***The Prime Key overrides all inhibits…all Rules…all programming***
That’s what I thought, Winger told himself. There it was…out in the open and plainly stated. They were no longer dealing with a programmable synthetic nanoscale entity anymore. The Four Rules had always been a deeply embedded set that governed everything ANAD did.
Now they were dealing with an independent mind.
Every aspect of ANAD’s basic operation had to be checked out in tests and sims. For the first week and a half of Galileo’s journey, the nanotroopers busied themselves with launch and recovery tests, disassembly of simple and compound structures, three-axis config changes, elementary swarm operations, controlled replication, even limited combat replication.
It was the first combat rep that nearly cost Mighty Mite Barnes her life.
Nobody knew what really happened. The first combat replication had been scheduled to take place under tightly controlled conditions, in a stores locker located in Galileo’s service deck that had been temporarily cleared and sealed off. Most of the Detachment had come by to watch the operation. Kip Detrick and Vic Klimuk, the Interface and Control specialists (IC1 and IC2) were running the show.
“Template loaded and checked, Skipper,” said Klimuk, his eyes roving over the control board that had been set up outside the locker hatch. “ANAD reports ready in all respects.”
“Very well,” Winger said. “Containment measures--?”
Turbo Fatah and Mighty Mite Barnes had been given that responsibility. “Injectors primed, sir,” Turbo reported. “All charged up.”
“Same with HERF and mag weapons,” Barnes told them. The CQE1 flexed her fingers around the trigger of a small-bore rf carbine. “All copacetic and ready to fry any loose bots that come my way.”
“Just keep your eyes open, Mite. Let’s give ANAD a chance.” Winger visually checked their setup. He had spent the better part of the last two days trying to convince Lieutenant Mendez that a small combat rep aboard his ship was vital to fully test ANAD’s systems.
Mendez had been dubious. “Just so it doesn’t go berserk and start eating my hull. Make sure you can keep it under control.”
“If ANAD can’t execute a replication like this, then he’s not going to be of any use at the asteroid. I’d rather find out now and have time to correct any problems.”
Winger scanned all the arrangements. He pronounced himself satisfied they had done everything they could to contain ANAD if the rep went sour.
“Execute.”
Klimuk sent the command. Inside the stores locker, the air burned with maximum reps going off, as the nanobotic assembler grabbed atoms and built structure like a frantic brick mason. Through the porthole of the hatch, the glow erupted into an intense white-hot ball, expanding slowly, noiselessly until the entire compartment was ablaze.
Barnes peered in. “Like looking into the sun,” she muttered. “Jeez, he’s going fast…faster than I’ve ever seen. Skipper, Doc Frost must have really made a hot rod when he re-generated ANAD.”
Klimuk was monitoring the expanding swarm from the control board. “I concur, Skipper. ANAD’s replication rate is off the scale…electron volt levels are way high…maybe we better check the template again—“
Winger watched alongside Barnes. “Leave him alone for a moment…it may be that new code we found. That could be accelerating the rep engine.”
“Someone sure stepped on the gas,” Barnes muttered. Reflexively, she tightened her grip on the carbine. The expanding ball of white heat grew larger and swelled to fill the entire stores locker.
“LOOK OUT!” Nobody remembered whose voice had sounded the first warning. Before anyone could react, the hatch had been breached, softening to a semi-molten glop that quickly seared into a blazing opening, like an incandescent eye waking up. The swarm had punched through the hatch in seconds and started swelling out into the corridor.
The first flickering tendrils had collapsed around Barnes’ arm and shoulder in an eye blink.
“AAARRRGGGHHH…get it off!....get it off me!!!”
Troopers rushed to Barnes’ side, knocking her to the floor, smothering her with their bodies, as they flailed helplessly at the swarm of bots.
“FIRE THE HERF!” Winger yelled. He grabbed a carbine from a nearby rack and stabbed the charging button. The weapon whined as it cycled through its setup, then the red light changed to green and Winger lit off a pulse of rf at the swelling formation of mechs.
For the next few seconds, multiple beams of rf waves and electron jolts blasted across the hatch to the Stores locker. Hot thunderclaps boomed throughout the module, frying the very air as radio waves and electron beams crisscrossed the deck.
“Blast ‘em!” someone cried out. It was Nicole Simonet, lugging a coilgun into position. She dropped to one knee and got off a few rounds of magnetic loops, which promptly buckled the locker hatch nearly off its hinges. Then she had to retreat, as elements of the ANAD swarm billowed out in her direction.
