John Ringo - Von Neumann’s War

Ronny retired as a lieutenant colonel, then took a position as a civil servant with the NRO for a second, arguably third, career. He quickly moved up and became the director of AS T. It hadn’t been all easy for him. Being from a foreign background — Cuban no less — his loyalty often came into question by adversaries, and his security clearance investigations always had taken three times longer than normal. But Ronny kept his nose clean and maintained a work ethic that made him the go-to guy for space systems implementation and shut down any of his opposition. Having taken a, provable, chance on swimming to the U.S. also tended to reduce the possibility, in most people’s eyes, that he was an agent. In short, when it came to building space recon systems Ronny had always gotten the job done. Now the DNRO had given him the ultimate challenge — get recon on another planet.

Ronny would get that job done, but he wouldn’t let it interfere with his other tasks either. He felt he had to continuously prove he was superhuman, or at least better than the others. So, no matter what the task before him, Ronny always gave it one hundred percent — even if he was preoccupied with a more daunting and pressing problem. Ronny leaned back in his leather conference room chair and placed his hands behind his head while he tried to focus on his multitasking.

“So you see, Dr. Guerrero, the structural integrity of the antenna booms can dampen out the low frequency platform jitter and the higher jitter the piezoelectric system can handle. It’s our conclusion and recommendation to you that the Phase 0 design is viable and that the program is ready to move forward to a science readiness review and to Phase 1,” the contractor finished in his slow Southern accent.

“That’s very good, Roger. I’ll take that under advisement. If there is nothing else then…?” Ronny looked at his watch and frowned. The contractor actually had about fifteen more minutes scheduled with him so he’d, apparently, sped his brief. Ronny’s support staff took that as a cue to end the meeting and they began closing their notes and stretching.

“Uh, since we’ve got a little more time, just one more thing, Dr. Guerrero, if you please. I’d like to show you an unusual concept that I don’t know if you would be interested in or not, but my hopes are that you will.”

Roger took four copies of the Mars Recon white paper from his double-locked bags and passed them around the room. He waited for a copy to make it to Dr. Guerrero’s hands before he began. Ronny was certain that Roger was trying to gauge the expression on his face. There was no expression. Guerrero had been in the super-secret world long enough to develop a perfect poker face.

“This may sound a little strange at first, but please hear me through on it,” Roger began. “It has come to my team’s attention that the bolometric albedo of Mars appears to be changing. It’s getting shinier and less red. We have data and references here in the white paper to back that claim up — it’s real. The intriguing part is that there is a data run from the Hubble this past cycle that is missing from the public domain. Since the Hubble data is usually white, I find it intriguing that a run on Mars has been made ‘black.’ ”

Roger looked around the room at Guerrero and his aids for any sign that they had prior knowledge of this. Ronny and his team, again, displayed perfect poker faces.

“So, given that the surface of Mars is changing on such a massive scale that the bolometric albedo has been altered, then something major is going on there — probably something unnatural. The plot there on page two shows the required increase of certain compounds and metals in kilograms versus time. There are four different good data points and seven from some unverified Internet data. We then curve-fitted that data and you see it matches a simple population growth model.” Roger paused again.

“The rate of growth is amazing. We believe that it may be a muster point for some alien force. Whether or not that force is friendly or preparing to attack us we have no idea. Based upon that data, we believe it’s advisable to perform reconnaissance of Mars. This is recon that could only be gained by sending a recon satellite configured as a probe. And if it’s an alien force preparing to attack, then time is of the essence.”

Roger paused and Ronny could tell from the expression on Roger’s face that he had been half expecting to be laughed out of the room. There were no smiles, frowns, or comments. The room remained dead calm — just like before a storm. Ronny gave nothing away but the very lack of laughter at the preposterous idea said volumes.

“So,” Roger continued, swallowing nervously, “we have put together a mission architecture concept that could do the job and be ready for launch in five to six months with a four to five month traverse time.”

“Roger,” Ronny began in his thick Cuban accent. “Four months to Mars? I’m not sure I believe that.”

Ronny realized that he had said too much, because Roger smiled in acknowledgement. Roger was a smart guy and the fact that Guerrero didn’t believe the traverse time told Roger that they already had been looking at an interplanetary mission. And Ronny was certain that Roger would surmise that since the NRO had been looking at a Mars mission, something must really be going on with Mars.

“That’s the clever part of this concept, Dr. Guerrero,” Roger said with greater confidence. “If you want to slow down and orbit Mars, it would take longer. But, why orbit? If whatever this phenomenon is has changed the entire planet’s surface, then a fly-by mission is all you need. That allows you to remove the need for braking engines and reduces the throw weight tremendously. Instead of a braking engine, we have two kick motors and therefore we go a lot faster.”

“That’s the answer!” one of the aides in Air Force blues responded excitedly. Guerrero looked at him as if to scold him.

The DAS T remained quiet for a minute or two longer and flipped through the white paper.

“Roger,” he said slowly “what I am about to tell you is Top Secret compartmentalized codename Neighborhood Watch and doesn’t go beyond this room. We’ll get you some paperwork to sign after this meeting.”

“So, you’re telling me that these three men figured this out from information on the Internet?” the President asked Ronny. The new Deputy Director of the NRO — and still the Director of the Advanced Science and Technology Directorate — smiled and nodded.

“That’s right, but they’re very smart guys, Mr. President,” Ronny replied. He’d actually been briefed on where one of their “initial verifications” came from, but he decided to gloss over the astrophysicist Hooters’ girl. Ronny personally liked that because he knew from his life’s experience that you can never judge a book by its cover.

“Fines, I thought you told us that the phenomenon couldn’t be detected by small telescopes.” The President turned to his science advisor.

“Well, Mr. President, as far as I knew it couldn’t,” Fines replied and shrugged.

“Mr. President, if I may.” Ronny turned the Huntsville white paper to a page midway through it. The page was marked at top and bottom Top Secret/Neighborhood Watch.

“Look at this graph on page two, sir. You see, this curve shows that the growth of the phenomenon is nonlinear. The fellows from Huntsville who figured this out used data that was several months more recent than the Hubble data that NASA showed you. And if you follow this curve it tells us that the change in Mars’ albedo is such that it’s noticeable now with small amateur telescopes. Don’t forget, sir, that some of the amateurs in the world have telescopes as big as some of the professional observatories. I fear we can’t continue to hide this much longer. Before long, Mars isn’t going to be red.”