CHAPTER 5
Tabriz, Iran
June 10, 2110
0500 hours
“It looks like a giant caterpillar,” said Dr. Christian Hayes. The UN Quantum Corps inspector circled the vehicle, studying its unusual hull shape, circumferential treads and bulbous nose. “Or maybe a big armored beetle.”
Lieutenant Oscar Mendez chuckled. “This beetle has quite a bite. Gopher can burrow into the ground and be completely submerged in less than a minute. And she can dive to five miles depth, given her composite armor and thermal regulation system. That borer lens up front you’re looking at can penetrate the hardest shales and rock on earth, just like butter. She’s a true creature of the deep…the deep earth, that is.”
Geoplane Gopher squatted among the rubble piles and smoking ruins of the Blue Mosque, while all around her, scores of fixbots scurried around removing debris from the site, dumping broken glass, broken stone, mangled rebar and trash into loaders lined up along Emam Street for half a mile. A huge gaping fissure crossed the street in a jagged line, where the underlying faults had lifted the earth in the massive quake several months before. As a result, the toppled Martyrs’ statues across the street were several feet higher than the Mosque itself.
Gopher’s crew, assigned from Boundary Patrol Detachment BP-4, explained her features to Hayes and to Reza Hokmar, the Teheran-based official from UNDERO, the UN Disaster and Emergency Relief Organization. It was Hokmar’s job to head up the recovery efforts in Tabriz, still reeling from a series of magnitude 8 and 9 tremors over the last few months.
“You have the coordinates of that last swarm sighting?” Hayes asked. “Somewhere a few miles southeast of here.”
Mendez was Gopher’s CC1, the senior command rating, in charge of the mission. “Got ‘em from Q2 on the trip over. I don’t have intel on any other sightings.”
“I haven’t heard of anything official,” Hayes admitted. “Just rumors. Reza--?”
Hokmar shrugged. “People here are frightened. They see all kinds of things. My office has reports of ghosts, three-headed tigers, the Prophet Mohammed, you name it. We’ve had a hard time distinguishing fact from superstition. Most people here lost family in the quake. And the tremors….you know they continue.”
Mendez went over the mission orders with both of them. “I’m going deep right here, right through that fissure across the street. After we descend to about five thousand feet, we’ll turn south and head for the coordinates of that last sighting. Quantum Corps has been scanning this area for weeks, looking for any kind of unique signature. But there’s so much noise down there, it’s hard to get a fix. Even the quantum detectors can’t grab anything solid.”
“I guess the real question we have,” said Hokmar, “is whether the quake and the tremors are natural phenomena. Tabriz is no stranger to earthquakes. The city was eighty per cent destroyed in the late 20th century, over a hundred and twenty years ago. It’s all the tremors following…and the swarm sightings…that have people on edge.”
Mendez understood. “Q2 has plenty of related intel that Config Zero’s become active again. Gopher’ll smoke ‘em out. If you’ve got swarms operating in the area, we’ll find them.” Mendez got on the crewnet through his lip mike and ordered the rest of the Detachment to mount up. “Let’s go, troops. Gopher’s rolling and digging in two minutes.” He stepped through the forward hatch and disappeared inside the geoplane.
Hayes and Hokmar stepped back and gave the vehicle plenty of clearance. On the hull beside the forward hatch, Hayes saw the Boundary Patrol insignia and the Latin inscription: Subterraneus defensores percutant dure.
“’Subterranean defenders strike hard’”, he translated for Hokmar. Gopher’s treads started up with a screeching clank and a blue-white glow soon enveloped the nose of the ship as the borer lens came fully online. The cylindrical geoplane huffed and shuddered as she motored forward on her treads, clambering over nearby rubble piles and across the three-foot ledge that marked the fissure in the ground. Fixbots stopped in their own tracks and police held up traffic as the ship rumbled across the street. Passing the recently re-erected statue of the poet Khaqani in a small park opposite the Mosque, Gopher started her descent, angling nose-first toward the ground.
