholy. I always seemed to think about Olivia at the damnedest moments. I reassured myself I would find my way back to Earth and discover who her killer was eventually. Marvin’s suggestion that one of the crewmen aboard Valiant might have been involved was an idea I’d shelved for now. I couldn’t afford to second-guess everything my crew did.
To stave off my feelings, I ran tactical simulations against imaginary Litho forces, and then against simulated Macro forces too, trying to prepare for anything. Hansen watched closely as did Adrienne. Before long, we were immersed in our work. Once we’d fought through several scenarios, I went on a quick tour of the ship and saw that everything was running smoothly. The crew seemed eager, focused, and in good spirits.
Marvin still hadn’t responded so I sent a message to Adrienne's console, letting her know I was going to the wardroom for a meal. We still had a larder from the ice moon full of seafood, plants, and animals the science team had identified as safe to eat. Some of it was quite good, and unlike our dwindling Earth stocks, it was fresh.
Given Murphy’s law, I figured sitting down to a meal with Adrienne was a surefire way for fate to prompt Marvin to call and interrupt us. If that didn’t work, I’d take a nap. Actually, it was only after she’d met me and we’d eaten a leisurely lunch of ice scallops with a purple anemone salad that the expected call came.
We gulped our coffee and hurried up to the bridge.
-28-
Marvin finally contacted me, though only on audio. I suspected he didn’t want me to see him. Who knew what kind of monstrosity he had built of himself by now? “Greetings, Captain Riggs. How did you find the ice moon?”
“Cold and wet. Let’s skip the pleasantries, shall we?”
“I was merely attempting to conform to human behavioral norms.” The reply came back with only a fifteen to twenty second delay, indicating Greyhound was reasonably close, but I still hadn’t located him on sensors. Marvin was one sneaky robot.
I snorted. “When have you ever done that? Never mind. What have you learned about the Lithos?”
“I’ve begun transmitting an encrypted data package.”
“Give me the most important stuff first,” I said.
“The Lithos have opened a tunnel through the crust of the hollow moon orbiting Matterhorn 6.”
Marvin sounded puzzled but eager, so I played along. “That surprises you?” I asked.
“From my experiments on the Litho nanites, I would have expected that they would simply land on the outer surface of the planetoid and transfer their templates through to the other side, reforming on the interior of the hollow shell.”
“Whoa, slow down, Marvin,” I said. “They can transfer themselves through a planet?”
“Only their templates, not their actual mass.”
“Explain that.”
“Litho templates are what make them something more than a collection of silico-nanites, by organizing them into functioning clusters of nanomachines. The template is analogous to software, while the nanites are infinitely configurable hardware, not so different from our own nanite constructs.”
“Maybe transferring through takes time and energy,” I said thoughtfully. “Or maybe it’s disruptive. Once they form ship templates, it has to be more efficient to remain that way rather than to go—uh—downloading themselves through the dirt or whatever you’d call such a process.”
Marvin’s voice brightened. “Perhaps you’re right.”
“Back to the tunnel…how big is it?”
“About ten miles in diameter and one hundred in length.”
I zoomed the holotank’s display in on the hollow moon and rotated it until I found the hole. Small compared to the size of the moon, I only found it because I was looking for it specifically. “That will make quite a gauntlet to run.”
“I believe I have a solution,” Marvin said, sounding smug. Then he stopped talking. Obviously he wanted me to bargain for the knowledge he would dispense.
I almost took the bait, but remembered all those stories Dad and Kwon used to tell about how to keep the upper hand with the robot. “That’s
all right, Marvin. We’ll figure something out.”
“Aren’t you curious about what I intend to do?”
“Hmm. Not terribly. Most of the time the things you want to do are too risky anyway.”
“I’ll tell you if you want to know.” Now Marvin had begun to sound worried.
I injected boredom into my voice. “All right. If you really want to.”
“What follows are the most critical elements of my report. I’ve cultivated and trained my own silico-nanite variant to operate independently of the Lithos, but in their own medium.”
