NationStates Jolt Archive

Red Hammer system, Havenic space

If you blinked you'd miss it.

flicker. flash. flicker.

A single frigate jumps in, emits a bright flash, and vanishes again.

Dust expands in its wake. Smart dust, spread in a neat wedge, perfectly aligned to spread itself across the system's ample asteroid belts.

But you couldn't tell that by looking at it...

...if you were a casual observer, that is.

(Red Hammer System, Galactic South Quadrant)

"FTL signature detected," a sensor officer monitoring probes scattered throughout the Red Hammer system noted from the bridge of the large miner N.H.M.M.V. Prospector. "Its... gone."

"What do you mean gone? Did it cloak?" The Prospector's Captain demanded to know. The system was still in transition back to being under the control of the Imperium.

"Negative," The sensor officer replied. "There was a double-peak in the tachyon pulses. The ship jumped in and jumped out pretty fast. It might have been a hostile scout, or it could have been a misjump."

"Lets go under the assumption it is the former. Contact the Gladius Veritas and relay our findings."

====================================
(Red Hammer System, Galactic North Quadrant)

The Gladius Veritas (Sword of Truth), a Kusanagi-class Frigate designated FF-08, sat silently as it repeated its beacon request signals, looking for the niling d-sinks that had been left in the system prior to the series of events that left the Imperium shattered for years. Now that the Imperium was reasserting itself, finding those devices was top priority.

Imperial Fleet Command wanted the devices back in their hands for several reasons:

1. They could be theoretically used to enhance the yield of a Hermium Wavefront Mine. This was unlikely, but tests would still need to be done.
2. It could provide a way of storing energy for the proposed GeoFront structures at the Beta, Gamma and Delta sites.
3. The weapons could potentially fall into enemy hands. This was not to occur under any circumstances, and if the previous occupants of the system had extracted the weapons, IFC would have to be notified ASAP for the possible repercussions of such acts.

Captain Eric Ingham, CO of the Gladius Veritas, sat at his chair on the bridge next to Sculptorese Praetorian Guard Lieutenant Carmen DeSoto, the artifical construct that came over from Sculptor to deliver the data crystals to the Imperatrix. The Imperatrix in the Milky Way asked her to perform a mission for her in order to prove her worth, something done to most Praetorian Officers during dual-leadership of the Imperium.

"Lieutenant, do you know the exact location of the asteroid?" Captain Ingham asked. They had jumped into the system a few hours previous and the Lieutenant had just finished going over her internal memory regarding the mission.

"I don't know the exact location," DeSoto replied. "Because of the erratic drift patterns in the belt, its exact location cannot be determined."

"Then how are we going to find the asteroid?"

"Send a transmission on Tachyon Carrier Wave #8 for an automated beacon request," DeSoto replied. "Authorization code Alpha-Kilo-Niner. Request the automated beacon return the signal as a unidirectional return to this location. The Prospector's report is disturbing."

"Why's that, Lieutenant?"

"Because it may mean that we're running out of time."

Silent as snow, the dust fell across the asteroid belt. Upon landing, it proceeded to multiply like rabbits.

No, that's wrong.

Nanotech multiplies faster than rabbits.

A lot faster.

******

A few of the grains are slightly larger than most.

ACS FABPASTE CONTROLLER SPECK, BATCH #&*(%(*%@

(error - corrupted ID hash)
(error - above-optimal impact)
(error bypassed, system active)

action list #1

1. conglomerate
2. refine construction material
3. construct relay rocket glob (blueprint #1)
4. construct core penetrator glob (blueprint #2)
5. read list #2
6. delete list #1

(dispatching orders)

Gray goo ensues.

******

The dust specks accumulate on the asteroids' surfaces. Only a few hundred specks have reached each individual asteroid - less than a milligram of mass.

That's enough.

They blob together, and begin to eat into the rock, reducing it to its constituent elements. Said elements are reassembled into a rocket the size of a thumbnail, which is launched by the merest puff of cold gas, off to infect another asteroid.

Then the blobs of nanotech begin to tunnel into the asteroid's surface, exhausting plumes of vaporized material through the tunnel they leave behind. Eventually, one of them will hit the cache. And when it does, the switch will trip.

After that it'll all go up in flames.