Chapter 2 - Please Dispose of Alien Superweapons Responsibly.
June 2088, Ottawa
International Governmental Cooperation Committee Building
Threat Identification Group
"The balance of opinion is still that the Charon Planium Mass is most likely a weapon of truly devastating power," General Gauthier LeBatelier, Chief of the Defense Staff and the highest ranking Canadian Combined Forces officer, said as he gestured at the huge holo floating in the middle of the enormous room. Nearly two hundred people were sitting in three concentric rings around the center depressed area, all of them intently studying the image and listening without a word.
This was the modern version of what had once been the UN Security Council before the destruction of New York in 2034, along with nine other conurbations in the former USA and nearly a dozen more world wide during the madness of the Quick War. Eleven minutes and nineteen seconds caused twenty-three countries, large and small, to cease to exist, created five new ones, and utterly changed the course of human history. And, of course, killed directly nearly half a billion people and indirectly twice that in the years since. Even fifty-four years later bodies were still being located and laid to rest. Many would never be found.
These people were the ones responsible for making sure such a thing never happened again and were extremely dedicated to that end.
"The latest high resolution scans from the Deep Array fix the mass at just over sixty-one thousand two hundred and twelve metric tons of planium. It's in a compact mass very close to the center of Charon. Our people are convinced that there is also a large amount of refined metals surrounding it, due to interference on the scan, and are attempting to design an upgrade for the Array to allow it to directly detect materials other than planium itself in quantities smaller than a moon. Early indications are that while this is most likely possible, it may well take several years at a minimum to arrive at a prototype, so for now we can't rely on it."
He brought up a different graphic. "Further tests on the planium samples recovered from Mars after the Event have let us characterize its properties more exactly, and the more we learn about it the more worrying it becomes. The energy release from destabilization is truly enormous, far more than a matter-antimatter reaction which was once considered the highest possible due to Einstein's equation for matter and energy equivalence."
"Excuse me, General?" the representative from the Caribbean Aligned States politely cut in, the building AI projecting a holo indicator over his head to indicate who was speaking, and simultaneously translating his words into all the languages in use completely seamlessly through their n-links. General LeBatelier turned to him and waited. "How is that possible?"
"You would have to talk directly to the scientists for a full explanation, sir," the general replied. "However as I understand it the excess energy comes from the dark matter bound into the planium. The interaction between the WIMP field and the planium somehow catalyzes a discharge of dark energy when the substance is forcibly destabilized. But that's the limit of my understanding of that subject."
"Thank you, General. My apologies for interrupting," the man said with a nod, sitting back and resuming listening.
Turning back to the display with an acknowledging nod, LeBatelier resumed his presentation. "As I was saying, the energy release is almost unbelievably enormous. It works out to approximately three and a half exajoules per gram, or in other words somewhat more than eight hundred megatons TNT equivalent per gram of planium. The density of the material is about the same as that of aluminum so a gram is roughly a third of a cubic centimeter."
He held up a coin. "About that much. To produce an explosion that is nearly fifteen times larger than the largest fusion bomb ever detonated. The weapon that destroyed New York was less than two hundred kilotons and it killed nearly a million people instantly."
Looking around at the room, he changed the holo to show a map as he went on, "If a blast that size occurred in this room, everything between Perth to the southwest and Thurso to the northeast would be totally obliterated. The fireball would rise out of the atmosphere. Everyone from Quebec city to the other side of the Great Lakes would be at risk of thermal burns." As he spoke a simulation ran, showing an immense blue fireball rising into the sky over the 3D map of eastern Canada. "That is from one gram of planium."
Looking around again at the appalled faces of the TIG committee, he paused to let his words sink in.
After a while, which was completely silent, he changed the display to show the Pathfinder Event recording, something everyone in the room was very familiar with, as was pretty much everyone on the planet at this point. "The PDE was the result of approximately a hundred and ninety-four kilograms of planium detonated. If that happened here… Well, we'd lose the entire hemisphere for sure. Projections are that the end result would be the nuclear winter to end all nuclear winters, probably a new ice age, and the loss of upwards of ninety percent of all life on the planet, within fifty years."
