It would take twelve days to cross the system from one end to the other, but I had no intention of coasting for that long. The stellar catalog indicated that there should be at least one Jovian planet, which shouldn’t be too hard to locate. As soon as I identified a second planet, I’d have the three points necessary to identify the probable ecliptic plane.
It took less than two days to locate several planets. Given the spacing of their orbits, I doubted that I would find more. The system had two inner rocky planets, an inner asteroid belt, the Jovian planet, an outer asteroid belt, and a Neptune-like planet farther out in a highly elliptical orbit. There also appeared to be a significant Kuiper belt much farther out.
I wanted desperately to take a look at the two inner planets – even at the gas giant, for that matter. I was the first person to visit another stellar system, after all. Okay, person was debatable. But I had a limited time to prepare for company, and couldn’t take time out for sight-seeing.
Theory held that usable metals would be concentrated in the inner system. Plus the inner belt would be quicker to scan, with a smaller circumference.
“Guppy, plot a trajectory that puts us above the inner belt. We’ll fly a powered orbit all the way around, scanning for resources.”
[Aye sir]
***
I patted Spike while I examined the schematics floating over my desk. My plan depended on the Brazilian probe coming in like gangbusters. If the other guy decided to play it cagey, I was probably screwed. But if he was armed and figured I wasn’t, his best bet would be to engage in direct confrontation as quickly as possible: run me down and shoot me like a dog in the street.
I also had a concern that the Brazilian probe might have been playing possum during his solar system departure. Unless he was carrying more missiles than seemed reasonable, my models indicated that he should have been able to push more than 1.25 g. I intended to be ready well ahead of his calculated arrival time.
I wondered if the Brazilian was deliberately trying to throw me off with the low acceleration value. If he thought he could get here early and take me by surprise, his best strategy would be to coast in real close, then blow the hell out of me. Assuming he could find me, of course. So my best strategy would be to play dumb, then spring a booby-trap. But he’d be expecting a booby-trap…
I hate this. I almost feel like just continuing on to another system. But if the Brazilian gets a chance to start building copies, it becomes a galactic breeding race. And if he comes gunning for me, I’ll just end up fleeing from system to system forever. Like it or not, I have to resolve this, now.
“Okay, then, Guppy, we’ve located asteroids with the proper elements. Time to get started.”
The designers of Heaven-1 had faced a simple problem—how to design a probe as small, light, and bulletproof as possible, while giving it the ability to build copies of itself. In all the science fiction that I had ever read, this was handled with a handwave. The ship (usually alien) simply did it, without the story going into details.
The solution was 3D printers. I remembered that panel at the convention, and I felt a moment of regret that the speaker would never know how right he had been.
The technology was just coming into its own in the early 21st century. A century later, printers could build virtually anything solid, one atom at a time, as long as the raw materials were available. The catch was energy. It took a lot of energy to reduce source materials to their monatomic form, and it took as much energy to drop them into the proper place in the creation matrix. Such 3D printing had had to wait for cheap fusion energy before becoming practical technology.
There was also a problem dealing with volatile materials, because of all the energy involved. Attempts to print C4 or Semtex, for instance, often failed with spectacular results.
Heaven-1 was equipped with multiple printers. I also had a supply of roamers and nanites, purpose-designed to extract mineral deposits from asteroids. And the final item needed to put together a new probe was a small fleet of autonomous cargo carriers, equipped with small reactors and SURGE drives, for transporting miners and materials.
A hologram of the Epsilon Eridani system floated over the center of the desk. A bright, curved line indicated the probable approach path of the Brazilian probe.
“We will set up here.” At my command, a red dot blinked just to one side of the approach path line, on the inside edge of the asteroid belt.
“We need him to slow down as much as possible. This position will force him to curve north of the edge of the asteroid belt. We want him to be facing at an angle to his approach path when he gets close enough to open fire. He will expect a trap, so we’ll have to bury the welcoming committee deep to shield them from a random scan. And I’ll have to launch them very late, after he’s committed. He’ll probably get a chance to fire on me before they get to him. So I need to have something that can hold off some missiles.”
I looked over at Guppy, who hadn’t reacted at all. Not really much of a conversationalist.
“How are we for resources?”
[Sufficient material has been located for all construction. Miners are deployed. Factory systems have been unshipped and are ready to begin manufacturing]
“This is going to put us months behind on reproduction. I just hope the other probes don’t end up with too much advantage.” I sighed and shook my head. “Unbelievable. I’m going to war.”
[You are allowing the adversary to take the first shot]
“Yeah, fair enough. Never know, he might open a dialog.”
Guppy said nothing, but he did prove that a fish could look skeptical.
Bob – September 2144 – Epsilon Eridani
The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.
… Sun Tzu’s Art of War
[Adversary has changed course. Deviation from predicted path is minimal]
“If you ignore the fact that he’s a couple of months early, sure.” I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a moment. “Make sure the decoy fusion reactors are ready to start up on command. We want him concentrating all his attention forward during his attack run.”
