MartinGambitsInNewCydoniaIIMartin Gambits in New CydoniaThe Queens, and the entire Hive are quiet for an interval that Godfrey measures as 9.3 seconds. The look of contemplation on the Queens 'faces' is the only thing that suggests to Martin that they have heard his words at all. Finally, the Greater Queen speaks. "To the ends of the universe, to contain and destroy who enter it from without. To destroy those who would enter and contaminate reality. To take the fight to this Far Beyond, and there diassemble the forces of Chaos and Disorder. This we will do for our Creator." The Lesser Queen adds. "A threat to the universe Entire, that threatens the well being of the Creator, is a threat to be met with all possible response, and all strength. The Three Hives will not fail in their duty to disassemble this trans-universal evil. This trans-universal evil will know the order of full disassembly and dissolution." "To the end of the universe, to the border of the Far Beyond" the Greater Queen shrieks "To the end of the universe, to the border of the Far Beyond" the Lesser Queen takes up the call. The rest of the hive starts repeating and amplifiying this call. Martin waits, satisfied, as the call increases and becomes more strident. "Let's pack our stuff," he says at the best moment he can judge. "It's time to make a difference." "So it shall be." the Greater Queen stops her call, which has a life of its own at this point, and continues even without her input. A few moments later the Lesser Queen repeats this. In about five minutes, the chanting has not only stopped, but the Hive around Martin and Godfrey is once again a flurry of activity, as the horde of metal insects has started to disassemble the Hive and all of its accouterments around them, from the top down. The Greater Queen departs the scene, presumably to marshal the other two Hives in similar fashion. "At the rate of deconstruction, Martin" Godfrey says. "It will take less than eight hours for the Hive to be completely disassembled. Assuming the other Hives are dissassembled at a similar rate, the Wasps will be ready to leave less than an hour after that." The lesser Queen sidles closer to Martin. "We only require the coordinates where the equipment of which you spoke, o Creator, awaits us. "Or did you intend to lead us personally to the location?" she asks. "That was my plan," Martin says. "This is now my home, until we reach our destination. How else will I have the chance to work on your first Modification?" The Lesser Queen regards Martin for a moment and gives a human nod. "You will need Quarters until Diassembly is complete." she says. She scurries away and starts giving orders. Over the next hour, a portion of the Wasps are diverted from the diassembly of the Hive, and are tasked, instead, to take some of those raw materials and fashion a space for Martin and Godfrey. The resulting place is not palatial, or even homely, it is more like an Quonset hut, with a fair number of benches and tables, and two beds. "If there is anything else the Creator requires before Disassembly" the Lesser Queen chitters. "I will see to it being provided." "Sure. I'll need lead-impregnated plastisteel shields, two centrifuges that can reach fifty thousand RPM, a sonic screwdriver with infra- and ultra-sonic capability..." Martin goes on with a reasonably short list, all from memory. "...and a tube of your internal fluids. And one from either queen. With a little luck, I'll have the first Blessing out before we get moving." He pauses, hoping that last will prevent questions about the sprockets or the fingerpaints. The mechano-compound eyes of the Wasp regard Martin and Godfrey silently for a moment before the Lesser Queen speaks. "Understood, Creator. All that you wish shall be delivered here." The Lesser Queen departs, giving Martin and Godfrey some peace and privacy for about an hour and a quarter before she returns. When she does return, she is directing several workers to push a large cart. The activity outside in the meantime, something for Godfrey and possibly Martin to watch in the interim, has accelerated, the Hive being taken apart with precise effort. Martin also would note that in that hour, the Greater Queen has returned, although she appears to have left the Lesser Queen in charge of Martin for the moment. "All that you have requested is here." The Lesser Queen says. "My counterpart has been informed of your needs and requests." she adds. "Final Disassembly will be complete in 6 hours." she says proudly. There is also water (remarkably pure) and somehow, the Queen has obtained what look like New Cydonian nutrition bars. "That is amazing," Martin says, thanking her for the food and water. "All of this," he says, indicating the equipment and the hut, "is more than I expected. And well appreciated. I'll definitely have something in that timeframe, if I can work