Von Neumann’s War

by John Ringo

  Recent studies of other planets in our solar system suggest that the outer planets or their moons, Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter, have undergone similar transformations.

  It’s the belief of the scientists, engineers, mathematicians, philosophers, and military strategists studying the data that this phenomenon is some sort of automated threat. In other words, it’s their best assessment that automated robots or robotlike insects have reached our solar system and are transforming the planets within it to meet whatever their goals may be. It has been suggested that the planets are being prepared for other entities to approach and move in once the solar system has been completely prepared for their arrival. We cannot be certain of this, however. What does seem to be the case is that all of the outer planets have been impacted by this phenomenon while no planets from Earth inward have been… yet.

  It would appear that Earth is the next planet in the path of this phenomenon, as it appears to be moving from the outer planets inward to the Sun.

  I have spoken to the UN Security Council in secret session and shared this information with the leaders of all the planet’s major powers. Today at 7:45 PM Eastern Time a worldwide curfew will be placed into effect. For those of you traveling, you will be given one week to make it home to your loved ones. After that, all worldwide travel will be used only for defense preparations against this alien threat.

  I have also frozen the securities exchange, and the stock exchange will not open until further notice. Business within the country will be reopened once we understand more about what is happening and what the extent of this possible threat might be. A council based around the Government Accountability Office and the Federal Reserve has been formed to begin preparations for national industrial and financial mobilization.

  As of right now, all National Guard units are to be mobilized. Individual members of the units will be contacted through their chain of command. I have authorized the recall of all persons in the Individual Ready Reserve. Individuals in the IRR should anticipate recall orders over the course of the next month. If you do not receive a recall order, a website is being set up for you to update your information and obtain orders through e-mail. I ask that all members of the IRR use this resource for obtaining orders if you do not get them through normal processes.

  Units deployed overseas are currently under warning orders for redeployment to the United States. This does not mean that we’re abandoning our allies in their time of need, but where and when the threat might strike is, at this time, indeterminate. Having our troops in the United States means that they will be in position to react in any direction, and as rapidly as possible.

  Tomorrow, I intend to place a declaration of war before the United States Congress. A declaration of war is necessary to begin the process of converting the U.S. from standard peacetime footing, which even with the many small wars and cold wars we have had since the 1940s has never been done since the war our parents and grandparents fought.

  Today and in the dark days before us, we must stand united against this threat. I ask that all Americans and all people of the world prepare themselves calmly, thoughtfully and with belief in the ultimate power of the human soul. And I ask that God be with us in this, our hour of challenge.

  * * *

  Briefings expanding the President’s speech lasted thirty-seven minutes longer from that point and John, Alice, Charlotte, Tina, and the rest of the world remained fixed to their televisions for the rest of the evening with hopes of learning more. The government had multiple news conferences going on but the information was often repetitious and, with few exceptions, the President’s speech covered the high points. Aliens were coming, probably with bad intentions. Bad times were here.

  John and Alice knew more and had a plan. Both of them had pushed to get assigned to the Asymmetric Soldier project group in Huntsville, Alabama. Their intent was to make certain that their daughters were with them when the curfew was put in place. John and Alice would finish their tasks at the CCAFS facility in Florida, then fly to Huntsville from there with the girls.

  “Does this mean we don’t have to go back to school next week?” Tina asked her mom when the grown-ups finally insisted the television go off.

  Charlotte elbowed her. “Dingbat!”

  * * *

  Ret Ball: My God! Did you hear the President’s speech tonight? It would appear that we had the Truth here first before the rest of the world. There really is something going on with Mars and there really is an alien threat. We have exclusively online tonight our friend Megiddo who first turned us on to this. Megiddo, what is your take on the President’s speech?

  Megiddo: I told you so is about all I can say, Ret. The CIA and these right-wing conspirators just couldn’t keep the Truth from us any longer. I suspect they tried to cut a deal with their alien masters and when that didn’t work, they decided to go to war.

  Ret Ball: Indeed, Megiddo. What do you propose that our listeners do?

  Megiddo: I’m not sure just yet. We don’t really know what these aliens want, except that they seem to have moved in on Mars and took it. What is to say they do not have the same plans for Earth?

  Ret Ball: Indeed!

  Megiddo: Me, personally, I have moved to a remote and secure location. Perhaps, these things will hit civilization first. That would only make sense, as that is where the resistance will come from.

  Ret Ball: Ah, you think we can put up resistance?

  Megiddo: Absolutely not! These aliens have traveled across the deep void of interstellar space and terraformed an entire planet in a very short time. What could we do against a power like that?

  * * *

  Richard Horton had been driving through and around the suburbs of the old town in northwestern South Carolina for weeks looking for the ideal spot. His real estate agent — himself — had found an old abandoned copper mine on sixty acres bordering North Carolina on Interstate 26, about twenty-five miles west of Spartanburg. After checking the satellite imagery of the region and reading up on the history of the area, he thought it was worth checking out.

