John Ringo - Von Neumann’s War

“That’s good work, Alan. How long before we can get delivery on them?” Roger asked.

“Two weeks for the first thousand rifles and first hundred thousand rounds. But we’re building up manufacturing capability at all the redoubts now that we know what we’re dealing with. We’ll have millions of rounds and hundreds of thousands of guns within a month and a half. The minigun needs more mods since it had more metal in it and the first twenty will be delivered in a month.”

“Great, let’s hope we have that long. Triple the efforts on that if you can. But we still need a Hail Mary play or a hook-and-ladder kick-off return to use if we’re behind by a touchdown and only five seconds left on the clock.” Roger was subconsciously upset with the fact that there would be no more SEC Football and his game analogies and euphemisms were starting to surface as a symptom. Others had symptoms of the under-siege society in other ways. God only knew how Alice’s and John’s little girls were handling it.

“Well, I’d say we’re a couple of touchdowns back and its time to pray for the onside kick,” Alan added to the analogy.

“I’ve been thinking about what Shane said about them attacking the radios and the report of the AWACS going down and the probes hitting the Falcons when they went active. You know, they hit the probes around Mars and the Moon, which all had transmitters going. Sure we shielded the lunar probe good, but it was still radiating like a bastard out the back lobe of the antenna. Hmmm… what if they weren’t taking out our eyes but were just hungry for radio?”

“Maybe, but that might just be a good way to accomplish knocking out our eyes.” Alan pondered the radio emissions point for a second. “So, where are you going with this?”

“What if we took a nuke or some other BMF explosive and attached it to a huge radar transmitter? Or several distributed radars with a bomb each? We wouldn’t kill them all but we might could contain their movements and reduce their numbers. Gries was telling me something about a so-called killing field tactic that comes to mind.”

“Killing field, yeah, I see. Well, if they rebuild themselves with nanotechnology, blowing them up might be a bad idea,” Alan replied.

“Would it really? Wouldn’t the fireball vaporize most of the material or carbonize it? I’m asking here, I don’t know.”

“Well, you know what the Martian Manhunter said in that episode of Justice League Unlimited . The nanomachines would just get spread out all over the place and the threat would be spread that much further. Of course, that was just a cartoon. Who knows?”

“But what if they don’t use nanotech to replicate?”

“Okay, I’ll bite. But if they don’t use nanomachines what do they use?” Alan shrugged. “Tom was right a long time ago. We should’ve nuked Mars when we lost the first probe.”

“We need some of these things to study.”

“Mr. Sergeant Cady,” Tina tugged sheepishly at the back of the large intimidating black man’s shirt. “You walk fast.”

“Hello, Tina. And it’s Sergeant Major Cady. Just call me Top, like everybody else. That’s really what a first sergeant is supposed to be called, not a sergeant major, but my troops are used to it. What can I do for you?”

“See I told ya, Dingbat.” Charlotte punched her on the arm.

“Charlotte,” Cady nodded at the other teenager, amused.

“Well, uh, Charlotte and I have been hearing all of you guys talk about these metal-eating alien robots. Is it true?” Tina asked.

“Well, I’m not supposed to talk about it, but don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. You should talk to your mom and see what she will tell you.”

“Well, I would but her and Dr. Fisher, you know Charlotte’s dad,” she nodded at Charlotte. “Well, they flew off to somewhere to build a new rocket or something. They won’t be back for a few days and, well, we’re worried about something.”

“Oh, who is watching y’all girls?” Cady was surprised.

“Oh my God, Top. We’re both fourteen years old, and surrounded by the Army, what could happen to us?” Tina held her hands in the air palms up and cocked her head sideways.

“Right, uh okay,” Cady said, trying not to think about various songs he’d sung over the years. The answer was: a lot. “There are alien robots in Europe, on the Moon, and Mars and the other planets in the solar system as far as we know and they eat metal. Good enough for you? Nothing to worry about; we’re all working hard to find a way to stop them. I need to get back at it.”

“Uh, we were afraid of that.” Tina smiled big at Cady and Charlotte pointed at her braces.

“Metal like this, perhaps?” Charlotte said as she pointed.

“Jesus Christ!” Cady realized her concern. Some of the horrible images from his and the major’s trip to Paris of soldiers being decapitated flashed in his mind. What if a bot got close enough to pull the metal out of this poor kid’s mouth? If the damn thing pulled the metal straight out of her mouth she would likely lose some teeth and have her lips, and tongue ripped to shreds. And what if she was facing the wrong way when the bots pulled the braces free? Cady had seen the damned alien things pull rebar right out of concrete; braces through a little girl’s head would be nothing for them. And as far as he could tell, the goddamned machines would care less. Then it dawned on him, Why didn’t they take the fillings in MY teeth when they had the chance? Cady remembered that the bots had not taken Gries’ ruby at the same time. He also seemed to recall something about fillings being made of silver, tin, copper, and mercury. Dog tags are stainless steel , he thought. With all the dog tags and iron rebar around, the bots were eating buffet style and not getting to everything on the table — just eating the treats, perhaps. Sooner or later, Cady was certain, they would. The damned bots would eat every piece of metal on the planet, including the metal fillings in his teeth and the braces in the cute little fourteen year old girl’s mouth in front of him. Goddamn heartless bastard machines!

“Come with me, girls.” Cady about faced and headed back down the hall toward the major’s office. “Jesus Christ!” he muttered again careful not to add further expletives in front of the teenagers.

“Roger, the sergeant major and I need a minute with you.” Major Gries pecked on Dr. Reynolds’ door and peeked in around the door frame.

“Can it wait, Shane? Ronny is breathing down my neck for a progress report to go to the President this afternoon.” He looked over his laptop at the major. It had been some time since Roger had gotten plenty of sleep and he suspected it would remain that way for, well, years. He felt haggard and hated putting off his more real duties of interacting with the people working for him, but he was conflicted by the fact that he also wasn’t going to turn in a half-assed report that was going all the way to the President.

“Uh, actually, I think this ought to be in your report.” The major stepped fully into the doorframe and leaned his shoulder against it.

“Okay, what is it?”

“Sergeant Major,” Gries turned away from Roger.

“Yes sir!”

“Bring in exhibit A, please.” Gries half grinned but only at the theatrics. The thought of kids around the world having had their faces destroyed by these alien things really pissed him off. Though he and Cady had only seen the aliens attacking military and only caught their interaction with a few civilians, he knew that countless kids with braces and other medical metal implants must have been tortured and killed by the damned mindless alien robots.