CHAPTER 24
Aboard Michelangelo (UNS-212)
In Orbit Around Sedna
February 2, 2111 (U.T.)
2000 hours (ship time)
The swarm of alien bots erupted rapidly out of the Stoltz thing, swelling inside the hatch and airlock, burning the air with mass, an explosion in slow motion.
“Fall back!” Hawley yelled. “Get back…get some HERF in here—“ Hawley stumbled, scrambling to get away from the hatch, while Ng and Grant poured rf fire into the swelling heart of the cloud.
The concussive BOOM!! of rf waves washed through the airlock, reverberating off the walls. Fried bots tinkled onto the deck, but the high-freq radio waves barely slowed the swarm down. Like a miniature thunderstorm, streaked with veins and flashes of light, the Stoltz thing steadily deconstructed right in front of them and a cloud of bots filled every cubic inch of space, burning the air, sucking oxygen.
Hawley groped and felt his way toward the airlock outer door. Got to keep these bastards in here, he told himself. Keep ‘em contained. “Ng, you and Grant hose ‘em down…then get the hell out of here—“
“Skipper, watch out--!”
One tendril of bots had snaked forward and was already reaching for Hawley’s leg. He kicked out, losing his balance, just as Demetrious, right behind him, let fly another volley. The shockwave nearly deafened him. Hawley crawled and kicked his way toward the airlock door.
“Keep ‘em away from the deck!” he yelled back.
It was Element B, drifting out of the airlock onto the service deck, who appraised the situation, analyzed all probabilities, and finally took action.
“All troopers should evacuate the airlock…immediately! I am endeavoring to close and engage with the swarm—“
Before Hawley could do anything but kick and flail at the grasping bots, the botcloud that had been Element B scattered and began moving into the airlock. A semi-spherical globe of twinkling, flashing lights surged into the compartment and pressed forward into contact with the alien swarm.
“All troopers…please evacuate the airlock chamber and secure the outer hatch…I will attempt to contain the swarm here…prepare to jettison Icarus on my command—“
That was when Hawley realized what Element B was trying to do.
“Cease fire…cease fire! Everybody get back! Clear the lockout…come on, Ng, Grant…that means you too--!!”
The troopers clambered and scrambled away from the strobing veins of light that indicated the line of engagement between the swarms. Element B had already engaged the Stoltz bots and a writhing snake of flashing light whipped back and forth across the compartment.
One after another, first Ng, then Demetrious, then Grant, then another trooper, finally Hawley himself dragged and stumbled their way through the deck hatch.
“Secure the hatch!” Hawley commanded. “Grant, you’re in charge here. Keep your weapons on that hatch. If anything comes through—“ Hawley made a clenched fist “—you know what to do. I’m heading up to A deck.”
Hawley disappeared into the gangway tunnel and was up in the command seat thirty seconds later.
He set up commands on his console to begin the jettison procedure. Without Icarus, they’d be confined to Big Mike, but Element B was sacrificing himself to at least give them a chance…a chance to survive…a chance to get home.
He opened a comm channel. “Element B, I know what you’re trying to do….I don’t know what to say…you’ll get some kind of medal for this, I’m sure of that.”
Fifty meters aft, inside Big Mike’s service deck, Element B grappled with the Stoltz bots in a frenzied and furious collision. The only visible evidence of the combat was a faint line of light pops and flickers, as the bots slammed atoms and discharged bond breakers. That and the growing heat ball crackling the air all around the deck.
“I am endeavoring to force the enemy back into Icarus,” Element B told them. “Prepare to jettison the module on my command.”
Up on the command deck, Hawley had already completed the pre-separation procedure. He knew perfectly well what Element B had in mind and there was little he could do about it. The botswarm that was Element B was going to sacrifice itself to save the crew and ship. Tactically, it was the right call. But emotionally—Hawley wondered if you really could have feelings for a cloud of bots. Hell, they couldn’t die, not like people. Swarms just changed configuration, dispersed, evaporated and came back in a new form.
“Separation procedure set up and ready,” he told Element B. “Ng, you and Demetrious get back down there…be ready to dog that hatch shut when I give the word.”
The troopers were on standby on the service deck, just beyond the deck hatch itself. “They’re in position, Skipper.” It was Grant, also nearby, peering through the hatch porthole. “Looks like Element B’s got the buggers on the run…it’s hard to tell exactly, but the light pops and flashes are moving steadily toward Icarus…and the circumference is getting smaller, more compact. Element B’s kicking ass, sir.”
“Enemy bots are multi-lobed structures,” Element B announced. “All-axis propulsors of a type I’ve never encountered before. Outer surfaces are filled with effectors, grabbers and probes…fascinating designs…perhaps I can detach and isolate some of the molecule groups—“
“Just shove ‘em into Icarus, Commander,” Hawley told the swarm. “We’ll worry about analysis another time.”
“Nearly there---hatch plane less than one hundred thousand microns…got to make sure none are left behind…sweeping all sectors now…my bond breakers down to forty percent but still effective…pyridine probes now offline—“
A few moments later, Grant pumped a fist in the air. Ng and Demetrious let out a cheer. The flickering ball that was the line of engagement had disappeared through Icarus’ hatch.
