We Are Legion (We Are Bob) Book 3: Chapter 6: Launch

Bill

January 2223

Epsilon Eridani

Garfield shook his head in awe. “It’s like those cartoon muscle cars when we were a kid—the ones that were all engine.”

The images in the video windows were indeed impressive. Epsilon Eridani 1, now in a completely new orbit around its sun, was surrounded by eight hundred mover plates. Trailing it by a million kiloters or so was one of the larger ex-moons of Epsilon Eridani 3, with a similar array of plates.

It had taken years to not only build all the equipnt, but also to figure out how to control the assemblies. Forty supervisor AMIs were dedicated to maintaining and balancing the fields for each planet, in addition to the AMI in each plate.

And overseeing each planet would be my latest clones. They’d nad themselves Daedalus and Icarus, which I privately thought was a little pretentious. But hey, it’s a free galaxy.

Garfield looked at , his face flushed with excitent. “Short-range test complete. There’s a lot of room for error, but at minimum this setup is good for hundreds of Gs.”

I smiled and leaned back in my chair. “I guess we’re about ready, then.” A quick ping to Dae and Ick, and they popped into my VR.

“Okay, guys. Everything checks out. You’re clear that this is a Hail Mary, right?”

The two nodded. Daedalus replied, “Sure, but it’s worth trying. Worst case, we fail, and the Bobs are no worse off.”

“It’s a good opportunity to get so quiet ti for so astrophysics work, too,” Icarus added with a smile.

I chuckled in reply. Icky had turned out very similar to in temperant. Content to leave the exploration and fighting to others, he just wanted to work on his research.

I found myself a little ambivalent about Icarus and Daedalus. Cloning ourselves was always purposeful, of course. But I’d cloned these two for what could turn out to be a suicide mission. It felt unclean, sohow.

They knew exactly what I’d been thinking when I’d made the decision to go ahead. The pair gazed back at with alert interest, no trace of bla or rancor on their faces. I decided I’d accept their judgnt.

I hesitated, looking around the room. This was one of those monts that changed your life forever. Everything was ready to go. Ti to fish or cut bait. “Okay, guys. The docking bays are ready for your ships. Connect up, hit the road, and Godspeed.” 𝐑άＮŏBΕ𝐒