No one said a word, but they were listening very carefully indeed.
"The scientists tell me that the yield is almost constant, although it goes up by approximately two percent between microgram amounts and low gram quantities, then settles down to a linear progression. So it's easy to extrapolate from what we've seen to what would happen if the Charon Mass was triggered. To a very rough approximation it's more than fifty one million teratons."
The silence in the room was deafening, as everyone present consulted their n-links for what that really meant and felt faint. He carried on regardless.
"Nearly one percent of the gravitational binding energy of our planet. Twelve hours worth of the entire output of the sun. It would utterly annihilate the Earth's biosphere if it detonated anywhere with several AU. And that's just from the thermal and electrical energy release," the general said in low but audible tones.
"The even more dangerous aspect are the gravitational waves it produces as it destabilizes. The PDE caused gravity ripples that were detectable by the probes around Saturn. The Charon Mass would, assuming the scientists are right again, cause so much gravitational disturbance that Charon itself would probably collapse into a singularity, which is a problem all on its own due to the astronomical amount of Hawking radiation that would be emitted in the process. They're fairly certain that it would also trigger massive solar flares when the waves reached the sun, which would devastate the inner system, and quite possibly cause the orbits of even the outer planets to radically change."
When he stopped talking everyone simply looked at him for nearly thirty seconds, until the Prime Minister of Canada cleared her throat. "So what you are telling us is that if it is a weapon it is one designed to destroy entire stellar systems, General?"
"That does appear to be the consensus among the scientific and military advisers, Ma'am," he replied with a nod. "It's not a star killer, but it's more than enough to cause so much damage to a star system that it would render it uninhabitable for centuries. And most likely kill almost everyone in it even from that distance, unless they were shielded by the star. We believe that, assuming that the detection of a metallic structure around the planium mass is real, that this is probably some form of delivery system intended to transport it deeper into the system if it was activated, to cause the maximum amount of damage." He changed the display back to the original one showing the ghostly image of Charon with the bright spot in the middle.
"It's clearly in our opinion almost certainly a doomsday weapon, or terror weapon of some sort. You don't need something even vaguely close to that size for any normal military purpose. The only reason to have a warhead that big is to kill an entire world, and there are very few reasons we can plausibly consider that would make that an option. That device is a species killer. We assume it to be the work of the threat the Promethians were worried about, and quite likely those behind this thing are what they were running from. And in all probability were destroyed by."
"A planet killing missile hidden inside a dwarf planet on the edge of the solar system," the Prime Minister muttered. "It sounds like something from a holonovel."
"Unfortunately it is very real and very dangerous, ma'am," he said with a sigh.
"If it is a weapon, General, whose is it? You say that the assumption is that it is the work of whoever the Promethians were running from, but considering that the technology is apparently the same as that of the Promethian base on Mars, isn't it possible it was actually made by them instead of aimed at them?"
LeBatelier looked over at the other side of the inner ring of seats to the woman who had spoken, the Minister of Science for the European Alliance.
"We considered that, of course. It can't be ruled out, I admit. We are fairly certain that they never came back, and our conclusion is that this is probably because they couldn't come back. Possibly due to being rendered extinct, or maybe just chased out far enough that they abandoned our system entirely and for good. But it is within the realms of possibility that they set up a trap for their attackers using Charon as a phenomenally large land mine equivalent that would be detonated if their attackers returned looking for them, then made sure to hide somewhere else. If that's the case, presumably the second alien force never did return, which is the only reason we're still here in the first place."
He shrugged. "We may well never know one way or the other. Most of our analysts consider the Charon Mass to be more likely to be the work of the attackers than the attacked, if only because of the enormous disparity between the sizes of the two planium deposits and the complexity of an operation to embed it at the center of Charon itself, then erase all traces of its presence. Without the Deep Array we'd most likely never have found it. It is very well disguised in an unlikely spot for anyone to simply stumble across it."