Inside the command deck, Mendez gave directions to Corporal Robles, the Detachment’s DSO1 (Driver/Systems Operator). Pressing a few buttons, Robles manipulated the borer that formed a huge dish-shaped nose on the geoplane’s bow. Inside the borer, actuators fired to release the ANAD swarm contained there. In seconds, the outer surface of the dish was thick with nanoscale disassemblers, forming a shimmering half-globe around Gopher’s nose. Like a single huge blue-white headlamp, the dish and its halo of mechs formed the geoplane’s working surface for subterranean operations.
“Let’s go digging,” Mendez said. “Head for that fissure and contact Ops… tell ‘em we’re going under.”
Robles complied. “Turning left, heading now… one three five degrees. Depth is forty five meters, five degrees down angle.”
“Borer coming on line,” Sergeant Li Kejiang reported. Li was the Borer Operator, BOP1 for the Detachment. She scanned her instrument panel, reading swarm density, alignment and other parameters. “Bots are ready to bite—“
Gopher slowed down as the fissure approached, then a high keening wail could be heard through the hull, as the borer bit into the rock. The geoplane shuddered as it decelerated. Outside the command deck, unseen by the six-person crew, Gopher’s nose buried itself in a shimmering blue-white fog as the borer revved up and uncountable trillions of mechs tore at the rock.
Li licked her lips nervously, reading her instruments. “Coming back mostly quartz and pyroxenes, with some sandstone mixed in. Bots should eat this stuff up.”
The geoplane plunged into the tunnel created by the borer, angling nose down as she bit deeper into the side of the fissure.
Gopher’s instrument panel showed the results of acoustic sounding, displaying rock layers on a graph, with temperature and pressure readings all around the graph. Borer status was displayed as well.
“Looking good,” Robles muttered. “Borer configured for quartz and pyroxenes…ANAD’s chewing through at a rate of two point five miles per hour. Treads are functioning fine.”
“She’s a real hot rod…let’s try some basic maneuvers,” Mendez suggested. “Gopher’s never had a proper shakedown cruise.”
“Aye, sir--“ Robles turned the stick to port and Gopher initiated a shallow left-hand bank. The command deck listed slightly, then stabilized. For the next few minutes, first Robles, then Mendez took turns putting the geoplane through a series of turns, dives and climbs.
Mendez began to relax his grip on the stick slightly, trying to forget they were now hundreds of feet below ground.
“There’s a layer of basaltic rock a few klicks south of here,” he remembered. “It’s nearly a mile down. We should see how Gopher handles there.”
Robles was cautious. “Sir, remember what Captain Karst told us in the briefing: don’t push her too hard on this first test. Basaltic stuff is superhard and dense…all shale inclusions and quartzite. We’re not sure Gopher’s hull can take the pressure.”
“I know but this is supposed to be a recon mission to find Config Zero swarms. We have to find out how she’ll handle. Sergeant Rounds, anything yet?”
Sergeant Rounds was the SS1, Sensors and Surveillance Technician. “Nothing yet, Lieutenant. I’m scanning all bands…EM, thermal, acoustic, quantum….some plate shifting, crustal grinding…that’s about it.”
“Very well.” Mendez programmed a new heading into the tread control system and Robles steered them southeast on a heading of one two five degrees, roughly paralleling the volcanic cone of Sahand and the Eynali ridge at the surface. Acoustic sounding soon showed the geoplane was entering harder, denser rock layers.
“Shales,” Sergeant Rita Rono muttered. Rono was GET1 for
the Detachment, the Geo Engineering Technician. From earlier briefings with Quantum Corps geologists, she knew the layer was sheeted with hard slate and mica, compacted over millions of years by glaciers and the overriding Eynali mountain range. “Nothing to worry about…just sit back and enjoy the view.”
Mendez snorted. The only view they had was of the inner pressure hull of the geoplane. Even as he watched, he imagined that he could see the compression of Gopher’s interior frame under the millions of tons pressing down on them.
“Sounding ahead…” Rounds reported. “Your depth is now four eight eight feet. Signal distortion coming back…it’s probably the shale zone.”
