VON NEUMANN'S WAR—ARC JOHN RINGO & TRAVIS S. TAYLOR Advance Reader Copy Unproofed This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. VON NEUMANN'S WAR Copyright © 2004 by John Ringo & Travis S. Taylor "Citadel" lyrics written by Rogue, copyright 2003, song performed by The Crüxshadows (www.cruxshadows.com). Printed by permission of Dancing Ferret Discs. A Baen Books Original Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, NY 10471 www.baen.com ISBN 10: 1-4165-2075-9 ISBN 13: 978-1-4165-2075-7 Cover art by Kurt Miller First printing, August 2006 Distributed by Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: t/k t/k Printed in the United States of America To the soldiers, contractors, analysts, scientists, and engineers who press daily to maintain our nation's security The Commando's Prayer Give me, my God, what you still have; give me what no one asks for. I do not ask for wealth, nor success, nor even health. People ask you so often, God, for all that, that you cannot have any left. Give me, my God, what you still have. Give me what people refuse to accept from you. I want insecurity and disquietude; I want turmoil and brawl. And if you should give them to me, my God, once and for all, let me be sure to have them always, for I will not always have the courage to ask for them. Corporal Zirnheld Special Air Service 1942 Also by John Ringo There Will Be Dragons Emerald Sea Against the Tide East of the Sun, West of the Moon Ghost Kildar Choosers of the Slain Unto the Breach (forthcoming) Princess of Wands Into the Looking Glass A Hymn Before Battle Gust Front When the Devil Dances Hell's Faire The Hero (with Michael Z. Williamson) Cally's War (with Julie Cochrane) Watch on the Rhine (with Tom Kratman) The Road to Damascus by John Ringo & Linda Evans with David Weber: March Upcountry March to the Sea March to the Stars We Few Also by Travis S. Taylor Warp Speed Quantum Connection CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET SPECIAL ACCESS NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH Neighborhood Watch Final Report Development and Results of the Mars Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Probe "Percival" Prepared by Roger P. Reynolds, T. C. Powell, Alan J. Davis Prepared for the National Reconnaissance Office Contract # TNW1-01-2007 INTRODUCTION This document contains all data developed under the Top Secret Special Access Program codenamed Neighborhood Watch. Neighborhood Watch was developed to investigate the albedo-changing phenomenon currently taking place on the planet Mars. Neighborhood Watch initial analysis suggested that a planet-changing phenomena of the magnitude which is occurring on Mars is of non-natural origin. It was also determined to be statistically improbable that all manmade probes that had previously been sent to the planet Mars have gone quiet in a short timespan, including those which had been functioning nominally on the surface. The Mars Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Probe known as "Percival" was developed in a rapid design process and launched. Percival was successful in reaching the planet and returning valuable ISR. Unfortunately, once reaching the planet all contact was lost with the probe. Analysis of final mission transmissions indicate that the probe sustained progressive failure indicative of attack rather than systems failure. This report was developed in order to maintain a complete record of the mission history, concept development, mission design components, mission implementation, data retrieved, and data analysis. The authors would like to emphasize here that extreme attention to detail is given where available so that as much data as possible is available if further analysis of the Neighborhood Watch project is made. The report begins with initial findings that led to the creation of the Neighborhood Watch program. The findings began with analysis of data from ground and space telescopes by astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). There were also reports from various amateur astronomers claiming that Mars was "changing colors". It was at this point that sequential failures of Mars probes began to alert government officials to the possibility of non-natural actions or activities. A timeline will be given of the sequence of these events. The next section of the report gives a detailed description of the Percival development effort. Space mission concept architecture, spacecraft design components, and all aspects of the development and implementation of the Mars ISR Probe, Percival, is discussed. The third section gives the results of the Mars ISR mission. The data is somewhat alarming. The conclusion is undeniable: Mars has been dramatically altered by an unnatural phenomenon. Although Percival is believed to have been destroyed, not "lost," destroyed, prior to mission completion, sufficient data was retrieved from the probe to determine that Mars is being altered by an alien entity or entities. No signs of organic life were detected. However, signs of an intelligence at work are evident since major portions of the planet's surface have been converted to mechanical structures, some of them of super-human proportions. The fourth section is a conclusions and discussions section. The results of the Neighborhood Watch program are summarized and a discussion on the possible outcome and impact of the phenomenon on Mars is discussed along with potential repercussions to Terra and the human race. Chapter 1 Time: Present minus twenty years The teachers looked up at the rocket towering over the exhibit and then at each other. "Duct tape?" the female teacher asked. Usually she taught junior high school science classes, especially "female health" and "earth sciences." It was the first time she'd ever seen a . what was it the boy called it . a "sounding rocket." "Only for support of the outer casing," the young man said, smiling broadly and scratching at his nearly white hair. "The primary casing is cardboard. I wanted to make a rocket entirely from discarded and readily available materials. The term is 'off-the-shelf.' NASA hardly ever uses anything that anyone else uses and I think that's a damn shame. There are so many things around that you can make rockets out of. The igniter is a spark plug from my daddy's old Chevy. The energy components, the fuel, are made from common household materials. I made the fins in shop class when we were working with sheet metal; I brought in a hood off a car in my Uncle Bubba's backyard and cut it up. You can see the original paint! And the payload is a sodium tracer round made out of an old Jack Daniels bottle I found under the porch." "So, when are you planning on putting the fuel in?" she asked. "Well, it's solid fuel," Roger Reynolds replied, as if she were dense. "You can't just pull it out and put it in." "So . it's fueled?" the woman squeaked. She suddenly realized that all the, many, rocket scientists who were judging the Northern Alabama High School Science Fair had chosen to examine exhibits a long way away from this one. "Well . duh." Roger went on to the International Science and Engineering Fair where he placed in the top five overall and first in his category. He also won a scholarship and a job at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. There he was described on his performance evaluation as "precocious." In private he was described as "that young snot-nosed pain in the ass. And keep him away from the fuel. ." * * * Time: Present minus one year—first Russian Mars probe failure As the improvised explosive device turned his lead Humvee into expensive confetti, Captain Shane Gries, USA, took just one more moment to consider how very much he hated all academic eggheads. Captain Gries was tall, 6' 2'', and slim, with a square cut jaw, mild blue eyes and light brown hair cut to stubble at the sides. Behind his back his men called him "The Greyhound" both for his looks and his running speed on morning PT. He had been raised in the Iron Range of Michigan, one of the coldest, snowiest and hardest localities in the entire United States. As a teenager, he'd spent more time hunting the massive bucks to be found in the Iron Range than he had cracking books. Despite that fact, his grades were excellent. Between those, and a friendly congressman, he had gotten an appointment to the United States Military Academy in West Point,<http://www.neighborhoodwatch.gov>New York. His ability at track and field hadn't hurt. At West Point he'd studied another type of hunting, the hunting of armed enemies of the United States. And he'd studied hard ever since. His first unit assignment as a brand new shavetail lieutenant had been to the First Infantry Division two days before it crossed the Line of Departure and entered Iraq in the first Gulf War. He'd been sent in to replace another lieutenant who had "cracked under pressure" at the thought of actually being in combat. He'd been carefully instructed by his company commander on his duties the day he arrived. In a flash, as he always did when the shit hit the fan, he recalled the lecture as the first rounds from the ambush cracked across the road. "You have no clue what your job is supposed to be," Captain Brantley had said. To Shane, at the time, he had seemed immensely old and grizzled, probably, gasp, thirty or so.