"The similarity in technology is easily explainable as a common technical base," she mused out loud. "After all, everyone on Earth knows how to make nuclear weapons and that knowledge spread in only a few years at most."
"Exactly." He nodded.
"Could it be something other than a weapon, in your opinion?"
"It's certainly not impossible, Ma'am," he replied after a moment's thought. "And I would like to believe that. Unfortunately I find that difficult, as does everyone else who's working on the problem. Planium is far too dangerous to use for almost any possible use we can come up with so far. Yes, it can be used as a very potent source of energy with minimal effort, but the potential for catastrophe is so high no one thinks any sensible intelligence would ever risk it. It has some interesting properties that could make a variant of antigravity very simple to arrange, but WIMP technology allows us to do the same thing without too much effort and far more controllably, to say nothing of being vastly safer. Our AG systems, if they fail, don't destroy entire countries."
"I understand the researchers have discovered it can be used to reduce effective mass, or indeed increase it," she said after thinking over his words. He nodded. "Surely that has important applications?"
"Undoubtedly, but again that can be achieved through much safer methods, I'm assured by our research experts. The studies of microgram amounts of planium are quite rapidly synergizing with existing WIMP theory to allow us to duplicate essentially any property it has, without risking the lives of millions of people. And no one can see, even if you were going to use planium for that mass altering effect for some reason, what you would need over sixty-one kilotons of the stuff for. It's a quantity so appallingly and insanely large that an enormously powerful weapon is still by far the most likely and plausible scenario, as worrying as that is."
"And what about the chance that our mysterious aliens may have known about the uses of planium but not had WIMP technology, so never realized how dangerous it really is?"
He sighed a little. "We have discussed that as well. Yes, it's possible, but a lot of it hinges on whether planium occurs naturally or not. And if it does, how common it is, how much or little is found in any one place, and a host of other parameters. If it's like uranium ore, for example, it would take a significant effort to refine it to the point it could be utilized, at great cost and risk due to the toxicity, but it could be done by a fairly primitive technological civilization who were sufficiently determined. We managed to build atomic weapons in an era of vacuum tubes and piston engines, after all. But we're fairly confident that the study of it would inevitably sooner or later lead to the discovery of WIMP theory, as the study of radioactivity led to theories such as relativity and quantum mechanics. The big problem with that of course is if it did, there's a better than decent chance that the first thing they'd manage to do is destroy themselves when they tested some form of WIMP flux generator and it interacted badly with any planium they had in range."
"Which clearly neither of these alien species did or they wouldn't have visited us," she said with an understanding look.
"Precisely. If they'd chanced across planium and its uses, we can't see how they wouldn't have studied it properly. Which would end in disaster unless they got incredibly lucky." He looked around at the others for a moment then focused back on her. "At the other end of the scale, if they came up with a working WIMP theory and the technology it leads to like we did, they could have discovered the danger without destroying themselves, possibly by triggering a naturally occurring formation of planium. If it does form naturally. And if it doesn't, it's in theory possible to make it. Opinion is divided on how likely it is that it's something that is a natural material or a synthetic one. We won't know until and unless we happen to find some lying around out there. All we currently know is that the only two sources of it in the solar system were brought here by outsiders, and could well have been used in warfare, which does somewhat point to the second possibility rather than the first."
She nodded thoughtfully when he finished.
"Thank you, General. I will admit I was doubtful to begin with, but I can't deny that you put a compelling case before us."
"I would very much like to be mistaken," he responded with a shake of his head. "We all would. The implications of a planium bomb big enough to kill the entire solar system orbiting around Pluto for who knows how long is terrifying. But in my opinion we have to proceed on the basis that the most likely application for the device is exactly what we suspect it is. Even if it is not actually a weapon, it's still phenomenally dangerous and we need to deal with it one way or another. The risk to everything is far too high to allow it to remain where it is."