uninterrupted. Godfrey, I'll need you for an assistant." "The Creator will not be interrupted until Final Disassembly." The Lesser Queen intones. "Save by your own express command." She withdraws, giving Martin and Godfrey privacy and space. Even the sound of disassembly sounds a bit reduced, or baffled. "Yes, Martin." Godfrey says. "What do you need and what do we plan to accomplish?" "Remember the code, for it's going to be part of this," Martin says. There is a whirr of gears as Godfrey listens. "The wasps, they can communicate by sound and smell through their antennae, and the queens give out pheromones, complex hormones which the males pick up. I'm going to increase the range of these pheromones and give the queens conscious control of them, so their effective communication range will be at least doubled. As it gets disseminated into the hive, I anticipate there will be a new 'signal class' of wasp that will be able to pass messages to units in case technological means get shorted out. Overall, the communication of the hive wasps should increase significantly. And, of course, so should my message of peace, should I need to tell it to them." "The improvement of communications amongst the wasps will increase their peacetime and wartime capability." Godfrey comments. "This may lead to an acceleration of their societal development." "You only intend to directly influence and alter these three hives, correct, Martin?" he says. "The hives that failed to meet your standards will remain as unimproved controls?" Godfrey pauses a moment. "They will either adapt to their more advanced kin, be subsumed, or will be driven to marginalization and extinction. In either event, as I suggested earlier, they will act as a baseline." "The neurocode has been brought to mind for use and insertion." Godfrey says. "That's it, just these three," Martin says, nodding. "I can't control when or where it will spread to the other hives, but we'll have them as a control at least until the battle is over with the Omphalos. Did I, er, program you with the basics of genetic manipulation? I've got to plan this for the six hours, and I need to know what I should personally handle." "A few moments, Martin..." Godfrey stops, and the whirr of gears can be heard again as Godfrey accesses deep stored memory. A second more, and Godfrey's eyes light up. "It appears, Martin, you have programmed several packages of abilities and skill sets within me." he says. "I have loaded and activated the science and technology package." He rattles off a series of basic terms in genetic engineering. His physical skills are yet to be tested, but his base knowledge of such techniques and teminology is relatively high. "It is a strange feeling, Martin." Godfrey says. "I remember having, and I do not remember in detail, some of the memories from my base memory package." The moment of reflection passes and he shakes his head. Martin frowns. "You mean you're forgetting some of your original programmed memories? Or am I misunderstanding?" A pause. "Let me take a look at your memory core, if you don't mind." "All right, Martin." Godfrey stops, and opens himself to Martin. Martin's analysis of the Memory cores, over the next few minutes, is revealing. Its not so much that Godfrey's memories are lost forever or wiped by the overlays, but rather they seem to be shunted into long-term, more difficult to reach memory storage when one of the other packages, such as the technology package, he has now activated, takes hold. It is as if they are moved to a external drive with slower access, while the new memories and talents take center stage. Martin's analysis suggests that this is a dynamic process. Once Godfrey reverts to normal function, the science and technology package will return to "external drive" status, but with the updates of what he has done and what he has learned. Theoretically, Godfrey could keep accessing them, even when the package is deactivated, but it would be a noticeably slower process. There are a number of packages Martin has created, and clear "slots" for Martin, or perhaps Godfrey himself, to create even more loadouts. "Godfrey, I'm a genius," Martin says. "When I'm unconscious, anyway. That strange sensation you're feeling is a switching system where you can pull an information package to the forefront, with faster access, then shunt it back to slower storage later. You can adjust it however you want, looks like. I'd say let's experiment with it now, but we're pressed for time. Let's get the DNA extracted from this sample, then we can start making manipulations." "Yes, Martin." Godfrey says. Martin's genius does manifest over the next few hours. Godfrey takes a short while, fifteen minutes, in total, to get completely into the flow of DNA extraction, polymerase chain reactions to amplify the DNA pulled out so that there is a usable amount to