Von Neumann’s War

by John Ringo

  At the same time, he had to admit it was fascinating. Yeah, most of the ideas he’d had pitched, thrown and hurled at him since joining the DARPA Special Technologies Office had been pie-in-the-sky where they weren’t downright scary in a “if it’s stupid and it gets you killed, it’s stupid” way. But a few of the ideas, like the synthetic gecko stuff and the third generation tac-net he was examining, were pretty damned hot. The faster they got in the hands of the troops, the better, although he was still thinking about the uses for that gecko skin. The problem was settling on just one. He’d figured out a way to use it for sealing troop doors on personnel carriers.

  “I hate these things,” Captain Sparling said, waving at his computer. “Sure, they increase productivity. Sure, they make communication easier. But that’s a two-edged sword.”

  “Yes, sir?” Shane said, frowning and carefully not looking at the captain’s computer. He’d learned that was a bit of a no-no. The team, given the way that data was compartmentalized, really should have had separate offices. Instead, they just tried not to read over each other’s shoulders. They had been trying to get moved over to the main office in Arlington where there was more room available, but the political nature of this program required them to be stationed at the Pentagon.

  “You’re on TDY,” Captain Sparling said, sighing. “Dump everything you’re working on and get packed. You’re going to Huntsville, Alabama. Redstone Arsenal. God knows who’ll be handling what you’re doing now.”

  “What’s there now?” Shane asked. He’d been to Huntsville a couple of times in the course of his duties looking at projects. Not in the last month, though; the town had virtually shut down from his perspective.

  “Something called ‘Asymmetric Soldier’, ” Sparling replied. “The name is classified Secret and the purpose is Top Secret, Compartmented. And I don’t even have the compartment name. But you are detailed to it ‘for a minimum of ninety days.’ ”

  “Crap,” Shane said, sighing. “Well, I guess ours is not to question why… When do I leave?”

  * * *

  Ret Ball: Aha! Megiddo my friend, where have you been? Did you hear Hiowa Lend’s report last Sunday?

  Caller: Yes Ret, I did. And she was absolutely correct.

  Ret Ball: How so?

  Caller: There is no denying it now. Mars has changed. It has been terraformed by aliens. It’s no longer the Mars we used to know.

  Ret Ball: I see.

  Caller: It’s only a matter of time before more happens.

  Ret Ball: Such as?

  Caller: Have you noticed that the Space Telescope Science Institute is no longer posting new images from the Hubble of Mars?

  Ret Ball: They aren’t?

  Caller: No. In fact it has been nearly a year and a half since any new Martian images have been posted. That is somewhat unusual.

  Ret Ball: Really?

  Caller: Yes it is. I’m telling you that the CIA has commandeered the Space Telescope Science Institute and corrupted them.

  Ret Ball: To what ends, Megiddo?

  Caller: I’m not certain, Ret. I just don’t know But I suspect… to communicate with their alien masters. The Roswell landing was not a crash, Ret. It was a controller, sent to make contact with our government and begin the conquest…

  * * *

  “Holy crap,” Roger said, quietly, as the image from the Hubble filled the oversized monitor.

  The Hubble Space Telescope had been for all intents and purposes commandeered by Neighborhood Watch. Multiple observation cycles were implemented on the outer planets and the data gathered there was not very promising. Albedo shifts had already been measured on Callisto, while the returns from Rhea and Hyperion at Saturn were less conclusive. Titan looked iffy, but the standing hypothesis was that it was a function of that planet-sized moon’s dense atmosphere.

  The returns from Io and Europa couldn’t have been more conclusive. Among other things, Europa and Io both now had noticeable atmospheres; the halos were distinct in the image.

  “You’re going to owe me a year’s salary,” Traci said, chortling quietly at the scientist’s disbelief. The current Io image was sharp enough that major features of the distant moon could be distinguished and it was apparent that the entire face had been radically altered. In fact, it looked as if one section had been deep strip-mined. For the change to be visible at this distance, even with the resolution of the Hubble, the structure had to be at a minimum four hundred kilometers across. The way things were going, the probes might just eat the moon.

  “I think we should run a sharpening filter on the—” Roger said, reaching for the mouse on the image analysis computer.

  “My job,” Traci said, slapping his hand aside. “You rocket scientists and telescope builders can’t do planetary measurements worth a flip. I’m not so sure the image can be any sharper. The aliasing seems to me to be due to being at the limit of the sensor’s resolution.”

  “Traci dear, I’ve been analyzing IMINT imagery for more years than you’ve been in school,” he said.

  “You’re not that old. And what’s mint imagery?”

  “IMINT — it stands for ‘image intelligence.’ Astrophysicists.” Roger shook his head.

  “Well, all I know is that the astronomical imagery data from the Hubble looked better before you ran that filter again.” She pointed at the now blotchy image on the monitor. Traci hit the undo button in the software menu to restore the image.

  Traci had proven to be well worth her weight in gold. She had gotten in touch with the right people at the Space Telescope Science Institute and was trained on the Hubble-cycling protocols in just a few short days. She had gotten a lot of help from a fellow named Hamilton there. Jack Hamilton had been the first person to really detect the change in the Martian albedo and had been aware of the problem from the beginning. The STScI had been gagged by the President to keep the space telescope data quiet, so Jack and his professors had been briefed into the Neighborhood Watch from early on.

