Johnny Winger and the Great Rift Zone

by Philip Bosshardt

  ***ANAD underway on full propulsor. All effectors extended, bond disrupters fully charged. Working my way through solid-phase lattice now--**

  It was like fighting an enemy through heavy vine and brush, hacking your way forward even as you did battle.

  “I’ve got ANAD!” reported Rounds. “He’s closing fast…tell him to bear right ten degrees…I make the enemy mass centroid at ten degrees further to starboard!”

  Mendez passed the vector along and ANAD adjusted. He decided to take a peek at the imager.

  The scene was chaotic and confusing. The regular crystalline lattice was visible enough, ordered ranks of silicons and oxygens lined up like headstones in a graveyard. Something shadowy and formless moved steadily through the ranks…that was ANAD, the assembler bots twisting and squeezing and shimmying left and right to move through the rock strata. Further ahead, more shadows could just be made out.

  The swarms collided twenty-two meters off Gopher’s starboard quarter.