The governor considered the picture of Senator Ted Kennedy again. Like himself, the Senator had a bit of a weight problem; ruefully he stroked his own belly. Too much time working, too little time exercising. He was honest enough to admit that the temptations that his cooking staff put before him were hard to resist. He envied the simple working people, with their honest labors and hard taught lean physiques, but sacrifices must be made.
He thought back to the recent election. It had been a near thing. His opponent had been the conservative financier Romney Walton VI. As had been the case for over a hundred years the campaign for Planetary Governor had revolved around the contentious issue of gay marriage. For a long time it looked like he wasn’t going to make it: the polls were against him. In the last public debate Romney Walton VI had waxed so eloquent about supporting traditional family values, that he himself had almost been convinced. But then, it had been his turn to speak, and as he started to talk about love being universal he had felt the crowd turn in his favor. He had been truly inspired, so that by the time he concluded with the line: “You cannot place a wall around love!” he thought that even Romney Walton VI had a tear in his eye.
It had been close, but he had won with 50.2% of the vote, vs. 49.8% for Romney. A clear mandate for renewal and hope.
Governor Forbes accessed a screen showing the overall state of the planet. The areas that were stable and secure were color-coded in blue. These areas were still the majority, but less than they had been. Zones that were in revolt, or under the control of terrorists, were shaded in red. These were smaller in extent than the blue zones, but substantial and growing. Zones that were borderline inhabitable, and where everyone had to live under shelters with oxygen supplementation, were colored in gray. There was a lot of gray on the map. Zones where human life was impossible without serious life-support equipment, typically due to anoxic conditions, were colored black. These zones were small, but worrying, and they had been expanding at a rapid pace of late. There were also projections that the Earth could be headed for a thermal runaway and change into a superheated inferno like Venus in a surprisingly short time.
He had heard that the conservatives had been thinking about moving to Alpha Centauri Prime. He would have to discuss this with Romney Walton VI at dinner tonight. They had been planning on going over the need of the banking system for more capital injections, and the conservative plans to pay for it with taxes on food and water. How typical of the conservatives to pay for their own bailouts by taxing the poor. Governor Forbes would have to work hard to limit the damage; possibly by having the taxes phased in gradually, or maybe by opening up additional opportunities for the working class to pay the new taxes by selling parts of their bodies to the medical industry. Someone has to stand up for the little guy – oops, that’s not gender-neutral, he meant to think ‘little person.’
Lately his senior staff had been suggesting that they might also want to move to Alpha Centauri Prime. It sounded like it was a long ways away, and kind of primitive. He had been assured that the main planet already had a population of 10 billion and growing rapidly. Apparently he would have to be frozen to make the trip. That sounded worrisome, but the story was that he would just fall asleep here and wake up there, and that sounded OK.
He considered taking his junior staff along with him, but interstellar shipping costs were incredibly high. With the dynamic labor market of Alpha Centauri Prime he could always get more junior staff.
Besides, if the conservatives were moving there, the working people could use liberals such as himself to protect them. In truth he bore a heavy burden. There were times when he wondered if he should just retire, but the people needed him. After all, everyone always told him so.
5. Whifflebat
Zen Master: Close your eyes. What do you hear?
Engineer: I hear the water, I hear the birds.
Zen Master: Do you hear your own heartbeat?
Engineer: Yes.
Zen Master: Do you hear the grasshopper which is at your feet?
Engineer: I believe that that is not a true grasshopper, but a bush-cricket, family Tettigoniidae.
Zen Master: You have good ears.
(From the video series “Nymphomaniac Engineer in Zentopia,” mid-22nd century Earth)
The Odin-Class cybertank CRL345BY-44 and the Thor-Class DKB222AZ-22 were attempting a flanking maneuver around the Fructoid ground forces. They were traveling line-abreast separated by about 20 kilometers, and surrounded by their clouds of distributed weapons systems. Reports from the main battle line were not good. They really needed to take pressure off of the main human formations or their entire defense was in danger of collapsing.
From a distance the Odin and Thor looked identical. It was only on close inspection that you could tell that the Thor was just a touch larger. It had an extra pair of secondary weapon emplacements and slightly more elaborate sensor masts. If they had been human, you could have mistaken them for fraternal twins.
Unit DKB, there is incoming on your left.
“I see it, CRL, but I’m on it.” The Thor opened fire with its main plasma cannon, and the searing beam evaporated half a dozen Fructoid anti-armor missiles. “Suggest course change 15 degrees to port; the defenses look weaker there.”
Agreed DKB, course change confirmed.
The two cybertanks altered course slightly, continuing to power forward side-by-side. This part of Alpha Centauri Prime was undeveloped, which was a good thing or their sheer bulk would be killing as many humans as the aliens were. The ground was loose enough that they left dust trails behind them that could be seen from space. That wasn’t good, it made it just that much easier for the aliens to target them. Of course a cybertank is not exactly something that can sneak up on someone. It trades away stealth in exchange for sheer power. The enemy can see it from far off, but with its powerful sensors it can see the enemy too, and it’s stronger and has a longer reach. Nonetheless, trying to hit something as big as a cybertank can be harder than it sounds when the target is maneuvering and jamming your guidance systems. But dust trails are like giant fingers pointing at them. It gave the enemy targeting systems just a little more edge than they would have otherwise, and that was not good. If you are not careful giving the enemy little edges here and there can add up.
