Nebula (16 page)

Nebula’s Advanced Force Operations team was going be challenged in ways that they never expected. Their surprise with the new models of robots would be the least of the problems for them to solve once the enemy arrived.

Doug and Judith began their work later that evening. First Doug removed the panels from both sentries, and then he turned the one that they brought from Mars over to Judith so that she could trace the wiring and control circuitry for the arm. By this time, they had assigned names to the two sentries so that they could easily talk about them. The old model, the one that had been in the ship that crashed on Earth, was called Robby, a clear reference to the robot in an old science fiction movie. The new model that they brought back from Mars was called Igor. There was no particular reason for that name, but it seemed to fit.

Doug’s work was pretty straightforward. He first removed the connector from the inner side of Igor’s hatch, careful not to break any wiring between the connector and the small radio module on the outer side. Then he placed the entire panel on Robby and confirmed that it fit perfectly, even to the positions of the bolt holes. He expected this since he’d made many measurements before starting the exchange, but after the fiasco on Mars, no one was confident of anything until it was proven.

Next, he removed the radio module and connector from Robby’s hatch and placed them into the recesses on the hatch taken from Igor. As he expected, the radio fit perfectly but the connector was much smaller and needed to be positioned carefully in the recess so that it would mate with the connector on Robby’s electronics module. He used Robby’s original hatch to construct a computerized template using the laser scanner. Both hatches were secured in the scanner’s specimen frame, and the two were registered by precise location of the bolt holes. The rest was done by the computer. It scanned both hatches and produced very precise marks in Igor’s hatch to define where the connector should be placed. It even marked the bolt holes that needed to be drilled.

Doug then fastened both the radio module and the connector onto the hatch and confirmed that they fit perfectly. He bolted the panel onto Robby and carefully closed the hatch to make sure that all the pins matched perfectly. Then he asked Judith to test for electrical connectivity and to make sure that the new modules worked with Robby’s electronics. She did a few basic tests and confirmed that everything worked just as it had before, when Robby’s original panel and hatch had been in place.

The final step in the process was to hide any indications that the hatch had been modified. Doug did this by filling the empty spaces surrounding the smaller connector with a composite that was very similar to the alien material. He then placed a very thin layer of composite over the entire inner surface, right up to the edges of the connector, so that all the seams between original composite and his filler were hidden. The outer surface required no extra work at all since the radio modules were identical on the two sentries.

While Doug was working on the panels, Judith conducted her tests on Igor’s arm. She needed to understand any differences in the wiring and the control circuitry so that she could adapt Robby’s electronics for using the new arm. She quickly found that the wiring itself was the same in both robots but the control circuitry was a bit different. Igor had better fine control and also could control over a wider range of force and with faster reaction time. It took a while, but her team was able to modify the arm to respond to Robby’s control circuits. The solution was a bit complicated, but one of her assistants came up with a clever way to modify the arm’s responses with minimal need for physical modifications in the arm. Once they were finished, Judith turned Igor back over to Doug so that he could remove the arm and place it on Robby.

The job was now just about done. Doug bolted the arm onto Robby, and Judith made the electrical connections and ran the full set of tests to assure that everything worked as before. All that remained was for Ludmila to do her part with the software upgrade. That part was easy, and she was done in less than an hour.

Ludmila had also been working with Igor while the others finished the job with Robby, and she found several interesting features in the new sentry model.

“This isn’t just a sentry,” she explained to the others. “It looks like it’s also intended to be a soldier with full capabilities to take orders and coordinate with other robots. That seems to be what the two extra serial connectors do. One of them appears to go directly into an area of the supervisory system where it can override other commands. The other looks like it goes into the real time control area, and there seems to be a lot of software similar to the type that Yuri and Harry have been developing. I think that this is what will let these models work as adaptive teams. It’s something that we need to keep in mind if we have to go up against these things. They may be very efficient and well-coordinated teams of killing machines.”

“That’s useful information. Thanks,” Brad replied. “But I hope that we won’t have to get into any fights with them or with any of the other robots or aliens.”

He then asked Ludmila to get her group to look further into Igor’s capabilities and software and to work with the other researchers to see if they could come up with a way to use Igor if the need did arise.

With that, the work was declared done, and they were now ready to return to Mars.

*

The plan was the same as before. One ship left from Nebula Two with the sentry and five of the AFO team. Brad piloted that one. The second ship left from Ops, with Milo as pilot and with the other four AFO members onboard. They rendezvoused on Mars near the alien base.

“OK,” Brad said as they activated the sentry and the other useable robot. “Let’s get set for the trial run. Judith, do you have the radio and fiber connections to the sentry up and running?”

“Affirmative,” was the reply.

“Good. Milo, are you and Yuri ready to go? Are you happy with the primary test plan and the contingency plans?”

“Yeah, the plans look good. I just need to do a radio check. Judith, please set the sentry to the test mode so that I can do a quick check before I take off.”

“It’s in test mode. Go ahead.”

Milo then powered up the ship and sent a message that requested permission to approach. The sentry received it and generated the reply. Everything worked as intended, so Milo lifted off and flew his ship to the predesignated position about ten light minutes away.

