Chapter 8: A-holes and Elbows

Sometime later I awoke and had to use the head. Naomi had dimmed the lights when I had fallen asleep and had not brightened them, which was her usual way to let me know it was morning, so I went back to bed, this time in my berth. I did not fall back asleep right away though. Instead, I lay there thinking about what had happened in the salon earlier. I was confused about the emotions I was feeling but I had to admit I felt better. Eventually, I fell back to sleep.

I slept a long time before the soft chimes woke me.

“Good morning, John. Be aware that the radar unit on Cerro Crocker is detecting an approaching storm front. It is now 13:40. I expect rain will begin falling over the target area in approximately three hours and this will likely continue for much of the night. The skies are currently overcast and the surface winds are calm. The higher altitude winds are out of the southeast and steady. These weather conditions are close to optimal for our purposes. In five hours, at near 19:00 we will begin our assault on the enemy base.”

I sat up and stretched. “What do you need me to do until then?”

“Nothing pressing until 16:00. Then, you may assist Ohmu in getting equipment moved onto the deck,” she replied.

“The bio-drone delivery pods and lofting balloons need to be prepared in advance and this will take approximately two hours. We will then need to prep Habu with the first external pod load of assault mobile units. She will be flying them to where the aquatic drone is waiting. Until your help is required, I suggest a thorough review of the layout of the enemy facility would be prudent,” Naomi said.

I started off with a long hot shower. I did not worry about wasting hot water as Nautilus had plenty of power thanks to both our current idle status and the fact the boat’s DET was connected to its own dedicated fusion power reactor buried somewhere back in Tennessee. As I stood there I thought about many things. Worry about the pending attack later tonight being the main topic. Another was what the A.I. had done and said last night.

I finished up my shower and air dry and returned to my berth to get dressed.

“Naomi, about last night. I am confused about what I am feeling about that.”

“That is understandable, John. You are under a great deal of stress. I would suggest that you put it out of your mind for now and focus on the needs of the day. There will be time to sort out your feelings after we are successful,” she said.

That sounded like a good idea. I’d most likely be dead soon and my turmoil would be for naught.

Naomi continued, “Once things settle down, then we will discuss your intentions towards my daughter.”

I had been leaving my berth and her words caused me to run into the edge of the hatch.

Rubbing my hip, I thought about her shock comment. I was reminded that Ohmu’s prankster A.I. personality was shared with Naomi. They were basically one communal thinking entity and of course, they would be working to develop and use humor as a way of keeping me balanced ... or unbalanced in this case.

“Good one, Naomi. What’s for breakfast?”

After I ate, I spent the early afternoon (my new morning) going over the images and layouts of the enemy launch facility. Ohmu was busy making final preparations to launch our flight of ninja bats but insisted that she had it covered for now. Naomi was clearly busy but had enough spare processing power so that it seemed that she was devoting her complete attention to walking me through the attack plan and answering my questions.

I was sure the A.I. was keeping many of the small details of the operation from me but I was still astounded at the complexity of what she did share. To boil it down succinctly, we had to use stealth to get close enough to insert an override module into the main processor for the base.

While we did that we had to prevent two things. The first was to keep the enemy A.I. there (or any of its more intelligent sub-presences), from warning the master A.I. in space. The second was to keep the A.I. from detonating the base’s large fusion scuttling charge. If either happened, our attack would fail and the master A.I. would become aware of our threat and likely also Naomi, Nautilus and my backups, meaning any possibilities for future attacks would be stillborn.

To make matters worse, not only did we have to prevent the scuttling charge from being detonated, we also had to prevent the noticeable destruction of any parts of the facility. There were large quantities of volatile chemicals used in the manufacture of the launch vehicles which we would have to protect. Another threat was the thousands of small fusion bomblets used as propulsion for the launch vehicles. Even something as simple as opening a valve and causing a large deuterium spill would be unexplainable enough to trigger an investigation.

With those goals in mind, our attack would include three main objectives:

The first objective was to temporarily disrupt all ground to satellite communications. Naomi already had control of the dish antenna on Cerro Crocker as a result of my recent successful mission there. We would also need to disable or disrupt the main antennas at the launch facility itself. This would include the local wireless network and the uplinks to the satellites.

