We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy’s unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions.

… Sun Tzu, Art of War

We came into the solar system at 5% of C, decelerating at a steady 2.5 g. We had carefully calculated our trajectory and approach speed so that we appeared to be arriving from Epsilon Eridani. A projection forward would have us pass very close to the sun, still moving at about 0.1 C.

We had chosen our approach vector after much deliberation. We needed something that posed a threat to the Brazilians, but that would allow them to intercept us. A course that performed a slingshot around the sun would allow the incoming Heaven vessels to emerge on the far side with a huge advantage in velocity and an unpredictable vector. The Brazilian vessels would not be able to simply sit and wait for us to come around.

Well, that was the theory.

We hoped that we could draw all six Brazilian probes into the pursuit.

I sat in my ready room, nervously watching the telemetry. We had just passed the point where the Brazilians would have detected our fusion signatures, allowing for light-speed lag. In another six hours, it would be impossible for them to intercept us. If the Brazilians decided to stand and fight instead of pursuing, we would have to consider withdrawing. A straight-up toe-to-toe duke-em-up was not to our advantage.

An hour passed before we saw movement. I had briefly experimented with having my VR self actually sweat, but had given it up as a human experience I really didn’t need to relive. We let out whoops when four of the fusion signatures began to pull away from the asteroid line.

“Four isn’t six,” I said, “but we have a lot better chance against two in a face-off.”

“Mmm. Nothing’s ever a sure thing, I guess.”

It would take ten days to reach perihelion in our race around the sun.

***

“It’s time.”

I looked up at Homer’s announcement. He looked back at me expectantly.

“Okay, let’s do it. Guppy, launch the busters.”

[Aye]

The floating display depicted the Heaven-2 launching busters, spaced a few seconds apart, directly aft. The rail gun had been designed into the version-2 Heaven ships so that items could be launched fore or aft, with an impetus of hundreds of g’s. Each launch left the ship in momentary free-fall while the SURGE drive powered the rail gun, but we hoped that, at this distance, the Medeiri wouldn’t be able to detect the momentary blip in deceleration.

The busters would fall far enough back to be behind the Brazilian ships when their trajectory brought them in behind us. With their reactors off, running on stored power, the busters would be undetectable unless the enemy deliberately did a focused SUDDAR sweep in that direction. ɌÂƝ𝖔βΕṩ

***

The Brazilian ships had just pulled in behind us, as their trajectory merged with ours. I examined the diagram floating in the middle of my VR. The interactions were complex. We were decelerating at 2.5 g while we tried to make a slingshot maneuver around the sun; the Brazilian ships were accelerating at 2 g while trying to get close enough to us to lock and launch missiles, without going so fast that they were forced into a higher orbit. Meanwhile, the busters floated silently behind the Brazilian ships in free fall but with a greater velocity and no deceleration, therefore gradually closing in. The busters had to get as close as possible before they turned on their reactors, and we wanted all the action to happen on the opposite side of the sun, invisible to the two Brazilians who were still shepherding asteroids.

Finally, the Brazilians acted. Each ship launched a missile. The missiles, as feared, were SURGE-equipped and shot toward us with monstrous acceleration.

[Contact in 45 seconds]

“Order the trailing busters to attack.”

[Aye]

A tooltip went up on the hologram indicating that the order had been sent. Within seconds, eight data points lit up as the busters’ fusion reactors came online. The Brazilians reacted immediately, launching a wave of missiles to aft.

“Well, here’s where things get real,” Homer said.

I sensed the millisecond blips as my rail gun launched busters aft to intercept the incoming missiles. Homer and I launched four each. As they had been programmed to do, the busters paired up, one behind another, with each pair homing in on one incoming missile.

As the second wave of Brazilian missiles separated from the ships on the display, I could see that they had launched eight at the pursuing busters. According to our estimates, they should still have a total of four in reserve.

The pursuing busters went into a complex corkscrew pattern, designed to make it as difficult as possible for the defensive missiles to lock on.

Meanwhile, the Brazilian ships had split, forcing the attacking busters to select a target.

I had a few seconds of relative inaction, so I aimed a highly focused SUDDAR ping at one of the Brazilian ships. The return carried a gratifying amount of detail. Among other things, I saw that the ship was indeed out of missiles. Empty missile bays indicated that it had room for four. I sent an aside to Homer: “Sixteen missiles total, as expected.”

