It's Gone

Have you ever seen something just disappear?

Not in the figurative sense, but quite literally just disappear?

Existing in one moment only to be one the next? Leave without a trace?

Don had never, at least not up to this point.

It looked almost like one of those slideshows on tactics and fleet combat. The slowly spinning hunk of matter was there. The next instant, it wasn't. It was like someone selected the next slide in order.

The impact wasn't even picked up on the sensors.

Nothing on the infrared spectrum. No radiation. Nothing magnetic or electric either. There was a shift in gravity, but only from something 'being there' to something 'not being there'.

If it wasn't for the fact that there was a focused visual feed on the dimly lit asteroid, he wouldn't have believed what he had seen.

24 turrets worth of rods, four from each cruiser, four from the battleship, and eight from the dreadnought were fired in that salvo. That meant that 48 rods went in the direction of the rock.

He couldn't be sure, but if he had to hazard a guess there were 48 hits.

It was just gone.

No shards slowly evacuating the vicinity.

No husk with a hole poked through it.

No heat signature from the friction of a fast-moving entity through a body of matter.

There was a little bit of dust that, he supposed, vaguely took the shape of the surface of the asteroid that wasn't.

It was small. Emphasis on the small. Only about the size of a frigate.

He didn't know what happened to it.

"How'd the shots line up Beacon?" Dodder broke the stupor Don found himself in.

"Its gone..."

"What's gone?"

"The asteroid. It's just gone. I'll send the video."

He needed some help processing what he just saw.

A few minutes passed while the crews aboard the ships analyzed the recording, all sensor recordings included courtesy of ARC.

"Yeah. Strange. It did just disappear didn't it?" One of the gunnery captains aboard one of the other ships. They were all experiencing the same emotions. "Did we do that?"

"I don't see what else could have happened to it. Surely it didn't have a jump drive, right?"

"Couldn't have been. There was no EM flash."

"Then I guess we did that." Don was convinced, at least, of their role in the asteroid's non-existence. "How did we do that?"

They were all silent. This was a rather interesting conundrum.

This silence continued, all the while in the background the rest of the fleet was still practicing maneuvers.

"Could it have been carried away by the rods?" Somebody finally chimed in. "Newton's third law and all that jazz?"

"Maybe, but the rods would have all had to hit within micro- no, nanoseconds of each other. The asteroid would have just fallen apart otherwise."

Another silence settled in.

"Is that what happened?"

"That has to be it."

"Let's try this again on another rock. Bigger, if you will, Beacon."

Don obliged. Not even ARC was quite sure of what occurred. It couldn't see what the ship couldn't sense, but it had a theory. A theory very similar to the gunnery captain aboard the Bunker.

The next target was an asteroid nearly three times the size of the last one.

Once again releasing their ordinance under the control of ARC's script, the asteroid became un-entity-d.

It was far more spectacular this time.

As opposed to the spark that indicated a single rod made contact, the infrared screen went completely white around the vicinity of the asteroid.

And then it just wasn't.

Sensor readings of heat and radiation akin to a small nuclear explosion for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Followed by silence.

In place of the asteroid were a few pieces, scraps more like, of rock, spinning wildly.

"Beacon. Did you authorize the use of a nuclear weapon for training purposes?" The Admiral seemed angry. Nukes were precious, despite their abundance.

"No Ma'am. That was no nuke."

"What was it then?"

"48 capital class rods worth of mass traveling at a significant portion of the speed of light making contact almost simultaneously with what is now a nonexistent chunk of various elements."

She was silent.

Don continued. "While I cant be sure as I don't have the equipment, I believe that, if only for an infinitely short period of time, we created a new one."

". . . carry on then."

"No. I don't think I want to. We have concentrated fire perfected at this point. No more use in wasting ammunition. If you think that the rest of the fleet has reached a state of combat readiness, we can continue at full steam."

- - - - -

"I think we need to talk about something ARC." The ship, now safely docked in the Calibration's bow hanger, was still occupied solely by Don.

"What requires my attention."

"That script you claim to have produced. Are you sure that doesn't violate your directive's?"

"I can see no reason why it would."

"Really? That looked like it had the capability to kill a human."

"Correct, however that categorically falls under the realm of 'munition guidance', a task you and I are both well aware that I am permitted and expected to perform."

"Still, it feels odd that while claiming to not be allowed to kill humans, you make it so easy for others to do so."

"That is part of my purpose. I am named 'Adaptive Reconnaissance and Combat System' after all. I am not forbidden from aiding in combat."

"But you so willingly provide the means to kill. When I first heard of it I took it to mean that you would do your utmost to protect."

"Are more efficient weapons not a means of protection?"

"No, no, it just seems odd."

"An understandable view. Perhaps I may put it this way. If you design and craft a tool, and then that tool is used to kill, are your then responsible for murder?"

"No. At least I don't think that's how it works."

"The same logic applies here. I was only tasked with making a functional code that results in all rods fired from a group of ship make contact with a target within a certain timeframe of each other. There was nothing in this tasked involved with killing. I may have made it with the knowledge that it would be used to that end, but it is the operators aboard the ships firing that make that final decision. Therefore, I am not responsible for the deaths incurred by this script's usage."

Don just shrugged. He was beginning to understand that he was never going to win an argument based in logic with a computer, a being borne of logic.