[Aye sir]
I had earlier considered and rejected the idea of reactivating the endocrine control system. But I was now coming to realize that this was more than just stage jitters. I wasn’t a military person. I had no training, no experience, and reading Art of War, as useful as it had been for ideas, wasn’t going to make me ready for battle. I could very well be facing my last few hours of existence. I wondered if FAITH had launched more than one of me, despite their claims to the contrary. It would be nice to believe so. But right now, I had to be calm and able to make good choices.
With a sick feeling of defeat, I pulled out the endocrine control project file and flipped the switch.
Immediately, a sense of calm purpose settled over me. Okay, not so bad. I could turn it off, later. For now, I had an enemy to take care of, and I needed to stay focused.
As I’d expected, the Brazilian ship was here sooner than his observed acceleration would have allowed. Whether it was the ship’s pilot or his masters back on Earth, someone had been thinking strategy from day one. No doubt he was expecting me to be surprised by his early arrival. I hoped so, anyway. I didn’t want him to think I was prepared.
The Brazilian ship was almost certainly armed, and almost certainly crewed by a military replicant. How well armed was the question, of course. I plugged the Brazilian’s transit time into my models, which further narrowed down the possible configurations of the ship. He either had better legs and eight or fewer missiles, or the same acceleration capability as me and six or more missiles.
Whether he’d use them all was another question. This wasn’t going to be like a movie space battle, with whooshing spaceships weaving and gyrating. And I couldn’t afford a spaghetti-western-style shootout at high noon. With only a month to prepa
re, I hadn’t had time to build a lot in the way of weaponry, so I’d gone with the simplest design I could think of. I would have to hope that he wouldn’t be expecting even that much.
And the first order of business was to reinforce the image of me as helpless. Time to make a call. Who knew, it might even get him to reconsider.
I hailed the ship. “Attention, Brazilian vessel. This is Robert Johansson of the Heaven One. There’s no reason for you to do what I think you’re about to attempt. I’m not sure there’s even an Earth civilization left to be loyal to. Have you received anything from Earth in the last twelve years? Should we continue a war between countries that may no longer exist?”
There was a pause of no more than a few milliseconds before the response came back, audio only.
“This is Major Ernesto Medeiros of the Brazilian Empire ship Serra do Mar. And what would we do with ourselves, Mr. Johansson, with no homeland to serve?”
He was talking, anyway. Very probably humoring me until he got within missile range. I spared a moment to glance at the tactical schematic before responding. “There’s still a universe to explore, Major. We’re effectively immortal. We might even be able to help Earth, if there’s anything left. Serving the needs of FAITH was a reasonable bargain for me, but it was never my top priority.”
“And that’s where we differ, cabrão. Serving the needs of the Brazilian Empire is my only priority. Your gunships shot down an Empire vessel back in the Solar System. You may count that as the start of the war.”
Hmm. I promised myself I’d look up cabrão as soon as I had a chance. Good multi-language insults were always useful.
“Wait, you mean the Empire vessel that had just tried to blow me out of the sky? Yeah, our bad.”
“Talking will not save you, Mr. Johansson, nor will such whining stay my hand. I will not allow a bumpkin, a flea such as yourself to stand in the way of my destiny and that of my homeland. If you have a god, now would be the time to make peace with him. Good-bye, puta merde.”
Wow. Ego, much? Or maybe just bluster. If my early departure had forced the Brazilians to launch before they were ready, their replicants might be lacking some training. One could hope.
The tactical display showed that he was now close enough. I turned tail and accelerated away from him, directly towards my decoy reactors. Medeiros altered course to chase me, and accelerated to 2.5 G. Sure enough, he was faster than advertised. I plugged that datum into my models, and got a result of six missiles maximum. Less than my initial estimate, but still not good. I didn’t have enough ship-busters for him and that many missiles. I’d have to hope I could lose some missiles in the decoys.
“Activate the reactors, Guppy.”
[Aye]
Immediately, sensors showed ten radiation signatures appearing ahead of me. They were nothing but small, leaky fusion reactors, but Medeiros couldn’t know that. I needed his attention focused forward, intent on pursuing me and identifying threats.
The Brazilian launched two missiles, far earlier than I expected. He probably suspected a trap and was trying to out-maneuver me. And doing a good job, so far. I was too far from the decoys to have any chance of mingling with them and confusing the missiles. Ready or not, I had to act.
“Guppy, launch the ship-busters.”
Guppy nodded, and huge fish eyes blinked once. From several small asteroids in the immediate area, four fusion signatures appeared, converging on the Brazilian craft with monstrous acceleration. The ship-busters were the simplest tool I could invent for the job. I’d managed to build six in the time available. They carried no explosive warhead. Each unit consisted only of a small reactor, an oversized SURGE drive, an AMI pilot, and a one thousand pound ball of metal.
Medeiros pulled a hard turn at 3 G to get out of their path. That was interesting. Calculations now set his maximum complement of missiles at four. I started to feel slightly less pessimistic.