manipulate, and then start applying Martin's adjustments via various vectors. Once he is in the zone, however, Godfrey is everything Martin could have hoped for in a lab assistant. So, what are Martin's three top goals in manipulating and augmenting the Wasp genetic material? Martin is quite pleased with this whole situation, and shows it. Having Godfrey as a knowledgeable assistant really helps get things moving. Martin's top goal is to strengthen the pheromones exuded by the queens by making a post-translational gene product, giving them the option of 'supercharging' a message to their hives. This will take some small time to learn, but Martin isn't too worried. In addition, it should be disseminated out to the hive within the next few generations. Second, he'll encode the neurocode into the pheromone gene as a rider, so both will be expressed together when he sends the trigger (which in itself will be a pheromone that he'll create separately with the genetic manipulation). He'll keep the trigger pheromone on him. Third, he'll set in motion a gradual increase in the receptiveness and size of the wasps' antennae, and make it a homozygous recessive trait with gene placement rather than an overall operator mutation so that it only shows in a small fraction of the population. This will eventually create the signal corps he was looking for. Close to the deadline that Martin has set, the work is complete. The enfolding of the neurocode into the gene goes flawlessly. HE figures that with a homozygous recessive trait, he will eventually get frequencies in keeping with standard population genetics, but unless there is a lot of Wasp breeding, this will be a slow process and the numbers of Signal-Class wasps will not be large unless Martin does a lot of work in introducing this trait to a larger than expected population. It is as Martin is looking over the work he and Godfrey has done when one of the workers comes to the Hut. Chittering, the worker requests, on behalf of the Greater Queen, the status of Martin's work. In the meantime, now that Martin is no longer in the fever heat of work, he can see that the hive is almost completely disassembled around the hut. "Tell the Queen we just finished," Martin says, holding papers in his hand. "I would wish an audience with both the Greater and Lesser Queens, as they will benefit first from our efforts." The worker accedes and departs the hut. Martin and Godfrey have only a short while, a few minutes, before a group of workers come, to bring him and Godfrey to the presence of both Queens. The Queen's Court is much more ramshackle than previously, not much more than a bare slab upon which the two queens, Greater and Lesser, are perched. There are not a lot of workers in attendance, as most of them are still engaged in the disassembly of the three hives. The two other hives are now visible through gaps in the exoskeleton of the hive as similarly as skeletal masses adjacent to the nearly disassembled hive they stand in now. "You have completed your promise and created what we wished for, O Creator?" The Greater Queen asks, leaning down to regard Martin and Godfrey. The Lesser Queen remains watchful, and silent. "The first Blessing," Martin nods. "All the changes will be internal to both you queens, so I'll need to inject something into you. I'm adding a lot of information that will slowly disseminate through your progeny. And after a day or two of feeling a little ill, you'll have to master the new abilities I give you, through practice." The Greater Queen hesitates and gives the Lesser Queen a look. There is a brief and rapid exchange in their own language. It is the Greater Queen who speaks, even as the Lesser Queen comes forward. "You will inject the Lesser Queen first, now." the Greater Queen says. "Upon her successful recovery, you will then inject me. I wish to ascertain its efficacy before risking myself to the process." "I think" Godfrey subvocalizes "we've just been insulted. Or she is more ambitious than we thought." "I am ready to receive the blessing." The Lesser Queen, for her part, is far less cautious, and there is eagerness in her compound eyes. Martin gives a look back to Godfrey as if to say, this wasn't a complete surprise. "I'm ready to Bless you," he says to the Lesser Queen. She gives a nod of the head. "Stand here for a minute, and lift this arm just so. Thaaats, it... big stick now... there we go. Now hold on to me for a few minutes, you might feel a little dizzy. When that goes away, you'll probably want some sleep." Five minutes later, the insertion is complete. The Lesser Queen's dance backward is not quite a stumble, but the genetic package is clearly already taking hold. "I feel unusually warm." The Lesser Queen says. "Body temperature has risen. I feel sleepy as well." The Greater Queen, watching this from a distance, is deliberate and measured in her