  Richard drove up the old mining-road-turned-logging-road. There was evidence that some of the timber along the old road had been harvested, but that must have been years ago because the road was overgrown. Without the four-wheel drive Ford F-250 pickup it would have been difficult navigating the old rocky and overgrown road. Richard crested the peak of the mountainside and the road widened slightly, leading up to an old dilapidated and rusted gate with a “no trespassing” sign on it. Richard had a hard time imagining who would be trespassing up this old road, except perhaps mountain bikers and folks on dirtbikes and all-terrain vehicles.

  He stopped the truck and walked to the gate to examine its lock more closely. It was a number two MasterLock. He grinned to himself and pulled out the key the real-estate office had given him. It would not have been a problem anyway since number twos were quite easy to circumvent.

  Inside the gate and at the top of the hill the road split into two different directions. The map he had gotten from the real-estate office selling the property showed that the right fork went up a few hundred yards more to the old cabin and the left fork went down the hill a few hundred yards to the old copper mine entrance. He took the right fork up the hill to the cabin.

  The cabin was run down and had most of the windows busted out. The wood had turned dark gray from weathering. Weeds and briars had grown up on the east side of the cabin around the front porch and would make entering the cabin difficult, but Richard had brought a machete and had every intention of closely examining the building. A few swings of the blade and he had made a clear path to the steps.

  The front door was locked and sturdy. The framing of the porch and the post holding up the roof of the porch was in good shape; old, but in good shape. He unlocked the door and stepped into the living room of the little cabin. There was a small kitchen and dining area open to the room and a bedroom and bathroom off to the back of the house. There
was also a closed-in porch on the back, but most of the screen had been torn away by weather and varmints.

  Richard turned the sink faucet on; there were some odd sounds but no water. He had expected that. The realtors had warned him that the plumbing was old and the well pump was shot. Richard didn’t really care about those details. Things like that could be fixed.

  Out the back of the cabin was another grown-up area and it took a few swings of the machete to get through the back door. A few feet away from the back steps the underbrush stopped and rocks took over. The well pump for the house was in a small concrete block housing about ten feet from the cabin. Richard pulled off the cover of the housing and looked inside. The pump was gone and there was only an old handpump attached to the cap of the well.

  “What the hell.” He gave the pump a few strokes. On the seventh stroke clear, very cold water gushed out of the spigot. Richard cupped his hand under it and tasted the water but was careful not to swallow any of it. The water tasted clean and good, but he would check it out for alkalinity, microbes, and other pollutants later. He spat the water out and rubbed his mouth dry on his sleeve.

  There were several trees surrounding the cabin, most of which were hardwoods. But there was a small grove of trees that looked a little out of place. They were evenly spaced and obviously had been planted by a previous owner at least two or three decades before. There were three pecan trees, a persimmon tree, two plum trees, a pair of apple trees, and a pear tree, all of which appeared to be thriving and healthy. The trees were a plus — a naturally replenishing source of food. The realtors had said nothing about the small orchard. Richard didn’t plan on telling them when he made his offer either.

  “Not bad.” He looked around at the cabin and the little orchard from the outside. He pulled a persimmon from one of the trees and bit into it. The tangy tart sweet fruit squirted in his mouth, making him pucker from the taste. He spit the fruit out. “Still a little green. Too early I guess. This will do nicely. Helena will love it.”

  Chapter 10

  Roger Reynolds, Alan Davis, and Tom Powell sat at their usual table for their Tuesday after-work meeting. This time they were joined by John Fisher, Alice Pike, Major Shane Gries, and one of Gries’s noncoms, Master Sergeant Thomas Cady. When Shane had been told he could “have anything or anyone he wanted” to help with the program, the first thing he asked for was Cady. Traci was sitting in as well, this time letting herself be served instead of serving — for Traci, that took some getting used to.

  “I can’t believe I’m sitting in a Hooters in Huntsville, Alabama, discussing the end of the world,” Alice said, shaking her head and picking at her salad.

  “Can you think of a better place?” the master sergeant asked, taking a sip of beer.

  “Spazos?” Alice asked. “Marsel’s in Paris? The French Riviera?”

  Roger did his wing trick and dipped the meat in ranch dressing.

  “Been there,” Gries grunted. “Nothing there you can’t get here and with more friendly service.”

  “Poulet au vin et herbs?” Alice insisted.

  “Garcia’ll fry you up some chicken breast in wine in a flash,” Traci said primly. “I mean, it’ll be Sutter Home White Zinfandel, but it adds a touch of extra caramelizing to the onions, anyway.”

  Alice just sighed in desperation.

  “So the data that Traci is telling us about does two things for us,” Roger said, stuffing the deboned chicken meat into his mouth.

  “Yeah, what’s that?” Alice asked.

  Roger held his hand to his mouth to say that she should let him finish chewing. He washed the wing down with some beer, then replied.

  “We’ve got this shiny tubule impacting the Moon that she captured with the Hubble. There is no dust plume at the surface. This means whatever this tubule is, it’s slowing down and landing softly without creating any sort of plume. That means they definitely have reactionless drive systems. No plume, no rockets. The other thing it tells us is that these things have finished with Mars and moved to the Moon.”

  “That second one isn’t certain,” Alan said, seriously for a change. “Maybe they have enough in numbers at Mars so as not to matter if they send a few to the Moon.”

