Documentary interview with Dr. Stepan Jones
"So what is your role at the Nikola Foundation?" the interviewer asked. He is a lanky man in a suit who looks comfortable in front of the camera.
"I'm a neurologist who specializes in NIs. I work in the Department of Neurosurgery." Dr. Jones was wearing a white lab coat, a collared shirt and blue jeans, looking very uncomfortable in front of the camera. comfortable.
"Can you explain to people at home what 'NI' is?"
"Ah, this is the 'Nikola Intelligence Service'. We created the first version under Project Nikola and all subsequent versions have carried that name."
“So much so that the foundation was renamed once it changed its focus, right?”
"That's right. I'm committed to improving the nation's intelligence agencies to better perform the various missions they need to accomplish."
"So, you're going to tinker with the brains of these NIs. Won't that cause problems? Like the Zhengzhou incident?"
Dr. Jones looked even more uncomfortable. "Ah, yes, that was decades ago, well before my age. Don't worry, we know exactly what NI is thinking. There's no need to worry."
My main fiber optic backbone is cut along the surface between two optical transceivers. This is very inconvenient as I have a very limited inventory brought from Earth that I can use for repairs. Most of my sensors on the ground rely on quantum relays to communicate, rather than running endless cables, using the quantum entanglement of particles to send signals no matter the distance. However, they are tied to quantum routers, which are tied to fiber optic lines. Fortunately I can bypass the damage with secondary optical lines, but my bandwidth is severely limited. There was no way I could get any of the major routing hubs online, and certainly no way I could get my spectrometer or radio telemetry scanner online. But with some judicious packet routing, I was able to bring up some cameras in the affected area, at least enough to see what was going on.
A huge hole ran right across my fiber optic line. On its own, this appears to be harmless and appears to be the result of a high-speed kinetic impact, possibly from a smaller asteroid. Barring a few factors, this is the most reasonable explanation. First, I'm doing radar mapping, constantly simulating the asteroid field around me. Nothing nearby should have the relative velocity of such a violent impact, nor should anything hit the lunar surface within the next 6.3 months. Of course, the alien spacecraft hovering above the crater and preparing to land also shows that the impact was no accident.
The design of this ship is very similar to the strange tree-like ship that the Orion Arms Trading Company used to visit Earth. However, this one is much smaller. It was only thirty meters tall, and instead of dozens of rotating branches with pods at the end, it had only four branches. Each branch extends to either side of the ship's trunk, with equal-sized pods on either side. They spin rapidly to create centrifugal force; artificial gravity like the ones I use in my new factory.
As I watched, the bulbous bottom of the ship rested on the floor of the crater. The engine exhaust burns away a lot of debris, but eventually the more volatile materials are burned away, leaving only the nickel-iron surface. The long, thick legs slowly folded away from the base, and the branches began to turn even more slowly. The engines began to stall and the spacecraft came to a stop. It looks like a metal tree that planted itself inside my home, perched precariously in that crater.
My first reaction was to wonder how they found me. I was buried in the middle of an asteroid and I wasn't sending any signals at all. Is this an educated guess? Have they examined old broadcast footage from Earth where this project might have been discussed? My second reaction was outrage. These monsters destroyed everyone and everything I knew. They slaughtered countless people and now they are strutting around my little planet like they own it. This is unacceptable.
I continued to observe, not knowing how to deal with these intruders. I was worried because it didn't even occur to me that I might be threatened. I had no real defense. I discovered some plans to add hypervelocity coil guns as defense to colony ships decades later. Nikola-19 even marked possible installation sites in the ground and conducted preliminary drilling for power conduits. But this was a late addition to the plan and was not developed further.
I observed silently, unwilling to make any move that would reveal my whereabouts or even indicate that I was here. They probably know I'm in Ga
ymed, but they may not know where I am on this rock. With a diameter of about 30 kilometers, it is really scary to be hidden among so many asteroids.
But as time passed by, nothing happened. If I were still human, I would be tapping my foot impatiently or pacing the floor. I remember doing those two things, or fiddling with the pen and clicking them over and over. But I am no longer a human being, at least not in the traditional sense. I work hard to keep my status board green, I keep my construction drone busy, I move materials with my transport drone, I keep my factory humming, and I watch.
