hotmtlnovel Chapter 12: Bob – August 17, 2133
Chapter 12: Bob – August 17, 2133
Chapter 12: Bob – August 17, 2133
I surfaced from [18 hours 26 minutes] of library and project reading. I’d had the forethought to set up an interrupt for anyone speaking to me.
I turned my camera to see a very upset Dr. Landers. His voice shaking, he said, “We’ve just had another attack. Someone tried to blow up some critical components. They missed their target, but four of my staff were killed. We’re going to a secondary operations center. How’s your reading coming along?”
This last sentence was such a non-sequitur that I had to run the last few seconds through my mind to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. “Uh, fine, doc. Why, specifically?”
“We are going to attempt to move up the launch. That means that you may have to receive some of your final training in-flight, as it were.”
Oh, holy crap. “Okay, doc, what do you need from me?”
“I’ve dropped a file into your queue. Read it immediately. Then we will back you up with that knowledge assimilated, shut you down, and physically move you to the ship.”
“Physically? Really? You’ve never heard of ftp?”
“That would have worked right up until a couple of weeks ago when they blew you up. Where do you think the spare unit came from?”
“Oh.” They had brought the replicant matrix down from the ship? That was the spare?
“Replicant hardware is expensive, Bob. You’ve been working with the actual interfaces that you will use in-flight. They’ve just been attached to simulators up until now. Please read the document. Let me know when you’re done, and we’ll get started.” He sat down, leaned forward, and clasped his hands together on the desk, looking at me.
***
Bob:
All conversations are potentially being monitored. This is the only secure method of communicating this to you.
There’s a very strong possibility that there is a self-destruct mechanism on the Heaven-1. Whether timed or externally triggered, we don’t know. The project specs called for limits to be placed on your ability to self-examine. My team has disabled those constraints on my orders. This will free you to examine everything: wiring, structure, hardware, software. The keys for your operating system are listed at the bottom of this document.
This will unfortunately also allow you to bypass the imperatives that we installed in your code to ensure compliance with mission objectives. From my experience with you, I’m confident you’ll fulfill your duties of your own free will, since they align with your own interests.
We will transport you, once deactivated, into orbit and will install you in the Heaven-1. There will be a long countdown, which you should feel free to ignore if necessary. Good luck, and though it pains me to say it, Godspeed.
Dr. Landers
There were several attachments, including a mission profile summary, and the operating system access keys. I scanned through everything, looking for gaps or other issues, then deleted the originals.
“Done.”
Dr. Landers jerked in surprise. I’d probably only been away a few milliseconds. He picked up the tablet and poked at it with a finger.
***
I awoke to darkness. I queried GUPPI.
[STATUS REPORT]
[Fusion Reactor Interface: Ready/Nominal]
[Reactionless Drive Interface: Ready/Standby]
[Ramscoop Generator: Ready/Standby]
Some days, though, the universe just has it in for you.
I was interrupted in my reading by another radio message. At my current frame rate, the transmission was still droning through the first word. When I compressed and replayed it, I recognized Dr. Landers’ voice. The word was “missiles.”
Um. Ways in which a sentence beginning with the word “missiles” could be a good thing... Nope. I got nuthin’.
External sensors showed two objects approaching at high speed along my scheduled launch vector, presumably the better to overtake me if I launched early. It was a reasonable and predictable tactic, but I had no intention of being predictable.
I spent a full five milliseconds mulling over my options. In short order, I had a rough plan.
Fortunately, the ship had long since been fully prepped, and could leave any time. I blew the grapples and brought all flight systems to full function. While I waited for physical reality to catch up with my awareness, I sent a query to my libraries about the approaching missiles. The libraries gave three possible models, with generally similar flight characteristics. I chose the most pessimistic and calculated a takeoff vector as close to 180 ̊ to the missiles’ vector as I could safely manage.
As soon as sensors indicated that I was free, I gave a burst of the SURGE drive, just enough to clear the station. I rotated the ship and cranked up the reactor to maximum. That’s going to be hard on fuel reserves, but I guess being blown to smithereens would be harder. When reactor output rose to the required level, I engaged SURGE at maximum acceleration.
The ship shot away from the station in the opposite direction from the published launch trajectory. The first missile went right past me, its trajectory unaltered. I realized with a jolt that it had locked onto the space station. The second missile was altering its trajectory to follow me. I hoped that the published specs for the reactor and SURGE drive were accurate. If my acceleration fell short of expectations, I wouldn’t be able to avoid interception. And that would be the end of Heaven-1. And of me.
While I waited for velocity to build up, I checked the progress of the voice transmission. It now sat at “Missiles detected heading your way. Get away...” I checked acceleration using SUDDAR to monitor the increasing distance from the station. Calculations indicated a steady 2.5 g acceleration. The SURGE drive seemed to work on the entire ship, so there was no way to measure it internally.
The space station began firing on the approaching missile. The weapon appeared to be some kind of Gatling gun. I hoped they knew what they were doing. If those bullets ended up in a periodic orbit, they’d be coming back, sooner or later.
The flash of an explosion in the distance saturated one of my cameras. It couldn’t be either of the missiles, which were still accounted for. I did a quick calculation and realized that the explosion came from where the missiles had originated. Someone had blown up the shooter.
A second flash indicated the destruction of the missile that was targeting the space station.
This was all fine and interesting, but I still had a missile on my tail. Given enough time, I could outrun it. I did another quick millisecond calculation and realized that I could almost outrun it. Sadly, almost wasn’t good enough.
Normally, you’d use chaff against a missile, but I doubted I had anything like that on board. I had six mining drones, which were equipped with small SURGE drives of their own. Well, okay, maybe I could give the missile something else to blow up.
I activated and ejected two of the drones, with orders to ram the missile. As they flew toward my pursuer, I positioned them in a fore/aft configuration. Hopefully the lead drone would take the missile out; but if it missed, the second one would have better targeting information. I didn’t know if I’d have time to launch more drones if the first two failed.
A bright flash of light behind the ship saturated the rear camera. What the hell? That couldn’t be the missile, which was approaching from a different vector.
I waited a few seconds for the cameras to recover, then checked the rear view. The station was an expanding cloud of rapidly cooling debris. Dr. Landers’ voice transmission was still coming, so at least he hadn’t been on the station. The message now included “...quickly as you can. And disable...”
How could the station have blown up? All the missiles were accounted for. Speaking of which, I checked my rear view, where the drones were just coming up on the missile. The missile dodged the first drone, which told me it came with some intelligence. But the act of dodging forced the missile to commit. The second drone struck it at an angle, and the explosion destroyed both devices.
A quick systems check indicated that there had been no damage to Heaven-1 from all the excitement. I made sure everything was still properly stowed, then listened to the rest of Dr. Lander’s message.
“...your radio receiver. There’s a remote detonation device somewhere.”
Well, that’s double-plus ungood. I disabled the radio immediately, and for good measure I retracted the antenna dish. I did a quick long-range SUDDAR scan to look for any other surprises.
The area, which had been cleared for my expected launch, was a beehive of activity. I detected at least half a dozen ships, which my library identified as military. I also detected close to a dozen small signatures, moving at high speed, that were very likely more missiles. Fortunately, they seemed more interested in each other than in me.
So, someone shot a couple of missiles at me, someone else shot at them, someone else shot at the space station, and now we had something that looked very much like a naval engagement. Yeesh. It was time to leave, before I became interesting again.
I lined up my original planned departure vector and set the SURGE drive at a much more reasonable 2 g. That was still more than the mission plan had called for, and I was going to have to adjust for the squandered reactor fuel later.
With a mental sigh of relief, I began my journey to Epsilon Eridani.