I turned my attention back to the approaching ordnance. Three of the Brazilian missiles each collided with a buster, annihilating both. The fourth missile managed to avoid the lead buster. However, in doing so, it left itself open to a broadside from the trailing unit of the pair. There was an explosion, and the fourth missile ceased to exist.

The multiple explosions saturated the video view and created a chaotic soup for radar and SUDDAR. During that brief interval of relative blindness, Homer and I fired eight cannonballs at full power.

When the image cleared, I could see that we’d destroyed all four missiles and still had four busters left. At the other end of the field, the eight Brazilian missiles had destroyed all eight pursuing busters.

No doubt the Brazilians were congratulating themselves on their fine shooting. But the purpose of those busters had been to use up their missiles. Medeiros’ behavior in Epsilon Eridani had shown that he was willing to sacrifice himself if he saw he couldn’t win. We wanted this group to use up their ordnance defending themselves instead of launching a suicide attack.

They still had four missiles in reserve, and four busters bearing down on them. We waited, trying to project an “out of ammo” vibe. A stalemate here would be a win for the Brazilians.

And finally, they committed. The Brazilians fired their last four missiles at the oncoming busters.

“Checkmate!” Homer yelled. Intent on the approaching busters, the Brazilians had failed to detect the cannonballs. Totally inert, with no radio or fusion signature, the cannonballs were invisible unless the Brazilians picked that specific moment to do a SUDDAR sweep.

Six of the eight cannonballs found their targets, just as the last wave of missiles and busters destroyed each other. We followed up with more cannonballs until telemetry indicated no activity in the enemy craft.

After days of preparation and waiting, the actual conflict had come down to who had more ammo.

Homer and I did omnidirectional SUDDAR sweeps, looking for any tricks or traps that the Brazilians might have unloaded before they were destroyed. A second sweep checked the area around the wreckage of the enemy ships. Finally, satisfied that nothing awaited us, we eased over and checked for any still-operational or partly-destroyed busters.

Homer thought this was funny. “Going to give them a proper burial?”

“No,” I responded. “I’m going to try to build a couple more busters. I’ve got the parts, except I’m a little short on massive balls of solid steel.”

Homer chortled like a kid who had just made a potty joke. “Balls of solid steel…” He snorted.

I sighed, and the words friendly fire flashed through my mind. “Homer, we’ve got six busters left, and the two Brazilians have four missiles each if they’re provisioned the same as the four we just destroyed. Not only can we not do the pairing-up thing to defend against the missiles, but we don’t have enough busters to take out the missiles and the ships, even if our luck is perfect. So I’m going to try to rebuild some busters, and I’m going to scoop up a bunch of scrap from the battle as well, for rail gun ammo. You might want to do the same.”

Homer looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded.

***

Phase two of the assault involved sneaking up on the two remaining Brazilian ships. We had deliberately chosen an approach around the sun that would require us to come around the other side at full 2.5 g acceleration in order to get to Earth. And we had been very careful not to display our full 5 g capability since coming in-system. Now we applied every erg of power to bending our course before we came around from behind the sun.

[Shutdown in five seconds]

I shut down my VR. In a few seconds, both ships would go dark. We would shut down the SURGE drives and go ballistic. We would stop using SUDDAR and shut down the fusion reactors. As far as the Brazilian ships would know, we and our pursuers had annihilated each other. When they didn’t see us come out the other side on the expected trajectory, hopefully they would relax their guard.

For two days, we would drift, surviving on power cells. We would lower our frame rates to minimum in order to save every milliwatt of power. The roamers would be set to refining the scraps from the battle into cannonballs for the rail gun, but as each roamer ran its power cell down, it would be shelved.

We would power up only when we had put Earth directly between us and the Brazilians.

[Shutdown]

I felt the ship go dark. I cranked my frame rate all the way down…

***

[We have arrived]

“Report.”

[Orbital insertion was successful. We are coming up on a point directly on the other side of Earth from the Enemy ships]

“Excellent. As soon as we’re sufficiently shielded, start everything up and accelerate to keep us in their blind spot.”

[Aye]

As power came up to full, I restarted my VR and relaxed into my captain’s chair.

Homer popped up in a video window. “I see you survived the trip.”

I nodded to him.” Let’s get the mission status up in the tank, Guppy.”

The holotank filled with a schematic showing the Earth, the location of our ships, and the location of the two Brazilian ships and the four asteroid masses that they were shepherding.

