Defeat (11 page)

She was in her late forties, kept
her hair short so she wouldn’t have to take care of it, and had
never been married. Stanley didn’t find her ugly, but she wasn’t
attractive and she didn’t do anything to make herself
attractive.

“
Hi,” he said
simply.

She sat and watched him. She
didn’t say anything.

“
Busy?”

She shook her head. “I’m always
busy.”

“
I could come
back another time,” Stanley said softly.

“
Okay.” Sherry
returned to focusing on her screen, one leg tucked up on her chair,
her arms hugging it, her face resting on her knee as she stared at
something.

Stanley watched her. He should
just leave. It would be better for everyone if he did.

“
Samovitch wants
to abandon Mars. She wants to bring up the crews of Opportunity and
Spirit and return to Earth.”

Sherry just kept hugging her leg
and staring at her screen. She rocked a little in her
chair.

Stanley moved into the lab. “All
these years! All the time we’ve spent preparing for this mission.
We’re supposed to be the ones who learn everything there is to
learn so we can establish a permanent colony on Mars. That’s what
we’re supposed to be doing!” He slammed his hand against a wall and
Sherry jerked, looking up at him like she wondered why he was still
in her lab.

“
If we leave now,
if we abandon this mission because of a minor communication bug, do
you know what I’ll look like?” he said, jabbing a finger towards
the woman. “I’ll look like an idiot, is what I’ll look like.
Everyone will say it should have been a military commander on this
mission, not some weak civilian. But it’s the military ones who
want to leave. Commander Samovitch and that idiot Major Crayton
from Opportunity are just panicking. They’d wet themselves to get
back to Earth right now.”

Sherry turned back to her screen
without saying anything.

“
If Opportunity
and Spirit are abandoned, do you know how many years it will take
to restore a human presence on Mars? It took us fifty years too
long to get here in the first place. Do you think we’ll ever go
back?” he harangued. “It’s stupid.”

Stanley paused for a breath, then
continued, “Besides, don’t military types get shot for deserting
their posts?”

He waited this time for Sherry to
say something. They stared at each other, Sherry looking
uncomfortable, but she finally answered, “The silence from Earth
could be because of the Hrwang.”

“
The Hrwang.”
Stanley threw up his arms. “Everybody is terrified of them. You
know what we should be doing, don’t you? We should be finding out
how the Hrwang got here. Do you know what it would take to cross
interstellar space? We’ve spent decades just to get eight people
set up in two bases on Mars. There’s only ten of us on board this
ship. Eighteen people at Mars, about forty on the Moon, and the
Hrwang have crossed interstellar space! We should be worshipping
them, learning everything we possibly can from them. Who knows?
Maybe there’s no contact with Houston because they’ve found a
better way to communicate, and a spaceship with new gear will be
popping out here soon, and everyone will finally realize that just
because aliens show up, they’re not the
bogeyman.”

“
Wouldn’t they
have told us that’s what they were doing?’

“
What? Are you’re
afraid of them, too?”

Sherry shrugged and looked back at
her screen.

“
You’re an
idiot,” Stanley said. “You’re just as bad as
them.”

She didn’t look away from the
screen.

“
This is stupid,”
Stanley complained and shut the door behind
himself.

Drone 1804 was refueled and
outfitted with a new weapon, a hollow tube that fired round, ball
bearing like shot. The parameters of its mission were downloaded
into it, and it left the Hrwang ship eagerly, ready for a new
challenge.

The hostiles on the planet had
only one moon, like Hrwang, but only one tiny outpost on it, a
single domed structure.

1804 jumped close to the moon,
then floated, inspecting the structure from a distance.

A geodesic dome within another
geodesic dome, the lunar base was surrounded by boxy structures
attached at ground level. The Hrwang had little data on the base,
and part of 1804’s mission was to learn as much about it as
possible. It moved closer.

It circled the base twice, probing
for weaknesses, wondering if the base had defensive weaponry, but
encountering none. It could see movement within the inner dome and
estimated the base housed no more than forty personnel.

The boxy structures seemed to be
air handlers. 1804 determined that there was a 60 per cent chance
six of them were carbon dioxide converters, designed to convert
carbon dioxide and water to an aldohexose and oxygen. It was an
expensive process, and only in locations where oxygen was more
valuable than life, and abundant solar power was available, was it
even feasible. 1804 would be careful not to damage those
units.

Solar panels surrounded the dome,
and the likelihood of successfully cutting off power to the base
was slim. It inspected the air handlers again, and determined that
a shielded conduit that led to the main dome could be breached. It
was designed to withstand random meteorites, but 1804 felt sure it
could not withstand a repeated attack.

It jumped away from the moon, and
lined up over one of the handlers. It jumped in close and fired its
weapon, imparting the jump momentum to three ball bearings in
sequence.

It watched as the first struck the
conduit housing, shattering it, the second punching through, and
the third destroying the connection between the handler and the
dome. Air and water outgassed for a while, but then stopped. There
were safety valves that prevented more damage in case of the loss
of a handler.

1804 figuratively shook its head.
This would not be quick enough.

It flew lower, no higher than the
height of the dome, noting that it consumed a significant quantity
of fuel in doing so. It would have to find a weakness
soon.

It could see movement within the
dome, individuals pointing at it, and it took a fraction of a
second to ponder the lives of those individuals. It wondered why
they had attacked the Hrwang. It was foolish to attack a superior
race. They should have been subservient at first
contact.