“You mean you have altered nanites that will fight for our side in the dirt?” I asked.
“That’s what I just said.”
“Yes, but I said it a lot more simply. Marvin, are you saying you can infect the Lithos with the altered version and kill them? Like a disease?”
“Unlikely. They’re far too numerous and adaptive. My nanites can, however, perform certain specific actions beneficial to us.”
“Like nanite commandos? Okay…”
“An apt analogy.”
“So what will they do?”
“The possibilities are endless. For example—”
I made a sound of annoyance. “What will they do for us to help us get through the ring?”
“Ah. Such specificity,” he said, sounding disappointed. “I believe I can seed the inside of the tunnel with a silico-nanite mist dispensed from missiles, sufficiently virulent to temporarily block its inner surface from complying with Litho control mechanisms.”
“So that will hold the tunnel open and keep any defense mechanisms from stopping us?”
“Theoretically. The effect should operate for a limited time—perhaps thirty minutes.”
“That should be long enough,” I said. “Wait…you said missiles? Where did you get missiles?”
“I may have misspoken. These vehicles are more like delivery drones for silico-nanites.”
I looked left and right where Hansen and Adrienne manned their stations. Adrienne shrugged and Hansen held up his palms as if to say, who knows?
“Marvin, what did you make these drones out of? You didn’t dismantle more of Greyhound, did you?”
“Absolutely not. Greyhound is in excellent condition, and I have in fact improved its effectiveness for my purposes by several hundred percent.”
Pacing up and down in front of the holotank, I began to worry. “And just how did you do that?”
There was nothing on the channel but silence for ten or fifteen seconds.
“I’m sorry, Captain Riggs, your transmission is fading. If you can hear this, please try to reestablish contact at a later time.”
I tried to reopen the channel, but he’d gone silent.
“What the hell is he up to?” I asked no one in particular, throwing my hands up in frustration.
Adrienne cleared her throat. “I might know,” she said. “Back when you told me to use Valiant’s factory to give him parts and materials to repair himself, he asked for some unusual things. I was so busy…well, I didn’t question the requests. But now that I think about it, he may have been able to cobble together a very small factory.”
“What?” I stared in shock at Adrienne. “That crazy robot has a factory? How big a factory?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Not bigger than a microwave oven.”
“Big enough then. He’s had the time, certainly. He’s been wandering around for a month or more. There’s no end to the trouble he could make. Good God, he could have made fusion weapons!”
“I don’t remember you telling me not to give him things,” she said stiffly. “In fact, you said to supply him whatever he needed.”
After the last months my memory of exactly what I’d said was a bit hazy, and I knew how Marvin could find the slightest loophole in any semantic construct. It wasn’t fair to take it out on her, and it was doubly stupid since she was one of my very few friends aboard.
“Right, not your fault,” I grumbled. “Marvin pulled another fast one, that’s all.”
“He wouldn’t hurt us anyway,” Adrienne said. “He may look all weird and scary, but he’s really a pussycat.”
“A robotic pussycat with a ship, a factory—maybe missiles, modified nanites, and fusion warheads,” I replied. “Don’t let him sucker you again. He can be one damned dangerous machine.”
“Okay, but we still need his help.”
“Let’s make sure he needs ours, too,” I said. “Valiant, thoroughly scan Marvin’s data package for malware, clean or quarantine anything questionable, and then upload the data to the holotank. Make sure you keep your own neural circuits isolated.”
The brainbox replied, “Command accepted. Processing. Processing complete. Malware detected. Malware quarantined. Data uploaded.”
“What was the malware supposed to do?” I asked the ship.
“The intended function is to gather basic ship data and periodically broadcast an encrypted burst.”
“That’s all? Just gather data, not interfere with anything?”
“Correct.”
I thought for a moment. “Valiant, create and execute a program that replicates the effects of the malware, but remains under your control. Transmit the data Marvin expects until command personnel say otherwise. Then delete the malware.”
This way, I figured Marvin would think he’d slipped a Trojan into our system, but I could feed him false information any time I wanted, just in case he did betray us somehow.
