Transformation Protocol

by David M. Kelly

  There were no transmissions coming from the asteroid. If anyone was on this rock, they were understandably keeping quiet. I matched orbits so the ship was stationary fifty kilometers from the surface. That was close enough. It might have been a relatively small asteroid but still plenty big enough to crush us if we got too close.

  My mind was unsettled. At first, I thought it was the side-effects of the injury, but my gut told me it was something else. Proxima, along with its two bigger sibling stars, was altogether strange. Their mutual gravitational attraction pretty much screwed up planetary formation and created the extensive debris fields around us. This made them uncomfortable places for humans used to the relatively benign area around Sol, but that didn't fully explain my nervousness. It felt as though the star and the entire system were polluted by a sense of death, made real by the destruction of the station.

  I pushed the feeling out of my head and refocused on the asteroid. "I'll need the SMPT to check it out."

  Logan raised an eyebrow. "You sure you can manage?"

  "Sure." I grinned ruefully. "As you keep telling me—I'm the better pilot."

  Logan nodded. "We'll keep an eye out up here."

  I left, not daring to look at Dollie, but I could feel her eyes digging into my back. She was no doubt hoping I'd simplify things by not making it back.

  At the inner airlock, I pulled on my p-suit but not before checking the MediSkin patch. It had sealed well, but it was hard to say how much damage there was. The puncture was almost on the scarring from my Regen therapy, a problematic area at the best of times. I swallowed a bunch of nerve-tranqs to be on the safe side, hoping they'd deal with any messed-up signals that might show their ugly heads.

  I was closing the suit when I heard someone coming. It was Dollie. She was dressed in the black p-suit she'd been wearing on Paek's ship and holding her helmet in her hands.

  She spoke before I could. "First rule of EVA operations..."

  "No buddy. No EVA..." I shook my head. "Not this time. If there's anyone on that rock, I'll need room for passengers."

  "Logan sent me. Said I wasn't to let you go on your own."

  I should have known she wouldn't be here for her own reasons. I shrugged. "Okay. Step inside."

  We jammed ourselves into the airlock, and her natural scent tingled inside my nostrils. Talk about the wrong place and the wrong time for that memory. It didn't take long to prep the SMPT, then I called up to Logan to cycle the main airlock. As the doors opened, we could see the asteroid surface below us, a tumble of rough shards and shattered rocks that looked about as inviting as racing barefoot over broken glass.

  I released the SMPT from its cradle and nudged us out of the Shokasta, clearing us from the payload bay before bringing up the thrust and increasing our velocity to sixty meters per second. We could have gone faster but we'd have used more fuel and had a harder time slowing down. Besides, that was plenty fast enough to get into trouble.

  "Joe...?" Dollie's voice sounded in my comm-set.

  "What?" The word came out more harshly than I intended.

  "Doesn't matter."

  This friend/enemy thing confused me. I couldn't work out whether she was being nice or still pissed at me. To be honest, I was more comfortable when she clearly hated me. This in-between limbo was nothing but torment. I flipped the SMPT at the halfway point and countered the thrust. By the time we were done, we were floating a few meters from the asteroid's airlock. Someone had riveted a crude painted sign on one side of the doors that read "Fraioli's Folly" in reflective silver.

  "Hotshot Ballen does it again," I muttered.

  "Very good. And how does hotshot Ballen propose to open the airlock?" Dollie said.

  I hadn't intended broadcasting my comment. "I thought I'd climb out and jump across. We don't have a remote opener for this thing."

  "That's what I thought." Dollie was unlocking her belt. "But you can sit here, and I'll do it."

  "Why would I do that?"

  "Because I'm in better shape than you."

  The dull ache in my arm told me she was right. "Okay, I'll exercise my manly privilege and sit on my ass."

  Dollie clambered out on the edge of the SMPT. There were handholds to help stabilize her position, and when she kicked off, the movement caused the ship to spin slowly. I stabilized the motion and looked out. She was already at the airlock controls. Minutes later, the wide doors began to open, like a giant yellow mouth.

