There was grumbling and arguing and catcalls among the Kel’em, but Mokleeoh pulsed the elders and detected some semblance of agreement as well. As usual, the elders were divided.
Telpy’t represented one faction. “Lektereenah thinks only of herself. It’s a trap…they want something from us. We can’t trust them.”
“What choice do we have, old Telpy’t?”
“The Umans destroyed our home…why should we help them?”
“The m’jeete may destroy their home, if we don’t…are you so blind?”
The arguments raged back and forth for many minutes, until finally Mokleeoh bleated out: “Enough! That’s enough. I’ve made a decision.”
Slowly, reluctantly, quiet came to the gathering, broken only the distant hiss of steam vents and the bubble curtains.
“We’ll do as Kel’metah Chase says…contact the Tailless. Arrange to work with them. This is their world, after all. They surely have a vested interest in protecting their own world…of which we are now a part, whether we like it or not. Somehow, some way, we must learn to work with the Tailless. Kel’metah, can you signal your contacts at once?”
Chase agreed that he would use the signaler and try to arrange a meeting to map out a response to the menace that was even now expanding across the western Pacific.
After the Kel’em was dispersed, Chase hunted down Tulcheah and found her with her own em’kel, putting away tools and supplies from an expedition to the other side of the seamount. She pulsed a great deal of worry inside Chase and came over to nuzzle.
But Chase was in no mood and shoved her away. Tulcheah was hurt.
“No shoo’kel today, is that it? Not very friendly for Kel’metah. Perhaps you are ill?”
“No, that’s not it at all. I’m sorry, I’ve just got a lot on my mind. “He explained what Mokleeoh had tasked him to do. “I’m free-bound to do the Metah’s will but it’s not going to be easy.”
“You know how to operate the signaler, don’t you? What’s the problem?”
Chase helped her place sacs and pods of fish they had caught on racks around the small cave. “It’s not the signaler…it’s the signal. The message. Sure, Seomish and Human should be cooperating. We have to. I don’t think Humans realize the real nature of the Coethi threat…remember these are ancestors of the Umans that came to Seome. What I’m afraid of is that Humans, at least some Humans, won’t make any distinction between the Coethi and the Seomish. They see all of it as a threat and this gives them a chance to wipe out everything…us and the Coethi. That could happen, Tulcheah. It’s a real possibility.”
“Then you must make them understand, oh great Kel’metah.” She began nuzzling again and this time, Chase didn’t resist.
Chase knew she was right but that didn’t make the idea any easier to swallow. “How the hell does a beach bum just out of high school get into something like this? All I ever wanted to do was play my go-tone with the Croc Boys and make music.”
Tulcheah was almost eerie in the way she could pulse Chase and understand his innermost thoughts. “You have the largest stage of all now, Kel’metah Chase. Is this not what you dreamed of…to play before the largest audience?”
Chase sighed. Tulcheah’s beak always knew the perfect spot to nuzzle. “I guess but what if I mess up…what if I miss a note…what if I don’t get the key just right?”
“The answer is litorkel ge, Chase. Calm waters. The best answer is vish’tu…the roam. Let’s roam…it’ll do you well.”
They coupled a bit, finding a small niche away from the rest of the em’kel, and when they were done, they left the cave and headed out to circle Keenomsh’pont and listen to the sounds and pulses of the camp all around them.
Chase was glum but it wasn’t the Metah’s orders that made him so dispirited. It was what he and Angie had decided a few days ago…that Chase would let Dr. Josey Holland try to medically, surgically, nanobotically, reverse the em’took modifications he’d been living with for so long. Once the process was done, he knew he would no longer be able to relate to Tulcheah, to Likteek, to the Metah, to any of them, in the same way.
And that made him sad.
And so it was that, after struggling with a decision he had promised Angie he would make and struggling with an order from the Metah herself, Kel’metah Chase finally knew what he had to do.
Chapter 14
Solnet Omnivision Video Post
@lucy.kwan.solnet worldview
September 23, 2115
1750 hours
SOLNET Special Report
“China’s New Allies”
Lucy Kwan reports from Zhanjiang, south China, on breaking news that a new underwater assault force, a UNIFORCE task force, is now approaching the center of the disturbance that has been generating storms and waterspouts and bubbles of toxic air across southeast Asia and the western Pacific in recent weeks.
“I am reporting from a mobile Solnet broadcast center in this ancient Chinese city on the details of a large-scale military operation that UNIFORCE is apparently conducting in the South China Sea, an operation that is on-going even as we speak, an operation conducted in coordination with elements of the Peoples Liberation Army and Navy.
“Zhanjiang is a prefectural capital in this part of Guangdong Province and looks out over the gulf of Leizhou to the distant shores of Hainan Island to the south. Not far from our position here, the PLA Navy operates a large naval force out of Longpo Naval Base.
“I’ll try to describe our setup here first…we’re working with a drone operator out of Manilla, Theo Garcia, who is running an underwater newsdrone for Solnet, a drone called REMUS. The REMUS drone is currently underway at a depth of two hundred meters, heading south, so Theo tells us, toward the site of the disturbance. We’re about two miles or so but already we’re getting sonar indications of a large formation, probably UNIFORCE UWAT teams moving into position.
