after the Columbus attack, some within the government had begun calling for a ban on all nano-D weaponry. The stuff was deadly; there was always the possibility that it would escape human control. Nano-D was programmed to shut down after a certain period of time or a certain number of disassembly cycles, but if that programming failed, the cloud of hungry molecular machines might keep on going, gobbling up everything in their path. Worse, a small twist to the programming code could have the nanoD take disassembled atoms and reassemble them as more nano-D. The cloud would grow, and might easily expand to devour the planet.
Back in the late twentieth century, some people had argued against the entire idea of nanotechnology. All of Earth, they’d warned, might be transformed into a mass of “gray goo” if nanotech disassemblers began taking matter apart and building new disassemblers in a never-ending spiral of destruction.
However, like fire, nanotechnology had proven to be far too useful for human industry, medicine, and economics, despite its obvious dangers. With careful safeguards in place to control the disassembly process, gray goo had never become a serious threat. Despite those safeguards, though, nano-D weaponry had been refined and improved over the years until its potential for mass destruction in warfare had become unrivaled.
As well as fatal for some millions of the citizens of Columbus.
What, Gutierrez thought, a little desperately, would Admiral Gray have done here? America carried nano-D weaponry. Earth was under the gravest threat it had ever faced. Would he have ordered its use if he’d been the one calling the shots?
Sara Gutierrez was fairly certain she knew the answer. Gray had always been an unorthodox tactician, using what was available in new, decisive, and often astonishing ways. Hell, twenty years ago, as a young fighter pilot, he’d won the nickname “Sandy” Gray by launching AMSO rounds—anti-missile shield ordnance—at attacking Sh’daar vessels. AMSO warheads were little more than packages of sand fired into the paths of incoming missiles; Gray’s tactical innovation had been to launch that sand at capital ships at close to the speed of light.
Damned few enemy ships had survived that encounter.
Was using nano-D any less moral or ethical than throwing near-c sand at someone?
She doubted very much that Gray would have seen much of a difference there.
“Okay,” she said. “Load the first two nano-D rounds, spinal mount,” she said. “CAG! Tell our people out there what’s happening and make sure they get the hell out of the way!”
“Yes, Captain.”
According to the most recent set of regulations, ship captains were supposed to get permission from higher military authority to launch nano-D weaponry. There was a loophole, though. Sometimes, the speed-of-light time lag was just too long to make checking in with headquarters possible.
But … heaven help you if you were wrong.
“Okay. How far is the objective from Earth?”
“It’s currently crossing the orbit of Jupiter, Captain,” the helm officer reported. “But at an oblique angle. Call it eight light-minutes.”
Too far, in other words, for her to ask permission.
She took a deep breath. “Notify Earth of my intent to launch nanotechnic disassembler warheads at the target once the tactical situation is clear.”
It would have to be a case of shooting first and asking permission later. But such was the nature of deep-space combat.
1 February 2426
New White House
Washington, D.C.
2045 hours, EST
“She’s going to what?”
President Koenig wasn’t angry so much as startled. Sara Gutierrez, so far as he’d known the woman through reports and after-action briefs and discussions with Trevor Gray, had always struck him as a cautious and somewhat conservative ship commander. She was a consummate professional, meticulous and very good at what she did.
Unlike Gray, she wasn’t one for dramatic gestures or surprises. Certainly, he’d never expected her to be the sort to unleash nanotechnic hell on the enemy.
“The report gives no details, Mr. President,” Marcus Whitney, Koenig’s White House chief of staff, said. “Captain Gutierrez simply said she would use the weapons once the tactical situation had cleared.”
Koenig knew all too well where Gutierrez was coming from. He’d been there himself more than once a couple of decades ago when he’d commanded the America battlegroup. A ship captain observing a battle light-seconds or even light-minutes away in fact was looking into the past. The tactical situation could be “cleared” only by getting closer … and receiving more up-to-the-moment intelligence.
Of course, the problem was even worse for would-be micromanagers watching from almost a full light-hour away. Gutierrez likely had already moved in close and launched her deadly attack … or she was about to, and there was no way that Koenig or his staff back on Earth could deliver up-to-the-second orders or advice. The fog of war had always been a problem for commanders on the battlefield; that murk became impenetrable when you added the dimension of time, and the difficulties created by communications limited by the speed of light.
“We have other warships across the solar system,” Admiral Armitage told him. “The Essex, the New York, and the Kauffman are leaving SupraQuito now, along with their support groups. Varyag, Putin, San Francisco, and Champlain have just left Mars orbit. Komet will be pulling out of Ceres in another ten minutes. We’ve sent emergency recalls to eighteen vessels on High Guard patrol, out at Neptune orbit …”
“Bottom line,” Koenig said, waving a hand in curt dismissal. “How long before we can set up an effective defensive line between Earth and those … things?”
“The defensive line will take several hours to establish, Mr. President. The first ships—a Pan-European carrier group transiting from Jupiter to Earth—should join the America within the next twenty minutes. In another two hours, we may be able to muster another fifteen vessels.”
“Our time or theirs?” Koenig thoughtclicked an in-head icon, bringing up a 3-D display filling a quarter of the Oval Office with translucent, glowing images. There were dozens of military vessels scattered across the solar system, from the Mercury power facilities tucked in close to the sun to High Guard patrols scattered through the Kuiper Belt, maintaining a watch against infalling comets. America and a red icon marking the alien intruders hung near Jupiter’s orbit, though that gas giant was currently on the other side of the sun.
The problem, as always, was that Sol System was so freaking big. Even with near-c velocities and high-G accelerations, it would take time, far too much time, to assemble them all in one place.
“The task force will join America at 1805 hours, fleet time,” Armitage told him.
“So, basically,” Koenig