"So in the end it can be summed up as a peaceful use is possible but unlikely, while a military use is all too plausible," the Prime Minister commented sadly.
"Quite. For weapons you actively want dangerous and unstable materials," he nodded. "It's stable enough to be handled in large quantities provided you are correctly shielded from the toxic effects, but sufficiently simple to detonate that it's easy to use in a warhead. We already have several teams who have sketched out designs for such weapons, should we ever need them. It's almost too simple for my peace of mind, in fact. Much simpler than successfully producing a fusion warhead and with no accompanying radiation."
Once again, there was silence, before several people began talking at once.
#Order, please!# Athena, the IGCC AI said in their heads in clear tones. #Please settle down and allow the general to continue his presentation. Questions can be asked one at a time.#
"Thank you, Athena," the Prime Minister said. "Calm down, people." She glared at the South American League's Premier, who was standing and had his hand outstretched. "Sit down, Carlos."
The man looked mildly embarrassed, glancing at his neighbors, then in the face of her expression subsided into his seat. "Carry on, General. I must admit I share the disquiet at hearing about weapons research using planium. We all remember what happened in thirty-four and the idea that such a thing could recur with weapons even more devastating than fusion bombs is not a comforting one..."
"As you say, Ma'am, no one wants a repeat of the Mad Years," he replied when she fell silent. "The entire point of my job, and that of everyone present, is to make sure that never happens. But the issue is that there is, or at least was, someone or something out there that appears to have mined our outermost planet and almost certainly killed an entire species of aliens. We have to assume that they still may be out there, or someone else with a similar goal. Researching methods to defend ourselves is entirely sensible and falls within the authority given to me and my people."
"Are you seriously saying that you're worried we might get attacked by extraterrestrials?" the EA science minister asked slightly incredulously.
"I'm not dismissing it as a possibility," he replied, turning to her. "We know for a fact that at least one other intelligent species existed, only fifty thousand years ago at most. As I said there is strong evidence to the effect that another species attacked them, and quite possibly killed them off, since they don't seem to have come back since abandoning their bases on Mars. There are a hundred and fifty billion stars in our galaxy alone at a minimum and the chances that only two or three of them produced intelligent life seems minuscule, not to mention the fact that there are billions upon billions of other galaxies in the universe. We know we're not alone, and we know that at least some of our neighbors were both aggressive and highly dangerous."
Casting his gaze around the room as he dismissed the floating holo, he resumed talking after a short pause in which no one appeared to dare replying. "The TBT drive allows transport to the other side of the galaxy as easily as from Earth to Mars. We could get visitors from almost literally anywhere. Even from Andromeda, if it comes to that. Sure, we're one star out of billions and the odds are very low of someone accidentally stumbling over us, but on the other hand we also have irrefutable proof that it's happened at least twice in only fifty thousand years. That does somewhat imply that it could be a regular event."
Waving a hand at the ceiling and implying the universe, he added, "Hell, for all we know there's an entire galactic civilization out there with thousand of species running around all over the place, just like out of an SF book. If someone comes here looking for their ancient superweapon, or just to say hello, I would be remiss in my duties not to have at least considered the possibility they'd turn out to be hostile and to take preventative steps."
"As much as I'd like to deny it, you make a worrying amount of sense," the EA woman finally responded.
"I don't like it either, Ma'am," he said. "I didn't end up in this position because I want to kill people, even aliens. But my job is to consider the unthinkable and prepare for the worst, even while hoping for the best."
"Well said, General," the Canadian PM nodded. "I think we can all agree on that. I also think that we can all agree that we need to make sure that no planium is allowed to fall into the hands of people irresponsible enough to do something unfortunate with it."
"I can see no good reason to allow it on the planet at all," the SAL premier remarked, with a look around. Quite a few people nodded in agreement. "Even tiny amounts could kill millions. We need to regulate the material as carefully as we control fissionables and biotoxins. There is essentially no peaceful use for it, it doesn't occur naturally in the entire solar system as far as the scan data shows, so we should arrange to make sure that it is all collected from Mars and stored safely somewhere a great distance from inhabited areas."