It must be an indication of their
warlike nature, and 1804 moved back away from the dome out of an
abundance of caution.

The bullets firing out of the
opening airlock just missed it. 1804 jumped away from the moon,
lined up over the airlock, and then jumped back, firing five ball
bearings this time.

The first struck a figure emerging
from the lock with a firearm of some sort. Two more struck the
door, shattering it, and the last two bounced around the inside of
the airlock, killing everyone inside.

That gave 1804 an idea. It jumped
away again, then jumped back at a flatter trajectory, releasing
three ball bearings into the airlock. The inner door shattered and
there was a huge release of atmosphere from inside the dome, enough
that 1804 felt it. It jumped away to observe what happened
next.

It detected radio signals from the
base, could hear them, but didn’t understand them. Known
translations of the hostile languages had not been
downloaded.

“
Mayday, mayday.
We surrender. Mayday, mayday, this is Armstrong Base. We are under
attack. We surrender. Mayday, mayday.”

It dutifully forwarded the text
from the message to its Hrwang handlers. The message repeated
several times, but 1804 only sent one instance.

There was another airlock a
quarter of the way around the dome, and 1804 attacked it, blowing
up the outer door and then the inner door. More atmosphere
outgassed. It moved to the third and did the same.

The inhabitants surprised it on
the fourth airlock, and when the outer door blew open, explosively
driven projectiles hurtled towards 1804, several striking it. It
jumped to a safe distance.

A quick damage assessment
indicated it was mostly superficial, with one of its six legs
missing and several dents. The ball bearing weapon would still
work. It returned and destroyed the remaining airlock inner
door.

There must have been further inner
airlocks as there still appeared to be atmosphere inside the dome.
1804 floated in place to observe and ponder what to do
next.

Part of the mission parameters
were to leave the dome as intact as possible. The Hrwang could use
the base as a safe haven from hostiles still alive on the planet.
Moons were typically rich in mineral resources, and an automated
factory could be established there without interference.

It could fire its ball bearing
weapon at the transparent material the dome was made from, but it
doubted it could penetrate it without shattering large
sections.

1804 jumped back to just above the
dome, then used its tiny control jets to land on the surface. It
pondered what to do next, coming up with and discarding ideas. It
wished it had a drill. With a drill it could bore a small hole
through both layers of the dome and when the Hrwang arrived they
could patch it easily.

It knew it couldn’t use the ball
bearings against the dome. It would have to fire them at a great
enough velocity that most of the dome would shatter.

It tapped on the dome with one
leg, assessing its evaluation. After a few taps it decided that it
was correct; the dome was thick enough to survive meteor strikes.
The local hostiles would have had to plan for that on the
atmosphereless moon.

1804 wondered why they hadn’t
built below ground, then almost laughed at itself. A dome would
have to be first so the workers would have someplace to live while
they worked. The locals didn’t have advanced drone technology like
the Hrwang.

So it had to find another
way.

Looking inside the dome, 1804
could see the remaining residents running around, putting on space
suits. Perhaps they were planning another attack. It had to make up
its mind.

Then it had an idea.

It had destroyed all four
airlocks, but there had been some form of redundant system. There
were probably a lot of redundant systems.

But what if it destroyed the wall
past the airlock. It could start at a sufficient distance, jump
from there so that it carried enough momentum to launch ball
bearings through an open airlock to destroy the wall behind it. It
determined the most likely composition of such a wall and decided
it would have to expend all of its remaining ball bearings in the
attack. Its momentum would carry it into the airlock before it
could fire all of its ammunition, meaning if there were blowback
from the explosion, it could be hit before it could jump
free.

It calculated that its odds for
survival were good. It would precalculate jump coordinates, thus
would only be inside the dome for the merest fraction of time, yet
it knew that its odds of survival were not one hundred per cent. It
thought about that for a few moments, not knowing if it wanted to
take a risk.

It modeled a few other
possibilities and eventually decided this was its only option. It
signaled the Hrwang with its intentions.

“
Ever fight a
robot before?” Shinji asked, testing out the comm system in his
helmet.

“
No,” Anika
replied, her voice quavering. She was terrified.

Shinji felt terrified also, but he
acted strong. He’d heard of Bushido, and now that it was his turn
to try to stop the alien monster, he would fight with honor.
Besides, someone had to kill that thing or everyone in Armstrong
Base would die.

He thought about those that had
already died. Neil, Konstantin, Sally, Werner, Chiaki. Chiaki. A
tear almost came to his eyes when he thought of her loss. He and
Anika needed to succeed.

“
Ready?” he
asked.

“
I guess,” she
replied, then added something in Swedish.

“
What’s that
mean?”

“
It’s a
prayer.”

Shinji nodded.

He never learned if his idea to
fight the alien would have worked. The wall next to them erupted,
metal fragments bursting into the main hall of the dome, shrapnel
shredding everything in its path, including Shinji, Anika, and many
critical systems. Atmosphere vented through the gaping hole and out
the destroyed airlock, and the survivors were helpless to stop it.
As soon as the air in their tanks ran out, Armstrong Base would
officially be dead. Some of its occupants didn’t wait that
long.

6

Jayla found no one. Everyone in
the neighborhood of her father’s cabin, cabins which were built
miles apart from each other, had left, probably returning to
civilization when the power went out in the remote
locations.