Von Neumann’s War

“We were planning a similar tactic,” General Mitchell said quietly. “I hate to say it, but I’m happy as hell that the Chinese and Russians beat us to it.”

“Do we know how effective the bombs were at destroying the probes?” the NSA asked.

“All we know is what is in slide five.” Ronny waited for them to flip to the last slide the Neighborhood Watch had sent over the T1 hotline. It was a slide containing several images from the last ten or so spyphotos they had received. The compilation slide showed multiple tubules of alien probes descending on Nagpur, Calcutta, Chengdu, Si’an, Beijing, Novosibirsk, Bratsk, Omsk, and Chita. The probes were consuming the Eurasian continent.

“One of the most interesting things here is that the probes let the missiles fly and detonate as if they had no clue as to what they were or that they didn’t care if they lost millions of bots. We guess that the missiles were launched from beyond the occupied regions and flew to the edge of the bots’ territory.”

The President nodded. “I see.”

“Until now the bots had only imposed the no-fly zone over the occupied regions with a bit of cushion around it.” Ronny let that sink in for a second and then continued.

“It looks like now from data we’ve been able to gather that they’re imposing a global no-fly zone. This is going to limit operations severely. And, of course, as reported in the media and on the Internet, contact has been lost with most of these areas,” Ronny continued. “The last significant contact was from a blogger in Singapore stating that the probes had been reported approaching across the straits from Malaysia. Internet pings from the National Security Agency indicate that there are no remaining Internet nodes on the Eurasian landmass. With the exception of South America and areas of Africa, we appear to be alone in this fight, Mr. President.”

* * *

“Home,” Jones said, sighing as he lowered his end of the mesh “stretcher” to the ground. The bot had turned out to weigh a good two hundred pounds, despite its small size, and they’d taken turns carrying it back to the cached Humvees.

Besides the bot they’d managed to pick up about another two hundred pounds of assorted bits, including one bot that was blown in half, revealing the interior. It was, as far as anyone could tell, just a mish-mash of metal and what looked like glass, damned near solid, which explained the weight. The small team had had a time humping all the bits, and their gear, back to the Humvees.

The bots had been carefully observed by satellite and it was noted that they’d stopped, presumably temporarily, on a strict line. For safety the Humvees had been left twenty kilometers west of the line and the attack point had been set up about two kilometers inside. It had been a long twenty-two klicks humping all those bits over the tundra.

But the Humvees were still there, which meant they didn’t have to hump it the whole hundred and fifty to the Thumb of God.

“Keep moving,” Cady said, grasping the whole bot and lifting it into the bed of the Humvee. “I’m not going to be happy until these things are back in the States. And not very then.”

“They’re not radiating,” Mahoney said. He was the team’s designated electronics and intel geek and already had the devices the scientists had loaded them with out and operating. “No radio signals. No gravitational signals. No apparent subatomic particle stream.”

“Doesn’t mean they’re not talking to somebody,” Cady growled. “Load it up and let’s move.”

He dumped his ruck and the minigun in the back of the Humvee and got in the driver’s seat, picking up the squad radio and donning the headset. The new system they’d been issued had no carrier wave for the bots to home in on and only radiated when used. The system worked over short ranges using the so-called ultrawideband Pulson chip technology and was theoretically too low-level and spread-spectrum a signal to pinpoint. Alan and Roger had really geeked out on them. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to use it.

Shane climbed in next to him as Mahoney and Gibson climbed in the back.

“Mahoney, you getting anything at all?” Shane asked as Top put the vehicle in gear.

“I’m getting intermittent radio from east of the line, sir,” the specialist replied, looking at the readout on the Gateway laptop. “Multiple frequencies, very short bursts. It’d be interesting to set up a full radio intercept site somewhere near here. I think Doc Reynolds is right; these things use plain old radio.” As the Humvee bumped over the springtime tundra he kept hitting keys and nodding.

“Interesting,” the specialist said. “There was a big burst of signals about six hours ago, sir.”

“That when we hit them?” Shane said, then shook his head. “No, that was about four hours ago. Any idea why?”