Bootstrap Colony (2 page)

He pursed his lips, wondering if
the software could handle that until the robot beeped. “Affirmative. Command
acknowledged.” He sighed in relief.

“Report loss of UAV to raptor
pack. Update inventory. End transmission.”

“Acknowledged,” the computer
replied. The connection closed with a soft click. He grimaced, thinking back to
how it had all begun.

It had been an interesting first
visit and one heck of an entrance the aliens had made one year ago, telling him
of Earth’s imminent demise by a massive coal black asteroid in twenty years,
and how they would return in one solar revolution to retrieve him and nine
thousand nine hundred and ninety nine others for “repopulation.”

He had been fortunate, his gifts
had allowed him to acquire a fortune prior to the visit, allowing him time to
prepare, and even lay the seeds to Earth’s possible defense and humanities
possible survival. He had even discovered a few of the others contacted through
their reported to the media, and had set up a trust fund to deliver survival
materials to each the morning they were supposed to be picked up. He hoped it
would help them survive in this alien landscape. Something told him even those
meager gifts would not be enough for long.

A beep woke him from his wool
gathering revere, he cursed at his wool gathering as he sharply turned the
wheel around a rock. He checked the mirror, watching the other vehicles adjust
their positions behind him. He had brought all six hummers and all six of the
tractors, loaded with the very basics. He slowed and flipped the auto pilot on,
tentatively letting go of the wheel, keeping his hand near in case he had to.

Even through the AI was pretty
advanced; it was still a new world, and the truck was after all a prototype.
When he was sure that he was okay for the moment he turned to the laptop. The
drone had arrived at the waterfalls; he pursed his lips and watched, zooming
into the caves. “Well well well, home sweet cave home.” The pool at the foot of
the waterfall had a layer of mist and bubbling foam from the water’s impact.
Some of the caves were massive and deep, one even necked around behind his
waterfall. “Perfect.”

The truck pulled up to within a
one hundred meters of the biggest cave where the UAV had landed a half hour
later. He checked the perimeter, pulling out his binoculars and checking
carefully at every motion, then used the IR to check for anything in the
Stygian depth of the caves. Getting a good feeling he stepped out and checked
once more, nervously cradling the shotgun as he stepped over to the drone. He was
jumpy and nervous he realized the raptor encounter had put him on edge.

That was probably for the best he
realized, keeping an edge was better than getting his head bit off because he
was sleep walking. He set the UAV into the launcher, and watched the status bar
on the side charge it. He flipped on the Bluetooth. “Command. Security secure
the perimeter of this site, one hundred meter radius.” The AI confirmed the
command, and then the other vehicles started up once more and then formed a
perimeter around him. A trio of robots stepped out off the back of three of the
hummers, and then marched out to walk around the perimeter. The CAT security
robots were shaped like a jaguar, an outgrowth of the U.S. Military’s DARPA
robotics program. These had some Hollywood touched as well; almost Terminator
or Transformers Ravage in style and design. He loved it, hell they scared him
so he was fairly sure anything they ran into would think twice before tangling
with them.

When the UAV completed its
recharge he launched it to fly around the perimeter three hundred meters out.
He walked over to the security tractor nearby, and pulled open the doors to
find a cornucopia of weapons and equipment. He pulled out a pair of robots,
turned them on. While they ran POST he pulled out a larger UAV, broken down
into parts for easy storage. The tops of the wings were shiny blue with solar
panels, as was the top of the body. The UAV was designed for longer range or
longer flight time, with partial solar charge ability.

He set it up on one of the
launchers, locking the wings on with practiced ease before hooking the
electrical connections together. A beep from the security truck made him turn;
the two robots had completed POST and have stepped out onto the grass. He
completed the UAV's assembly, checked its charge, programmed it for perimeter
watch four hundred meters out and launched it.

A beep from his Bluetooth let him
know to check the log. He pulled out his tablet and looked. He felt relief that
it was just the KITT autopilot AI reporting it now had the path learned and was
ready to drive on its own. The path had already been parsed out to all the
vehicles through their wireless connections.

KITT was some techno geek’s idea
of a joke. He knew about the acronym and its origin so let it slide. After all,
he'd been and still was a science fiction fan. He was glad that they hadn't
tried to add personality to the system. Turbo boost would have been nice
though.

The tablets were also wired into
the network; they borrowed a lot from science fiction. Known as Blackberries,
PDA’s, Iphones, and other devices, they were actually conceived in STNG. Being
a Trekkie he preferred the real name for them but bowed to conventional wisdom
and called them a tablet. These devices had a bit more abilities then
mainstream devices did a laser virtual keyboard, AI, voice address system,
solid state memory, along with other toys and aps.

The two robots nearby were sent
into the caves. “Hopefully we won’t have to evict anyone,” he commented softly
as he turned to reclaim the small drone and return it to the launch rail. He
unhooked the tractors from their trailers, and then ordered them to return to
the first location. They trundled off in single file. He checked the perimeter,
then the feeds from the robots in the caves.

Fortunately there didn’t seem to
be any big life forms, just the occasional bug, lizard or four winged bat
creatures. The six legged armadillo creatures were amusing. The six legged
furry rat things... Not so much. The daddy long legged scorpions did give him
pause though, making him wonder about what he was going to get himself into.

A white centipede, three times
larger than one of them avoided one of the dark twin tailed monstrosities like
its life depended on it. Most likely it did. “Not a good sign,” he muttered.
“Guess this is a case for Raid,” he sighed, and then had the robots do a spiral
search before returning to the cave mouth for recovery. He stepped into the
truck and got down to work.