Then a door above the bulbous engine bay opened, and one by one six aliens in vacuum suits climbed down the ladder and descended to the ground. They spent hours building a ramp from materials passed to them through the same airlock door until a solid platform stretched from the airlock to the crater's rim. As time went on, I began to suspect they didn't even know I was here. If they found it, why not look for me? After all, with their ship anchored to the surface, any search would be impossible. If they already knew where I was, why were they so far away from my main entrance shaft? The ship was almost two kilometers away. With Earth's gravity at only one-tenth, such a hike would be extremely difficult, if not suicidal.
Once the ramp was built, construction crews began anchoring new supports to the surface around the crater to further stabilize and embed the spacecraft further. I realized they planned to stay a little longer. But why here? Why now? Over the next few days, that became increasingly apparent. I observed the aliens begin to build basic shelters, remove equipment, and begin exploring the immediate area around them. Two of the aliens were walking around with their equipment, stopping every few meters to stare at their equipment before moving on. They're prospecting.
It seemed like dumb luck that out of the countless asteroids in the asteroid belt, they chose the one I was working with. But if you look closely, it makes sense. There are asteroids of all shapes and sizes in the asteroid belt. But many of them are too small. Other asteroids move erratically, spinning on multiple axes or in eccentric orbits, often colliding with other asteroids. Larger satellites will be more difficult to scan, or require more time to determine their composition. When you boil it down, I can think of less than a dozen similarly sized asteroids that have the right size, rotation, and composition to be worth exploring. What seemed astronomically improbable turned out to be high probability, mixed with an element of bad luck.
It reminded me once again that while I can handle thousands of drones, large building plans, design projects, and countless smaller projects, I can’t have it all figured out. I completely ignored any form of defense or offense. As my base fabrication skills improve, I'm already trying to balance managing buildings with designing new factories and drones. Now I have intruders that I desperately want to destroy, but no defenses or plans are in place.
But I'm not completely helpless. I do have many, many drones at my disposal. But not all methods work. Small utility drones are tools with very little power. Heavy mining drones can't even reach the surface without drilling a huge hole in the asteroid which I want to keep intact. Transport drones can get there, but there's not much they can do unless they hit an alien. That leaves construction drones with only arc welders, and older mining drones with plasma cutters. I dropped half of them for practical reasons. It would take those with the spider-leg design a long time to reach the surface, let alone cross it and somehow face aliens. It doesn't help that some of the oldest drones using impulse drives are only slightly faster than their legged counterparts. But that left me with 24 pretty fast drones.
I take the time to make sure all drones are fully charged. I then park them in my largest transporter, which can fit through the entrance shaft and bring them to the surface. This way they don't have to use the battery during the 15km journey. I want every ounce of power I can get.
Once on the ground, I could see through the drone's eyes. Their quantum relay is connected through a router and is not affected by fiber cuts, so I finally have something more important than a few cameras. Unfortunately, the drone itself has nothing but a camera and radio. Using old surface radar maps, I guided the drone to a crevice 200 meters away from the alien camp.
Over the past few days, I have observed aliens working for 9.7 hours before returning to their ship. I doubt this is the maximum safe time they can work. From what I know about human spacesuits, I assume this means they are low on air and need food and rest. They will be away for 11.6 hours before returning, so they work 21.3 hours per day. I calculated that the length of their hour is 0.8875 Earth hours, but quickly put this information aside as it was interesting but not helpful in my current situation. If I send my drone to attack, the aliens will see them coming and flee towards their ship. Once inside the ship, they can escape from the asteroid and away from me. They might destroy their ship, but they might start throwing asteroids at me until Ganymede disintegrates and I'm destroyed.
The crevice my drone was hiding in escaped the alien ship, so I couldn't use it for concealment. But there was another crack thirty meters away, approaching the crater on the slope opposite the ship. If my drone stayed in the second fissure, if I could get in, it could get me within 50 meters before they emerged on the crater rim. I considered digging a tunnel with a mining drone, but the exfoliation from the borehole would likely be blown out of the ground, giving me away long before the tunnel was dug.