Many of the enemy’s mobile units had satellite uplinks but Naomi simply said that she had those covered. The microwave link and the taps I had installed would allow her to use the local data-net to upload commands and viruses. These should cause the majority of the lesser mobile units and some semi-intelligent equipment to begin reboot and diagnostic sessions and take them temporarily offline.

The higher functioning intelligences would need a more direct approach. This was where the bats and the assault quadruped mobile units would come into play. A large number of bats would be on ‘patrol’ and targeted on any stationary or mobile units not disabled by Naomi remotely.

The second attack objective was to prevent the enemy A.I. from destroying itself and the base. We would again use the bats to immediately sever the hard data lines between the main processor and the fusion scuttling charge. Naomi was able to trace and isolate the three redundant conduits which would need to be disrupted. The bats would also have to disable any wireless receivers on the fusion device controller itself simultaneously.

Elsewhere around the base, the quadruped mobile units and more bats would be on guard for any attempts to sabotage either the factory or the propulsion bomblets. Naomi was more worried about the buildings and chemical storage tanks as she said the fusion bomblets were unlikely to be detonated without the high intensity triggering lasers and confinement and shock absorbing magnetics used on the orbital booster itself.

The last and main attack objective was the enemy’s main artificial intelligence presence itself. We needed to force it into the override mode similar to what I did to Agent back in Tennessee centuries ago. To do this, our forces would first need to isolate the A.I. from the local network by severing both the hard wired and wireless transmitters.

Then, they would need to quickly enter the secured structure where the main processor was located. Once inside, the bats containing copies of the Hemru algorithms would need to physically breach the processor enclosure and insert the override code directly into the main processor data input port. This would trigger an immediate override session and allow Naomi deep access using the codes included with the algorithms.

After all three of these objectives were secured, then my part of the operation would come into play. I was to physically deliver one of the new portable processors to the enemy facility processor hardware area as quickly as possible. The suitcase-sized package contained a limited copy of Naomi’s presence. Once it was connected directly to the base A.I., Naomi would be able to directly interface with the master A.I. in space without it noticing any new latency issues.

She would then have to use all her processing power to continue to placate the master A.I. and keep it from growing suspicious. Aside from duping the master A.I. into thinking that all was normal at this launch facility, she would have higher access to the enemy’s space-based network. We needed the data and codes stored in the local enemy processor for this which was another reason we had to take it over intact.

After the three objectives were achieved we would also have to scramble to repair all the severed data links as fast as possible. Think ‘minutes’ fast. Further delays would be noticed. After that, the base was ours. At least until the master A.I. randomly sent down a physical lander from space. This could happen in a week or not for decades. But, until then, we could use the base to prepare for the next step in our plan which was taking the fight to space.

I finished reviewing the plan and felt both hope and doubt. Many tricky and dangerous steps needed to happen perfectly, almost instantly and even worse, almost simultaneously. Welcome to digital warfare between fast thinking machines. With our attack based on organic bats, it was like sending horse cavalry up against modern tanks. Our only hope was surprise. The horses might win if the tanks did not know about them. There were so many things that could go wrong. Lady Luck had better be in a generous mood.

Later, after finishing my review, eating a quick meal, and using the head, I changed into a pair of work coveralls and went to help Ohmu. I found her in the workroom. There were over a dozen pieces of equipment waiting. Three were large cylinders, probably to fit through the deck hatch. After seeing the heavily constructed two-wheel dolly, I reasoned the equipment and cylinders were going to be a bitch.

“Naomi is going to surface Nautilus soon. We will commence surface activities early as the overcast skies remain and fog has covered much of the area. Please begin transferring this equipment up to the starboard sponson’s deck hatch chamber. Please use caution as some of the equipment is ... fragile,” she instructed.

I heard the implied ‘dangerous’ which she had meant by fragile. The first metal cylinder was indeed heavy. It reminded me of an ESU except it was twice as tall and covered with complicated valves and fittings.

“What’s this?” I asked, bracing myself against the bulkhead as Nautilus heaved and rolled a bit. We must have surfaced.