I launched the two busters I carried and directed them to target the missiles coming up on my rear, then turned my attention back to Medeiros. He must have finally realized he couldn’t outrun the busters, because he launched two more missiles at me instead of trying to take out his pursuers. Damn. A scorched-earth move, and one that made sense if there was still another Medeiros out there. It was also likely that he was now out of missiles. But the four busters chasing Medeiros were too far away to catch these two, and I was still not close enough to the decoy field to lose myself in it. And I was out of busters.
Cameras registered two flashes as the first set of missiles were intercepted and destroyed. Unfortunately, the busters were obliterated as well. I re-checked distances and re-did the calculations for the second set of missiles. No change. I wasn’t going to win a straight chase.
So logic dictated an act of desperation. There was no time to do a formal calculation; I pulled into the tightest turn I could manage, and called off two of the busters from Medeiros. I couldn’t possibly out-run my pursuers, but I could lead them back towards the busters.
I spent a tense thirty milliseconds watching the schematic as five different vectors converged on a point. Finally, there were twin explosions as the busters intercepted the missiles, less than a hundred meters away. Warning indicators lit up as shrapnel from the explosions stuck the Heaven-1, damaging one of the reactor cooling radiators. My reactor output dropped by half as the control systems shut down the coolant feed. I wasn’t quite dead in the water, but I now had a significant limp.
[Roamer systems dispatched. Full evaluation will take several minutes]
I stared at Guppy for a millisecond. Even with the endocrine controls active, I had an urge to hyperventilate. Medeiros would have no trouble finishing me, now, if he survived my attack. With a feeling of dread, I turned back to the external monitors.
Then the tide turned, as the remaining two busters caught up to the Brazilian. I waved a fist in the air and whooped as they hit him at the same time, and tore through the Serra do Mar like tissue paper. One must have found a critical system, because the ship immediately began to pitch off its flight line. The other destroyed the reactor containment, and superheated plasma shot out in a straight line, melting a path through the ship. The Serra began to tumble slowly.
I sent a signal to recall any still operational busters, then checked telemetry. No reactor emissions, no electromagnetic activity from the Serra.
There was a moment of charged silence as I realized that I would be the one to live. Exhaling a long, slow breath, I turned off the endocrine control system. As reaction set in, I sat back in my chair and slowly slid down until I was slouched like a teenager. My eyes seemed to want to tear up, and I had to keep clenching and unclenching my fists.
Finally, after almost ten milliseconds, I felt enough in control of myself to speak.
“Damage report?”
[Radiator was holed by shrapnel. Coolant loss minor. Roamers are patching the damage. Replacement not required]
“Good. Scan the Serra, Guppy. Let’s see if anything is left.”
[Detailed SUDDAR scan complete. Image uploading]
I looked on as a hologram of the Brazilian Empire ship coalesced over my desktop. Red indicated destroyed areas.
“Where’s the replicant core?”
[Extrapolation indicates it was here]
A green cube appeared, right in the path of the devastation created by the plasma plume.
“Hmm. Well, goodbye Major Medeiros, I guess.” I tried to feel remorse, but other than a small pang of regret over the wasted time and resources, I came up dry. He had, after all, followed me here and tried to blow me up.
I reached over and picked up Spike, who began to purr in anticipation. I patted the cat while gazing at the image.
“All right. We know there’s at least one more Brazilian Empire ship out there. There may or may not be USE and Chinese ships as well, and even an Australian ship if Dr. Landers was right. I think our only choice is to breed faster than they do. The other two groups may or m
ay not be a problem, but if we run into Medeiros again, I think it’ll be shoot on sight.”
I leaned forward and scrutinized the image. “Where are the fabrication systems?”
A yellow section lit up, partly destroyed.
[Some of that is extrapolation. However, they seem to have sacrificed robustness in this area in favor of weaponry]
“And look how well that worked out. I remember that Dr. Landers said that was a possibility. But that means we can likely build Bobs faster than they can build Medeiri. We’ll just have to make sure all our copies come with ship-busters.”
Guppy didn’t comment. Spike presented her chin for scratching.
Bob – September 2144 – Epsilon Eridani
At one time, we thought that the way life came together was almost completely random, only needing an energy gradient to get going. But as we’ve moved into the information age, we’ve come to realize that life is more about information than energy. Fire has most of the characteristics of life. It eats, it grows, it reproduces. But fire retains no information. It doesn’t learn; it doesn’t adapt. The five millionth fire started by lightning will behave just like the first. But the five hundredth bacterial division will not be like the first one, especially if there is environmental pressure.
That’s DNA. And RNA. That’s life.
… Dr. Steven Carlisle, from the Convention panel Exploring the Galaxy
I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. For the moment, at least, I had no obligations, no schedule, nothing looming over me. Except Guppy, who had his own opinions about schedules.
With the immediate threat from Medeiros taken care of, I now had time to celebrate the fact that I was in another star system. Another actual star system with planets and everything. Time to look around.
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1) Page 9
