Von Neumann’s War

“So, we make that many. And I’ve already figured that out. We don’t use potato guns — well, maybe a few as larger grenade launchers. Instead we use paintball guns. Sarge and I’ve found three different manufacturers of them that can make canned air powered full auto systems that fire up to fifteen balls per second. The balls just have a liquid paint in them anyway so…” Alan paused and looked up from his PDA to see if Roger was paying attention. “So, we fill them with a high explosive. And here is the good part. I only had to come up with two very simple modifications to make them completely out of a carbon polymer material. No metal. And Sarge found one company — couple of enthusiasts really — that has a minigun that can fire nearly three hundred rounds per second!”

“That’s good work, Alan. How long before we can get delivery on them?” Roger asked.

“Two weeks for the first thousand rifles and first hundred thousand rounds. But we’re building up manufacturing capability at all the redoubts now that we know what we’re dealing with. We’ll have millions of rounds and hundreds of thousands of guns within a month and a half. The minigun needs more mods since it had more metal in it and the first twenty will be delivered in a month.”

“Great, let’s hope we have that long. Triple the efforts on that if you can. But we still need a Hail Mary play or a hook-and-ladder kick-off return to use if we’re behind by a touchdown and only five seconds left on the clock.” Roger was subconsciously upset with the fact that there would be no more SEC Football and his game analogies and euphemisms were starting to surface as a symptom. Others had symptoms of the under-siege society in other ways. God only knew how Alice’s and John’s little girls were handling it.

“Well, I’d say we’re a couple of touchdowns back and its time to pray for the onside kick,” Alan added to the analogy.

“I’ve been thinking about what Shane said about them attacking the radios and the report of the AWACS going down and the probes hitting the Falcons when they went active. You know, they hit the probes around Mars and the Moon, which all had transmitters going. Sure we shielded the lunar probe good, but it was still radiating like a bastard out the back lobe of the antenna. Hmmm… what if they weren’t taking out our eyes but were just hungry for radio?”

“Maybe, but that might just be a good way to accomplish knocking out our eyes.” Alan pondered the radio emissions point for a second. “So, where are you going with this?”

“What if we took a nuke or some other BMF explosive and attached it to a huge radar transmitter? Or several distributed radars with a bomb each? We wouldn’t kill them all but we might could contain their movements and reduce their numbers. Gries was telling me something about a so-called killing field tactic that comes to mind.”

“Killing field, yeah, I see. Well, if they rebuild themselves with nanotechnology, blowing them up might be a bad idea,” Alan replied.

“Would it really? Wouldn’t the fireball vaporize most of the material or carbonize it? I’m asking here, I don’t know.”

“Well, you know what the Martian Manhunter said in that episode of Justice League Unlimited. The nanomachines would just get spread out all over the place and the threat would be spread that much further. Of course, that was just a cartoon. Who knows?”

“But what if they don’t use nanotech to replicate?”

“Okay, I’ll bite. But if they don’t use nanomachines what do they use?” Alan shrugged. “Tom was right a long time ago. We should’ve nuked Mars when we lost the first probe.”

“We need some of these things to study.”

* * *

“Mr. Sergeant Cady,” Tina tugged sheepishly at the back of the large intimidating black man’s shirt. “You walk fast.”

“Hello, Tina. And it’s Sergeant Major Cady. Just call me Top, like everybody else. That’s really what a first sergeant is supposed to be called, not a sergeant major, but my troops are used to it. What can I do for you?”

“See I told ya, Dingbat.” Charlotte punched her on the arm.

“Charlotte,” Cady nodded at the other teenager, amused.

“Well, uh, Charlotte and I have been hearing all of you guys talk about these metal-eating alien robots. Is it true?” Tina asked.

“Well, I’m not supposed to talk about it, but don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. You should talk to your mom and see what she will tell you.”

“Well, I would but her and Dr. Fisher, you know Charlotte’s dad,” she nodded at Charlotte. “Well, they flew off to somewhere to build a new rocket or something. They won’t be back for a few days and, well, we’re worried about something.”

“Oh, who is watching y’all girls?” Cady was surprised.

“Oh my God, Top. We’re both fourteen years old, and surrounded by the Army, what could happen to us?” Tina held her hands in the air palms up and cocked her head sideways.