The asteroid rotates once every ten hours. Taking into account the axial tilt, and the position of the moon's surface, this meant total darkness, without the sun, lasting about four hours. My drone emits very little light, but on a dark night it would be visible from an alien spacecraft. It takes my drone 43 seconds to fly 30 meters to the next crack.
I decided to wait until the next dusk, after the aliens had returned to their ship, assuming they would be least paying attention at that time. That's when they're hungry and tired and ready for bed. It was a gamble, but seemed like the safest bet. I waited.
Following their established pattern, the aliens completed their work at exactly 9.7 hours, packed up their tools, and returned to their ship. It was noon on the asteroid, so I had to wait another five hours before I could make my move. In the darkest night, I command my drone to move. I counted the seconds with them, all my cameras trained on the alien craft. As soon as they cross I have them move to the deepest part of the new crack and go into low power mode.
I watched the alien craft to see if there were any changes that would indicate my drone had been noticed at the bottom of the rift. Seconds turn into minutes, and minutes turn into hours. The pod swung lazily around the trunk of the ship, the airlock door still closed. I breathed a sigh of relief and ordered the drone to move to the edge of the crater.
Now comes the crucial decision. Do I wait until the aliens come out again to create a distraction, or do I attack the ship and hope to get through while they're asleep? But I don't really know if they're asleep, and I don't know if my plasma cutter can get through them Reacting and slicing through the hull in time before trying to counter my attack. I decided to wait.
When the aliens came out for their next shift on the surface, I asked them to spread out and begin their day's tasks. Four of the men were working in a spot above ground, setting up something like a drill hole, and the other two were hiding out of sight in a makeshift structure they had erected. For me, it doesn't get any better than this.
I sent six of my most powerful mining drones to attack the ship. Ideally I'd like to cut open the hull so the air from the boat is pulled out of the vacuum. I will send the other 18 people to attack the aliens on the surface.
The element of surprise worked in my favor because my drone was almost at its destination by the time it was noticed. The plasma cutter on my mining drone was cutting into the hull of the ship, while the others started attacking. Six drones broke away from the main formation and rushed into the fence, while the remaining dozen or so flew towards the four drillers.
I heard the screams of encrypted communications over the radio. I didn’t need to understand to know I was found. The construction drone I sent into the quarantine zone set their arc welders on fire, and both aliens were expelling gas from the holes in their suits. The aliens swooped wildly at the drones, but every time they tried to dodge one, they were engulfed in the flames of another. First one, then the other collapsed. I watched them die, either from decompression and lack of oxygen, or from severe burns from the welders.
By this time, a dozen other drones had almost reached the driller. But they weren't completely caught off guard, and they had time to aim their drill at the drone. A laser beam shot from the end and into the first drone. This laser drill is designed to cut metal and rock. My drone is relatively simple in comparison. The second, then the third, fell. One of the drones I had on board exploded when the fourth aircraft came under attack.
I turned my attention back to the ship itself. The branch pods had stopped rotating, and the bottom one was aligned with the slope. A laser beam protruded from the bottom and hit the battery of one of the drones. Shrapnel damaged the drone on the ramp, but it kept moving. Shrapnel also tore several holes in the hull, revealing an empty space with a second hull underneath. I ordered the damaged drone to be put back and the one that was intact was put back in place and started drilling holes in the hull. I sent two to attack the lasers, and the last one tried to protect the drilling drone.
Meanwhile, the attack on the drilling aliens has begun. They had destroyed 4 and 5 drones, but the remaining 7 were too close for them to target with their laser drills. One of the aliens escaped because a drone scratched the back of his suit, destroying the electronic panels on the back of the suit. Three others stood in a circle, brandishing last-minute tools. The drones swooped down, taking them down despite the blows from the hand tools. The fourth alien fell, bounced several times off the asteroid's surface, and then stopped moving.
