John Ringo: Von Neumann’s War

The measurement involved taking several exposures over several hours each and the need for multiple measurements required several nights of telescope time. Jack had lost about a week of sleep by the time the final data was crunched through his filtering algorithms and massaged into a form that made sense to the human eye.

As the algorithm ground to a halt, the computer pinged to alert that it had completed processing the data. The ping startled Jack awake. The graph that was displayed on the screen really woke him up.

“Dr. Simms! Dr. Simms!” Jack screamed as he burst into the rotund little professor’s office. “It’s real! The reflectance albedo of Mars has changed in the past year!”

“Calm down, Mr. Hamilton, and let me see what you have there.” Dr. Simms nodded for the graduate student to sit as he took the stack of printouts from him. The graph on the top page showed the reflectance of Mars as of the previous year in black and the most recent measurement in red. The red and black curves were clearly different in both shape and magnitude.

“You see what I mean? The planet is, well, brighter! And it has different compounds on the surface than before.” Jack rose from his seat, leaned over his advisor’s desk and tapped his finger on the red curve.

“You’re certain this data is correct?” Dr. Simms asked, stroking his beard as he pondered the graph. “You sure Sandi isn’t just playing a trick on you of some sort? She’s been known to do that in the past. This looks… This can’t be! It’s either the most remarkable data in history or… but that’s the spectrum of… This can’t be right!” he said as he grabbed a materials reference book from his shelves.

“You can go ahead and look it up if you want, Doctor, but I already did that,” Jack said. “It’s aluminum and lots of it! There’s also steel, carbon-based alloys of all sorts, silicon, and even what looks like gold. And most of all, it must be highly polished for the albedo to be that high. And there has to be lots of it!”

“This can’t be right—”

“This can’t be right,” Shane muttered, glaring at the e-mailed copy of his orders.

“What’s wrong, sir?” Captain Tyler asked. The two had been in opposite cubicles since Gries had returned from Iraq. From CO of an in-combat company to Assistant S-4 would look lousy on a review, but it was just a holding position while DA figured out what to do with him. Usually, that sort of thing was worked out months in advance of a captain’s promotion, but in Shane’s case, something had gotten in the works. He’d been on the horn to DA nearly daily, trying to find out where he was going — CGSC, a major’s position “commensurate with career progression” or what. In the meantime, he’d been Assistant Rear Detachment S-4 (Logistics) officer, Field Grade Officer of the Day at Division Headquarters and any other jack-shit detail a field grade officer could get shafted with.

And now this.

“Orders,” Shane said, angrily. “I’ve got my orders.”

“And they are, sir?” Captain Tyler asked. He was the “real” assistant S-4, a supply officer who knew his career prospects were limited to maybe making full bird colonel in charge of an out-of-the-way depot instead of the strong possibility of stars. Despite that, the slight officer couldn’t resent Major Gries; the guy was just too damned nice .

“Pentagon,” Gries said, steamingly pissed off. “Deputy Assistant Project Officer, Infantry, Defense Design and Acquisitions Bureau.”

“What does that mean, sir?” Captain Tyler asked, carefully, aware that the normally laid-back major was right on the edge of going off.

“I have no fucking idea,” Shane replied, sharply. “But it’s sure as hell not Command and General Staff.”

Ret Ball: You are listening to the Truth Nationwide, the largest syndicated talk-radio program on late night across this great country. We have open callers tonight. Whatever topic you wish to discuss we want to hear it. Kim from Tampa, Florida, you are on the Truth Nationwide.

Caller: Oh my gosh, it’s so great to be on your show, Ret. I listen to you every night and you really do have your thumb on the pulse of the world.

Ret Ball: Thank you, Kim. What do you want to discuss tonight?

Caller: Well, I was wondering about something. With the war over in the Middle East and all we don’t see much on the regular news anymore, but have you seen the stories about the European Space Agency and the Russians losing their Mars spacecraft? I mean, I saw a little blurb about it on CNN but there were no details. Why have we lost several probes from different countries all within the past year?

Ret Ball: Ah yes, I have seen a few articles about this at SpaceWeekly.com but they explained away any unusual circumstances.

Caller: I’ll have to check that article out, but isn’t that typical. They always explain away everything. Thanks, Ret, keep fighting the good fight.

Ret Ball: Thank you, Kim. Let’s see, the next caller is, AHA! Our old friend and regular caller, Megiddo from underground. Go ahead old friend, you are telling the Truth Nationwide!

Caller: Greetings and salutations, Ret! It’s good to hear that there are people out there with their eyes and ears open. Indeed, we’ve lost several probes at Mars and it’s only a matter of time before we start losing all of them there. Have you observed Mars lately, Ret?

Ret Ball: Why I guess I haven’t, Megiddo. Why? Tell us what is going on, old friend.

Caller: Well, I have been watching since the first European probe was lost and something about the little red planet looks… different.

Ret Ball: Different? How so?

Caller: The albedo is shifting, Ret, shifting in a way that is clearly the result of intelligent design. I’m telling you, Ret, the CIA knows about this and they’re covering it up, spending all their time trying to track me down instead of facing this critical threat to our very lives! Our solar system is under an invasion from an extraterrestrial intelligence as we speak. The government is never going to warn us in time to take action; it’s all up to you, Ret. This is your hour! You must spread the Truth, Ret!

Ret Ball: I see. So the government is behind a cover-up of an ET invasion. Typical of them, Megiddo my old friend. Well, I’ll have to get my telescope out and go take a look at the red planet for myself! We will speak the Truth! No matter what forces come against us! You’re on the air…

“Well, Tom, you work for NASA, you tell us,” Roger said with a sly grin. “Alan and I are just lowly space defense contractors and wouldn’t know anything ’bout no NASA rocket science.”

Dr. Roger P. Reynolds was born, raised, and educated in his home state of Alabama. Although he was well known in the space reconnaissance community as somewhat of a space systems engineering genius, outside of those classified rooms you would never know it. In his late thirties with a runner’s build, a more seemingly stereotypical educated Southern redneck you could never find — right down to his slow Southern drawl and his Roll Tide necktie and ball cap.

“That’s right. Us here Huntsville Alabama hicks don’t know nuthin’ ’bout no rocket science,” Alan said in his best Southern drawl, laughing. Alan Davis, unlike Dr. Reynolds, whom he thought of as “his sidekick,” was only first generation redneck; his parents had moved to Huntsville when he was seven. Now at thirty-seven years old there were still hints of his Yankee dialect in his speech. Alan had stayed a North Alabamian and gone through college at the local university earning master’s degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering before “going corporate” and getting a job doing mechanical and electrical engineering on space defense projects for the Space and Missile Defense Command and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).