voice. "It appears your injection has had an effect of some kind." she says to Martin. "I await the results with eagerness." "The Hive will be ready to leave within 2 hours, Creator." she adds. She looks at where the Lesser Queen has gone, in search of a place to rest. "One hopes the Blessing does not delay our departure." Martin looks pleased. "If she's strong enough, she'll wake up quickly," he says. "And she'll get stronger and stronger, with time." There is a slight chittering from the Greater Queen as she digests this. The rest of the Court present (some workers not engaged in the disassembly task) has shifted, moving closer. He looks over the Greater Queen. "She won't end up putting you at a disadvantage, will she?" "If the Blessing is so clearly efficacious as you suggest, Creator" The Greater Queen says. "And free of defect, then I will insist on my own dose of the Blessing. However, it is better that the effects be first tested before both of us accept the Blessing, and as the Lesser Queen is more expendable to the Hives, it is right and proper that she receive it first." "The honor is not in receiving the first dose, but the best dose." the Greater Queen adds. "Best dose, huh? Fair enough," Martin says. "You'll love it, by the time I've exhausted some of my ideas. I always meant to do these things, but time was always against me. I've got this idea for a bioelectric arc generator weapon, maybe I'll try that next..." "Additional armanents would be a welcome blessing, o Creator." The Greater Queen replies with something like satisfaction. "Especially if the weapons were properly distributed to the correct portions of the Hive." "Is there anything else the Creator needs before We Depart?" the Greater Queen adds. "Notice that the Lesser Queen has failed, or survived the Blessing, perhaps? Food and water? Metal?" "News of the Blessing, yes," Martin says. "I'll grab some spare metal and parts while we're on the move." "As you wish, o Creator." The Greater Queen says. "We will give you news as it comes, o Creator." About an hour later, Martin discovers that the news of the Blessing does not come from the Greater Queen, but from the Lesser. She enters Martin and Godfrey's hut, standing tall. Her antennae are noticeably larger and more prominent. She chitters in greeting. "I have survived the Blessing." she says. "I will require practice to master what you have blessed me with. I feel my ability to communicate with the members of the Hive has been enormously increased. She pauses and lowers her voice. "Did you seek to have me supplant or trade positions with the Greater Queen?" she asks. "Or did she expect me to simply die?" "I think she was being careful," Martin says slowly. "I might have taken exception to the lack of faith, or whatever, but I'm not like that. I wasn't deliberately trying to affect your politics, either, I personally think things usually work out better for everyone if that's done internally. Think of me like a windstorm- I blow through and sometimes I make profound changes, and then I move on." "You are a God of Change" The Lesser Queen chitters thoughtfully. "Your presence has done nothing but to alter us in your visits." She chitters to herself again. "This journey,this great fight against evil, will change us further, will it not? You do not to seek to expend us as I might molt an old shell?" Although reading the Wasps' voice is not easy, worry and concern lace her every word. "This journey will change us all, even me," Martin says. "I'm not going to lie to you. I expect most of you not to come back. Many of you will die, but you will do so in order that the rest will live, unfettered by the machinations and tyranny of outsiders who wish to invade us. And when it is all over, and I hope that we win, you who survive and return changed to your homeland, you will be the template for generations to come. No... no, I do not seek to expend you. I come to borrow your strength. I'll push you, and test you, because I want my creations, all my creations, to be the best they can be." "What Martin says is true" Godfrey puts in. The Lesser Queen's eyes swivel to look at Godfrey, as if seeing him again for the first time. "He has created me in a way greater than even he has anticipated, testing my abilities and allowing me to grow and change." The Lesser Queen chitters to herself for a few moments more. "I already feel some of the changes you have propagated in me, developing within. I might supplant the Greater Queen, make her the lesser..." She regards Martin. "But that would injure our chances to defeat the Evil Outsiders, would it not?" she says, as if knowing her own answer. "So I will remain the Lesser Queen, and not seek civil war." She pauses a beat after raising her head. "The Hives appear ready to depart on your command, o Creator." Martin seems about ready to respond to the Lesser Queen's