[Positions of enemy are extrapolations, but are high probability, based on orbital mechanics and most recent observations]

“That’s fine, Guppy. Our biggest problem will be if the Brazilians play hide and seek behind the asteroids that they’re herding. If they fire their missiles from hiding, they won’t have a lock-in and will have to depend on the missile’s AMI, which we’ve already established is not very smart. We can set our busters to seek-and-destroy, but they don’t have explosive warheads. Without a good head of steam, they won’t be able to penetrate the hull, let alone do any internal damage.”

“If we’re that close, we can use rail guns,” Homer said.

“True, but we have to be careful with our ammo.”

***

We came around the Earth, already doing over 150 km/s. The Brazilian ships might or might not have noticed us right away, but they had six hours to see us and prepare for our arrival. We were still only revealing a maximum 2.5 g acceleration. Let them expend energy wondering how we managed to get behind Earth.

When we were still five minutes away from the lead asteroid, we received a hail from one of the Brazilian ships. I put the call up on the holotank, while Homer observed.

The video was a still image of the Brazilian flag. No avatar, I guess. “You have shown better than we expected from a couple of FAITH babacas. However, now you are coming to us. You will not be so lucky this time. We will litter space with your corpses!”

I looked at Homer in surprise. That’s not Major Medeiros. Who is that?

“This is Commander Riker of the FAITH Space Navy. To whom am I speaking?”

“I am Captain Matias Araújo. I will be the last voice you hear.”

Without further commentary, the sender disconnected.

Homer and I exchanged looks. After a pause, Homer said, “So, what do you think is going on?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know. But that deep scan I did just before we destroyed our pursuers showed all fabrication systems had been removed to make room for the larger SURGE-based missiles. I didn’t think that through at the time, but now it looks like this may have been a last-ditch effort on the part of the Brazilian Empire. Maybe they were getting stomped, and the probe project was all they had left. They ‘volunteered’ some guy—someone disposable—, stuck his replicant into the ships, and tried to use them as gunships.”

Homer cocked his head. “Which might mean they didn’t have time to give this guy a lot of training in being a replicant. And these ships may be all that’s left of the war.”

[Missiles launched]

We checked our telemetry. The Brazilians had launched eight missiles.

“Damn. Exactly what we hoped they wouldn’t do,” Homer said. “Guess they aren’t that inexperienced.”

“Or they’re just pissed. Or they have more missiles. However, their timing is terrible. They waited too long, and we’re now close enough to use the asteroids. Follow my lead.”

Instead of launching countermeasures or attempting to flee, we did a hard turn and dove down below the asteroid. As soon as we were out of line of sight, we fired a load of smaller metal detritus from our aft rail guns, at a speed that left the space junk at a dead stop in our wake. As the pursuing missiles came around the end of the asteroid, they ran head-on into the stationary flotsam. Three missiles detonated immediately, which unfortunately cleared the junk for the trailing missiles.

“Watch forward, while I take out the rest of this batch,” I said to Homer.

As I as preparing my busters for launch, Homer said, “Launches from up front. Looks like they had more missiles. I think we’re screwed.”

I spared a millisecond to review the situation. I had five missiles coming in from the rear. I could take two out, possibly three, with the rail gun. Homer had eight missiles coming in from the front. That meant thirteen missiles against eleven busters, to say nothing of the Brazilian ships which we would still need to deal with. It was very likely that the Brazilians had used everything they had by this point. We were far too close to them for any further missile play.

“We have to cut the numbers of the frontal attack. I’ll give you all my busters, save two. Try to knock as many out with shrapnel as you can.” I launched all my busters and handed control of five over to Homer, who sent them forward.

I concentrated on the five missiles coming up from behind me, sending wave after wave of junk into their path. I had destroyed two when I realized that two of the three remaining missiles had crowded together trying to avoid a volley. I immediately sent a buster toward the nearest one at full acceleration. There was a flash, and both the missile and the buster were destroyed, but yes! The other missile had been knocked out by the explosion. It was drifting aimlessly.

“They’re getting a little close,” Homer said. “Little help, any time…”

“Almost done. Hold tight.”

As I sent a huge wave of shrapnel at the final missile, Homer yelped, “Crap!” and his signal went dead.

I split my attention between my one missile and Homer’s battlefield. Homer had taken out almost all of his missiles, but one had exploded far too close. It appeared to have damaged but not obliterated Heaven-6. However, the ship was adrift with everything offline. A couple of busters had circled around and chased the two final missiles from the front, but only one was anywhere near close enough to do any good.