“Our sources in Paris tell us that UNIFORCE will shortly engage the target with combat nanobotic swarms, ANADs they’re called. That stands for Autonomous Nanoscale Assembler/Disassemblers. The purpose of the assault is to surround the target site, said to be some kind of machine that is generating all these disturbances, and render it harmless.
“Sources within UNIFORCE have told this reporter that the target is a swarm itself, a large and growing concentration of nano-robotic elements that apparently came through to this world from the same location as the Sea People. It’s unclear whether the Sea People brought them along or whether this is some kind of unexpected development. In any case, according to our sources, UNIFORCE will attempt in this operation to isolate and contain the alien swarms and allow other agencies and organizations to begin the process of cleaning up the environmental mess that these unwanted visitors have caused…”
…the image from Solnet shifts to a low-light level scene, illuminated and computer-enhanced from sonar returns…a cloudy, silty ocean lies ahead…with flickers and pinpricks of light going off seemingly at random…there are steep hills and sand banks on both sides of what seems to be a shallow ravine or valley…
“…ah, now we’re beginning to see something…Theo, can you clean up the image anymore? No…Theo says we’re at max resolution right now…REMUS is unable to approach any closer…apparently it’s receiving warning signals from UNIFORCE elements to stay at this distance, so we’ll have to reconnoiter from this position…Theo, perhaps we could just navigate around the combat zone at a safe distance for a better perspective….”
…the scene and perspective shifts again and it’s apparent that the drone is underway, moving laterally around and over some rock formations…schools of silvery fish dart to and fro across the view, while in the right corner of the image, the flickers of light have grown faster, more intense and it’s readily evident that some kind of action is going on…there is an intense blue-white undulating ribbon of light snaking crazily in slow motion through the water…the line of engagement between UNIFORCE ANAD assault swarms and the Coet
hi swarms…
“Although we can’t show our viewers exactly what’s going on at the point of attack, due to security restrictions, Solnet engineers have worked with UNIFORCE tactical people over the last year to provide a sort of simulation of what combat at the level of atoms and molecules is actually like—let’s take a look at that now…”
Appending and opening video segment V-338…
“Interview with Colonel John Winger, United Nations Quantum Corps”, June 5, 2114
“It’s funny how combat looks when you were the size of a few atoms. I remember seeing some old vid…a movie they used to call them—of the U.S. Navy fighting in the Big War…the Second Big One. Frogmen fighting underwater. That’s what nano-combat looks like. Nothing but foam and bubbles, only it isn’t bubbles you’re seeing. It’s stringy chains of atoms that look like tree ornaments…bulbs on a filament whipping through space, cleaved by things that looked like spiky maces and octahedral balls and weird pyramids and every shape imaginable, all careening along as if blown by a hurricane.
“When you link in to see what our tiny ANAD assemblers are dealing with, you get a dizzying image coming up on your eyepiece--
--Long, whippy chains hurtling at you…a sleet of shapes of every size and description. Cones, polygons, tetrahedrals, pieces of lattice, a junkyard of molecules streaming at you and you can even feel the battering the tiny assembler is taking. It’s like wading into the ocean surf in the middle of a hurricane. When the coupler link is working a little too well…you can feel the impacts of errant atoms and radicals, molecular junk hurtling at you, pounding and slamming into you. It’s all just whirling, colliding shapes materializing on your screen…a blizzard of polygons and snake-like carbon chains, twin-lobed oxygens careening off L-shaped nitrogens, like some kind of mad volleyball game.
“At first, you feel like you’re flying in a blizzard…shapes and images rushing at you from all directions, pummeling and washing over you. You catch glimpses of the shapes…it’s a grid, a three-dimensional lattice of quivering spheres and cones and polygons and you’re rushing through them like a high-speed film. It’s wild, really insane, what it looks and feels like.”
“Colonel Winger, what are some of the tactics and principles you have to know to successfully engage an enemy swarm at this level?”
Winger runs a hand across the top of his blond buzz cut. He closes his eyes to think.
“Well, perhaps the best answer to your question would be for me to quote and illustrate from Quantum Corps Field Manual Q1-2 on combat tactics and maneuvers…so here goes.”
The screen fills with dense rows of text, along with embedded vids and simulations…
Many viewers have asked about how Quantum Corps nanotroopers go about their business. What sort of tactics are effective in combatting enemies in the world of atoms and molecules? The following list details some of these tactics and maneuvers.
Deception and concealment:
Nanoscale assemblers and robots with quantum processors have the ability to make relatively quick configuration changes. Swarms can look like clouds of dust, rain storms and hordes of flies or bees, even structures like buildings, cars, etc. These config changes provide a ready-made source of deceptive countermeasures for concealment, allowing a typical ANAD unit to infiltrate and spring a surprise on even the most suspicious adversary. The Russians call this tactic maskirovka.