  I nudged the SMPT forward, drifting through the open door. "To each his own fear," I whispered.

  Once inside, Dollie followed and triggered the airlock cycle. The slab-like doors closed, and the lights turned green to show the atmosphere was breathable. I hauled myself out, grabbed onto a railing, and pulled myself over to a walkway nearby. I kept my feet away from the floor, though—it was less strain to float.

  The airlock was empty, and we made our way to the inner door. Inside was a circular tunnel, the borehole cut as straight as a laser and finished in astrocrete. There was something very familiar about the tunnel and how the fittings lining it were laid out. We moved down the corridor, past several side rooms, but they were all empty. I cracked open my helmet, and the atmosphere had the unmistakable acrid smell of newly cured 'crete.

  I passed through another door and found myself in a much wider area. The room was mostly empty, but mounted against the far wall was an operations console, its boxy shape something I'd seen before. I moved over and flipped a few switches, bringing up a swathe of displays on the screens. "Well, I'll be damned."

  Dollie came up behind me. "What is it?"

  "That's Hardrock Harry." I pointed at the screens. "Blasting Bob and there's Mudslapper Moses."

  "Are you feeling okay?"

  "They're old friends of mine." I tested the circuits—inactive—but as far as I could tell fully functional. "I guess they decided to run some greenfield trials on my last project. They're designed to work autonomously but could never handle it. Which means there's probably no one here, but we should check, in case."

  There were two doors in the room besides the one we'd come through, and Dollie pointed to the one on the right. "I'll take this one—you take the other."

  "Meet back here in thirty minutes regardless. There's no telling how far the tunnels might run. If the robots have been busy, there could be kilometers to check. And check in every five on the comm-set."

  My door led to another corridor. Like the one we'd come through initially, it was lined with empty rooms ready to be put to use. This was significantly better than anything we'd managed during my involvement with the project. Maybe Palmer had been right—I was the reason it never worked.

  After searching a dozen rooms, I called Dollie. "Everything okay?"

  Her reply came back almost immediately. "I'm fine. This place is deserted, though."

  "Looks like it."

  I carried on farther and came to another door. It led to a storage area, with a second airlock even bigger than the one we'd come in by. Down one side were drums of raw materials, mostly polymerizer for the final astrocrete finishing, but also large spools of wire. The bots were sitting on the other side of the room, looking like the guardians of a temple for ancient alien gods.

  I looked them over. They appeared to be okay but were on a dormant cycle. They looked pretty beat up, suggesting they'd been busy.

  Logan's voice came over the comm-set. "Joe! You need to get ba—"

  A minute later, a sharp crack reverberated around the corridor, followed by a low rumble.

  "Dollie? Are you okay?"

  No answer. I pushed off against Blasting Bob, heading back the way I'd come. "Logan? What's happening?"

  Aurore answered. "Joe. The AF-11s are here. We've had to pull away. Logan's trying to shake them before they get too close."

  "I felt tremors just now."

  She was slow answering. "They launched missiles. Some of them hit the asteroid."

  "Get that ship out of here. Don't try anything—"


  A deafening rip sounded above me, as if the heavens were opening, followed by a long, deep tearing sound. Clouds of astrocrete splinters filled the air as a long crack traveled the length of the corridor. By instinct, I snapped my helmet closed. Then the first chunks hit me, and I slammed against the wall of the tunnel.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Somebody had a campfire burning. I saw the flickering light in the darkness and smelled the woodsmoke. I hoped they had crackers and marshmallows. It was getting close to S'mores Day. I could share some with Dollie—she'd like them. I couldn't think why we hadn't done that before now.

  "Joe?"

  I could hear Dollie but couldn't see her. "Why've we never had s'mores?"

  "You don't like marshmallows," whispered Dollie.

  That was news to me. "Sure, I do. Let's cook some on the fire."

  "I'll get you some when we get home."

  The word "home" sent a skewer through my brain, and I tried to sit up but couldn't. My right arm wasn't working properly, and the left seemed trapped. I opened my eyes.

  "Dollie?"