At that moment, a flash from aft indicated that my last volley had taken out the one remaining chase missile. That left me with one extra buster, but it wouldn’t be able to get around to the front in time.

They’re not very smart. The though came from nowhere, seemingly irrelevant. But original Bob had always trusted his hunches, and I reacted immediately. I fired a salvo of shrapnel, not directly at a missile, but just to the side opposite the pursuing buster. In true reflex action, the missile veered away from the shrapnel stream. That was all the buster needed to catch up.

I was now able to concentrate a burst of shrapnel on the other missile and take it out. I looked back to the one missile left, the one that my buster had caught up with, and realized I had a problem. The busters depended on kinetic energy to destroy their targets—high speed ramming, basically. This buster had instead run down a missile that was just as fast as itself. Now the buster and missile were flying together, with the buster repeatedly and ineffectually bumping the missile. It was interfering with the missile’s trajectory, but not causing any damage.

Stop trying to have sex with it, idjit! I sent a command to the buster, causing its reactor to fail catastrophically. The release of plasma and energy was more than enough to liquefy both units.

I did a quick inventory. I had two busters left. And two enemies. There was no time to deal with Homer at the moment. I called the busters home and did a full ping, trying to locate the Brazilian ships.

One of them was less than two seconds away, heading right for me. With a jolt, I realized he intended to ram. With no time for a formal calculation, I had to wing it. I accelerated upward at a full 5 g. Either the Brazilian would be able to turn to intercept, or he wouldn’t.

Two seconds later, the Brazilian passed by my stern, still attempting to change course. And two milliseconds after that, a buster passed through the Brazilian craft, right where the computer core was located. The Brazilian craft’s drive turned off, and it began to drift.

I pinged again but got no return from the last ship. Either the ship had been destroyed in some unknown manner or it was hiding behind one of the asteroids. We had shown our hands during the battle, so the Brazilian would know that it couldn’t win a straight foot race. That meant it was hiding, hoping to keep the asteroid between us.

I was out of rail gun ammo. I had one buster left, but the buster wasn’t going to be much good if it had to chase the Brazilian around the asteroid. I examined the return from my last ping and spotted what I’d been hoping for—the steel ball from one of the defunct busters. I sent out a couple of roamers, collected it, and loaded it into the rail gun. The steel balls had been deliberately sized so that they could double as rail-gun ammo.

I sent the buster out at an angle that should give it a clear view of the other side of the nearest asteroid. Sure enough, remote telemetry spotted the Brazilian ship, just as he spotted the buster. He took off around the asteroid in the opposite direction.

Bangarang, mofo! It took a millisecond to calculate his trajectory. I sent the ball off at full acceleration just as the enemy vessel came into sight. The Brazilian had no chance at all. The steel ball, backed by the full power of my rail gun, punched through the ship at close to relativistic speed. The impact literally tore the ship in two, imparting opposite spins on each half as they drifted away. There was a flash as the reactor lost containment, and one of the segments slumped and deformed from the centrifugal force.

That’s for Homer.

***

My roamers sent back detailed views as they investigated Heaven-6. Homer appeared to have been very lucky. A fluke piece of shrapnel had cut off power to his computer core. Though there was significant structural damage, the actual core systems were intact. The reactor had been able to effect a graceful emergency shutdown when control disappeared.

One of the purposes of the roamers was to repair and maintain the Heaven vessels, and I activated that program for Homer’s roamers.

Pfft. Homer’s roamers. Jeez, I’m starting to sound like him. It occurred to me that I could now decorate my hull as Bob-1 had. Three for me, three for Homer. Better make that a priority.

I had several tasks on the go. While some roamers worked on Heaven-6, others investigated the asteroids to find out how the Brazilians guided them, and a third group collected flotsam from the area of the battle. Raw materials were free for the taking in asteroids, but already refined material was well worth the trouble of scavenging. The Brazilian hulks, in particular, would be good for a lot of salvageable material.

The second group of roamers began to report back, and I examined the scans as they came in. The asteroids, it turned out, were being chivvied by a low-intensity, wide-field SURGE drive. The design ensured that the entire asteroid could be accelerated as a unit, without tidal forces or field drop-off tearing the body apart. It was an ingenious system, and I took copious scans for transmission to Bill. If he hadn’t already started moving Kuiper bodies toward Ragnarök, these designs would be very helpful.

Which was all very interesting, but the asteroids were still heading for Earth. If these bodies all struck the planet, even bacteria wouldn’t survive the results. The Brazilians had set up the trajectory near perfectly, and there was no chance of a miss. I had to hope that I could impart enough sideways thrust on the asteroids using their SURGE drives to change that.