Judith checked everything one more time to make sure that both the radio link and the direct fiber optic link to Robby were working. Since the hatch had to be open for the fiber to be connected, she had to put a jumper cable from Robby’s electronic module to the radio’s port in the connector on the open hatch. She’d done this many times before at the lab on Earth, but she wasn’t taking any chances that something might override her direct control with the fiber optic link. If Milo sent the request message and Robby didn’t respond properly, they could be in a real mess if she couldn’t override any defensive measures that Robby might take. None of this was very likely, but no one was going to make any assumptions after the surprise with the model differences in the robots.

“OK,” Judith said to Brad. “We’re good to go.”

Brad keyed his radio, the normal human-type, and told Milo that he was clear to request arrival permission and instructions.

Milo activated the alien approach and landing equipment and initiated the request and authorization sequence. Robby received the transmission about ten minutes later and immediately sent an authorization reply with guidance instructions to the base.

Ludmila monitored all of this on her computer that was connected to Robby’s electronics module through Judith’s fiber optic link. She also verified that the messages were stored both in the alien and human parts of Robby’s partitioned data base and that the human storage was properly encrypted and looked just like the random electronic storage states that an empty memory would contain. She announced that everything was on track.

Another ten minutes passed for the reply to reach Milo. His approach and landing system automatically processed the authorization and the guidance instructions and began the return to Mars. Milo simply sat back and watched as the autopilot took the ship to a position about 100 meters above the ground. Then he took over and guided it to a smooth landing near the team who all cheered his arrival.

“Brilliant,” Nigel exclaimed with a grin that was so wide that it looked like it would split his face right down the middle. “This deserves a celebration, and I have just the thing.” No one knew what he was talking about. They weren’t aware that he had smuggled a liter of the finest Scotch whisky onto the ship.

“I know that this is against regs,” he said, mainly to Brad who looked not only surprised but a bit annoyed. “But you know that times like this are extraordinary and require extraordinary measures. This whisky is fifty years old. I bought it a while ago, and I was saving it for a special occasion. This one will do. So, anyone for a wee dram?”

“OK this time,” Brad finally replied. “But let’s be clear about things. No more of this unauthorized smuggling or drinking on duty until the entire mission is over. This is just the start. The hard parts are still to come. Understood?”

“Sure,” Nigel said, still grinning but a bit sheepishly. “And by the way, Brad, is there anything like authorized smuggling?”

With that, even Brad grinned. “OK, who has the shot glasses?”

*

The next day was spent getting everything ready for the eventual arrival of the alien fleet. Aside from housekeeping at the forward ops base, they needed to make sure that any trace of human activity was concealed as well as possible.

First, they needed to make sure that the third robot, the newer model, couldn’t be reactivated, and most important, that its memory couldn’t be read. They weren’t able to erase the memory without turning it on and connecting the fiber optic link and computers to it, and they didn’t want to take the chance that this would cause something disastrous to happen. They didn’t know much of anything about the new model, so the only options were either to physically destroy some of its vital internal components or to take it back to Earth with them. The second option was the obvious one to choose. They already were working on Igor back at Nebula Two, so if they did manage to figure out all the differences and could do with Igor what they did with Robby and the other early models, they could also handle this one. Then they’d have two additional robots, and one of those would be a soldier if Ludmila was right about it. The worker robot might also have some new useful abilities too. So they loaded it onto the ship and prepared it for the trip to its new home at Nebula Two.

The second thing that they needed to do was to hide any indication that the forward ops base was there or that anything other than the original aliens and their robots had been there. The base was already buried pretty well in one of the nearby hills. Its entrance was hidden from view and the camouflage in front of it would render it totally invisible to anyone as close as three or four meters. The communications antennas and wide area sensors were also well concealed, but Brad wanted to hide them even more and also remove all the human footprints and other disturbances that humans made during the years that they visited. He was taking no chances that they could be discovered. Fortunately, the Martian weather did a good bit of the job for them, but there were still some odds and ends to clean up. It took them another two days before Brad was satisfied and decided that it was time to prepare for the long wait, when only the three robots would remain to be contacted by the aliens and give Nebula the warning that the arrival was imminent. He gave the order to turn Robby and its two companions back on and to board the ships for their return to Earth.

The site on Mars was now ready for the arrival. They figured that they were probably five years ahead of needing it, but as Brad remarked, “It’s never a bad idea to be ahead of the power curve. It’s better than having to catch up when a crisis hits.”

*

The trip back to Earth was as usual, quick and without any problems or other excitement. Harry remarked that it was getting a bit boring, going back and forth like this.

“That’s quite a change of heart,” Brad commented, turning his head back to look at Harry. “Just a few months ago, you were bound and determined to keep from joining us, and now you seem to have accepted it as just a normal and uninteresting thing to ride about in a UFO.”

“Sure, but a few months ago I didn’t know what this was all about. You all seemed like some sort of insane criminals, running from government agents and doing a lot of dirty tricks to force me into your game. It’s different now. I admit that it’s more important and more interesting than what I was doing at the university, but it would have been nice for you to have been a bit more honest with me from the start. You know that I did sign your papers, so I would have kept your secrets. Besides, if you told me from the start what this was all about, I would have joined up. At least I think I would have.”

“That’s the problem,” Brad replied. “You only think that you would have. If you did know everything, or at least the parts at Level-2, you would have been a big danger to us if you remained on the outside. Even Level-1 knowledge presents a risk to Nebula if someone is compromised. To tell you the truth, we couldn’t have let you go with that knowledge. You were either going to join us or be destroyed, but I think that you knew that already.”