  Her face floated into view above mine, partially hidden by her helmet, but visible enough through the visor to recognize her. "Beautiful."

  "Pull out of it, Joe," she said. "I need you with me, okay?"

  "I need you too."

  "That's not—never mind."

  I closed my eyes for a second as I remembered. The Corporate ships had attacked, and the tunnel had collapsed. "Are we okay?"

  "Depends on your definition."

  "The Shokasta? Logan?" I squirmed around, trying to get up.

  "Jumped, or...."

  I didn't want to think about that. "I can't move."

  Dollie sniffed. "Your arm..."

  "I know. That bastard stabbed me."

  "It's worse than that."

  My arm felt dead, as if there was nothing there. No sensation. Nothing but a dull numbness. The nerve-tranq wasn't strong enough to do that, and I realized that something must have triggered the trauma suppression system in my suit. "How bad?"

  Dollie didn't answer.

  "Can you help me up?"

  "Why?"

  "I want to get to the operations console. We can use it to see what's going on out there."

  Dollie pulled away some of the rubble then lifted me. I weighed nothing in ZeeGee, but moving anything in those conditions was always a struggle. Her Geneered strength made it easier, though.

  The corridor was illuminated by flickering lights and was filled with loose astrocrete. It looked like the main structure had held, but the inner finishing surface had given way catastrophically. Dollie dragged me through it, scrambling through the debris like a cat squirming through a construction site.

  Once we reached the console, I had her move me close to it. My left arm was working now, so I reached down to operate the controls, bringing up a display from the external cameras placed around the asteroid's surface. After thirty minutes or so, I caught movement on the screen and zoomed in on it. It was an AF-11. I carried on searching, but couldn't see any sign of the other ship—or the Shokasta.

  "Logan must have made a Jump," I said, convincing no one. "The weapons systems were damaged. They wouldn't have stood a chance against two ships."

  "And if he didn't?"

  I ignored her question, not wanting to consider the alternatives. Logan had pulled me through so much, I couldn't imagine life without him. "The atmosphere seems stable. If this thing is operating the way it was originally designed, there should be a solar array keeping everything powered. We might have enough atmosphere in here to last a week—maybe a couple, depending on the ice reserves.

  "What do robots eat?" Dollie said, pointedly.

  "There might be some supplies in the next level down. But I wouldn't hold my breath."

  I'd set the optical system to track the AF-11, and it beeped.

  "The ship has changed trajectory." I flipped through several camera views. "It looks like it's heading here."

  "But why?"

  I managed a one-shouldered shrug. "They could be being thorough. Or they may have picked up the signals from this console."

  Dollie gasped. "Then stop using it."

  "Too late." I pointed at the screen as two streaks of light flashed from the ship and appeared to head straight toward the camera. "Hold onto something."

  The lights flashed as a violent vibration shook the walls and floor. Luckily the console was bolted in place, or we could have been eating computer circuits. When the rattling stopped, I checked the cameras again. The AF-11 was still there but had changed course again. Perhaps they were waiting to see if there was any change in the signals before making another attack.

  "Can they hurt us in here?" Dollie inspected the walls and roof.

  Asteroids varied in composition from icy to rock or a mix of both. If this one had been selected using the project parameters we'd been following back on Earth, it should be solid, and it would take a lot to put a dent in it. The support systems and infrastructure that had been added made it less resilient, though. Done right, we were probably safe, but it depended how determined the people on the AF-11s were. I thought of reassuring Dollie but realized there wasn't much point. She deserved to know the truth.

  "If they hit us with enough explosives, they could rattle us to death. Or generate fissures in the rock and cause a major atmospheric breach. We could hunker down inside an internal airlock. At least until we use up the air."

  "And sit and wait for them to deliver the final blow." Dollie spat the words out.

  "Maybe." I fired up the control systems to see if the bots were accessible. "Maybe not."

  "I know that tone, Joe Ballen," Dollie said. "You're about to do something crazy, improbable, and more than likely dangerous."

  "Only to my metal friends."

