I also had a concern that the Brazilian probe might have been playing possum during his solar system departure. Unless he was carrying more missiles than seemed reasonable, my models indicated that he should have been able to push more than 1.25 g. I intended to be ready well ahead of his calculated arrival time.
I wondered if the Brazilian was deliberately trying to throw me off with the low acceleration value. If he thought he could get here early and take me by surprise, his best strategy would be to coast in real close, then blow the hell out of me. Assuming he could find me, of course. So my best strategy would be to play dumb, then spring a booby-trap. But he’d be expecting a booby-trap…
I hate this. I almost feel like just continuing on to another system. But if the Brazilian gets a chance to start building copies, it becomes a galactic breeding race. And if he comes gunning for me, I’ll just end up fleeing from system to system forever. Like it or not, I have to resolve this, now.
“Okay, then, Guppy, we’ve located asteroids with the proper elements. Time to get started.”
The designers of Heaven-1 had faced a simple problem—how to design a probe as small, light, and bulletproof as possible, while giving it the ability to build copies of itself. In all the science fiction that I had ever read, this was handled with a handwave. The ship (usually alien) simply did it, without the story going into details.
The solution was 3D printers. I remembered that panel at the convention, and I felt a moment of regret that the speaker would never know how right he had been.
The technology was just coming into its own in the early 21st century. A century later, printers could build virtually anything solid, one atom at a time, as long as the raw materials were available. The catch was energy. It took a lot of energy to reduce source materials to their monatomic form, and it took as much energy to drop them into the proper place in the creation matrix. Such 3D printing had had to wait for cheap fusion energy before becoming practical technology.
There was also a problem dealing with volatile materials, because of all the energy involved. Attempts to print C4 or Semtex, for instance, often failed with spectacular results.
Heaven-1 was equipped with multiple printers. I also had a supply of roamers and nanites, purpose-designed to extract mineral deposits from asteroids. And the final item needed to put together a new probe was a small fleet of autonomous cargo carriers, equipped with small reactors and SURGE drives, for transporting miners and materials.
A hologram of the Epsilon Eridani system floated over the center of the desk. A bright, curved line indicated the probable approach path of the Brazilian probe.
“We will set up here.” At my command, a red dot blinked just to one side of the approach path line, on the inside edge of the asteroid belt.
“We need him to slow down as much as possible. This position will force him to curve north of the edge of the asteroid belt. We want him to be facing at an angle to his approach path when he gets close enough to open fire. He will expect a trap, so we’ll have to bury the welcoming committee deep to shield them from a random scan. And I’ll have to launch them very late, after he’s committed. He’ll probably get a chance to fire on me before they get to him. So I need to have something that can hold off some missiles.”
I looked over at Guppy, who hadn’t reacted at all. Not really much of a conversationalist.
“How are we for resources?”
[Sufficient material has been located for all construction. Miners are deployed. Factory systems have been unshipped and are ready to begin manufacturing]
“This is going to put us months behind on reproduction. I just hope the other probes don’t end up with too much advantage.” I sighed and shook my head. “Unbelievable. I’m going to war.”
[You are allowing the adversary to take the first shot]
“Yeah, fair enough. Never know, he might open a dialog.”
Guppy said nothing, but he did prove that a fish could look skeptical.
Bob – September 2144 – Epsilon Eridani
The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.
… Sun Tzu’s Art of War
[Adversary has changed course. Deviation from predicted path is minimal]
“If you ignore the fact that he’s a couple of months early, sure.” I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a moment. “Make sure the decoy fusion reactors are ready to start up on command. We want him concentrating all his attention forward during his attack run.”
[Aye sir]
I had earlier considered and rejected the idea of reactivating the endocrine control system. But I was now coming to realize that this was more than just stage jitters. I wasn’t a military person. I had no training, no experience, and reading Art of War, as useful as it had been for ideas, wasn’t going to make me ready for battle. I could very well be facing my last few hours of existence. I wondered if FAITH had launched more than one of me, despite their claims to the contrary. It would be nice to believe so. But right now, I had to be calm and able to make good choices.
With a sick feeling of defeat, I pulled out the endocrine control project file and flipped the switch.
Immediately, a sense of calm purpose settled over me. Okay, not so bad. I could turn it off, later. For now, I had an enemy to take care of, and I needed to stay focused.
As I’d expected, the Brazilian ship was here sooner than his observed acceleration would have allowed. Whether it was the ship’s pilot or his masters back on Earth, someone had been thinking strategy from day one. No doubt he was expecting me to be surprised by his early arrival. I hoped so, anyway. I didn’t want him to think I was prepared.
The Brazilian ship was almost certainly armed, and almost certainly crewed by a military replicant. How well armed was the question, of course. I plugged the Brazilian’s transit time into my models, which further narrowed down the possible configurations of the ship. He either had better legs and eight or fewer missiles, or the same acceleration capability as me and six or more missiles.
Whether he’d use them all was another question. This wasn’t going to be like a movie space battle, with whooshing spaceships weaving and gyrating. And I couldn’t afford a spaghetti-western-style shootout at high noon. With only a month to prepare, I hadn’t had time to build a lot in the way of weaponry, so I’d gone with the simplest design I could think of. I would have to hope that he wouldn’t be expecting even that much.
And the first order of business was to reinforce the image of me as helpless. Time to make a call. Who knew, it might even get him to reconsider.
I hailed the ship. “Attention, Brazilian vessel. This is Robert Johansson of the Heaven One. There’s no reason for you to do what I think you’re about to attempt. I’m not sure there’s even an Earth civilization left to be loyal to. Have you received anything from Earth in the last twelve years? Should we continue a war between countries that may no longer exist?”