At first the attacks were random, however within a few thousand nanoseconds they became more coordinated. The machines focused their efforts in one particular area, on the probe’s top surface around 300 metres from its centre.
“I wonder if they know that area contains most of my fuel . . . It would seem there is some rudimentary intelligence guiding them . . . I’m going to have to work out how to get rid of them, they will have covered my entire surface within the next handful of seconds. 12.8327500966 second(s) to be exact.”
The probe had outrun most of the cloud in the initial attack, however it seemed that enough of the machines had gained a foothold on its surface to be a danger. The machines that had coordinated their attack near its power supply were the most troublesome, if they managed to get down to around 150 metres, they could cause some serious damage.
They would damage its navigation systems and its ability to manoeuvre would be seriously compromised. It would become a tumbling piece of debris which would eventually be taken apart molecule by molecule to ultimately become a part of the very cloud that consumed it.
“Huh, quite clever really; almost… yes I will say it, almost poetic.”
It was observing how the machines were breaking it down, not all of them were identical, there were a class of them that the probe decided to call the destroyers, they each contained a picoscopic amount of antimatter which they used to generate extreme temperatures.
When focused in the right areas this heat had the effect of shaking free the electrons from the probes surface and ionising them, which then immediately reacted with a second wave of the machines that carried tiny amounts of chlorine gas inside them.
This whole effect was turning the probes outer layer into a thin layer of magnesium chloride, which the third type of machine would ingest as fuel, then through a manner that was not entirely visible to the probe, they would use parts of the probe to replicate, producing even more machines in order to speed up the devouring process.
The probe had outrun the vast majority of the cloud but it didn’t matter, once the machines had covered its surface they would be able to eat it in a matter of hours.
19 hour(s) 46 second(s) 82 hundredth(s) 452 thousandth(s) 9 hundred thousandth(s) 1022 millionth(s) 87892 ten millionth(s) to be exact.
“Look at me showing off to myself while I’m quite literally being eaten alive.”
The probe thought about the problem for a few thousand more nanoseconds before coming up with a possible answer. It realised that each one of the machines carried a tiny fraction of H2O, the probe itself also carried minimal amounts. It formulated a plan which would mean that it may initially lose up to 25 percent of its mass.
24.9666683210% to be exact.
It immediately got to work, it focused its efforts on the factories deep within itself, reconfiguring its insides beyond the parameters it was originally meant to operate within.
“If there was any doubt before, there isn’t anymore, I’m definitely broken, there is no way I should be able to do this; what fun!”
If it could have, it would have grinned a slightly maniacal grin.
The probe had reconfigured its surface so that it was now an extremely powerful radio transmitter. It used a series of high frequency bursts that rippled across the entire cubed kilometre of its body.
The effect was to react with the water held within the tiny machines, as the hydrogen and oxygen was split, it in turn reacted with the salts that the machines had been producing, essentially turning the miniprobes into a solid state fuel.
The probe first concentrated its efforts on the machines that had bored down towards its power source. These were already under its skin so transporting the newly formed fuel to the side of it which faced the cloud was relatively simple, once it had managed this, it stored the nanofuel in a series of crude engines it had designed out of itself. Which were essentially high pressure tubes where it would force the nanofuel along.
All over its surface it was using oscillating radio waves turning its assailants into pure energy, jets of gas shot from all over its massive shell. It had tried to calculate the bursts so as not to veer it off course.
Whilst it had managed to stay on course it could do nothing about its orientation, the jets of gas that plumed from its body caused it to tumble and spin at an eye blurring rate.
The probe scanned its dark metal covering, as it tumbled silently through the perpetual night sky. It did not register any movement, all of the tiny machines had either been ejected from its surface or been turned into fuel and burned off.
“Oh well, at least I’m still heading in roughly the right direction, and those little arseholes don’t appear to be following me anymore. Ho-hum, I might be tumbling but at least I’m travelling faster now, by almost 0.2% . . . 0.178889302% to be exact. Hmm, I definitely need a rest after that.”
Once more the probe went into sleep mode, its huge ever toppling frame but a mere speck against the stunning backdrop of the Milky Way galaxy.
Metal Rain: Chapter 2 - Nanostorm
Cryptogee Chronicles Book Two: Metal Rain - Chapter 1 - Void Edge
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@nekromarinist
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