"There have been plans for some years to establish a research outpost on Ceres," someone else pointed out. "With the TBT drive, accessing almost anywhere in the solar system becomes a trivial matter. Perhaps we should press ahead with those plans, suitably modified to allow research into planium far enough away from places we value to make sure an accident doesn't cause too much damage."
"The WIMP flux shielding technology is proving successful," General LeBatelier noted. "Although it still needs refinement before anyone would want to risk transporting planium inside a TBT ship. The scientists are sure it's no longer a risk for detonating it at range, though."
"That's simple enough, we just transport the stuff with normal non-superluminal craft from Mars," the EA minister said. "The latest ships can do that in under two weeks worst case. Once the planium is safely stored, personnel and equipment can be transported via TBT drive. We could have a base up and running in less than five years."
There was general agreement on that idea. After discussing it for a while longer, Athena called for a vote, and the resolution was unanimously passed.
"The Martian planium is one thing, but what do we do about Charon?" the CAS representative queried when they'd returned from a short recess. "Clearly we cannot allow it to loom over us like the Sword of Damocles indefinitely. The risk of accidentally detonating it is tiny but not zero, even if we assume the original builders never return."
"We are still working on that, sir," LeBatelier sighed. "And believe me, I've lost a lot of sleep over it in the last year. So far we don't have a good solution, but we'll find one eventually. Until then, we can only keep our distance to minimize risk and keep working."
Not one of them was happy about that, but no one could come up with an alternative, not even Athena when asked. So in the end they tabled that for another day and went on with the rest of their work, uncomfortably aware of the distant yet far too close threat that had probably been there for most of human history.
Not that this made it any easier to consider...
October 2095
Ceres Secure Research Facility
Designated TBT Minimum Range Perimeter
#Ceres flight control has cleared us for approach, Alex,# the voice of her ship whispered in her mind.
Captain Williams, former test pilot on the Pathfinder program and the first human to travel faster than light, nodded. "Thanks, Hermes." She turned around and looked at the people in the rear of the fast courier she was in charge of. It wasn't as glamorous as testing the very first superluminal ship, but it was an excellent posting and she loved it. She could and did go anywhere in the system, and at times as far as the Oort cloud, where a number of observation bases were being established. The only place absolutely forbidden to any blink drive ship was the zone ten AU in radius centered on Pluto, which was enforced rigorously by AIs and military forces. Not that anyone was stupid enough to even risk it.
Humans were many things, but globally suicidal wasn't one of them. They'd learned their lesson at last. And their AI companions made sure they didn't forget why.
The new Ceres research center had a much, much smaller forbidden zone, but it was still seriously maintained. While it was very unlikely verging on impossible for a shielded blink drive to destabilize planium even at point blank range these days, no one wanted to be the first to test it, so they made sure they always shut the drive down a million kilometers away out of an abundance of caution. In time that would probably be found to be unnecessary but right now both she and Hermes completely agreed with it.
'I can't believe how fast life has changed,' she thought as she examined her passengers. Two of them were famous, since they were the pair that had made the initial discovery that had led to this point, over three and a half decades ago. Both Doctor Warden and Doctor Jeffries were well past seventy now but these days that was at worst early middle age, what with the way medical technology was improving now AIs were helping out. As in almost every field, their synthetic friends were rapidly changing things at a rate that was almost dizzying.
The future had arrived very suddenly, and humanity was still getting to grips with it. Enjoying the hell out of it for the most part, but with a slightly puzzled look at the same time…
"It'll take about thirty minutes from here before we can dock," she said after that moment of introspection, even as at the back of her mind she kept track of the ship accelerating on AG and fusion drive. Inside the vessel nothing could be felt other than a subliminal vibration conducted through the structure. It was a far cry from her very first trip into space twenty five years ago.