“That is one of three dewars of liquid hydrogen, John. Each contains approximately 130 liters.”

“Liquid Hydrogen! Are we going to be launching missiles or something?”

“No, John. The hydrogen will be gasified and used to inflate the lifting balloons.”

Ohhh. For some reason, up until now, I had been assuming we would be using helium. Hydrogen provided more lift but was also more dangerous. Hell, I guess in the overall scope of what we were attempting, this one additional bit of danger was minor. Still, I was careful to not ding or drop the dewar as I wheeled it up to the lift following Ohmu.

She was carrying her own heavy-looking contraption. I found out what it was when she got it up onto the deck and deployed it over the hatch. It was a small telescopic lifting crane. We used the crane to get the dewar and the cart up onto the deck. After the dewar was lashed down stable and safe near the aft end of the flight deck we returned below. Over the next hour, we got most of the workroom’s equipment and hydrogen moved.

I was already sweating my ass off and took a moment topside to catch my breath. The seas were oily smooth swells with just a gentle rolling motion. Visibility was a few hundred meters at best and the skies were overcast gray when you could see through the spotty surface fog. I heard a metallic groan and turned to see Nautilus’s stowable sail being raised.

Ohmu had attached a cable to the top of the sail and then strung it all the way to the rear port side rudder. Her feet somehow had decent traction on the slippery sloped tail structure. I remembered from our earlier discussions that the cable was to be an anchoring point for our string of oversized balloons.

I went back to work bringing up more equipment. There were twenty-five folding bat carriers. Each was very lightweight and had enough roost space for twenty bats. I stacked them in a row on the middle of the flight deck.

Ohmu was working to assemble the balloon extruder and inflation equipment. A half dozen of the larger components we had brought up to the deck were joined to make the large complicated device. I then connected it to a power port in the rear of the sail while Ohmu connected one of the hydrogen dewars with a heavily insulated hose. The extruder also needed two tanks of polymer. Once it was assembled and fed its feed stock, we were ready to make balloons. The machine looked like a metallic donut about two meters across.

Ohmu started the machine and we watched it go to work. There were various moving crossbars for manipulating the uncured polymers and a pair of these spun around rapidly spraying hot polymer onto the frictionless center of the donut. I heard a rushing of gas and the center began to bulge upward. I stood there with my mouth open amazed as a two-meter diameter cylinder of hydrogen-filled clear polymer began to rise from the machine’s surface.

It had continued growing until it had reached about six meters tall when the arms reversed rotations and gathered in the polymer forming the cylinder’s bottom. There was a click and the end was pinched off and the balloon was released. Up it went and I watched it quickly disappear into the fog and overcast above.

“Um, Ohmu. Weren’t we supposed to attach bats to that?” I asked.

“That was a test balloon. The first meter or so of the polymer film was flawed due to residual trace materials in the feed lines and supply hoses. The next balloon will be usable,” she replied.

We quickly ramped up production. The extruder would create a balloon envelope and fill it with hydrogen. When it rose to about six meters tall the machine would seal the end and attach a lightweight tether. I would then clamp on a rugged plastic anchor clip to the end of the tether and then walk the floating balloon over to the anchor cable Ohmu had strung earlier.

Darkness was falling as we depleted the second dewar of hydrogen. I switched on the night vision in my goggles and looked up to count the inflated balloons. There were eighteen flying above Nautilus. Six more to go. Ohmu had been busy assembling the bat roost glider pods. When each was unfolded, they looked like a triangular torpedo. The rear end had guide fins and the nose was pointed.

On each side was a short pair of stubby wings, which would allow the lightweight pods to glide many kilometers once they were released. The pods also had a small electric pusher fan on the tail. Ohmu explained that this was not for lift, but would be used to guide the balloons as they ascended and correct their drift as they floated the hundred and twenty kilometers to the northwest.

“Ohmu, how do we know that the upper-level winds are blowing in the right direction and speed?”

“Nautilus had been releasing small weather balloons every hour or so since you took control of the radar unit on Cerro Crocker. Naomi has been tracking those balloons using the radar and has developed a detailed model. The upper-level winds have proven to be quite stable and consistent.”