“I detect a swarm attack inbound from dead ahead; switch main cannons to widest dispersion and pull in the interceptors.”
Confirmed unit DKB.
The aliens had launched a swarm attack of over a hundred missiles. They scanned as non-nuclear, but there were an awful lot of them. Just before the missiles crossed over the horizon they each split up into a dozen smart sub-missiles, and several additional smaller micro-missiles and decoys. The two cybertanks were confronted with over a thousand fast and independently maneuvering targets. Enough conventional shaped charges could do some serious damage to even something as heavily armored as them. Units CRL and DKB defocused the beams on their main weapons, and dissolved the majority of them away in a wide plasma fog. They got most of the remainder with their own swarm of interceptors and point-defense weapons, although the Odin took a couple of hits.
“Unit CRL, are you damaged?”
Hits by armor piercing weapons, nothing made it past my main hull but a secondary battery is offline and a sensor mast got dinged. Repairs estimated at five minutes. Impact on current tactical situation is negligible.
The two cybertanks continued their flanking attack. They were starting to see the first signs of alien support units; soft targets that must have been the alien equivalent of fuel tankers and repair units. They blew up easily and often created quite impressive secondary explosions. This was the key to the operation: they had to get past the enemy forward combat units and into the soft meat before they got taken out.
Unit DKB, I detect heavy incoming missiles 30 degree to starboard. I don’t like the signature; they read as nuclear, more like depressed-trajectory strategic missiles and they are big. Suggest we divert to ta
ke them head on.
"Negative unit CRL, continue with the plan. We’ll let our heavy remotes handle the missiles."
Um, unit DKB, I just lost two heavies, these things are bad news. We can’t take them on the side, we need to divert to face them and then head back to the main approach axis.
"Stop whining unit CRL, we can handle them without diverting."
Shit, I just lost another heavy. Dammit I’m taking them on; join the party or stay home.
The huge Odin-Class cybertank pivoted at high speed, presenting its heaviest armor and smallest frontal aspect at the incoming missiles, and it diverted most of its auxiliary weapons as well.
“You cretin will you get back in formation? We need to support each other, dolt!”
The Odin fired its main gun. The thin line of brilliant hard-violet plasma etched across the sky and took out one of the alien missiles, now just 50 kilometers away. A bright fireball momentarily looked like another sun.
Fuck! I’ve just analyzed the spectrographic readings from the wreckage. These things carry armor almost as heavy as ours! I tell you remotes won’t do it, only our main weapons can take them out!
The Thor-Class cybertank reluctantly agreed, and started to pivot to support its partner, but it was too late. The Odin took out another of the super-heavy alien missiles, but then a third and fourth impacted on its frontal armor in quick succession and blew it to pieces. The Thor tried to use the fireball of the exploding Odin as cover to dodge the remaining missiles but there was too little time. It managed to take out one of the missiles with its main gun and then four of them impacted at once and the Thor added its mass to a second atomic fireball.
Their distributed weapons systems automatically reconfigured to work as a team, but without the central guidance and support from the big cybertanks their effectiveness was greatly limited. The distributed weapons still did some damage, but they were eventually worn down to nothing. With the failure of the flanking attack, the main human tactical situation on Alpha Centauri Prime was untenable. It was only a matter of time before the human forces were all wiped out.
--------------------
Well, that didn’t go so well.
“Perceptive of you to have noticed. If you have only stayed in formation we could have handled those missiles easily.”
Like bloody hell we could have. And you were about as effective as six–year old kid armed with a whifflebat.
“Hey, old guy, your sensors are just not up to the job. You are yesterday’s model and only in this fight to begin with because we are so short-handed.”
Janet Chen started to laugh. She was standing next to Giuseppe Vargas, who was seated at a control console monitoring the combat simulation that had just concluded with such underwhelming results.
Vargas frowned. “I fail to see what is so humorous. This was pathetic.”
“No, I don’t mean the simulation, I mean I figured it out. What we can name them. We call the Odin-Class CRL “Old Guy,” because he was the first one we activated, and thus the oldest. And we call the Thor-Class DKB “Whifflebat,” well, because it’s cool.”
The two cybertanks had been listening in via audio feeds from Vargas’ console. “Whifflebat?” said unit DKB from the console speakers. “What kind of a name is that for a state-of-the-art war machine? Although ‘Old Guy’ does fit unit CRL, no issues there.”
“Whifflebat” is indeed not a very good name for a state-of-the art combat unit, which is why it’s perfect for you. And “Old Guy” kind of resonates. I think I like it.
“I’ve been reading stories about the old days on Earth, back when flesh-and-blood human pilots would fly atmospheric fighter aircraft,” said Chen. “It was like in the 18th or maybe 20th century or something, I get them mixed up, but anyhow way back then sometime. They had this tradition where the pilots would give each other nicknames, but they were never things like ‘Ace’ or ‘Viper’ or anything like that. They would usually name each other after their biggest foul-up, like ‘puke’ for someone who got airsick once, or ‘flaps’ for someone who mis-set his wing angle on takeoff. It was part of the style.”