Robles shoved the control stick forward. “I’m going a little deeper…see if we can plow through some of that quartzite.”
Mendez was dubious. He studied the sounding profile. “Just don’t push Gopher too hard, okay? Let’s don’t press our luck on the first run. I’m showing discontinuities dead ahead…some kind of boundary layer, maybe.”
“Inclusion zone? Maybe it’s the quartzite.”
Rono shook her head. “It looks more like a fault, maybe a transform fault. The geos said there were fracture zones north of Tabriz.”
Gopher angled slightly downward and slowed, as the borer swarm bit into denser rock.
“Cabin temp going up,” Robles reported.
“Acknowledged. Those mechs are working overtime up front, making us a tunnel. I—“
Mendez’ last words were cut off as Gopher shuddered violently. For a brief moment, there was an unmistakable sensation of sliding, sliding sideways and downward. Almost at the same moment, something hit Gopher’s nose with a sickening crunch and the geoplane shuddered again and ground violently to a halt. The cabin tilted to port and stayed tilted.
Gopher’s cabin was deathly still for a few moments, then the creaking and groaning of the hull under tremendous pressure started.
“What happened?” Mendez asked, wincing as the tortured sounds of the hull being compressed grew louder.
Robles scanned his instruments nervously. “Borer is offline. I’m getting no responses from the forward module…pressure drop in containment…we may have a breach.”
“Great,” Mendez muttered. “Just friggin’ great. And it looks like we’ve got a breach in the pressure hull too.”
“I see it…cabin air pressure fluctuating…we’d better activate emergency flasks, just in case.” Robles toggled a few switches and immediately, high pressure air began flooding all compartments.
Rono was studying the acoustic sounder, replaying the last few moments before the—what exactly had happened? An accident? “Lieutenant, I’m not sure but I think we may have created our own earthquake.”
“What? That can’t be…can it?”
Rono went over the soundings again. “We were approaching some kind of discontinuity—see right here?” She pointed to the display. “Like a layer or inclusion zone. Remember when the geos told us there were some transform faults and fracture zones around this big volcanic ridge?”
Mendez said, “Vaguely.”
Rono was figuring out the scenario as she replayed in her mind what must have happened. “It was the bots in the borer module. The swarm disassembled just enough shale and quartzite and other rock to loosen up the fault. It slipped, shifted around and we were caught in the slide.”
“So we did create our own earthquake.”
Rono took a deep breath. “So it would seem, sir…”
Mendez drummed fingers on the instrument panel. “Now we’ve got to figure out a way of getting out of here. What do we have to work with?”
Robles went over his instruments again. “Borer’s offline, like I said, and it looks like containment was breached in the accident. I’ve got no response from the borer swarm, no configs, no data of any kind. That swarm’s gone and it’s not responding to commands.”
Mendez tried a few tricks of his own but with no success. “Well, I do have a master in my shoulder capsule. We could jerry-rig a swarm for the borer if we had to.”
“If the module’s not too damaged. On top of that, the tread system’s not responding…so we have no mobility. And the pressure hull….”
Mendez saw the oxygen level had been dropping significantly in the last few minutes. “We’ve got to stop that leak…here, let me launch my embedded ANAD.” He started to link in.
“ANAD, this is Mendez…do you read me?”
***ANAD copies…reading you loud and clear…what has happened?...ANAD’s coupler indicates some kind of swarm break…is the borer functioning?***
How the hell did he know that?
“ANAD, Gopher’s had an accident. The pressure hull has been breached. Configure for launch and max replication. I need a local swarm to find and plug the leaks.”
***ANAD configuring now…systems initializing…ANAD reporting ready in all respects…***
Mendez unstrapped himself and went aft through the tunnel to the power plant. “Launch, ANAD. Launch now….” As the CC1 went off to check on their power systems, a shimmering light blue fog emerged from the capsule in his left shoulder. Mendez felt a brief sting as the assembler exited containment but the launch sequence seemed smoother than before.
Johnny Winger and the Great Rift Zone Page 14