train of thought, but thinks better of it. He nods once. "Very good, then, Let us go forward, to Disassemble Evil." "To Diassemble Evil!" the Lesser Queen agrees. Not long thereafter, Martin and Godfrey, led by the Lesser Queen, and an ever growing Honor Guard of ordinary wasps, make their way to what has become their assembling ground. Aside from the large masses of wasps in battle formation, in strictly regimented squares, there is a greater mass of less combat-oriented wasps. These are carrying ingots of metal on their backs. Individually, they do not carry much, but together, they probably could reassemble all three hives, if needed. And when needed. At the front of this grouping of the wasps is the Greater Queen, of course. She raises an arm to summon, or invite the Lesser Queen, Martin and Godfrey to the front of the massed forces. "Will we reave New Cydonia first, Creator?" the Greater Queen says, with obvious salivation at the thought. "As we go forward to Disassemble Evil?" "I've been thinking about that," Martin says. "I finally concluded that I still have lots to do here, and I don't want to damage it to the point where it loses its usefulness to me." The disappointment on the Queen's countenance is extremely human. "Tell you what...on the way, we will find a place where we can find all the raw materials we need. We will find this place because I have decided it will be so, and I have that power. You'll see. We should hold off on the reaving until then." The Queen chitters for a minute or so in thought. "Very well" she says. "We shall not, on the Creator's request, harvest New Cydonia. We will anticipate the reaving of the place you have in mind." "What of the finished products from New Cydonia?" Godfrey asks quietly. "Ah, yes, thank you Godfrey," Martin says. "One other little stop before we go to this place I'm thinking of... and that is to pick up some fabricated metal. A lot of it, so there will be some logistics involved in getting it moving. Can't disassemble it, unfortunately, I went through too much trouble to put it together as it is. It's part of what we need to turn the tables on the Omphalos...the invaders." "The Creator spoke of the need to bring fabricated products to bear against Evil." The Greater Queen replies. "We will bear the burden of these fabricated metals, and allow the Creator to employ them against these...Omphalos." The word is unfamiliar and the Queen takes a moment to pronounce. "The Omphalos shall be disassembled!" she declares. "The Omphalos shall be disassembled!" comes the cry of the assembled wasps. "We only need you to lead us now, Creator." the Queen says gloriously, grandly. "Your mount has not been disassembled, but has been brought here." The stolen car that Martin has used is borne on a living carpet of wasps into the throne room. The Wasps stop, and scatter, when the car is in front of Martin and Godfrey. "We have not modified the vehicle, we were given no orders to Improve it." the Lesser Queen puts in. "There's no need," Martin says, as he walks around the vehicle. "It'll keep up with the troops, considering all the stuff we'll be carrying. I'll trick it up if I need to... what about your Blessing? Did you want to wait?" "I am still not convinced of its efficacy." the Greater Queen says, glancing at the Lesser Queen before looking at Martin. "It has not felled her, but it has not proven its worth to me. I would not have us waste any more time while I recuperate from it. The business of the Creator presses upon us, and we should not be idle drones while waiting for it to work upon me." The Lesser Queen makes a chittering noise that sounds like laughter. This earns her a withering look from the Greater Queen. Martin wisely ignores the byplay. "All right, then," he says. "Let's head on out, yes?" With Martin leading the way, the sight of the Hives moving across the deserts and ruins outside New Cydonia is like a virtual plague of wasps. The air is full of the sound of chittering, the beating of wings, the sound of lockstep feet in formation. If the Hives were headed to the multitiered city, there would be alarms, alerts and more problems than Martin might deal with. Instead the city is seen at a distance, the toxic lower levels obscured by fog, the taller towers glistening and gleaming. The inversion layer is awfully low, today. The designed rendezvous drop off point is on a small plateau on the opposite side of the city from the Hives. Good as the deliverers world, enough steel beams, carbon skeletal elements, and everything else to construct Martin's Zeppelin force and them some. The excited chittering of the Wasps reaches a fever pitch. "Martin" Godfrey says suddenly. "There is over a 98 percent probability the drop off site is being monitored. I detect a half dozen actively broadcasting transmitters hidden in the materiel. It is probable there are passive