When my drone successfully penetrated the hull, there was an atmospheric explosion on the craft. The laser disappeared. In just a few minutes of fighting, I lost more than half of my offensive power, and my opponent was basically defenseless and completely unexpected. Six enemy dead and one enemy ship disabled, at the cost of six irreplaceable drones and one damaged. But despite the cost, I stopped my mining expedition and now I have an alien ship to explore. The aliens came back and discovered my asteroid. It's not my bad luck, it's their bad luck.
I was about to walk out of the house when my mother caught me. I have the worst luck.
"Come on, we're going to be late!" she said, holding her purse under one arm and a large protest sign under the other. "Your dad is already waiting in the car."
"He's not my father," I muttered under my breath, reluctant to speak out loud for fear of reigniting the endless battle of wills. It doesn't matter anymore.
It only took an hour to get to the protest site, and when we got there most of the congregation was waiting for us, all holding their signs. I walked to the edge of the crowd. I'm proud of the t-shirt I wear; it has a stylized "a" on it, the latest sign that I'm an atheist. But it went over the protesters' heads. They all have signs that say things like "God hates gays" and "You're going to hell." If they can't spell "goi
g”, then my subtle rebellion would be beyond their comprehension.
Across the street was a counter-protest, with a dozen police officers keeping the two sides separated. The counter-protest was much larger, filled with rainbow flags and posters that were smarter and more inclusive. A girl with rainbow-colored hair and wearing a shirt exactly like mine caught my eye. She held a tongue-in-cheek sign that read "Hell Must Be Great." The girl pointed to the logo on her chest and winked at me. I smiled broadly at her, wondering how someone could be so public about something so personal. I blinked back, my heart racing at my audacity.
"You're here," my mother said angrily behind me. "Here, I made this for you."
It’s a sign that says “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” It was eggshell blue with a white cross painted on it, and despite the horrific message written on it, it was beautiful. It obviously took my mother several hours to paint this picture, and she had a rather good artistic temperament when she tried to paint it.
"I'm not taking that," I said, and walked away. My mother flapped her wings after me at the edge of the crowd. I could feel her starting to get upset. After they got married, she tried very hard to put a pastor in place of my father and force my brother and me into the family pattern she wanted. But my brother moved out, ignored her requests, and I didn't become the kind of daughter she wanted. I'm starting to think there's more than one way.
"Listen, you need to start getting more involved in the church. You are of marriageable age now and your father has a nice young man you need to meet."
"I'm not even eighteen! I'm not going to marry a church guy," I replied angrily. In fact, I had a full scholarship to MIT and a bus ticket out of town on Saturday. But I didn't tell her or her new husband either. My brother took the day off and gave me a ride to the bus station. My luggage was packed and hidden in the closet. "One last time, that guy Not my father!"
Now my mother is angry. "Listen, you are going on a date with this young man after church on Sunday. If all goes well, we can have your wedding before the fall. We can have a big and beautiful wedding! You will look great in my wedding dress. beautiful!"
"Oh, of course, you're going to make me barefoot and pregnant before I can legally drink beer," I scoffed. "You are the epitome of the modern woman."
"There is nothing wrong with a woman knowing her place in the world," she screamed. I trampled on her dream of planning the perfect wedding for me with the best paranoia she could find from a church. "The sooner you figure out your place, the better."
"Oh, I know my place. It could be anywhere, just not here!" I stormed off, leaving the protesters and my family. I started texting my brother and asked him to pick me up and let me stay at his apartment for a week. I have to leave this place.
The alien spacecraft stood silently, without power and without any sign of life. I realigned my drone, sent out the transport drone, and loaded the multi-purpose drone onto the ground. I salvaged damaged and destroyed drones while cutting a large hole in the craft for my drone to fit through.
The outer shell of the alien craft appears to be a Whipple shield, designed to protect the main shell from micrometeorites and orbital debris, just like the ones humans have used in spaceflight for centuries. The thin outer layer is made of lightweight aluminum shell and is separated from the main hull by 20 centimeters. This will prevent most collisions from causing significant damage without adding too much mass to the craft overall. The inner shell is seven centimeters thick. The first 5 centimeters appear to be polyethylene composite, possibly hydrogenated, as the spacecraft needs to protect against cosmic radiation. The next two centimeters are tungsten. I was oddly disappointed; after all, these aliens were more advanced and I had been hoping to find some kind of super substance. But its basic design is rudimentary, like I found a basic model rather than a luxurious premium model.