Vargas nodded. “Sort of what they call ‘big-man’ syndrome. They allow themselves to make light fun of each other to demonstrate just how cool they are.”
“Exactly,” said Chen. “But I think it was also a sort of statement that nobody was above criticism, and that they were in a profession where every mistake is potentially fatal and needs to be remembered.”
“Thus adding to the coolness quota,” said Vargas. “After all, that just re-emphasized how difficult and unforgiving their jobs were. The ancients could be subtle, sometimes.”
--------------------
The hangar complexes where the cybertanks were being built were spread out over a few hundred kilometers, nestled in amongst the sprawl of low metal buildings and plastic-domed greenhouses so as not to draw attention to themselves. Their dispersion would also limit the damage to the program if the aliens got a lucky hit with a fusion bomb.
They were building a total of four Odin-Class, and six Thor-Class, cybertanks. The Thor was a slight improvement over the Odin, but not by much. The engineers kept wanting to make even more improved models but the senior design team had demanded that a good unit in service was worth more than a better unit that didn’t exist. Therefore, until the pressure had lifted, from now on they were going to standardize on the Thor-Class to maximize production. The engineers sulked but saw the logic to it and went along. Nevertheless, on their break time they often worked on designs for potential new classes, including one for a million-ton interstellar space battle-cruiser.
Ten was the maximum number of cybertanks that the humans felt that they could build in time for the expected alien ground assault, so no additional construction had been initiated. Everything was going into getting these units fully operational. If they failed there would be little point in having a bunch of half-finished chassis lying around waiting for the aliens to destroy (or put into museums or turn into fish ponds or whatever it was that the aliens intended to do with half-built human war machines once humanity had been exterminated. The aliens had never made their intentions clear on this point, so this was all speculation).
After the rather hectic initial all-at-once awakening of the first Odin-Class, the other units had been activated in stages, which proved to be a much calmer process for all concerned. By design they all had slightly different personality matrices, in order to prevent the aliens from developing a single narrowly-tuned computer virus that could infect all of them. With the passage of time their personalities began to solidify, and they all ended up with their own nicknames. In order of activation, the four Odins were Old Guy, Sparky, Jello, and Crazy Ivan. The Six Thors were Whifflebat, Target, Wombat, Backfire, Moss, and The Kid.
The Kid objected that, because the first cybertank had been nicknamed “Old Guy,” it was lacking in imagination that he, as the newest-constructed model, should be named “The Kid.” He was promised a better nickname just as soon as he screwed up on something flamboyantly enough. He persisted, and asked why they couldn’t just get human names like “Fred” or “Betty” or “Bob.” The other cybertanks were dismissive; who would ever name a cybernetic weapons system “Bob?”
Old Guy was developing a reputation for irreverence and sneakiness.
Sparky was named after a brief electrical fire in his main turret. He was bright and enthusiastic.
Jello had had issues with defective hydraulic fluid. He was dependable but had trouble being decisive.
Crazy Ivan was given to grand gestures and high-risk high-reward plans, although outside of combat he was calm and patient.
Target was so named because of an early simulation where by some fluke everything aimed at him hit him.
Wombat was named after a simulation where he had gotten stuck in the mud. Terrestrial wombats are not especially known for getting stuck in the mud, but the name suited him anyhow. He often referred to himself i
n the third-person as “The Mighty Wombat.”
Backfire had once let an auxiliary fuel system clog up, and scorched a large fraction of his hangar. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt, but ‘Backfire’ was acknowledged to be the coolest nickname after ‘Crazy Ivan’.
Moss was so named because the humidity in his hangar had risen too high, and some algal growths had needed to be scraped off of his hull. Moss didn’t usually say much. The regular military tended to use Moss as their liaison, probably because his matter-of-fact attitude was closer to how they thought a cybertank should behave. ‘He is the very model of a modern mobile weapons system,’ was the general refrain.
The Kid was always trying to act like he needed to prove himself, even though he was as effective in simulation as any of them.
Whifflebat, however, had been a consistent laggard in their wargames. Vargas walked into his small private office off the main hangar, and called the cybertank from over the network.
“Hello, Dr. Vargas,” said Whifflebat from the console speaker. “What can I do for you? I’m in the middle of another combat simulation so if you don’t mind could we make it brief?”
“Whifflebat, I think we need to talk, and I think you know why.”
“My simulated combat performance.”
“Yes, your simulated combat performance. Or perhaps, your lack thereof. You have some explanation?”
“Well, they are just simulations. They don’t really count. I am fully in spec and as capable as any of the others. I will do as well in the real thing as any of them.”
“Yes, they are just simulations. But they are important. We are only going to get one chance here, and we need you all to be fully tuned up. Get into the habit of not taking combat seriously, and you might make a habit of it. If you get my drift.”
Whifflebat did not respond.
Neoliberal Economists Must Die ! (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 3) Page 9