All the firepower the nanotroopers had brought to bear seemed to have little effect. Two modules forward, Lieutenant Mendez was running routine systems checks on the command deck when a master caution alarm starting blaring in his ears. Instantly, he sat up straight and switched his viewer image to the Service and Support deck, lower level. What he saw made his throat go dry.
“Holy shit!” The image was obscured with thick smoke and the telltale flicker of nanobotic swarms out of control. At the same instant, more master alarms went off, wailing and honking, indicating a serious pressure drop in the module. “Service, this is Command…what the hell’s going on down there?” Just from the swirl of the smoke, Mendez could see a pronounced flow to the smoke. There had to be a leak somewhere…maybe the pressure hull, maybe even the outer hull had been breached. Bodies and faces darted in and out of view through the thickening mist. Some of that’s water vapor condensing out…get the breathers, you dopes!
He rang up Kamler, who was somewhere aft doing daily PMs on CO2 canisters. Kamler’s voice hissed through the ship’s intercom.
“Eddie, what was that noise…I thought I heard—“
Mendez cut him off. “It’s the Stores locker…some kind of seal’s let go…I’ve got it on the vid and it looks like a nano swarm gone haywire. Get back there and get those atomheads out of there….I’m activating emergency air overflow now—“ As soon as Mendez pressed a few buttons, the Service deck was flooded with high pressure air, trying to compensate for the growing pressure drop.
Mendez then unstrapped himself and scooted aft to the main gangway.
The last thing he needed aboard Galileo now was a module full of dead nanotroopers.
Mendez pulled himself along the central passageway to the Stores deck and found the place in an uproar. As soon as he entered the compartment, he saw the expanding swarm, billowing and flashing outward like an angry thunderstorm.
“I’ve activated emergency 02 flow!” he yelled over the shriek of nanomech hell. He saw open hatches around the deck. “Get those hatches shut and secured! We’ve got to do something before this thing breaches the pressure hull!”
Lieutenant Winger was pre-occupied dealing with the swarm so Mendez grabbed Simonet and another trooper and set them to work securing the deck. One by one, they pulled interior hatches shut and locked them down. Now at least the swarm would be contained for awhile.
The air inside the compartment was hot and dry, desert air that burned throats and lungs. Staccato HERF fire across the compartment rattled and shook everything, but the radio freq waves seemed to have little effect.
“It’s out of control!” Simonet yelled while she charged up her HERF weapon.
Corporal Lucy Hiroshi saw Mendez had come aft. She went to him. “ANAD won’t respond to commands, Lieutenant! All inhibits are down…we may have to evacuate the compartment. Can you dump the air in here, expose the whole place to space, if we evacuate??
??
Mendez nodded, yelling in her ear. “We can but I don’t recommend it! We may lose some of our supplies if we do.”
“It’s a last resort…if Lieutenant Winger and Sergeant Klimuk can’t regain control of the swarm.”
At that moment, Johnny Winger was hurriedly pecking out commands on his wristpad. Config safe enable…config safe shutdown…emergency override…nothing seemed to work. “ANAD--,” he muttered to himself, swatting away bots that buzzed insistently around his head, “what the hell’s going on here. “
***ANAD executing Prime Key…internal inhibits not active…ANAD seeks self…swarm actions are priority***
Winger got on the acoustic circuit. “ANAD, you’ve got to stop! You’re attacking your own troopers. ANAD…configuration safe enable…command override…execute all inhibits…Four-Rule protocols are in effect…ANAD, you’re violating the Second Rule…you’ve got to stop or you’ll destroy the ship—“
***ANAD executes Prime Key…override format fault…illegal format…Four Rules conflict with Prime Key***
What the hell’s bollixed up ANAD…there’s got to be a way, Winger told himself. “ANAD, you’re attacking your own troops. It’s friendly fire. ANAD, you’re a nanotrooper now, remember the nanowarrior code…small is all...courage, honor, duty…help your fellow troopers at all times…never leave a wounded trooper behind—“
***--a trooper never surrenders…a trooper bleeds and dies for his fellow troopers…a trooper honors the Corps in all he does---***
Winger took a deep breath. Did I hear right? ANAD was reciting the nanowarrior’s code, in unison. Somewhere deep inside his processor, in spite of the re-gen and all he had been through, there was a tiny shred of nanotrooper still left.
“That’s it! A trooper loves the Corps and strives for—“