Europa Strike (16 page)

“The Hunters probably visited Earth to pick off any Builder outposts there,” Paul added. “But they must not have thought the hominid species there to be very promising.”

“Maybe they hadn't counted on the Builders gene-engineering a new species,” Teri said. “There couldn't have been very many of them. But they were enough of an improvement over
Homo erectus
that they survived and proliferated.”

“A delightful fantasy,” David said after a moment. “We still need hard evidence…but I must say the scenario fits the observed facts. What I'm not sure I buy is the idea that the Builders were AIs. It leaves us with an unpleasant tautology. Who built the Builders?”

“I'm not sure that's really an issue, sir,” Jack said. “An AI race of Builders could have been around for a long time, even in galactic terms. Their organic predecessors could have been long extinct, especially considering the fact that the galaxy is beginning to look like a rather dangerous place to try and raise a burgeoning young civilization.”

“We're already beginning to look at ways to download the human mind into computers,” Paul said. “Maybe the floaters are just the bodies, the
machine
bodies of the original Builders.”

“If I may make a comment,” Sam said from the screen, “there is nothing inherently implausible about a race of artificial intelligences arising from more primitive forms and evolving in the same fashion as biological species. In the long run, it may be that there is no significant difference between evolution from carbon-based single cells and proteins, and evolution from silicon-based microprocessors. Both can acquire considerable sophistication through the forces of natural selection alone.”

“You know,” David said quietly, “it's just possible we've cracked the secret of the Builders at last. Thanks to
you
, Sam. I think we need to get this off to Earth immediately. After that—”

Jack's PAD chirped. He opened it, and Sam's voice—the original Sam—came from the speaker. “Jack?” she said. “Code One.”

The intrusion was so abrupt, so completely unexpected, that Jack didn't understand immediately. “W-what?”

“Code One,” Sam repeated. “Triple-N news reports are carrying the story. Two American spacecraft have been deliberately destroyed by a Chinese warship, the
Kennedy
, on high guard patrol, and the
Roosevelt
, at Europa. The president of the United States has just asked both the Congress and the CWS Council to declare that a state of war exists between the Confederation's member states and the republic of Greater China.

“There is a text message waiting for you from General Duvall at Marine Space HQ. The situation has been declared a Code One.”

“I…understand.” He touched the PAD's screen and swiftly scanned the message from Duvall. It merely confirmed the orders he was already well aware of.

“Excuse me,” he said, closing the PAD and rising. “I've got to go.”

“Why?” David asked. “What is it?”

“Marine forces on Mars have just been put on alert, Doctor,” he said. “There is a possibility that Chinese forces will try to seize the facilities here. I've been told to make sure they don't do that.”

David seemed thunderstruck. He waved at the flatscreen. “But…but what about this? We've got to tell Earth.”

“
This
will have to wait, David,” he said. “Until we know whether or not we have an Earth left to send it to. I'm afraid all data connected with the project, and with the excavations here, has just been classified.”

“What?” David rose, face darkening, furious. “No! Not again! Not the damned censorship of scientific thought again!”

“I'm sorry,” Jack said, and he meant it. He knew how his uncle detested the very thought of controlling the free dissemination of scientific information. “But we're at war.”

“Fermi's Paradox questions why the sky is not filled with intelligent life,” David said, bitter. “The Hunters scenario provides a possible answer—that newly emergent intelligences or civilizations are snuffed out deliberately before they can pose a threat to a few well-established races.

“I'm beginning to think we don't need to invoke the Hunters of the Dawn, however. Human arrogance, stupidity, and short-sightedness will be as effective as the Hunters ever were!”

Jack was forced to agree.

13
OCTOBER
2067

Major Jeff Warhurst looked up from his desk as the automatic door hissed open and Sergeant Major Kaminski rapped hard on the door frame. “Yes?”

“'Scuse the interrupt, sir. I have those reports.”

“Outstanding. Come on in, Ski. Grab some chair.”

“Thank you, sir.” He set his PAD on Jeff's desk as he took a seat. “How's the major feeling?”