Doctor Warden smiled. "I still find it amusing that we can, in theory, go anywhere within hundreds of thousands of light years in microseconds, but we end up riding a rocket for the last part of the trip," he remarked with good natured approval.
Doctor Jeffries laughed. "One way or another we're likely to always find the first and last few kilometers take almost all the time," she replied to him, as the other four people in the ship listened. "We can't jump into atmosphere, for a start, so we need to use AG drives for that part."
"I have a few ideas about that," Doctor Warden said mysteriously. "But that can wait."
"Do you really think your people have worked out a solution to the Charon Weapon?" Alex asked after a second or two. It was something she'd wondered about ever since she'd first heard the rumors from friends in the scientific arm of the RCSF a couple of months ago.
"We have a number of plausible concepts to work out the final details on," Jeffries replied, turning to look at her. Doctor Warden relaxed and let her speak, while his other three companions, all scientists from various IAP research departments, listened as well. Two of them were women, one in her twenties and one about ten years older, and the man was about forty.
"How can you deal with that much planium?" Alex knew very well how elaborate the precautions on the Ceres base were and it only had under eighty grams of the ghastly substance, the end result of decontaminating Mars as well as could be arranged. Even with the latest scanning technology it had been a vast effort that was still ongoing. Suggestions from exasperated technicians that they simply fly an unshielded drive close enough to set the remaining planium off had been firmly rejected as far too destructive, so they had no choice but to do it the hard way. Hundreds of people and AI command remote drones had been crisscrossing the red planet for years. "We can't possibly risk destabilizing it."
"No, we can't," Jeffries agreed. "And we can't reasonably cut open Charon to get at it and possibly break it up into smaller pieces to deal with it that way. Everyone suspects it's most likely booby trapped as a security measure, since that would be the logical thing to do. So we're going to move it."
"Move… it?" This puzzled Alex. If they couldn't get at it, how could they…
#I believe Doctor Jeffries is referring to moving Charon, not the warhead,# Hermes, who was a constant presence in her mind through her n-link, said with a note of amusement. Alex gaped as Jeffries nodded, smiling a little.
"You're going to move a moon twelve hundred kilometers in diameter," she said flatly.
"Yes."
"How?!"
"There are several ways that were discussed," Doctor Jeffries replied. "One was to install some very large AG systems on it along with a series of massive fusion torches, using the moon itself for fuel. It would then need the drives fired in a sequence synchronized to Charon's orbit of Pluto to gradually raise it, like they used to do with satellites and probes. Pluto's gravity would help with that. It's slow but it would work."
"The problem is that we're none to certain that a sufficiently strong AG field to allow something as large as Charon to be moved in a reasonable time wouldn't interact with the planium, since we're not sure if it gets more sensitive as the amount increases," Doctor Warden put in. "In theory we can shield that, but the risk is far too high if we're wrong."
Alex was staring at them, still stunned by the idea of just moving an entire moon out of the system. It seemed ridiculous.
On the other hand she was in a spacecraft heading towards Ceres at enormous speed while being piloted by an AI that was linked to her brain, so ridiculous wasn't quite as simple as it used to be…
"Someone suggested putting a very large TBT drive on it and just jumping it out of the galaxy," Doctor Warden added with a grin, which made her mouth drop open. "Again, in theory a drive that big is fairly feasible. Bigger, even. On the other hand we're back to it going off pop if we make a mistake, and we don't know if it would do it before it left or afterwards. If we were certain it would be afterwards, it would be a good plan, but as it is it's too dangerous."
"The current plan is something of a wildcard, since we haven't tried it before, but the calculations show it should be possible," his colleague resumed when Alex managed to collect herself. Even Hermes seemed surprised by the last suggestion as far as she could tell from her link to him. "It's more or less an inversion of the AG concept. We've never had reason to do it, but it's eminently possible to use gravity generator to produce a very large positive gravity field rather than a gravity-nullifying one. It's an extension of the inertial compensator in most respects, only vastly more powerful."
