Von Neumann’s War

They’d kept up a steady pace, walking through the strange arctic twilight and into the “dawn” as the sun began, once again, to ascend into the sky. As they approached the base at God’s Thumb, though, it was apparent that the probes had been there before them.

The region around the base was flat as a pancake so the control tower was normally visible from at least ten miles away. However, nothing of the base was apparent until they got into the last kilometer.

“Holy shit,” Jones said. The approach brought them in close to the massive runways that had been the original reason for the base’s existence.

Used as far back as WWII for antisubmarine patrols, the facility had been heavily upgraded during the Cold War to support long-range bombers. The runways were designed to launch loaded B-52s on their way to gut the Soviet Union, thus they were very long and made of very thick concrete.

They were now… long, plowed-looking sections of dirt and crumbled concrete.

“They pull the rebar out of the concrete,” Shane said, balancing his end of the pole. There had been long carry-poles in the Humvees. On the way to the ambush it hadn’t been worth carrying them, in Shane’s opinion. But once the Humvees were trashed they’d picked them out of the debris. The long poles could be run through the handles on the catch-bags so the soldiers detailed to carry them didn’t have to use their hands the whole time.

And Rank Hath No Privileges when there was over three hundred pounds of probes and parts to carry sixty kilometers.

“What are we going to do, sir?” Jones asked as they continued to follow the edge of Runway Road. The road itself had been torn to bits.

“Get down to the main base,” Shane said, gesturing tiredly at the cluster of buildings. “Find something to spell out ‘Come Get Us!’ Then leave it up to Roger and the rest of the guys to figure out how.”

The specialist nodded and continued to trudge forward. They hadn’t been able to carry all that much ammo with them — it had been a trade-off between time, ammo and probe bits. Shane had edged towards time and probe bits over ammo, so if they had to fight the probes off again they wouldn’t have all that much of a chance. Of course, the old man knew that, too. So mentioning it would be pointless.

As they approached the main base, which was connected to a small port by road, it was apparent that it was, essentially, rubble. Not a single building was standing and all of the concrete roads had been torn up. Some of the roads, those with asphalt surfaces, were intact.

“Jesus,” Mahoney said as Shane stopped, raised a closed fist and lowered the burden to the ground.

“Well, they don’t rape or burn,” Letorres said, drifting over to pick up a piece of paper that was blowing by in the incessant wind. “There’s that.”

“But they sure as hell do loot and pillage,” Sergeant Gregory said, nodding. “Anything useful?”

“Training schedule,” Letorres said, flicking the paper to blow towards the ocean. “About as useless as it comes.”

“Top, see if you can find anything to improve sheltering,” Shane said, rubbing his shoulder. “Get out some perimeter. Mahoney, set up your boxes. I want at least thirty percent personnel up at all times; these things don’t care about day and night.”

“Gregory,” Cady said. “Take Jones and Letorres and do a survey for any shelter that’s still standing. Just a couple of walls will do. Angle down towards the port. The rest of you, get the gear in a huddle and put in a perimeter. Nelms, center up again, potato guns out and carbines in. Let’s get it moving, people.”

* * *

“Nothing, nada, zilch,” Jones said an hour later. The three soldiers had moved southward through the base, looking for anything that could be used for shelter. But the vast majority of the buildings had been concrete from which the rebar had been pulled. They weren’t even sure where on the base they were; the road signs were gone and most of the roads had been dug up for metal.

“We need to get heading back,” Gregory said, looking at the sun. Despite trying, the Huntsville team hadn’t been able to come up with any really good nonmetallic watches.

“I could use some rest,” Letorres said, shaking his head. “I could swear that bit of rubble just moved,” he added, pointing to a section of what had probably been wall.

“Me, too,” Jones said, drifting sideways and then taking a knee to target the pile of broken concrete.

Gregory spun slowly in place, taking in the sky and ground, then turned back to the pile.

“Slow advance,” the staff sergeant said. “Jones, keep it covered. Letorres right and rear, I’ll take left and rear.”

The three spread out in a rough triangle and approached the rubbled wall, which was about seventy meters away.

When they were about fifty meters from the pile or rubble, Jones raised a closed fist, then stopped and took a knee.

“What?” Gregory asked, keeping security left and to the rear.

“Shit,” Jones said after a moment. He stood up and let his weapon drop on its sling, cupping his hands around his mouth. “HEY!”