Nanotroopers Episode 20: Doc II

by Philip Bosshardt

  ***Base, this is highly irregular…inappropriate use of my capabilities and algorithmic routines…this master bot is optimized for analysis and deductions from correlating large quantities of data--***

  “Doc, shut up, will you…you’re a spy bot for now. Maintain config and move out…that’s an order.”

  Singh and Barnes weren’t jacked in to the coupler circuit so they could only hear one side of the exchange.

  “The little guy refusing to do his homework, Skipper?” Barnes asked.

  Winger watched the swarm form up over their heads and begin turning to the commanded heading. “He keeps reminding me that he’s not designed for recon duty. But I don’t care…when he’s with me on a mission, he’s a nanotrooper whether he likes it or not. At least, my HERF gun doesn’t talk back to me.”

  Singh eyed the distance. “Can Doc make it to that boat in time?”

  Winger gritted his teeth. “I’m trying…Doc’s cranked up to max propulsor…unless we get a breeze going the right way, it’ll be close—“

  So they watched anxiously from their secluded landing spot on a hill above the town of Sisal while an invisible cloud of dust mote-sized bots bore down on the wharf and the Maria Segovia. Doc was able to close the distance and filter his way onboard the craft when the crew spent extra minutes untangling and securing their gear, much to the displeasure of a greasy, bearded captain, who yelled and gestured at them in gutter Spanish.

  “Vamos, idiotas, se muevan!”

  With that delay, Doc made it to his target and soon enough implanted himself as errant dust particles right into the gray mass of Kulagin’s hair, clinging to follicles, burrowing down near the target’s scalp.

  Winger got ready to go small, shaking his head slowly. “I just hope Jupiter’s halo doesn’t detect us. I need to keep Doc’s atomgrabbing to minimum for awhile, so we don’t light up any defenses.”

  While Barnes and Singh kept an eye on for unwanted visitors, Winger sat down in the bushes and powered up his wristpad, selecting a new coupler channel. After a few minutes’ finagling and adjusting, he got a grainy image on the tiny screen. He altered Doc’s config slightly to make a larger photon lens, for a better picture, and an audible receiver as well.

  “Just stay attached, Doc,” he muttered. “And hope to hell we don’t set off Jupiter’s halo…he almost certainly has one.”

  “Look—“said Barnes. “They’re shoving off.”

  Indeed, while Winger concerned himself with gathering whatever data Doc could send back, Barnes and Singh watched as the Maria Segovia backed away from her slip, turned about in the channel, churning water into a froth as she maneuvered, and headed out through the line of channel buoys toward the sea. In moments, she was a small dot heading east by northeast.

  Singh and Barnes joined Winger.

  “Anything, Skipper?”

  Winger fiddled more with the gain on Doc’s coupler signal. “It’s hard to make out from this perspective, but this is damned curious. Look—“

  Audio frequency analysis of the Maria Segovia’s engine noise implied she was slowing down, just beyond the horizon view from Sisal.

  “She’s at full stop,” Winger noted. “Just a few kilometers off shore.”

  “Maybe they’re going to cast nets,” suggested Singh. “It is a fishing craft, after all.”

  “That’s what I thought, but it seems like our target is the reason for stopping. Either Jupiter’s pulling on some kind of cover or coat or—“ Winger checked other signatures that Doc was sending back…”I’ll be damned…a nanobotic shield…look—he’s covering himself in some kind of bot shield…see the signatures? Big time atomgrabbing going on…spikes in EMs, thermals…see that speckling and flashing on the screen. He’s leaving the boat—“

  Indeed, as they all watched the tiny screen, Jupiter made his way from belowdecks to a side rail abeam of the pilothouse. Rigging and seine nets could be seen surrounding the railing. The crew was indeed preparing to cast nets and trawl for a catch…likely marlin or tuna in these waters. Faces and arms swept across their field of view. Guttural voices growled nearby.

  The image careened for a second, then it was clear Jupiter had suddenly leaped from the railing. He dove feet first, right into the ocean.

  There came a great splash, and then the image on Winger’s screen went dark, only gradually coming up to a turquoise green veil as their recon target slid below the waves.

  “Hang on to him, Doc!” Winger cried. “Use those grabbers—“

  “A nanobotic wet suit,” marveled Barnes. “Completely enveloped in a bot shield…we don’t even have a config for something like that. Is Doc still there?”

  “Hanging on for dear life,” Winger admitted. “I’ve shut down every channel but audio and photon lens…can’t really see anything in this murk anyway so I probably should—“

  “Hold on, Skipper,” said Singh. “There’s something…that big shadow below Jupiter…it’s getting bigger—“

  “A shark?” asked Barnes.

  But the dark shadow Singh had noticed in Doc’s photon lens signal was no shark. It grew and expanded until it filled the field of view.

  “It’s a submarine,” said Winger. “Or a geoplane…son of a bitch. Our target’s got himself a new ride.”

  Even as they watched the tiny screen, trying to make out just what was happening, Dmitri Kulagin approached the submerged geoplane and maneuvered toward its topside lockout. Minutes later, he was aboard the craft, which then started up its propulsors, retracted its treads and moved out along the sandy seabed, a hundred meters below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, heading now due east toward the Antillean Channel and open water.

  Winger sat back against a tree stump in amazement. “Frankly, I’m surprised Doc could hold on through all that. Doc, are you receiving me?”

  The return signal on the coupler was scratchy and intermittent, but it was there.