Extinction

were still unfathomable. I’d figured out enough of the alien tech to use their systems, but I didn’t really understand them. I knew no more than how to make them operate. I was a user, not a developer. I was like a mathematician who did calculus on a computer-but who could not even add or subtract without it.

When I first boarded the Socorro a rush of nostalgia overwhelmed me. Not all of the memories were good. I thought about my kids, feeling their loss more intensely than I had for months. A ship just like this one had ended my family without a qualm-without an emotion of any kind.

The ship was cool inside, despite the blazing tropical sun outside. The light was very dim in comparison to the outside as well, and it took long seconds for my eyes to adjust to the softly radiant walls. I had no personal equipment inside her yet. She was barren, sterile and quiet. Her brainbox was raw-untrained. She’d been made to match the control systems of the Alamo, but without the deep systems programming the Blues had originally given their ships. She was like an unlocked device, a fully configurable technological toy-a freshly installed operating system.

“Ship, this is your commander. Respond.”

“Responding. How do you wish to address us?”

At those words, a chill went through me. The Alamo had asked exactly the same thing long ago when I’d named her. Even more disturbing, the voice was absolutely identical in cadence and pronunciation to Alamo.

For some reason, I saw my daughter’s terror-stricken, dead eyes. I had to close my own. I tried to erase the image from my mind, tried to push that memory back into the little box where I kept it.

“Ship, I name you Socorro.”

“Rename complete.”

Although Socorro was armed, she was not a twin to Crow’s ship, Digger. I’d built her to be much faster. I hoped she would be a ship of discovery, rather than war. The hope wasn’t a strong one, however. She was armed with a single turret, and she was built with the body-shape of a horseshoe crab, as the rest of the fleet would be. I did not want her to stand out in physical appearance in case I had to take her into battle. But Socorro had three engines rather than one, and a second reactor to keep the extra two engines fed with power.

I had smiled while watching each piece of her roll out of the factories. I’d worked long and hard to build her. Knowing I had many ships to construct, I’d first built a set of a team of vehicles that distinctly resembled my hovertanks. They glided between the great factories, working night and day, helping my nanotized men. These robotic workers were based upon the design of the hovertanks, but with huge, whip-like arms sprouting from their backs where the others had beam turrets. These were my newest creations, and they greatly eased the process of feeding supplies into the maws of my factories. They were critical in the extraction and assembly of finished components as well.

“Socorro,” I said aloud, “I have some instructions for you….”

It took the better part of a day to get things organized. Most of the programming I read out loud to the ship. I had typed it in and now kept it stored on a tablet computer. I figured that with new ships being constructed every day now, I would need to have a script for new pilots to follow. I smiled just thinking about that. I realized I had written a program to teach humans to teach their ships. A script for writing scripts.

Hours later, I had the doors working at a touch, I had entry and exit codes set and emergency behaviors set. I managed to get the forward wall of the bridge crawling with metallic beetles, each representing a nearby marine, vehicle or building. I even had a working toilet.

I ordered the ship to lift off and I got my first shock. The ship lurched and knocked me off my feet. The sudden, upward motion was very jarring. I felt like I was in a box and a giant had just picked me up to look inside. I picked myself up off the floor and wondered why the motion had been so abrupt. Was it the group of three engines?

“Socorro,” I said aloud. “Why was that lift-off so sudden?”

“Lift-off was within normal behavioral parameters.”

“I’ve piloted ships like this before. That did not feel the same to me.”

“Specify.”

“I felt more G-forces than I felt aboard the Alamo.”

Hesitation. “No ships with the designation Alamo can be found locally. Attempting long-range contact-”

“Hold!” I said. “Do not attempt any ship-to-ship communications without my authorization.”

“Communications disabled. Permissions set.”

I sat and sweated for a second. I didn’t want this ship to contact the others-if that were even possible. I could only imagine what networking problems I might have. What if contacting the other Nano ships would automatically transfer some of their data ship-to-ship? What if my ship started updating itself, and soon thereafter decided to join the rest of her sisters on a mission in some remote star system?

My ships, I realized over the following cold seconds, had to be kept isolated from other Nano ships. I had no idea what kind of ideas they might get from one another, like viruses in email attachments or worms coming in through an insecure network port.

I thought of Crow then. What had he done with his ship over the last day or two? I rubbed my neck. I shouldn’t have given him the prototype ship. It was a rookie mistake for an engineer to make.

“Socorro, contact Digger,” I said.

“Request denied. All ship-to-ship communications have been forbidden by command personnel.”

I sighed. The ship’s interface was very familiar. “Socorro, I am command personnel. If I directly request that you open a communications channel, that implicitly gives you authorization to do so.”

“Permissions set. Communications enabled. Channel request accepted by Digger.”

“Is that you, Kyle?” asked a familiar voice.

“Yeah, Crow. I’m glad to hear you are still alive. You aren’t headed out into space, are you?”

“Ah-no. Listen Riggs, I could really use an arm on this ship. I’m spent the last day pushing furniture up a ramp by myself.”

I snorted. “Nanites or not, exercise is never a bad thing.”

“Says you. I’ve heard you’ve got an arm on that beast of yours.”

I raised my eyebrows. I wasn’t really surprised he had spies watching me, but I was surprised he’d let the truth slip out. “Do you want a big fleet produced quickly to meet the Macros? Or maybe I should build them to order with designer colors.”

“What I want is to know why you rated an arm.”

“Because I designed the ships,” I said, grinning.

Crow grumbled incoherently for a few sentences in Aussie slang. I suspected I was being compared unfavorably to a kangaroo.

When his tirade died down, I dove in and explained the communications worries I had. I gave him a script that would allow communications with local ships of our design, but not with other ‘wild’ Nano ships.

“There’s something else,” I said, “before I panicked and ordered the ship to turn off communications to other Nanos, I was asking it about the increased effects of acceleration I’ve been feeling.”

“Oooo,” he said, “Poor baby! Three engines, I hear? You must have been plastered to the floor.”

“How did you-” I said, but stopped myself. I knew he wouldn’t tell me who was ratting on me, or how he’d gotten the rat’s observations to his ship. But he would enjoy my irritation.

He laughed loudly, harshly. “Thought you could build a super-ship and give old Crow the trainer, did you? You figured I’d never even notice.”

“We’ll work on better ship designs after the Macros-” I began.

“Yeah, yeah. Easy on. I’ll tell you why the ships are pasting us to the floor and the ceiling.”

“The ceiling?”

“Just try going down fast-it’s quite a ride.”

“But why?” I asked, becoming annoyed. Crow loved his little games.

“Because you forgot something, mate.”