  Traci had a command station set up in the HOSC at Huntsville and had it connected and encrypted through the program’s protocols. So between the folks at the STScI and the command station in Huntsville, the Hubble Space Telescope was being tasked one hundred percent by the Neighborhood Watch and Traci was doing the driving — with a little input from Jack and, of course, Roger.

  She knew, more or less, what was going on at Saturn and its moons. Traci wasn’t quite sure what to make of the Titan data.

  The moons of Uranus had similar changes. Ariel in particular had a surface albedo much greater than ever before measured. Likewise were the moons of Neptune. Triton specifically had obvious changes.

  The albedos of the Kuiper Belt Objects including the Pluto-Charon system were harder to determine changes since there was less highly accurate albedo data available. However, some preliminary investigation suggested that Pluto was slightly brighter.

  These experiments took the better part of the month following the Neighborhood Watch final report briefing to the White House. At the same time they’d gotten to work on Asymmetric Soldier.

  Billions of dollars were pumped into the project in less than three months. The north Alabama Defense and Space industry infrastructure made a perfect central location for the AS project development and management. The first tactical and strategic suggestion developed from the project was to gather the nation’s space/defense talent at multiple locations across the country and in locations as fortified as possible. Asymmetric Soldier wings were set up at Cheyenne Mountain, in Wyoming, at a base in Montana, at Area 51 in Nevada, at Langley, Virginia, at CCAFS, at Vandenberg AFB in California, at Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio, at White Sands, Los Alamos, at Clear Lake City, Texas, at Whiteman AFB in Missouri, at the AFRL in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in two locations in Alaska, at Hickam AFB in Hawaii, at Thule AFB in Greenland, at the old Ramey AFB in Puerto Rico, and three U.S. Navy nuclear submarines and two aircraft carriers were designated as mobile research posts.

&
nbsp; Thus far, with no actual data on the threat, AS was mostly spinning its wheels. With no better than the 20 meter resolution they’d gotten from Percival, they couldn’t even determine what the probes looked like. They could be some of the large structures they’d seen on Mars or they could be much smaller. The team had no idea how they moved, how they fought or how they thought. All they could do was look at current and projected military hardware and try to apply it to the little bit they did know. It was a frustrating process. And, deep in their bones, everyone on the team knew it was mostly a fruitless one as well.

  The aliens were coming and nothing appeared capable of stopping them.

  Chapter 9

  “Come in, Major Gries, I’m Alan Davis,” the scientist said, gripping Shane’s hand as he entered his office.

  “You guys look busy,” Shane replied. The last time he’d been in Redstone was nearly four months before and it had seemed… sleepy compared to, say, the LockMart facility in Denver.

  But from the careful inspection he’d been given at the main entrance to the repeated security checks he’d endured to get to the engineer’s office, the entire tenor of the base had changed. There were more people, all of them looking very distracted, and there was far more bustle. It looked more like a battalion getting ready to cross into “Indian Country” than a research base. And he’d seen signs of defensive emplacements under construction — berms being dug on the periphery of the base, construction on the hill that overlooked the Arsenal — that simply didn’t fit any scenario he could conceive. It looked as if the base was preparing for a siege. And finally, before Gries got any closer to knowing just what the hell was going on, he was asked to sign a shit-load of National Security Act paperwork.

  “Okay, Major, you know all the secrecy stuff, I’m told,” Alan said, rolling his chair over to a coffee pot and pouring a cup. “You want?”

  “Yes, sir, black, sir,” Shane answered.

  “Siddown, and stop calling me sir. I’ve never been in the military, call me Alan — or Mr. Davis if you have to, but Alan is what I prefer,” Alan said, waving at a chair and pouring another cup into a none-too-clean mug. “What I’m about to tell you is going to break internationally sooner or later, but details are still going to be TS Special Access. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir, uh, Mr. Davis,” Shane replied, taking the cup and a sip. The coffee was good at least. Whatever these eggheads had figured out, some congressman probably figured it would win him a whole hell of a lot of votes in the north Alabama district, because from the looks of things there was a lot of money being spent around town.

  “About a year ago, people started to notice that the albedo of Mars, the light reflected from it, was changing.”

  “The gray planet,” Shane said, nodding. “There was a news story about it and I saw some stuff online. But I didn’t really believe any of it. Sounded too much like UFO stuff to me.”

  “Well, what is happening is…” Alan said, pausing as the door opened to admit a really good looking blonde. Blue eyes, curly hair, fine butt and tremendous knockers. She looked more like a Hooters waitress than an egghead, but Shane had met some fine looking eggheads over the last few months.

  “Roger wanted you to see the changes on Mars and the new images of the Moon right away,” the girl said.

  “Major Gries, Traci Adams,” Alan said as the young woman walked behind his desk and hit some keys on his computer. “She’s in our astrophysics department.” He paused to look at whatever was on the monitor, it was turned away from Shane, then blanched. “Jesus Christ. How big is that thing?”