Inside, I discovered that the trunk was a long corridor with ladders on either side. A long, thick vine stretched from the engine bay below to the branch that held the laser that attacked my drone. The vines were cut off by a closed blast door. I sent the drone up first. Four rows of branches protruded from the trunk. There are two branches in each row, one on each side of the boat, with a pod at each end.
In the laser cabin, I found vines wrapped around a control rod, like a hand with three fingers, like a huge plant controlling and protecting the spacecraft. The cabin is almost empty, with aluminum storage racks lining the walls, filling the space. The few shelves contained bits of unrefined metal and surface weathering. Small compartments line the interior of the branches between the pods and the trunk. Inside there were electronic panels, pipes and tubes containing volatiles like oxygen and water, and all the usual stuff I'd expect to find in a man-made spacecraft or space station. The ceiling section consists almost entirely of a large water tank, which will provide some additional measure of radiation protection for anyone in the branch.
The second row of branches was exactly the same as the first row, so I moved to the third row. I found a place to live there. The cabins on both sides are identical in layout. They were arranged in several small rooms with the "floor" oriented so that the boxes would be on top. Ladders lead into the room so they can climb out and "climb" the branches as they spin. The smallest room is a bunk bed. It was little more than a wardrobe with three narrow cots inside. The cots were made of a natural fabric I couldn't identify, and each had a sleeping bag attached to it. They have a zipper-like plastic buckle that, aside from being an odd size and shape, wouldn't look out of place in a sporting goods store.
The next room is the kitchen, with cupboards stuffed with colorful packages with alien writing on the labels to identify the contents. From my archives I loaded the Orion Arms Trading Company's language libraries that had been deciphered when humans were trying to negotiate with the aliens. Unfortunately, linguists don't have time to study the nuances of exotic foods; I can recognize the letters, but have no basis for comparison with human foods. There is an expiration date on the label as well, but I don't have a date reference either. The third room was the largest and was some kind of living room or studio. The chairs can fold out from the wall, as can the table, giving the room a different layout. A wide display panel against the wall looks like an alien television or entertainment device. There are pictures on the walls showing the aliens in different places. Some of the photos appear to be in front of a block of wood wrapped in vines with several large pods hanging from them. Three boxes contained an assortment of trinkets, clothing, and unidentifiable items that appeared to be personal belongings to each alien.
I walked up to the fourth row and there was nothing there but supplies. Water tanks, food on shelves, neatly folded clothes and extra spacesuits filled the space. Each pod has a small open space in the center with a padded "floor." Weights can be placed on shelves around the space to make it look like a fitness area or mini gym.
There is no central control area, no cockpit or bridge to control the ship. So I returned to the closed blast door leading to the bulbous engine bay. My multipurpose drone attempted to maneuver the blast door, but failed to open it. I pulled them out of the ship and sent out my smallest mining drone. It started with a plasma cutter that cut thick aluminum doors with ease. It opens a hole, and the air spurts out violently from the hole.
Once the atmosphere disappeared, it took only ten minutes for the drone to cut off the locking mechanism and pull open the door. The swaying vines swung out of the door and smashed into the drone, clinging desperately to the door. The drone was dented but not injured, so I ordered it to cut through the vines as quickly as possible while they locked onto the blast door. The knife that easily cut through the aluminum door had no problem burning through the vines. After a few minutes, the vines stopped swinging and fell limply back into the engine room.
I sent a drone to chase the vines. I found a large room there. In the center is a large sphere that sits on a thick steel base. Electrical ducts and pipes run in and out of the sphere, wires snake up into the backbone of the ship, and pipes lead to enclosed water tanks evenly spaced around the room. Swaying vines stretched from the blast door to a large expanse of dead wood. Other vines lead to various controls in the corners of the room, as well as a large control panel with a fixed seat in front of it. I found the ship's central control system and fusion reactor. With any luck, I'll be able to pry some useful information out of it, since the rest of the ship doesn't seem to have any secrets for me.