But first, I had to get them to obey me, and I didn’t have the encryption keys that the Brazilians had been using to transmit commands to the asteroid drives. Well, easily fixed. I ordered the roamers to simply rip the drive controllers out and hot-wire the drive systems. No finesse or delicate electronics was required for a straight full-power sideways thrust. It remained to be seen if I was starting too late.

***

“Wake up, buddy. You okay?”

“Auntie Em! Auntie Em!” Homer’s VR came online, smiling. “I guess we got’em.”

I snorted with relief. “And their little dog, too.”

Homer steepled his fingers in a properly evil mastermindish pose. “All their base are belong to us.”

We laughed together, maybe the first time since Homer had been born that we’d been in sync like that. I had a sudden jolt of what might be described as fatherly pride. Okay, that’s weird. Snap out of it!

Homer waved a hand in a vague out there gesture. “So, what do we have?”

“I’m still evaluating. And by the way, in case you haven’t checked, your back is still broken. So don’t be trying to fly anywhere just yet. Guppy estimates three more days to get you shipshape.”

Homer bobbed his head, and I continued, “The signs of war are everywhere. Nukes were definitely used, both planetside and spaceside, and I mean a lot! It looks like everyone just went toe to toe and started throwing punches, until only one side was left standing. As far as I can tell, the only technological force left in the whole system was a small group of Brazilian probes that had been modified for war. I found the manufacturing area—it had broken down, and the Araújos couldn’t repair it because they hadn’t been loaded with the autofactory software or equipment. They couldn’t land and bring someone upstairs to fix it—not that I’m sure there’s anyone left to do it anyway—and they couldn’t build a lander or shuttle, because no autofactory. Classic catch-22.”

“So they were doing what? Running around smashing things instead?” Homer grimaced.

“Pretty much. Taking revenge on their enemies. The asteroids had all been timed to target China, so I’m guessing that’s who took out the Brazilian Empire.”

“Took out? How bad?”

“Pretty bad. It’s actually kind of hard to tell exactly how much damage there is because of all the cloud and dust cover. Asteroid strikes and nukes kicked up a lot of dust and it’s just trashed the weather patterns.”

“There were other asteroid strikes? These weren’t the first?”

“No, not by a long shot. But these were the biggest, I think. I’ve been able to make out dozens of impact sites, most around the size of the Barringer crater. These four would have been extinction-level. Yucatan crater size.”

“Four of them.”

“Yeah.” I shook my head in disbelief. “I can’t believe anyone would think that this was a reasonable response to anything. I feel no regret or guilt for ending those guys.”

“Is anyone left on Earth?”

I put a globe of the Earth up in the holotank, and sent a copy to Homer. “I haven’t been able to pick up any radio transmissions or reactor signatures. But then, you wouldn’t expect anyone to want to attract attention. I’m sure the Araújo gang dropped a rock on anyone they detected. By now everyone still alive has gone to ground.”

Homer rubbed his forehead, his eyes unfocused. “What’ll we do? I guess we could transmit an announcement, but some might just see that as a trick.” He idly poked a finger at his copy of the globe and spun it to show different views. He sat back after a few seconds, then put his hand to his chin and resumed staring into space.

I waited, content to let him work through whatever he was wrestling with.

Finally, he looked up. “We can use SUDDAR to a certain extent. But atmosphere and planetary mass will play hell with the resolution. What about the exploration scouts that Bill came up with?”

“Funny you should ask,” I responded with a smile. “I’m building some as fast as I can.” I stopped smiling and continued in a more serious tone. “We need to sweep for surviving groups as quickly as possible. Between the nukes that were used and the rocks that were dropped, Earth looks like it might be spiraling into a nuclear winter. Anyone still alive might starve to death over the next couple of years.”

“But what will we be able to do if we find survivors?”

“I don’t know, Homer.” I shook my head, reluctant to meet his gaze. “We’re going to have to take this one step at a time.”

***

We watched as the fourth and last asteroid slid past the Earth. Although we’d known for a while that they would miss, this was an emotional moment. The original drive controllers had been replaced with more cooperative hardware, which was now programmed to gradually push the asteroids into long-period orbits with a high inclination that wouldn’t intersect Earth’s orbit in the future.

“One less thing to worry about,” Homer said with a smile.

[We are being hailed]

We looked at each other in surprise. “What now?”