“There was never actually a point where you could say now, we’re at war,” the colonel explained. “International tensions had been high for quite a number of years. The confrontation over the attempted destruction of Heaven-1 was simply the tipping point. Each act prompted a reaction, each reaction a retaliation. The other governments got dragged in one at a time, and eventually it became system-wide. Stations and colonies were abandoned, personnel were recalled. Some of the transports were destroyed, despite having no military value. Of course, that just escalated things.”
The colonel got up and began to pace around his office. The camera at his end kept him perfectly framed. “At first, the conflict was primarily spaceside. Annexation of strategic locations and orbits, denial of assets, that kind of thing. Then the first nuke was used planetside, and after that, all bets were off.”
Colonel Butterworth sat down at his desk and massaged his forehead for a few moments. He reached into a drawer and pulled out what looked very much like a bottle of Jameson. Hmm. Funny what survives the end of the world.
After pouring a glass and taking a sip, he continued, “It became a war of attrition. Each side tried to neutralize the other’s military capability. Then someone nuked most of the Brazilian Empire—your theory that it was the Chinese is reasonable—and civilian targets became fair game. The ships you took out were the last men standing. Metaphorically speaking, of course—they were only replicants.”
The colonel blushed slightly. “Er, no offence meant. In any case, they wouldn’t have lasted five minutes at the height of the war, when everyone still had equipment. But here at the end, we had no way to stop them. They just started slowly pounding away at everyone. Call it a scorched-earth policy, call it revenge, whatever. It was genocide. They probably took out a couple of billion people on their own.”
I felt ill. I had waited an additional six months while Homer and the decoy were assembled. How many people had died for that delay?
The colonel had reached the end of his spiel, and was concentrating on the glass of Jameson.
“So what can we do, colonel? Help rebuild? Relocate people?”
“I think that ship has sailed, Commander. The Earth will recover eventually. It’s tough that way. But not in time for humanity. My tame scientists say it will be minimum five to ten thousand years before things recover to any degree. We won’t last that long.”
Colonel Butterworth touched a control, and a schematic popped up in the video link. “This is the colony ship we designed and started to build in hopes that our probes would report back with something worth shipping out to. One of the first casualties of the war, I’m afraid. You have on-board autofactories that can bootstrap up to a full shipyard. With your help, we’d like to build a couple of these and leave the solar system.”
“And go where, specifically?”
The colonel sighed. “I’m actually hoping you’ll suggest a destination. It’s not like FAITH is going to be sending any ships. And you gave me to believe that you have no particular loyalty there.”
“And that’s true, colonel. I’m just making sure we’re all on the same wavelength.” I popped up a star chart of everything within twenty light-years of Earth. “You can see the stars rated for likelihood of a habitable planet. Unfortunately, Epsilon Eridani was a failure, unless you want to live under a dome. By now, Bill may have received reports back from a couple of our ships, but we won’t find out for a few more years. Can you last that long?”
“We have to. It’ll take most of a decade to go from a standing start to two colony ships.”
I nodded. “Okay, then, let’s get this show on the road.”
Bob – April 2165 – Delta Eridani
I patted Spike as I watched the image of the planet slowly build in the holotank. To one side, a schematic of the entire system slowly cycled the planets through their orbits.
I couldn’t keep a grin off my face. Space exploration was fully living up to my nerd fantasies. Flying into a new star system, never before seen by humans, was a heady, almost godlike experience. I still couldn’t get over the idea that Bill was willing to sit in one system. On the other hand, he would get a chance to do physics and engineering full-time, and he’d be getting regular reports from everyone—albeit at light speed—so he would be participating at least vicariously. I hoped he’d forward any interesting news to the rest of us.
Delta Eridani was an orange star, cooler than Sol, but more than two and a half times as big. I had deliberately picked this system as my destination because of the high level of suitability. No binary companion, not a flare or variable star, exceptionally long living stellar type, low in UV emissions, wide potential habitable zone… The list went on and on.
The results fully lived up to expectations. I had identified ten planets, including one in the inner half of the Comfort Zone. The layout of this system paralleled the Sol System, to the point where I suspected there was some universal law at work. The inner planets were all rocky worlds, while the outer were all gas giants, and an asteroid belt divided the two groups. This system, though, contained five inner rocky planets, and two of the five outer gas giants had rings that rivalled Saturn’s. The biggest Jovian was just stupid big, at about six times the mass of Jupiter. I hadn’t yet counted all the moons it had collected.
And because of the size of their sun, the planets were more spread out, which might explain the large number of moons. Only the innermost planet was missing its own satellite.
I was too impatient to follow mission protocol and scan for resources first. I made a beeline for the habitable planet and did a quick survey from orbit. I would take the time to evaluate the results while I did the required but boring raw materials search.
Soon, I had completed the orbital scan. I did a quick flyby of the two moons, then with a sigh, I ordered Guppy to begin the survey of the asteroid belt.
***
“Status?”
[Asteroid belt scan 50% completed. Six locations identified with significant ore suitable for mining]
“At only halfway around? That’s pretty good.”
[Significantly better than Epsilon Eridani or Sol]
I nodded, then turned back to one of my infrared images of the night side of Delta Eridani 4, taken during the orbital survey. “Hey, Guppy, look at this here.” I materialized an arrow and pointed it to a spot on the picture, where several points of light were recorded. “Do these look like fires to you?”
[Probability very high]
“You think they’re natural? Wildfires?”
[I am not programmed to have an opinion]
“Oh, good lord. Okay, then, analysis: list the possible explanations in order of likelihood.”
[Small local wildfires would be most likely. Except…]
“Yes?” Guppy was about to volunteer information. That was definitely a first.
[No indication of lightning storms in the area, and the fires do not appear to be spreading. Further investigation is required]
“Hah! No argument from me, there. Let’s get this survey out of the way.”
[And get the autofactory set up]
“Nag, nag.” I sat back, bemused, and stared at the slowly rotating planetary image.
***