“Can the third-person crap, Sergeant Major.” Jeff opened his own PAD, keyed the touchscreen to accept a data transmission from Kaminski's system, and leaned back again. “I'm doing fine. Johnson says I just picked up a few dings, is all.”

“I'm relieved to hear it, sir.”

“So, how are the boys and girls settling in?”

Kaminski eyed one bulkhead, where a flatscreen showed a dark, fog-opaque haze of dark blue-green. “No problems, Major. Just like living aboard ship.” He chuckled. “Hell, it
is
a ship.”

True enough. The Europa Deep-Access Research Station—E-DARES, for short—had been constructed in Earth orbit, then boosted to Jupiter space by a low-thrust A-M drive. With no atmosphere to worry about on Europa, and less surface gravity than Earth's Moon, it had been simple enough to gentle the ungainly craft down on ventral thrusters to land in the pit melted through to Europa's ocean.

At that point, she'd gone from being a space ship to an ocean-going ship, a research vessel afloat on a 250-meter-wide opening into the Europan depths. And then she'd been deliberately sunk.

Or, rather,
half
sunk.

A century before, the Scripps Institute and the U.S. Navy had employed a research barge for oceanographic research called
Flip
. Towed into place by auxiliary vessels, the
Flip
then flooded ballast tanks to submerge her bow until she was literally flipped a full ninety degrees, with only her stern riding vertically above the surface of the ocean.

The E-DARES complex was designed along the same lines as the old
Flip
. One hundred twenty-three meters long, but massing only 900 tons since most of her length was in the long, cylindrical wasp-waist connecting her bow and stern sections, she rode now with her bow over 100 meters beneath the Europan surface. Her antimatter drive, in the heavily shielded stern section anchored to the ice wall just above the surface, continued ticking over at low power, providing for the base life support systems, and the heat for warming surface water and pumping it deep; the constant circulation of hot water kept the Pit open, with only a thin layer of surface ice. The stern section was snugly moored against the vertical ice cliff ringing the Pit. A fire-escape type scaffolding of railed ladders and platforms gave access from the surface of the ice to the airlock in the side of the station's stern section. Elevators connected the stern with the bow, where the research labs, quarters, offices, and mess and recreation decks were located, all safely shielded by a hundred meters of ice and water from the hellstorm of radiation at the surface.

Fortunately, the E-DARES facility had been assembled with an eye to expanding the human presence on Europa. There were only twenty-five scientists and technicians at the CWS base now, but the ass-high E-DARES had bunks and living quarters enough for a population of two hundred. For the first time since they'd boosted from Earth, the Marines actually had room to stretch out.

And, in an ocean with an ambient temperature of 1.7 degrees below zero, there was
no
problem with overheating.

Jeff scanned through the first several pages downloaded onto his PAD. “So,” he said. “Give me the short version. What do we have to work with?”

“It
could
be worse,” Kaminski told him. “Though maybe not by a whole lot. We can thank DCL that we're not out of something really vital. Like food.”

Distributed Cargo Loading as applied to Marine spacecraft was a supply officer's nightmare, but it guaranteed that each boat going down to the surface of a hostile world carried a little bit of everything necessary for survival.

“Two bugs made it down, so we have eighty-one Marines, one corpsman, six SEALs, and two Navy Bug pilots,” Kaminski continued. “That plus the twenty-five civilians already here gives us 115 mouths to feed. I've been over the base inventory with Hallerman, the Supply Officer for the base. Putting everything they have together with what we brought down from the
Roosey
, we have enough food for four to five weeks, if we go on short rations, starting now. Three weeks if we don't, tops.”

“I don't want to institute short rations just yet,” Jeff said. “I want to talk to Earth first, and see when we can expect a relief expedition. Besides, the men are going to be working damned hard these next few days. Let's give them the fuel they need to keep going. After that, we'll see.”