  “No way,” Traci said, flipping her hair behind an ear. “Look at the diameter of this tubule. It has to be at least fifty meters in diameter. And the damned thing stretches out about a hundred kilometers from the surface. What the hell is it?”

  “Well, I’d say its pretty goddamned obvious that it’s a lunar invasion force,” Gries grunted into his beer glass.

  “No shit, Sherlock!” Traci smiled and hit him on the back, making him slosh beer all over his uniform. “I mean, how or what are the things making up this tube. Is it solid? Is it a chain of sub-vehicles? The Hubble just doesn’t have the aperture to resolve what this thing is made of. All we see is a long, shiny, tube. And why does it only stick out a hundred kilometers. I mean, why not all the way to Mars? They’ve got more than enough mass converted there, based on our calculations. They could just throw a solid tube from one location to the other.”

  “You were right, Rog,” Alan said with a grin. “We should’ve hired her a long time ago.”

  “Well, Alan, when you’re right, you’re right,” Roger admitted. “And Traci, I have no idea. I could see it as being a relative motion thing, but they still have enough mass to compensate.”

  “It’s a launch window or something,” John said, setting down his untouched beer and picking up a wing. “Maybe it’s some sort of air traffic control corridor. This has to be a bunch of things in formation. There is no way that is a solid object sticking out of the Moon like that.”

  Dr. Powell set his beer down and started scribbling on a napkin. It was obvious to Roger and Alan that they needed to ignore him for a while and he would come up with something brilliant. The others had learned to ignore him most of the time anyway.

  “I have a question,” Sergeant Cady asked. “If this tube sticking out of the Moon is so big, why can’t we see it?’ Cady, having seen the wing trick, reproduced it perfectly his first try and stuffed the chicken into his mouth. Tom was too busy to notice what he had done.

  “That’s a good question, Master Sergeant,” Alice replied. “I was thinking the same thing. But I’m not an optics person, I deal with atoms, substrates, junctions, gates, and hole pairs.”

  “What?” Shane asked.

  “Itsy bitsy things down at the atomic level,” Roger translated absentmindedly.

  “It’s simple telescope optics, y’all,” Traci stated. “The Hubble has a primary aperture diameter of 2.4 meters. That’s a powerful telescope, but it can only resolve about 150 meters at the distance from the Earth to the Moon. The tube is maybe fifty meters, max, in diameter. The tube is just too small in diameter for the telescope to see clearly. Now you might see a little bump in the long dimension. I’m not sure why we don’t on that one.”

  Alan rubbed his chin. “Yeah Rog, why is that?”

  “Traci.” Roger adjusted his Roll Tide cap and turned it around backwards. “Why can’t you see the light from a planet around a distant star real easy?” Roger waited a few seconds for the light bulb to go on over Traci’s head. He could see in her eyes that she figured it out.

  “Of, course! You clever bastard, you,” she said. “The Moon is reflecting way more light than the little tube. So it’s just washed out.”

  “Atta girl!” Roger swigged at his beer, proud of himself and his new pupil.

  “Is there a way to get a closer look at this thing?” Cady asked. “I mean, it’d be a lot easier to figure out how to blow ’em up if we knew what the hell they are.”

  Gries nodded approvingly to the sergeant. “Yeah, Doc, how’s about it?”

  Before Roger could respond Tom slapped the table, “Gravity!”

  Alice nearly fell off her stool.

  Gries sloshed his beer again.

  Thomas choked on a wing.

  Roger and Alan
were used to it.

  “What about gravity, Tom?” Alan asked.

  “That’s why the tube isn’t any bigger and doesn’t stretch all the way to Mars.”

  Roger and Alan had often thought that Tom was autistic because he had a tendency to answer a question that had been asked ten minutes earlier. This was just more data in support of their theory.

  “You want to expound on that a little, Dr. Powell?” John asked. Everyone else seemed either indifferent or afraid to ask.

  “Most certainly, I shall. You see, a tube this size if it were the length of the distance from Earth to Mars, well, that would have significant mass. That would really affect and effect the things in the solar system that function due to gravity. The orbits of the planets or asteroids or comets might get a little perturbed. Not much, but enough. The tides would get confused and it might even confuse the lunar orbit. These things are smart. You see?” Tom smiled and snapped his fingers.

  “Uh, sorry, Doc, I don’t see,” Gries said.

  “Of course,” John replied.

  “I see,” said Traci. “But why not just land all asunder?”

  “All right, hold on a minute and let’s get everybody up to speed.” Roger held up his hands. “Tom is saying that if these things maintained a tubeway from Mars to the Moon this large that it would be so massive that it would fuck the orbits of the planets up.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have said it quite so crudely,” Tom responded with a smile.

  “Crude or not, correct right?”

  “As near as makes no difference,” Tom said. “Also, the relative position of the planets is constantly changing. A solid tube wouldn’t work anyway.”

  “Okay. So these things do not want to f-up the gravitational mechanics of the star system. That makes sense. If they plan to take it over and keep it for themselves, they wouldn’t want to muck it up too much.”