“He’s done it, Skipper! They’re inside, inside Icarus!”
Ng swung open the outer door from the service deck and plunged into the airlock. “I’ll get the hatch….”
“Sammy wait…it may not be safe yet--!”
But Ng was already inside. In seconds, the trooper had dogged the hatch shut and secured it. “Hatch shut and locked, Skipper…I’m headed out of the airlock.”
He made it back okay. Grant helped Demetrious slam the outer door shut right behind him.
“All secure on the deck, Skipper!” Grant said. “Let her rip!”
Hawley had grabbed Lieutenant Kohl on the way up to the command deck. The two of them finished jettison preparations.
“Punch it!” Kohl said.
Hawley did just that. A slight shudder was felt through Big Mike’s hull as the lander separated, pushed away by springs after her capture latches let go. On the monitor, Icarus drifted slowly into the black, quickly retreating to an indistinct blob after a few minutes.
“Grant, you sure all the bugs got pushed into Icarus? I don’t want to have to clean up anything left over.”
Fifty feet aft, Julie Grant replied, “We’re scanning now, Skipper. Not reading anything unusual, no spikes, all bands clear. I’m pretty sure we’re clean.”
Kohl grabbed a nav scope and zoomed in on Icarus as she moved further away. “Hey, what the—“
The monitor view changed. One moment, Icarus was an indistinct blob. Then, without warning, the blob brightened, flaring like an explosion, like a supernova. The blob shone brightly for a few moments, then faded into black. Then, nothing.
“What happened?” Kohl wondered.
“Scanning now…atom fluff…EM spikes…lots of nanobotic activity out there. Off hand, I’d say somebody got hungry and chewed up the lander. Full disassembly…nothing left but a few atoms, residual debris.”
Kohl stared at the display. “Was it them? Or was it Element B?”
“Maybe it was both.” Hawley zoomed in to full magnification. “Uh oh…I’m reading something now…definite structures gathering…thermals rising. EMs
too. Whatever happened, something’s reconstituting.”
“I’ll open a channel to Element B,” Kohl suggested. “Big Mike to Element B…Big Mike to Element B, come back….”
Hawley was studying the return on his instruments. Michelangelo was probing the debris cloud that had been Icarus with electromagnetic fingers.
‘Dean, I don’t like the looks of this…these signatures, these patterns…ISAAC’s not recognizing them. I don’t think this is Element B.”
“Maybe we’d better get the hell out of here,” Kohl suggested. “All the sensor pods are in place…we could do a full-up system test a million miles from here. We don’t need to stay in orbit around this rock pile, do we?”
“No we don’t.” Hawley mulled over the idea. CINCSPACE had given them the mission of getting the Sentinel system up and operating. The pods were deployed and the transmitter-controller had already been installed and setup on the surface of Sedna. Only an end-to-end test of the whole system was left. That they would have to coordinate with Farside and with Earth, to know everybody was receiving proper signals.
But we don’t have to be here in orbit to do that, he told himself.
“Dean, I don’t like the looks of that thing. No telling what’s happened aboard Icarus…with Element B and those bad bots duking it out. Somebody lost that fight and I’m thinking it might have been Element B…or worse, the bad guys got to him and he’s on the wrong side…like with Commander Liu a few months ago. I’m not taking any chances. Secure the ship for escape burn…I’m putting some distance between us and that cloud of bugs, whatever it is.”
“Aye , sir,” Kohl scrambled out his seat and went aft through the gangway tunnel to pass the word and get Big Mike ready to depart.
Kohl kept a scope on the cloud as the ship was made ready for departure. To be doubly sure, he continued scanning the irregular formation and made a face as he read off the signature.
“Same as Devil’s Eye,” he said, to no one in particular. Hawley wasn’t on the command deck. He had headed aft, to the crew’s mess on B deck, working out the particulars of the Sentinel systems test. Kohl rang the Skipper up on the ship’s 1MC circuit. “Bad news, Captain. This bugger’s got the same EMs, same thermals, same outer config—best I can resolve it—the whole shebang looks like a mirror image of Devil’s Eye. I think this was a piece of it, down there on the surface…somehow, it re-made Eddie Stoltz, took his form and we didn’t know it until almost too late.”
Hawley’s voice was cautious, measured. “Still expanding, Dean? Any sign it’s maneuvering or changing course?”
“No, sir, still sitting in orbit around Sedna, growing like a friggin’ weed patch on fire. Bright as hell too, looks kind of like it’s throbbing or pulsating. ISAAC says no aspect change, no Doppler change. It hasn’t moved in any direction…at least not yet.”
“We’d better scan around at long-range for the mother swarm. Last data ISAAC had on the big cahuna was that it was heading away from the Sun, into deep space. I don’t want to be around if Mama Bear comes looking for her cub.”
“Will do.” No sooner had Kohl ended the conversation than a chime from ISAAC alerted him to a change in the target’s position. He glanced at the monitors. What he saw made his jaw drop. He froze for a moment, in disbelief.
The pulsating, throbbing ball of light that had once been Icarus was leaving orbit, descending, heading down toward the surface.