nodes as well." "Our purchase has garnered interest." "Yah, I thought that might happen. Give me a minute or two, and then start rattling off the active transmitter frequencies." Martin takes out his PDA and starts to hijack one of the communication satellites in orbit around Cydonia. (Burglary Skill plus Roll.... Wait, wrong game and system ;) ) As they approach the site, Martin manages to get into the nearest communication satellite with relatively modest effort. The protocols have evolved significantly since the last time he's done this years ago, and so a few techniques needed to be updated. A level of encryption has to be bypassed. At a signal from him, Godfrey starts rattling off of the frequencies that the transmittters are broadcasting on. The frequencies are all high microwave, with five of the six frequencies clustering around 7.5 GHZ. The sixth one, anomalously, is all the way up at 8.8 GHZ. "Somebody's being really clever," Martin says. "I wonder who? Maybe they'll be smart enough to meet up with us. In any case..." "Perhaps it is not the natives." Godfrey says. "Probability of it being someone from outside the shadow is indeterminate. The equations have too many free variables to calculate with any degree of certainty." Once he's hacked into the satellite, he calls over to the Queens. The Two Queens, and an entourage to match, converge on the vehicle. "We're being watched, and there's passive sensors," he says. "I can jam the active ones, but I'll need a cover for the passive ones. What I need is a number of drones that can either emit a signal at a particular pitch, or carry equipment that can do the same, or less effective, equipment that can send off strong feedback. I want them all to fly up to the package and then take off in all different directions and cause confusion until we can get up in there and disable the passive sensors. Can they do that?" The two queens withdraw and converse back and forth in their language for about a minute or so. Finally, they seem to come to an accord, and they return, the Greater Queen speaking. "We can have the drones create and carry sound equipment to accomplish this task, Creator." The Greater queen explains. "It will require less than an hour to assemble the components for the generators and be prepared to act at your command. "Is this acceptable, Creator?" the Greater Queen asks. Martin glances towards Godfrey to confirm the timing, but nods. "Yeah, that sounds good." "It is a reasonable time frame, Martin" Godfrey says after a moment's whirring thought. He holds up the PDA. "That's the frequency you want, but if you can't hack all of the equipment, program the rest for white noise. Hurry, 'cause I can't keep control of my jamming satellite forever." He grins at Godfrey. "And a bonus: with a jamming satellite, they can't track our progress from space until we've grabbed the stuff and walked in Shadow." "Yes, Creator." The Greater Queen says. "The materiel of the Creator will not be stolen. Together, the two Queens (with the lesser Queen taking lead on communication) start giving commands to workers. While Martin has seen their disassembly skills in full play, in the next 57 minutes, he sees them take the raw material they carry, and assemble jamming devices. The hierarchical nature of the Wasps is seen even in the assembly and design process, going all the way up to the Queens for the most major decisions. There is even a group of Wasps engaged in what might be called Quality Assurance, going around to the various teams working on components, pulling out items at random, and seeing if the pieces are to specifications and plan. 57 minutes after the plan is put in effect, six jamming devices have been completed that give off a frequency that is, within a tenth of a percent, exactly what Martin had specified. Martin still has control of the satellite. There are cursorial probes aimed at testing Martin's control, but nothing at all yet serious or a major challenge to his authority. That, clearly, is coming. Martin decides that it is improbable that the probes are going to get a foothold. But this might not be enough, so he instructs Godfrey to research an emergency backup jammer that will work locally. It might not cover the whole army, but he's hoping it will make the shipment disappear. Godfrey gets to work on creating something portable, and quickly producible from the materials on hand that the Wasps already carry. Then, well, there's no reason to wait. "Let's do it," he says to the Queens. "Run the passive jammers on ahead, and have them rendezvous with us," He pulls up a map on his PDA, "here, after the command to scatter. I'll start the active jamming in two minutes and thirty seconds... mark. Godfrey, let's go." The Queens send the workers ahead, the signals filling the air with useless information and static. The Wasps the Greater Queen