Von Neumann’s War

Roger frowned as something dropped past the pickup, then he began noticing more and more objects. But it was dark in the dome, the only light now coming from the occasional flash of lightning as a probe died. In the stroboscopic effect of thousands of the probes flashing their death light, he tried to figure out what was happening. Then, suddenly, the video pickup rocked and then tilted downward, its mounting apparently destroyed. In the dim strobing from dying probes, and now a strange red light from burning metal, he could see pieces of probes littering the ground in every direction. The ground was covered in smashed probes, many of them strobing and adding to the overall lighting effect. Indeed, the quality of the light was improving as more and more of the probes added their death flickers, creating an ambient light that was weird beyond all imagining. Then the camera went dark.

He switched to the last pickup on the mountain that collocated with the laser projector. There was a steam rising in the area, probably from the cooling system that had to be working overtime. And in every direction there was a weird glow from atmospheric breakdown and ionization. The laser itself was infrared, in a band of light that the human eye couldn’t see. Despite that, he could clearly see it tracking across the sky. Close. It was hard to get perspective, the fog of gas around the projector limited the ability to see actual probes, but it looked as if the laser was hitting something no more than fifty meters away. And besides the weird green-white light from the dying probes, the sky over the projector was the strangest purple-orange Roger had ever seen in his life.

“What the hell is that?” Roger asked, dazzled, confused and awed. They had created this… this… wonderful, glorious nightmare.

“Excited gas,” Tom said after a moment. “It’s a good thing there aren’t people up there or they’d be choking to death. The laser shoots a probe. Probe breaks up. Falls towards projector. Laser cuts it again. And again. Before long you’ve mostly got gaseous metal. That blocks the laser. We should have thought of that. Not sure what we could have done.”

“Wind generators,” Shane said instantly. “Big damned fans. Blow it away. Maybe something like ceramic jet engines.”

“See, this is why I wanted to stay,” Roger said. “To watch. Not just for kicks, mind you. But… Damn, this is…”

“Apocalyptic?” Tom finished for him. “Certainly awesome. But… ah…”

Suddenly, the laser stopped tracking. And in seconds, the video went dead.

“And that’s that,” Tom said, sounding almost satisfied to have the laser finally die. “At some point, the oxygen level was going to drop too low for the generators—”

“Told you we should have used nukes,” Alan pointed out. “No problem there.”

“And so it goes,” Shane added. “Monte Sano Mountain falls at last.”

“Yeah, but those aren’t the only projectors we have,” Roger said, smiling faintly. “Here comes… Weeden.”

Monte Sano Mountain had two projectors. Atop Weeden Mountain, which sat in the middle of the Arsenal, there were nine.

* * *

There were actually three peaks to the ridge that ran down the center of the arsenal: Weeden Mountain, Madkin Mountain and Ward Mountain. None of them technically met the definition of a mountain, since none of them rose to more than six hundred feet over the surrounding terrain and barely 1200 feet above sea level. On the north was Ward, the lowest at barely 900 feet, then Weeden then Madkin, both at 1200 feet. Ward had one battery of one thousand “mine” rockets and a laser projector. Ditto Madkin. The rockets on Ward Mountain faced north, the rockets on Madkin faced south. On Weeden, centermost, there were two batteries, east and west, and seven projectors. These three peaks, overlooking NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, the Arsenal and Huntsville itself, held the hopes and dreams of the survival of the human race.

Most of the critical equipment for Asymmetric Soldier had been moved into newly dug tunnels in Weeden Mountain. But the major facilities, the buildings and shops scattered across the Arsenal, were nearly impossible to replace. Holding the probes at the line of the Arsenal border was, therefore, a high priority.

The main defense command center was located in Weeden as well, in a heavily reinforced bunker buried in the heart of the mountain. Since the day when General Riggs had pointed out that “we’re not part of FORCECOM,” things had changed. Besides commanding the Arsenal he now had under his direct control a brigade of light infantry from the 82nd Airborne Division. And, of course, Shane Gries’s “special security detail.” The brigade was scattered around the mountain, holding critical positions in the hopes that they could stop the probes if they broke through the main defense line. But the main doors to the command center were held by the short platoon under Major Gries.