  “Over fifty meters in diameter,” Traci replied, tossing her hair over her neck to get at the keys again. “And this.”

  “It’s… suspended,” Alan said.

  “And this,” Traci continued.

  “Crap,” was all Alan said.

  “I realize I’m probably not accessed for this…” Shane said diffidently.

  “You are now,” Alan said, spinning the monitor around so the major could see it.

  The image was, apparently, from the Moon or at least a moon. Airless and gray anyway. But at the edge of a crater was a long… cylindrical object.

  “That thing is… how long?” Shane said carefully.

  “Just over a hundred kilometers,” Traci repeated. “And it just landed or is landing… it’s hard to tell.”

  “Someone landed something a hundred kilometers long on the Moon?” Shane said, closing his eyes. Surprise is a function of the mind of the commander. He knew what he knew. He knew nobody had lift capacity on Earth to do that. He knew it was real; you didn’t get sent off like this by the Army on total bullshit. “We’re being invaded, aren’t we?” he said quietly.

  * * *

  John Fisher and Alice Pike sat quietly in the hotel room watching the latest reality television programming with their respective daughters. Well, the girls were watching television while the parents were trying to work and also spend time with their kids. They had returned to the Cape for spring break, but unfortunately it had rained for the last two days. John and Alice worked during the days and mostly in the nights, while the girls did whatever teenage girls do at the beach during spring break.

  Alice sat at the little hotel table pecking at a laptop and peering over it occasionally at the television, then out the window at the pouring rain. John was reading a technical paper on how to increase the space shuttle’s launch capabilities and punching in numbers into a Mathcad simulation on his laptop while at the same time continuously eyeing his wristwatch. The girls lay on their stomachs on the floor in front of the television oblivious to their parents and occasionally poking at each other and giggling.

  “I believe it’s gonna rain all week.” Alice glanced out the window at the downpour; she sighed, closed her laptop, rose, then sat on the couch.

  “Come over here and sit with me a minute,” she said, motioning for Tina to come sit next to her. She tore off a piece of pizza from the meat lovers thin crust in the pizza box on the coffee table and started to gulp it down. “What time do you have, John?”

  “Just enough time for me to refill the ice bucket. Anybody need anything from the soda machine?” John replied, looking at his watch and placing the report and his laptop on the end table.

  “Yeah, Daddy, get me a Diet Pepsi will ya?” Charlotte asked.

  “Okay slugger. Anybody else?” Nobody responded so John hurried to the vending area. He looked at his watch again, “Five minutes. That’s plenty of time.”

  Once he filled the ice bucket he stuck a dollar bill in the soda machine and pressed the Diet Pepsi button. Nothing happened. Then he realized the darn things were a dollar and a quarter, so he added another dollar bill and this time he got the soda. But the machine informed him that it was out of change.

  “You son of a bitch!” John smacked the machine with his fist… then he laughed at himself. “What difference does it make?” he muttered and hurried back to the girls’ room where they had gathered to watch television.

  “Hurry up, John; I thought you were going to miss some of it,” Alice told him as he handed his daughter her soft drink and set the ice bucket down. Then, just as they had been briefed would happen…

  * * *

  We interrupt this program to bring you a nationwide presidential address. We were informed just an hour ago that the President of the United States of America will address the nation about one minute from now from the Oval Office. We go now to our correspondent at the White House, Bret Marshall, for insight into tonight’s address. Bret?

  Yes, Shep, the President released a statement to the press corps about an hour ago that he would make this address and has yet to release the topic. Various White House sources have told us that it most likely has to do with a meeting he had earlier this week with the United Nations’ National Security Council. However, the actual topic of this meeting and of tonight’s address has been kept from press sources. The White House has been very tight-lipped about it, Sh
ep.

  Thanks, Bret. We go now to the Oval Office and the President of the United States…

  * * *

  Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, my fellow Americans and to our friends and allies around the world. Tonight I must speak with you about a matter of utmost importance and the most historic event in the history of humanity. Tonight I am here to tell you that humanity is not alone in this universe.

  Approximately two years ago NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Russian Space Agency began to lose contact with probes that had been sent to the planet Mars. Fourteen months ago scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute and at NASA discovered that the color of the planet Mars was changing. At that time they brought this to my attention and also told me then that they had no idea as to why this would happen. I then asked the National Reconnaissance Office to conduct a rapid mission to our neighboring planet and send a spy satellite there to determine the cause of this phenomenon. This was not a “Mars Probe” in the traditional sense. It was a spy satellite sent to Mars.

  The space reconnaissance community under the leadership of the NRO successfully built a spacecraft, then launched it just five months later, a remarkable achievement and proof that our space community is capable of responding as true Americans and problem solvers. Since Mars is so far away, it took the probe about five more months to reach the planet. Once there, the little spacecraft gathered intelligence data for a short period before it was destroyed — and I use that term carefully — by the phenomenon at Mars.

  The data the NRO gathered did show us that the surface of Mars has been completely developed into a planet-covering grid of giant, citylike structures. In a period of less than two years, the entire planet has been hyperindustrialized.