“Program created and running. Malware deleted.”
I turned back to the holotank and watched as Marvin’s data poured in, dramatically refining details of what we’d known about the system, especially concerning the hollow moon. He must have been watching that small world for most of the last two months using every passive sensor he had—or that he could construct. Hopefully that would work in our favor.
“Hansen, take a close look at this and plot a course to give us the best view you can of that tunnel.”
The helmsman nodded. “The signal is emanating from the southern pole, so that should be easy. We’ll just park far out in space but in line with the tunnel. What then?”
“Then,” I said, “We wait to see what happens.”
* * *
The main Litho fleet paid us no attention as we maneuvered well away from them, watching. The several cruisers we had outrun while escaping the ice moon had followed us, but they were now hours behind. As long as they didn’t calve into fighters or missiles, we were safe.
“I hope something happens soon,” Hansen said, “or we’ll have to turn and deal with the cruisers following us.”
“You don’t like the idea of more target practice?” I asked.
“Why poke the hornet’s nest?”
“Because we aren’t getting home by playing it safe. And speaking of poking…Valiant, have you integrated Marvin’s translation program?”
“Program ready.”
“Good. Put it online and get ready to transmit on the gamma bands they seem to use.”
“But sir!” Hansen interjected.
I turned to give him a hard look. “You wanted to talk to the Lithos before. Have you changed your mind?”
Hansen glanced at the holotank and the hundreds of ships orbiting the moon enclosing the ring ahead of us. “Sir, you laid out a whole tactical plan. We wargamed it, refined it and we’re all ready. Talking to them now may change the equation.”
“Talking to them was always my first goal. Conflict 101, Hansen. Politics must drive military strategy as strategy drives tactics. Only when politics fail do we fight. Before, we couldn’t talk to them. Now we can try, coming from a position of strength. If we don’t try diplomacy now, we’ll have no choice but to fight. Even if we fail, we may gain some useful information.” I was talking as much for the crew as for Hansen. People work harder and fight better when they know why they’re doing things, as long as explaining doesn’t make the leader look weak or defensive.
; Hansen subsided, and I noticed Adrienne smiling at me. At least she was with me on this one, which gave me a warm glow of confidence.
“Valiant, begin translating and broadcasting to the Lithos.”
I paused, gathered my thoughts, and began speaking.
“People of this star system, I greet you in the name of the planet Earth and its people. Despite our recent clashes, we’re interested in a peaceful resolution to this conflict. Please reply.”
Minutes later words returned. The translation brainbox rendered in flat machine tones to avoid imposing meaning they might not possess. “Intrusion destruction pain loss cold metal object threat maker imposition anger resolve.”
I mulled that over then turned to my staff. “Ideas?”
“Nouns and adjectives, no verbs,” Adrienne said.
“Not even adjectives, if you count cold and metal as nouns, not descriptions,” I said thoughtfully. “Maybe they think only in terms of concrete objects or concepts. Intrusion destruction pain loss could describe our arrival in their system. Cold metal object could be our ship. Threat maker imposition…that’s ambiguous. Anger resolve could mean their state of mind toward us.”
“Doesn’t sound promising,” Hansen said.
“At least they’re talking.” I tapped my fingertips on the armrest of my chair. “Send: allow—no, that’s a verb. Send: permission escape negation destruction desire peace. Make sure they’re all translated into noun forms.”
“Message sent.”
Pacing in front of the holotank, I watched carefully for any sign of a physical reaction from the Lithos, whether favorable or not. Nothing happened immediately.
“Where are the transmissions coming from?” I asked.
One of the cruisers chasing us blinked in the holotank. “The vessel has been marked,” Valiant said.
I turned back to the display in surprise. I’d expected to be talking to their asteroid-dreadnought, or at least one of the battleships. Based on our theories and Marvin’s analysis of their template forms, I thought that larger would equal smarter, or at least more important, as with the Macros. Yet it was a chasing cruiser that replied to our broadcast.