“Aye, sir. Every Marine has his own weapon and personal gear, of course,” Kaminski went on. “We have six battery packs per M-580 laser, and no problem recharging 'em off the E-DARES power supply. Likewise for the slaws. We have four of those, with eight power units, plus ten Wyvern launchers and twelve reloads apiece. I'm recommending we pick out three or four of the company's best marksmen with Wyverns and make them mobile artillery. Help make each round count.”

“Absolutely. Do it.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” He looked at his PAD. “Twelve XM-86 Sentries. Only forty thousand rounds apiece, though, so we'll have to keep an eye on that. Those things go through DU rounds like peanuts. Communications gear…spare PADS…only two extra suits, but plenty of patches and spare parts. Fifteen portable radar and lidar units, besides what's built into our suits. Two bugs, plus six cargo transport hoppers they were using here at the base. We may be able to convert some of those to our own purposes. My people are looking into it.”

“Good. Medical supplies?”

“Each Marine has his own M-1 kit, of course. And there's a fair ER setup here in the base, plus a civilian doctor. Only two beds for a hospital, but we can get around that. They say they have only three liters of artificial blood, and we have ten more, but Doc McCall is setting up to pull donated blood for type, crossmatch, and immune suppression, just in case.”

Jeff made a face. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Whole blood and plasma transfusions, yes, sir. We can still manufacture blood the old-fashioned way, in our bodies, and Doc can stockpile it in the medlab refrigerators.”

Jeff wasn't sure he trusted the idea of putting blood from one individual into another…but they were a hell of a long way from the facilities for manufacturing the artificial, fluorine-based substitute. In any case, it probably wouldn't be a problem; combat in space—or in a vacuum environment such as the Europan surface—was generally so deadly that the question wasn't how to give a transfusion to the wounded so much as it was how to recover the remains.

“Water, no problem,” Kaminski went on. “The base cooks their own. Same with air. Oxygen from water, while nitrogen is recirculated and captured in the waste treatment cycle. They have three point one kilos of antimatter stored topside. That's enough to provide power for this facility for another couple of years, at least. Various tools, miscellaneous supplies, spare parts for their electrical and computer systems. The complete list is there in my report. Also turns out they've got about 190 meters of two-centimeter superconductor wire stored in one of the sheds topside. They've been using it for teleop probes beneath the ice.”

“Huh. What do you think we can use that for?”

“Got a few ideas about that, sir. I have some people looking into it.”

“Anything else?”

“Two spare A-M power plants in the bugs. We're not hurting for power. Oh! Almost forgot, yeah. Two of those SDV Mantas we were bringing in for Project Icebreaker.”

Jeff frowned, remembering those incredible explosions of light and life deep beneath the surface of the sea off the Bahamian coast. “I'm afraid Icebreaker is going to be on hold for a while, until we sort out the Chinese problem.” He thought for a moment. “Still, you might have our supply people go over them, and make a note of useful electronic components, computers, control boards, that sort of thing. If we need spare parts, we might cannibalize them.”

“Aye, aye, sir. I'll need to detail a crew to offload 'em from the supply bug, though. I guess we could put 'em in Storage Twelve.”

“Do it. So, with rationing, we eat for four weeks. Any other likely shortages?”

“Just one.”

“What's that?”

“Marines,” Kaminski said. “We have a Chinese ship hot-footing it our way. I don't know what she's carrying in the way of troops and weapons, but you can bet it's at least the equivalent of the
Roosey
. Before too long, we could find ourselves outnumbered three, maybe four to one.”

“Or worse,” Jeff said. “Intelligence said they were coming on a minimum-t intercept. They could be here in four days.”

“Sounds like they're in one hell of a hurry.”

“Yes it does, doesn't it? HQ thinks they're trying to get in here and do their dirt before we can get a ship in here to block them. I have to concur. Beijing has to know that they can't win in a long-term war with the rest of the CWS. Which suggests that they have short-term goals they can meet before they have to accept a negotiated settlement.”

