Troy Rising 1 - Live Free or Die (36 page)

“The way that the penetrator is
supposed
to work,” the AF COS said, shrugging, “is using counter-rotating high-density gravity
fields. They're more like a vortex. Think of a gravity tornado.”

“Which Dr. Givens discovered, accidentally, by getting her hair torn off,” Tyler said.

“You got that part of the briefing?” the AF COS said.

“They wanted money,” Tyler said. “Which means you have two larger, lower power, gravity
wells being generated. They said they were having problems generating them at all. What
gives?”

“That's why I said 'Maybe,'” the AF COS said. “Generating consistent grav fields is
difficult. The round, we call it a breacher, works by generating two fields, as Mr. Vernon
said. At the intersection of the fields, and they're not low power but the highest power
we can generate, a vortex forms. It can only be formed for about a half a second. There's
a lower power... gravity probe, sort of like a lance, that sticks out the front. When it
encounters a gravity field, the breacher power kicks on. If it works, it will drop the
shields in the affected area. The way it works is by essentially... hitting back against
the plates. The power is carried through the pseudo gravity field of the generator back to
the plates. Depending on Horvath design, about which we know very little, if it works at
all it will either drop them for a moment, until their breakers reset, basically, or it
will kill them by causing a plate shred.”

“That... sort of makes sense,” Tyler said, thoughtfully.

“Thank you,” the AF COS said, sarcastically. “It hasn't been tested. We've activated a
breacher round, but we've never activated it against a shield because we don't have one.
And we haven't even test fired the gun with a breacher. And, last but not least...”

“You can't get the craft to fly,” the Chairman said.

“I take it back,” Tyler said, sadly. “I'm glad Boeing at least tried. It was a noble
effort.”

“That sounds depressingly like an epitaph,” the Commandant said. “We're not there, yet.”

“I thought the Horvath would give us more time,” Tyler said. “Maybe I shouldn't have
defied them.”

“
Our
analysis is that that is hubristic,” the Chairman said, snorting. “Although you
may
have had something to do with it. But not in the way that you think.”

“Don't understand,” Tyler said.

“We have
some
intel on the Horvath,” the Chairman said. “Not much, but some. To do a bio weapon like
this requires much more data on the species than our researchers have accumulated. The
sort of data you get when...”

“Someone gets implants,” Tyler said. “Oh, hell. And while my personal information wasn't
on the hypernet, the general information about human physiology is.”

“If it wasn't you, it would have been someone,” the Chairman said. “But with that and
their own technologyÑwell, Glatun technology they useÑthey were able to make these... vile
diseases. We hadn't put that together until this attack.”

“Always fighting the last wars,” Tyler said. “No dis. I've been doing the same thing. And
now I'm going to say something that is going to sound stupid and heroic and macho and all
sorts of other dumb. I was the first person to get plants. The pilots currently undergoing
training are going to still be getting used to them. The
only
two human pilots familiar with Glatun gravitics are myself and Steve Asaro.”

“You're not a pilot,” the AF COS said with a snort.

“I'm not a pilot by the standards you are a pilot,” Tyler said, neutrally. “In that I
don't have forty thousand hours of flight time. By the standard that I have three hundred
hours of time in the
Monkey Business
and controlling the
Paws
, that I have another six hundred in simulators, I'm a more qualified
space
pilot than anyone on earth. Not great. I don't begin to say that I am. And flying those
things is an order of magnitude, ten orders of magnitude, easier than flying an untested,
not-particularly-well-made-or-designed, experimental anti-grav space fighter. And
underperforming. Let's not forget underperforming.”

“Sounds like the Brewster Buffalo,” the Marine Corps Commandant said, referring to the
aircraft that made up the mainstay of the Marine Aviation wing at the beginning of WWII.
It flew about half as fast as a Mitsubishi Zero and could, barely, turn on a city mile.
One pilot managed to shoot down a Zero in a Buffalo. He didn't last much longer. That made
a ratio of seventy-three to one. “Which is about how long it's going to last.”

“I repeat: Stupid, heroic... Our lives, our fortunes...”