The robots discovered snow in
some of the inner chambers. Between that, the trees, and the signs of frost he
was pretty sure he was on a temperate continent. Lose the extra moons and alien
animals and it would be North America he thought as he picked at an MRE.

Two days later he was tired,
sweaty, and sore. Wrestling with the tractor hitches had been a back breaking
endeavor, as had feeding and caring for the animals. He knew he needed to get
them out of their trailers soon, two days without mucking them out was causing
one hellacious stink. He had moved them to the base camp in the first day,
along with twenty loads of gear. It would take a week or two to get everything
over at this rate. Fortunately he had not seen the raptors since that first
encounter, though he had had an uneasy first night's sleep in the motor home.

Milking the goats and cattle had
been a stinky difficult affair, and downright dangerous in the confines of the
trailers. He had to do it, too long without a milking and they would dry up,
and besides, all that milk had to hurt after a while. He had made sure each of
the animals had been impregnated before they had been loaded, he hoped the
stress of transit and being cooped up in the trailers hadn't caused many miscarriages
in the herds. He had refrigerated what milk he had thought he could use, and
then fed most of the remaining milk to animals like the sows that could drink
it without causing scours.

The donks were making his work a
little easier, unloading trailers from their flatbeds and arranging them into a
perimeter wall. He still had to hitch and unhitch the trucks by hand though,
which meant he had to be on both ends of the transit. The robots he had brought
along just couldn’t handle the job. Still, with the donks he had a good
perimeter, and even a small box corral to release some of the animals in once
the he fenced the partially opened face.

Each of the donks, short for
robotic donkeys were actually large robotic forklifts. They were large, about
the size of a skip loader, with arms attached to a torso. The prototype was the
only one with tracks; all the others had wheels for easier maintenance.

He checked the perimeter, sighed
and continued his log. He had several going, progress, flora, fauna, logistics,
and encounters. He was a bit worried about the power reserves, even with the
built in solar cells on the roofs of the vehicles he was still twenty percent
lower than projected. He bumped up transporting one of the containers of solar
panels up a notch in his priority queue. Not that it really mattered; he
usually grabbed whatever was nearest when he got to the landing site.

On a limited power budget the ED
robots would have to forgo using their lasers in favor of their built in guns.
Until he had the industry set up he was going to have to police the brass they
or he used he thought with a pang. Right now he had them mostly remaining
still, letting the CAT robots move around for perimeter patrols. They each had
clear firing lanes and their various heads scanned the perimeter grid,
compiling the various images into a threat map for the security AI to digest.

He also had to park the Crusher
UGV’s. They had used all of their fuel and power towing loads to the base.
Until the hydrogen fuel factory had sufficient capacity he was stuck with the
CAT’s and ED’s for his defense.

Bob had been right, he thought
with another pang. The Crusher’s were good in theory, but their demand for fuel
and power really sucked. The six wheeled army green brutes were each six point
one tons, and could tow a four ton trailer. The green CATs on the other hand
massed barely eight hundred pounds, and could run at over thirty kilometers per
hour. Best of all they were totally electric.

Stretching he stepped out off the
steps of the motor home and looked around. He had sent the tractors back last
night after he had unhitched them, they should be fully charged from the
batteries at the vehicle park by now. Breakfast had been his usual cereal; he
knew he was on borrowed time, the march of the seasons, not to mention animal
biology was going to cause havoc to his plans soon. The angry bawl of a cow
made him look over to the trailer nearby. “Yeah, I hear you.” The fence truck
was nearby; he was almost ready to let the cattle into the pen. He set a GP robot
to unload a section of fence, poles and a gate.

He had planned for this,
designing the corral pens and even designing gate hook ups on the corners of
the containers that would frame the opening. Of course when plan met reality
Murphy would come into play, a half hour of cursing managed to iron out the
problems. The robots framed a chute to the gate from the trailer. With luck he
could unload the cattle, and then let one of the robots feed them as he went
off to get the next load of gear.

Unloading was a wild affair of
bawling animals, snorted, kicking and stomping hooves and occasional brushes
against the steel fencing. He had programmed one of the robots to place feed
and water troughs inside the corral at the far end from the chute, the scent of
the two had the animals crowding into each other get to them. He sighed as the
last straggler walked slowly down the chute. Reaching over he gave her a smack
on the rump. “Get a long there Bessie!” She snorted and swished her tail as her
cloven hooves stepped into the corral. The gate swung shut with a metallic
whine. The latch automatically engaging.

Taking a look into the back of
the trailer... “EW! One down, several to go.” He wrinkled his nose at the pong.
The donks were completing the corral next door using the side of the first as a
starting point. He set the gate in place, then stepped back as robots formed
the chute to the next trailer. This one had the horses, alpacas, and donkeys.
He opened the door, a kick made him step back carefully as the door swung
wildly open, and then a rush as neighing mares rushed out the door, down the
ramp and into the chute. The loud chuff of the donks nearby made a few of the
animals roll their eyes in fright, but he waved his hat on, smacking his hands
together. They bolted into the corral.

The goats, alpaca, and sheep were
easier; once he had most of them inside he looked up and stretched. It was
almost mid morning; the sky was clear and blue. He still didn’t have a complete
grasp of the time difference; it was at least a twenty eight hour day. It was a
cool morning, most likely spring...or hell, hopefully spring.

If it was autumn it would truly
suck, and dim the hopes of survival for most of the people transported he
realized. The last goat stepped through the gate and he turned to the general
purpose robots. One was already at work, mucking out the empty trailers,
bulldozing the oozing mess down the ramp and into neat piles nearby. “Hope that
is upwind of the trailer, or I am moving it tonight.” He wrinkled his nose in
thought.