  I swapped screens, bringing up a list of ore drones. They delivered raw materials to the asteroid from the debris fields, which were used—along with supplies from Earth—to build the asteroid base. Unlike the excavation robots, they weren't very smart—basically dumb haulers designed to carry several tonnes of raw materials in low-fuel, efficient orbits. But now they were going to play a more vital role.

  I was fading in and out, so it took a good forty-five minutes to re-program the drones. The AF-11 attacked several times, but nothing major had failed—so far. When I finished, I signaled two of them to leave the docking bay on a direct, but slow, path back toward what was left of Proxima Station. Then I switched over to programming the fleet of Muckout Mikes and sent them to nestle in close to the asteroid's surface. After that, I turned my attention to the mining bots.

  Harry was the first online after his boot sequence completed. "Somebody woke me. But I'm supposed to be on shut-down for three more weeks."

  "Sorry, Harry. Unexpected schedule shift. I have some new orders for you."

  "Joe? Is that you?" He paused. "We thought you'd left the project. Mr. Palmer said you—"

  "Mr. Palmer was confused. You know I'd never abandon you guys like that."

  "That's what I said. But you know what Bob's like. He didn't think—"

  "Hey, what gives here?" It was Bob. "We're supposed to be on some well-deserved downtime. There ain't no rest, I tell ya."

  "Bob, Joe's back!"

  "Yeah. What's that bum want?"

  "Hey, Bobby. We're moving up the project schedule."

  Dollie was staring at me as if I was one hundred percent certifiable.

  "We've got another asteroid that needs mining, and it's got to be done fast."

  "So ya need someone to make some big explosions, right?"

  "You bet. Biggest explosions you've ever seen."

  "Hey, I'm your man. I always believed in ya, Joe. That other guy was a creep."

  I woke up Moses and Willie. They were less grouchy than the others but slower, so I had more time to analyze the situation. Once I had my figures nailed down, I fed them new coordinates and directed the video o
f the AF-11 to them. "That's our new target asteroid."

  "That thing?" Bob sounded disappointed. "That's pretty small, Joe. Thought ya said it was a big job."

  "Don't worry, Bob. It might look small, but it's a tough nut to crack. So load up with everything you can carry."

  "I've never heard a robot so enthusiastic about blowing things up," Dollie said.

  The AF-11 had taken the bait and gone after the two haulers, assuming they held escaping people. It would blow them out of the stars easily, and after that they'd be back at the asteroid, intent on finishing the job.

  "I'm going to send you guys revised flight patterns. This new asteroid is going to take everything you have to mine, but it's vital to the colonizing effort."

  "That asteroid's traveling mighty fast, Joe." It was Moses. "Are we gonna catch it?"

  He sounded suspicious, but that was probably my imagination. "It'll be in range soon, Mose."

  Dollie tapped me on the shoulder, and I killed the comms to the bots.

  "What are you doing?" She sounded exhausted. "We should be trying to find a way out of here, not playing games with these damn robots."

  "We're stuck here until someone rescues us. But if I don't stop that ship, we won't be around to meet them."

  "Those bots have no chance against that thing."

  "We'll see."

  After that, all we could do was wait. The two haulers I'd sent toward the station had been turned to dust, and the AF-11 was heading back to our asteroid at top speed. I launched the remaining haulers and sent them flying in different directions, to make it look as though more people were fleeing. As the ship closed, I activated the Mikes and opened a comm line to the mining bots.

  "Okay, guys, fall in behind the Mike's. Go do your duty. And let no asteroid remain un-mined."

  The cruiser was targeting the other haulers, and several had been destroyed. They didn't realize that the haulers were nothing but sacrificial pawns.

  "You're using the first ships as decoys, I get that." Dollie watched the readouts on the screens, following the battle. "But they'll destroy the others when they see them."

  "That might not be so easy."

  The ship was close now—a few hundred kilometers away and slowing. The bots and the Mikes were waiting on the far side of the asteroid. They wouldn't be visible and were too small and too close to the surface to be easily detectable. When I guessed the ship was at its slowest, I broadcast the command to "mine the asteroid."