“You say that kind of stuff a lot,” the Chairman said. “Which is all very well. But that
doesn't mean it will work.”

“None of this is going to
work
,” Tyler said. “It's just more likely with me and Steve than with anyone else you can
name. I've got more time with plants than any other person on earth. As previously
mentioned in another context. I can probably do more with the... plane than Steve did. He
was still getting used to them. I'm fully dialed in. He'll be better by now, too. You have
no clue how much plants help. And, what the hell, if we lose SAPL I might as
well
go out in a flash of plasma.”

“Recall Major Asaro,” the Chairman said. “As in you call him home and, Tim, recall him as
a major.”

“Got it,” the Marine Corps Commandant said, grinning. “Marine Aviation leads the way!”

“I'll go make amends with Boeing,” Tyler said. “Some of Space Command's people had better
get involved with SAPL. And I won't even charge you for laser time...”

***

“It will take at least six months to reconfigure the
Fury
for a two-person cockpit,” Gnad said.

Tyler was not good at eating crow. Fortunately, since he was bringing back not only his
money but his access to off-world tech, Boeing hadn't asked.

On the other hand, there were clearly things they were going to have to work out.

“This is the general tenor of what we, and by that I mean myself and the National Defense
Council, think the Horvathian plan is,” Tyler said. “Distribute the plagues. Wait a short
while for them to take effect. Return. Take over the earth from the survivors, using said
survivors as miners and maple syrup collectors. They may even make some noises as to being
here for humanitarian purposes. But they're not going to wait long. The terminal point was
about forty days from when they started their distribution. Ten days for the biologicals
to drift down through the atmosphere and thirty-two days for the final agent to go into
terminal condition. So we have, at this point, about three weeks before we can expect them
to show up. We probably don't have a
month
. We
certainly
don't have six months. So what are you planning on doing in two weeks?”

“Starting on redesign?” Gnad said. “I'm serious. Six months is if we throw in the entire
resources of Phantom Works and Boeing. Which we are! But you can't
completely redesign
a space fighter in two weeks!”

“I've already apologized for my outburst,” Tyler said. “I'll cop that I'm no longer
unpleased that you bogarted me and built a space fighter instead of a shuttle. It doesn't
give us much of a chance but it gives us some. I'm not going to apologize for this next
one. WE DON'T HAVE SIX MONTHS!”

“I'm not being a bureaucrat here!” Gnad said, furiously. “I'm as much under threat as
anyone. So's my family. But this isn't the first design project I've been on! Do
you
have any suggestions how to cut it down?”

“No,” Tyler said then frowned. “Yes. Hell.”

“What?”

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” Tyler said, holding up his hand to prevent further
questions. He looked off into the distance for a moment. “I don't know
exactly
how we're going to do this. But I know we're going to need a lot of stuff that people
aren't going to want to give up. And we're not going to be able to tell why we need it.
So... You need to go call your CEO or whatever and tell him we're going to need a bunch of
stuff. I'm going to call some people, too. Then we'll get to work.”

“What stuff?” Gnad said.

“Well, first, we need an SR-71. And probably some crowbars...”

***

“Mr. Vernon. I am sorry to be informed of the plagues on your planet.”

Communicating directly with an AI using only your plants was weird. When you communicated
with them on the Glatun space-stations or a ship they normally used a hologram to
'personalize' the interaction.

When you contacted them with a plant it was more like they took over your brain. It wasn't
so much telepathy as the feeling something was talking to you from inside your head.
Somebody with a very big voice. Like... God. Very freaky.

“We're not real happy, either,”
Tyler commed.
“Thank you for your prompt response.”

Glatun medical response ships, some of them as big as the heavy cruiser that had come to
Earth's aid during the Maple Syrup War, were pouring through the gate. Whether they would
be able to help any significant fraction of humanity was the question. Nanniepaks for
'critical personnel'Ñread 'high muckety mucks and various people Tyler had designated'Ñhad
already arrived. Of course, the real killer was still at least two weeks away.