"So… you make a giant gravity field, which gives you..." Alex thought it through, then suddenly got it. "Oh. That's brilliant. You generate an enormous gravity field which makes an artificial gravity well. The entire moon moves towards it!"
"Essentially, yes," Doctor Jeffries nodded. "We should, in theory, be able to generate a field large enough to warp the space near the moon in such a way that it 'falls downhill' into it. We pull it out of orbit, not push it. The beauty of that idea is that the WIMP flux of the gravity generator falls off much faster than the gravity gradient itself does. So we can ensure that even if the shielding doesn't work as well as it should, it's far enough away that it doesn't matter."
"And we then just move the generated field steadily away as Charon speeds up and we should be able to gently pull it out of the system." Doctor Warden looked pleased. "It'll take some time, although less than we first expected when we came up with the idea, but we can get it up to a respectable speed in a few months or so. When it's safely clear of the Oort cloud we can send some probes down to study it if we want, although a number of people are pushing for simply deliberately detonating it to make sure it's gone once and for all. I'm a little hesitant over that since we'll lose any real data on the damn thing, but I can't deny I'd feel better if it was no longer there."
Alex nodded, understanding completely. Everyone who thought about the Charon Mass wanted it gone.
"So you're out here doing tests?" she asked.
"That's the idea." He indicated the others. "Sandra is a gravity generator expert, Habib is our power systems engineer, and Sabine knows as much about WIMP shielding and associated technology as anyone I know. Best student I ever had."
The younger woman looked mildly embarrassed but pleased at the praise.
"We're going to test it on a small scale to begin with, using some of the asteroids as targets, loaded with small quantities of planium as a definite indicator of shielding issues," Sandra said. "Since it'll be pretty obvious if something goes wrong."
Thinking back to twenty years ago, Alex couldn't help but agree. She still saw that blue fireball in her nightmares sometimes.
"I hope it works," she finally remarked, turning back to the console to double-check the physical indicators in a habit she'd never been able to break. "Sooner that bloody thing is gone the happier everyone will be."
Even Hermes made a sound of agreement.
January 2103
Oort Cloud, 231 AU From Sol
Onboard Charon Mass Disposal Ship Gatekeeper
#We have reached the calculated safe distance. Ready to fire.#
"Stand by." Captain Roberts looked around the bridge of his ship, which was one of the largest so far built. The size of an old fashioned wet navy destroyer it had a complement of close to two hundred people, half of them scientists and the remainder crew. "Do we have final authorization?"
"You do, Captain. Proceed at your discretion." General LeBatelier stood to the side at parade rest, his hands behind his back, watching calmly.
"Thank you, sir. Mackenzie, fire the WIMP beam torpedo, then jump us back to Pluto orbit as soon as you confirm detonation."
#Yes, Captain. Torpedo accelerator online, target locked, distance ten AU. Threshold crossed, torpedo outbound blink completed, return blink completed… Detonation is confirmed.# The view in their n-links from the external cameras jumped and they were two hundred astronomical units away in microseconds.
"That was a slight anticlimax," Captain Roberts commented mildly. "We won't see the results for more than twenty seven hours."
"I for one am perfectly happy to wait," LeBatelier grunted, stretching a little. "I'd have been even happier to get that damn thing even further away, but everyone was starting to get restless about it. It's far enough outsystem that all we'll get is some gravity turbulence for a few hours and a nice light show, so that's good enough for me. At least it's gone now."
"And we can stop worrying about alien super-weapons and start the real work," Roberts chuckled.
"Until we find another one," the general sighed. "Where there's one, there may be more. But we will deal with that if and when it happens."
"Would you like to join me for a meal?" Captain Roberts offered. "We've got some superb synth-steak in the galley."
"Sounds like a good idea, Captain," LeBatelier smiled. "Lead on."
Both men left the bridge, the AI Mackenzie transferring command to himself as they did. While he waited for the pretty blue lights he pondered what the next years would bring with great interest.
Life, even for an AI, was very interesting these days, he decided.
Humans were great fun.