Feints and Diversions:
The Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu claimed that “all war is based on deception.” Feints and diversions are part of the same toolkit. Quantum Corps uses swarms to conceal a main axis of assault, or to confuse an adversary as to where the main assault will be. This is a relatively straightforward task in nanoscale warfare. Just replicate a few trillion bots, configure them into something the enemy expects and send them in the direction the enemy is anticipating. If your intelligence is good, the enemy will react to these moves and weaken himself along another axis. The ability to replicate quickly and form swarms to resemble any structure or form gives ANAD-style units unbeatable capabilities.
Swarming attack (mass):
The use of replicated mass in nanobotic warfare is one of the simplest tactics to use. Just slam atoms together like a drug-crazed brick mason on steroids and overwhelm the enemy with sheer mass. Nanotroopers call this a ‘Big Bang.’ The trick to succeeding with this tactic is to be able to out-replicate the enemy and fend off any defenses he may have up his nanoscale sleeve…like electron bond disrupters, etc. Although it’s often said that the best way to defeat a swarm is with another swarm, a High-Energy Radio Frequency (HERF) gun doesn’t hurt. With enough blasts of rf, any swarm can be shattered and turned into clouds of French fries falling out of the sky.
Dispersal
One of the great advantages of using swarms of nanobots in combat is the ability to pulse. Pulsing means that the normal state of affairs is for the swarm to be dispersed or scattered to resemble or blend in to the local environment. With the right signal, the dispersed bots can quickly gather together into whatever configuration or formation is needed, and slam the adversary from multiple directions at once. Bees do it. Birds do it. And now ANAD nanobots do it too.
Entrapments and Ambushes
An ambush is a form of deception. The point is to draw the adversary into a space where you have the advantage of mass and position. Ambushes can be ridiculously easy when your swarms have the ability to configure as just about anything, a mountain, a cloud, a body of water. But all nanobotic swarms require vigorous atom-slamming to maintain structure, and thus give off acoustic, electromagnetic and other atomic effects of this activity. Thus masking your signature and controlling emissions is critical to an ambush. As Sun Tzu put it: “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
Managing Configuration Changes
Quantum Corps tactics succeed when the proper swarm configuration can be deployed in a tactically effective manner. This means the config templates and drivers have to be up to speed. It also means the bots that make up a swarm have to be designed from the outset to replicate commanded configs quickly and without error, often under combat conditions. A lot of this depends on intelligence…what do you know about your adversary? Good intelligence, good communications and effective configuration management…every tactic used by Quantum Corps has all these elements, in abundance.
These are just some of the basic tactics and maneuvers used by ANAD-style formations in Quantum Corps engagements….
A split-screen view re-appears on the screen. Lucy Kwan’s face, squinting in concentration, fills the right side of the screen. The left side is a blurry mélange of swirling colors and shapes.
“I’m sorry to interrupt the simulation and explanation but Theo has just advised me that REMUS has been able to move in a little closer…Theo, can you stabilize the image any more…?”
For a few seconds, the image is a dizzying clash of colors and shapes, weird polygons sleeting at the screen, then slowly, bit by bit, the image settles down. It’s a computer-enhanced image, an algorithmic approximation of what you would see if you could read sonar returns.
There is a bright glow, intense enough to wash out almost all other detail, at the center. REMUS is cruising slowly, side-scanning the target from a distance of about a thousand meters. The glow throbs and pulses like a beating heart and there are fainter pulses dancing around the perimeter of the central orb…the split screen shows Lucy Kwan studying the same image with a pen idly tapping at the corners of her mouth…
“…I’m told that the bright glow is a machine of some sort at the center of the target zone. Unnamed sources within the PLA Navy and within UNISEA have told Solnet that this machine seems to be some kind of device that manipulates time and space, possibly generating wormholes or similar phenomena that can be adjusted and used. It’s unclear to this reporter whether the Sea People had anything to do with this, though there have been reports that the Sea People
themselves first appeared in our seas through just such a gateway. Again, these are speculations from a variety of uncorroborated sources. The smaller light blobs around the bright glow are said to be vortexes, whirlpools which the machine is generating…now that the alien swarms apparently have been cleared away or contained in some fashion, we can get a better picture of this phenomenon.”
Kwan goes on with her narration, as REMUS continues to circle the machine and its accompanying whirlpools from a safe distance. Small clouds pulsate with throbbing blue-white light further away, sometimes coalescing into larger formations. These are the UNIFORCE combat ANAD swarms returning on command to their own containment tanks. Occasionally, the bow and sail of a small submarine passes by just at the edge of the screen, sweeping up remaining remnants of the shattered Coethi force, collecting clouds of residual ANAD bots that have finished engaging the enemy and are awaiting pickup.
“This reporter should also report that sources within the Defense Ministry and the Foreign Ministry in Beijing have told Solnet that the Chinese government has detailed long-range plans for using this unusual machine, if it in fact can manipulate time and space. These sources indicate that China plans to use the machine and a developing alliance with one faction of the Sea People to dominate all of east Asia and the western Pacific, perhaps to even try to change history itself so that imperial China, that is to say Ming-dynasty China, does not turn inward and fall under Western domination as actually happened but remains a great power into present times. These sources have said that the government intends to use this machine, if possible, to return to the days of maritime glory under the Ming-dynasty Admiral Zheng He.
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