selected, Martin notes, are all communicating with the Lesser Queen and her enhanced capabilities. The greater control this affords seems to obviate some potential coordination problems that could have led to gaps in coverage. As Martin and Godfrey follow, Godfrey shows Martin a prototype backup jammer, based very much on the Wasp model, with a somewhat more anachronistic sort of appearance, more rheostat dials and oscilloscope sort of display and feedback. As the drones start their scattering formation and Martin and Godfrey come up, Godfrey shows Martin the display as the active jamming goes into effect. Martin's active jamming is bright and clear and signature, and the noise being generated by the drones. Underneath those spikes, Martin can see that whoever is trying to monitor the equipment is, in turn, trying to overcome the jamming. Whoever is doing this is clearly trying ECCM-type measures. They are not succeeding, but they are being particularly persistent. The amount of power being used is relatively high, too. The Wasps have started loading material onto themselves, in some cases turning into a living carpet to carry the larger fabricated pieces on the ground. Martin has a failsafe for the counter-countermeasures, but he leaves it alone, hoping that he won't have to do something drastic, Instead, he rushes ahead with Godfrey, using his PDA to 'sniff' out the passive sensors and disable them as fast as possible. The clock ticks as Martin searches the pile and the fabricated pieces for the passive sensors. The press of the control of the satellite, the efforts to overcome the jamming. The sensors themselves, when Martin finds them, are relatively small rivet-shaped devices that are easy to miss without something like his device to target them. Godfrey takes the initiative to disassemble each of them as they are found. The ECCM measures continue to steadily rise. They are within shouting distance of being able to overwhelm the jamming when Martin gets the last passive sensor found, and disabled. His PDA detects that all of them have been accounted for, and there is nothing for them to "ping". The danger, for the moment, appears to have been averted. Martin smiles. I need the jammer wasps to scatter, per the plan. I need the drones to pick up this stuff and get us moving. And I need groups of soldiers to fly around the periphery and 'discourage' whomever comes up to get a bird's eye view. We don't have much time until they get enough satellites over our heads to look at us, no matter how much jamming I set up." "Yes, Martin" Godfrey says. "I calculate a small but growing probability that the origin of these efforts originate outside of New Cydonia entirely." The workers continue their efforts to get the material in carrying condition, the carpets of walking workers and flying teams of workers and drones each taking some of the load. The jammer wasps fly in diametrically opposed directions, using drunkard walk algorithms mixed in with their standard vectors to make their flights more difficult to track. Martin can start shadow shifting the mass. "Did you wish the jammers to return?" the Lesser Queen comes up to Martin and Godfrey's vehicle. "They are still within *my* range, if not the Greater Queen's communication range." The pride in her voice at her augmentation is obvious. Coincidentally, even though it lasts only a moment, and then drops into nothiness, someone tries to trump Martin as the lesser Queen speaks.. Its definitely not the lesser Queen, and its too short in relative time for Martin to get a fix on it, but someone clearly did. "Nuts," Martin says. "Give them another few minutes, and then call them in," he says. "We need to move as fast as possible so I can erase this element of pursuit. Concentrate the pickets to the sides and the rear so we can discourage pursuit." "You think we will be pursued but not attacked head-on?" The Lesser Queen says Godfrey says. "Pursuit or perpendicular interception is far more likely." "Very well. The jammers will remain out for 4 more minutes and the pickets aligned as you wish" the lesser Queen withdraws to speak to the Greater Queen and get matters moving." The convoy of materials continues its slow march. In five minutes, distantly, the jammers can be seen heading back to the main body of the convoy. In ten minutes, the jammers are back within the body of Martin's convoy. Two minutes later, a message comes to Martin and Godfrey, via a worker sent by the Lesser Queen. One of the pickets at a polar angle of 147 degrees reports spotting a single, large ship of unknown construction and manufacture moving toward the convoy, distance estimated at 12 kilometers. A quick bit of vector math based on its speed and angle suggests that the ship will reach the convoy in approximately 9 more minutes. One might say that the element of pursuit is definitely present. Backlinks |