Kohl kept the scopes trained on the sight. The thing was definitely headed down, for some kind of impact.
“Holy crap,” he muttered. He rang up Hawley and described the situation. “Impact in just a few minutes, Skipper. I’m not sure what’ll happen then.”
“Be right up,” Hawley advised. Less than two minutes later, Hawley poked his head onto the command deck and huddled right behind Kohl, as they studied the monitors.
Like a distant sun setting on the horizon, the Icarus-thing was dropping lower and lower in the sky. Even as they watched, the fiery ball slammed into Sedna’s surface and the brilliance flared out in a slow-motion explosion.
“The end…” Hawley said. “She was a good ship.”
“Hey, Skipper, look at that—“
Even as Hawley was working his console to set up Big Mike’s escape burn, the impact of Icarus spread shock waves of light rippling across the surface of the tiny planetisimal. But instead of dissipating, as normal physics would have dictated, the light waves continued to palpitate and thrash the surface, strobing back and forth across the cratered chaos that was Sedna’s tortured surface.
The effect lasted many minutes. Then, as suddenly as it had slammed into the world, the strobing, flickering light waves died off. As the brilliance faded, the monitors showed something neither Hawley or Kohl would have believed possible.
“What the fuck--?
Where once there had been a battered rock pile of a planetisimal world, now there drifted a brilliant cloud of particles and debris, the shattered remnants of the world they had just walked upon.
Only these were no ordinary particles.
ISAAC chirped and chimed with enough alerts and warnings to light up a city.
Kohl saw it first.
“Jesus H. Christ…the whole panel’s lit up…I’ve got spikes in all bands…thermal, EMs, big spikes!”
Hawley glared at the monitor with a growing feeling of dread. “Friggin’ swarms! That whole planet’s nothing but a big swarm…you were just walking down there.”
“We spent hours…what the hell?…are the damn Bugs that good?”
Even as they watched, the thing that had once been Sedna deconstructed right in front of them. Like a supernova in slow motion, the brightly lit cloud strobed and flickered with internal fires as the bots slammed atoms and built structure in a big bang of nanobotic overdrive. The cloud swelled, seethed and boiled like a thing alive, expanding rapidly, spreading upward and outward, engulfing Michelangelo in minutes.
“We’re getting the hell out of here,” Hawley decided. “Help me prime the engines, get the coils and injectors online—“
“Skipper, we don’t have a course laid in yet.”
“I don’t give a damn…anywhere but here. Get on the 1MC…let everybody know. Secure the ship and strap in…we’re busting out of here as fast as we can.”
While Kohl made the announcement and passed the word to all crewmembers, Hawley concentrated on setting up Big Mike for an emergency burn.
Let’s see…coils to stage one, injectors to auto…plasma bay warming up…mags on…synchros on…. His fingers flew over the controls, hustling through a mental checklist, hoping to God he hadn’t forgotten anything. Out of the corner of his eye, Hawley kept an eye on the monitors. Even through the portholes, he could see the strobing light approaching…the bots were coming, the swarm was swelling outward, it was only a matter of a few minutes now—
In the end, it didn’t matter. Captain Cory Hawley was able to finish his burn checklist and light off Michelangelo’s engines. The plasma torch chambers at the aft end of the great kebab skewer that was Big Mike flared into brilliance just as the outer edges of the swarm that had been Sedna reached the ship. The combat was a clash of fundamental forces. Million-degree plasma tore great gashes in the swarm, even as the first of the bots settled against the outer hull of the ship and made fast.
Carbene grabbers and bond breakers in uncountable trillions swung into action, severing covalent bonds and frying molecular lattices that formed the hull plates of the ship. Even as Michelangelo began moving off, gaining momentum as her plasma engines ramped up to operating temperature and pressure, the bots that comprised the swarm chewed steadily into her hull structures.
“Hull breach!” Kohl said. “Pressure drop on C deck… now the flight shielding…shielding’s gone. Rad levels rising rapidly—“
“Get a message off…eject the emergency beacon…we’ve got to let UNISPACE know what’
s out here!”
Alarms sounded and lights flashed on Big Mike’s command deck. Auto sequences were engaged and ISAAC, still functioning albeit at reduced capacity, shutdown the plasma torch engines as a precaution against explosion …or worse.
But no one responded on the command deck. No one responded on B or C decks either.
Explosive decompression had already started and in the final seconds of the swirling gale that engulfed the command deck, Lieutenant Dean Kohl had one remaining thought before falling down the great black tunnel of unconsciousness.
The Old Ones aren’t fifty light years away at all. They’re right here. The Buggers have been here all along.
Then the swarm enveloped Michelangelo completely and began catastrophic disassembly of all remaining structures.
Over the squeal, then the roar of escaping air, the plaintive sounds of ISAAC bleated out emergency warnings over and over again.
“Level One Emergency…level one emergency…hull breach all decks and sections…all personnel, man the escape pods, man escape pods immediately…all personnel—“
Nothing was ever heard from UNISPACE corvette UNS-212 again.
Johnny Winger and the Great Rift Zone Page 47