The deaths had started, though. A surprisingly large number of people from across the
gamut of the world's population had ignored the Johannsen Worm. As far as the CDC had been
able to determine, every single person who ignored it had died. And the 'pre-existing
conditions' packets were hitting. The US and Europe weren't quite up to death carts but it
was getting there.

“There's a further problem,”
Tyler commed.
“I'm sending you two gestalt reports.”

Gestalt reports were about as close as the system got to telepathy. You gathered
everything you knew together in one little thought and squirted it.

The first was Tyler's best guess of the Horvath strategy. Kill most of the humans. Wipe
out any remaining resistance. Put the few survivors to work mining and gathering maple
syrup. Maybe make their response a 'humanitarian' mission.

The second was about the
Star Fury
. In an action that would make everyone want to murder him, he included all the designs
and technical documentation to date along with a vague plan for converting the fighter
into a two man craft.

“Interesting,”
Athelkau commed.
“I remain neutral on the subject of the Horvath. The reason for this information?”

“We need help,”
Tyler said.
“I've never checked on costs for processor time and design assistance for an AI. We
have to do this in so short a time, though, it's the only way I can imagine getting
anything done.”

“We are constrained from assisting in military developments absent political approval,”
Athelkau commed.
“Which you will not get.”

“I don't want help with military materials,”
Tyler commed.
“Technically, this is just a test bed for human gravitic craft. The gun and targeting
software either work or they don't. All I need is help getting it to fly.”

“Stand by,”
Athelkau commed.

Rarely if ever did you have to wait on an AI. They thought
way
faster than humans. They actually had built in delays to questions so that it didn't
confuse the organic sophonts. But actually waiting was rare.

“Your argument meets some legal tests,”
Athelkau commed a moment later.
"Fortunately, Glatun law is sufficiently complex just about any argument meets
some
legal tests.

“How much processing did that take?”
Tyler asked.

“Quite a bit, but not all mine,”
Athelkau replied.
“I contacted legal specialty AIs. I am unsure you have enough funds to pay for
sufficient processor time to do the conversion. And you are certainly not a candidate for
a loan. But I am legally permitted to assist. Your general design concept is novel but may
work. We are going to need additional resources.”

“Gimme,”
Tyler commed.
“I'll put them on the network.”

“I can do that myself.”

***

Max Yanes was thirty-nine and since he'd gotten his masters in aeronautical engineering
and headed into the workforce he'd worked in the aeronautics industry. He'd started as a
junior design engineer at Lock-Mart and since average time in any one company was a year
and a half he'd worked for just about every major corporation, and several minor ones, at
this point. And he'd done some interesting stuff and a lot that was boring and a lot that
was just stupid. But he'd rarely been asked to do something absolutely crazy.

Which was why he was looking at the Skil-Saw in his hand in bemusement.

“It goes in the frame, not in the air,” Tyler yelled. He was about half way through his
cut on the port side of the
Fury's
upper quadrant.

“We worked on this thing for two years!” Yanes shouted. “You can't just
cut the damned cockpit out
!”

“I can't do it quick,” Tyler said, shaking his head to try to clear out some of the
fragments. “You guys glued the hell out of it. Ungluing it isn't an option. So we're
cutting.”

“And cutting up an SR-71 is just...” The word 'sacrilege' came to mind. “Wrong!”

“Are you going to help or bitch?” Tyler asked.

“I'm
trying
to help,” Yanes said. “By pointing out that this is
crazy
!”

“No,” Tyler said, stopping his saw and taking off his safety goggles and ear protection.
“Taking a hacked-up, jury-rigged, barely-built, untested space-fighter into combat is
crazy. But it's exactly what we're going to do. If we can get some people to work the
problem instead of
being
the problem! Now, apply saw and start
cutting
! Or I'll find somebody who will.”

By pulling out some of the rounds for the gun, the cockpit and some of the earth-built
avionics, there appeared to be
just
enough room to put in an SR-71 cockpit. Since the 71 cockpit was designed to be used in
near vacuum, it was totally sealed. And, conveniently, it held two people.

How it was actually going to work out was another question.