Alex Wong
The Swarm
Astor sailed through the corridors of the Hirondrelle briskly, not stopping until he reached the Captain's cabin. Drifting through the doorway, he looked around and found the captain, making his way towards her.
"Is there a problem, Astor?" She asked, her voice soft and gentle, just loud enough for him to make out the words.
"We're still going to enter orbit around Ararat in about half an hour, but our sensors are registering something strange on the other side of the planet. We're not sure what it is, Rose."
The Captain got up from her chair, leaving behind the book she was reading on her desk. The two of them floated through to the flight deck, Astor taking a seat at the controls, next to a dark skinned man who was frowning at a small cluster of display screens. As the Captain took a seat behind the two pilots, he turned around to greet her.
"Good morning, Rosalind."
"Hi Jamil, what's the situation?"
Jamil did not respond for a moment, poring over the sensor data with a small frown.
"What we have is a small anomaly in our sensor data, located around the other side of the planet. We noticed it about two hours ago, and since then it has become almost twenty times bigger than it was before. I have a few ideas as to what it might be, but none of them are good."
"How long until we see it?"
Astor did a few quick calculations in his head. "We should have visual contact in about an hour, captain."
Time passed by quickly, and the strange object appeared from around the other side of Ararat. It was a hazy blob, shimmering as it scattered sunlight in every direction.
Astor squinted at the blob, "It looks like a dust cloud to me, what about you guys?"
Jamil tapped a few buttons, and a display screen melted out of the ceiling, showing the haze at a high magnification. Astor could see the individual elements of the blob – silver insect-like machines with four wings and numerous appendages. The camera zoomed back out, and the three watched as the swarm flew towards a communications satellite that was in the vicinity. The swarm consumed the satellite with cold efficiency, barely even slowing down.
"Something's happening, there's a lot of heat being generated from the object." Jamil said, zooming back into the swarm. "They seem to be making more of themselves."
The camera confirmed Jamil's words, and they watched as the insects regurgitated the digested satellite material, bringing forth welding and cutting arms to shape the matter into new insects. The process took very little time, and through the window, Astor could see the blob flex and expand.
Astor had a confused look on his face. "What's the point of all this? What does it achieve?"
"I don't know, Astor, but it probably isn't a good thing for us, or anyone else, for that matter." Rose replied. "Move us closer in, and prepare a hyperfast missile, maximum yield. We need to see how effective our own weapons are against those things."
"I don't think that would be a good thing to do," Astor said, "You saw what they did to that satellite. There's nothing stopping them from doing the same to us, Rose."
"I agree with Astor, captain, firing a weapon at those machines would almost definitely provoke a response and we have no idea what sort of things they could do to the Hirondrelle."
"There are colonies on Ararat, and however dangerous it may be for us, we still have a duty to protect them. Those machines just took apart a satellite in little to no time. There's no knowing what sort of other things they might have consumed, and there may even be more of them scattered around the star system."
Astor sighed; there wasn't much point in arguing with Rosalind. She usually turned out to be right anyway. Together, he and Jamil manoeuvred the Hirondrelle into range of her hyperfast missiles. There was a soft rumbling, dampened by the fabric of the ship, as the missile emerged into space. They watched as the missile streaked away, traveling in a lazy arc so as to intercept the swarm from below, and into the mass of machines. The explosion was bright, causing the windows to darken themselves, but when it was over and they could inspect the damage, it became obvious that it had not done much. The insects had absorbed the explosion, and began rebuilding almost straight away, nullifying the damage that their missile had dealt. Then the machines began moving towards them.
"Turn us around, and get us away from here at maximum acceleration. Ready all of the weapons; we want large area damage against those things."
Working together, Astor and Jamil turned the Hirondrelle around, bringing the ship up to five gees of acceleration. Astor was pressed into his seat, feeling five times heavier than normal. Rear facing sensor gave them information on the insects behind them, Astor saw that the swarm was chasing the ship, gaining ground.
Reaching to the control panel, Astor assumed control of the weapons. The computer did most of the work, calculating the best trajectories for each individual weapons emplacement. Astor felt the ship shudder as missiles streaked out behind them, followed closely by rumbling as the rail guns launched dense, tungsten projectiles at the swarm. He watched as the weapons impacted, spectacular flashes from the display screen.
"They're still gaining on us." Jamil's usually calm voice sounded slightly scared now. Astor ignored it, as he fired the weapons again. This time there were more of them, smaller and less powerful, but more numerous and they hit the swarm in much the same fashion as the first wave, exploding like a bright array of fireworks, but there was no time to admire that, as the ship's proximity warning sounded.
"There's another swarm on our starboard side!" Jamil sounded really terrified now, Astor thought with a sense of detachment as the three of them stood up. There was a scrabbling, scratching sound coming from the hull, as the machines clawed at the metal, eating away at the fabric. Astor pressed a large button on the ceiling panel, and three guns formed from the nanomatter and fell into their waiting hands just as the machines broke through to the flight deck, the walls reforming behind them as the ship attempted to keep the crew alive. Astor fired and invisible pulses of gravitational energy tore the melon sized machines to bits. It was impossible to hold them off forever, and Astor was dimly aware of another swarm of machines breaking through the rear of the ship, aware of Jamil and Rose turning to face them, aware of the machines getting to them, tearing them apart in a cascade of metal. Then the machines were all around him, their razor sharp limbs cutting and scratching at him. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe, he–