Jeff typed out a command on his PAD, and the vidview on the bulkhead flatscreen changed to a topo map on the region of Linea Cadmus at 20 degrees north. The base crater was clearly visible, almost five kilometers across, with a tiny lake in the center and red dots marking the E-DARES facility and various buildings and constructs scattered about the surface. Rather than using voice entry, he unrolled a keyboard flat on his desktop and started typing, continuing to talk as he entered notations on the map.

“Damage to the base by the Chinese strike wasn't too bad. We lost the microwave tower…here…and some damage to the landing field and other static structures. Fortunately, most of the buildings here—and especially the E-DARES facility—were designed to ride out the shock of Europaquakes, so they came through pretty much intact.

“But that means the CWS base is going to be a tempting target for our visitors. It'll be a lot easier for them if they can take over the base, especially the E-DARES, instead of starting from scratch somewhere else.

“We need as much advance warning about the Chinese intentions as we can manage. I think we can assume their overall intent is hostile, but we need to know where they're landing, and when, what direction they're coming from—and whether or not their ship can provide close space support.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We'll want radar and lidar units set up round the crater rim, of course, but keep some in reserve. I want to see about sending out mobile recon units once we have an idea where the Chinese have touched down. We've lost our own space eyes, which puts us in a hell of a bad spot, but I'm thinking that we might use lidar sets on lobbers to extend our spotting range over the horizon. And we might put some advance OP teams out along likely lines of approach.”

“Surface time is limited to twelve hours at a stretch, sir,” Kaminski said. “And Doc'll be checking for cumulative exposure. Anyone who blacks his badge is going to be grounded.”

“Work out a rotation schedule, then.” He leaned back in his chair, scowling at the flatscreen. “The trick is going to be spotting the bad guys out there, before they get within range. Chaotic terrain. It'll be damned hard to see them until they're practically on top of us. And harder still when they'll have a ship in orbit, while we don't. The bad guys have the high ground, Ski, and they'll know exactly where we are. I don't mind telling you I don't like this one bit!”

“Me neither, sir,” Kaminski said. “You now, if I was them, I'd try to hit this base from space. Mass driver bombardment. Or missiles. Except…”

“Yes?”

“Well, I was just wondering. They're coming here to make contact with the Singer, right?”

“That, and to keep us from doing it first, presumably.”

“Right. So, does it make sense, them dropping A-M bombs on Europa? If I was them, I'd be afraid the ETs would get mad, that they'd maybe think I was slinging bombs at them. I mean…how do these guys at the bottom of the ocean know that antimatter warheads striking the surface ice, or even just mass driver projectiles, aren't an attack on them? If I was in that Chinese ship right now, I'd be very, very worried about what was going through the Singer's mind right now.”

“Good question. The Chinese may have it figured that whoever is down there isn't paying attention to what's going on above their ice ceiling. Dr. Vasaliev was in here an hour ago telling me that there's been no indication that the Singer is even aware of us. He says they're sure it's an automated probe of some kind. A beacon, maybe.”

“That's not the way I've been hearing it, sir.”

“Oh? You've been discussing things with the Base Administrator, have you?”

“No, sir. But some of the men have been talking with some of the people here. That Dr. Ishiwara, the guy who led us in from the landing field? He's head of the xenoarcheology team here, and according to him, they've picked up indications that the Singer
is
reacting to us. But, well, the evidence is kind of slim, I guess. It depends on some pretty heavy-duty computer analyses to reveal it, and, well, a kind of sensitivity, I guess, to certain tonal patterns. Not everyone here agrees with him.”

“So, not only are we in the middle of a war between China and the CWS, we're in the middle of a scientific war as well. I'm not sure which one scares me worse!”

“Roger that.”

“Well, maybe the Chinese have heard the same thing that Dr. Ishiwara heard, and that's why they're trying to cut us out of the picture. They must have decided it's worth the gamble, though, of making the Singer mad. They probably figure that the Singer is different enough that it won't understand any dispute between humans. If they can brush us out of the way fast enough, they could slip in here and start a dialogue with our guests down there in the deep, and they would never even know the difference.”