Quantum Troopers Episode 10: The Big Bang

By Philip Bosshardt

Episode 10, Quantum Troopers. Johnny Winger and 1st Nano have recovered Doc Frost and Mary Duncan from captivity by Red Hammer. But in trying to extract the halo inside Frost’s skull, the nanotroopers inadvertently release a max rate replication on the Table Top base. It’s called a Big Bang and it threatens not only the base but much of the surrounding countryside. Only quick work by Winger and ANAD enable the threat to be contained. Now being debriefed by Quantum Corps intelligence, Frost informs his rescuers that Red Hammer is an even bigger menace than thought before...the cartel is in contact with an offworld intelligence and has access to their archives. This helps explain why the cartel is always one step ahead of Quantum Corps. But there is a way for Frost and Winger to access the same archives...a small sphere brought back from Kurabantu Island. The sphere turns out to be a small quantum entanglement device, which when contacted, entangles and transports its users to other times and places. The nanotroopers form up a small recon detachment to explore this device...and find themselves transported back in time three billion years, to an ancient swamp. It’s Engebbe, Kenya and when they arrive, they encounter a menace even greater than Red Hammer...it’s a strange swarm entity called Configuration Zero, and its re-writing the history of Life right before their eyes. Follow Johnny Winger, ANAD and his nanotroopers as they try to stop this latest threat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip Bosshardt
• Release date: Jul 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370557790

Philip Bosshardt

Philip Bosshardt is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He works for a large company that makes products everyone uses...just check out the drinks aisle at your grocery store. He’s been happily married for over 20 years. He’s also a Georgia Tech graduate in Industrial Engineering. He loves water sports in any form and swims 3-4 miles a week in anything resembling water. He and his wife have no children. They do, however, have one terribly spoiled Keeshond dog named Kelsey.For details on his series Tales of the Quantum Corps, visit his blog at qcorpstimes.blogspot.com or his website at http://philbosshardt.wix.com/philip-bosshardt.

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Quantum Troopers

Episode 10: The Big Bang

Published by Philip Bosshardt at Smashwords

Copyright 2016 Philip Bosshardt

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

A few words about this series….

*** Quantum Troopers is a series of 15,000- 20,000 word episodes detailing the adventures of Johnny Winger and his experiences with the United Nations Quantum Corps.

*** Each episode will be about 40-50 pages, approximately 20,000 words in length.

*** A new episode will be available and uploaded every 3 weeks.

*** There will be 22 episodes. The story will be completely serialized in about 14 months.

*** Each episode is a stand-alone story but will advance the greater theme and plot of the story arc.

*** The main plotline: U.N. Quantum Corps must defeat the criminal cartel Red Hammer’s efforts to steal or disable their new nanorobotic ANAD systems.

*** Uploads will be made to www.smashwords.com on approximately the schedule below:

Episode # Title Approximate Upload Date

1 ‘Atomgrabbers’ 1-14-16

2 ‘Nog School’ 2-8-16

3 ‘Deeno and Mighty Mite’ 2-29-16

4 ‘ANAD’ 3-21-16

5 ‘Table Top Mountain’ 4-11-16

6 ‘I, Lieutenant John Winger…’ 5-2-16

7 ‘Hong Chui’ 5-23-16

8 ‘Doc Frost’ 6-13-16

9 ‘Demonios of Via Verde’ 7-5-16

10 ‘The Big Bang’ 7-25-16

11 ‘Engebbe’ 8-15-16

12 ‘The Symbiosis Project’ 9-5-16

13 ‘Small is All!’ 9-26-16

14 ‘’The HNRIV Factor’ 10-17-16

15 ‘A Black Hole’ 11-7-16

16 ‘ANAD on Ice’ 11-29-16

17 ‘Lions Rock’ 12-19-16

18 ‘Geoplanes’ 1-9-17

19 ‘Mount Kipwezi’ 1-30-17

20 ‘Doc II’ 2-20-17

21 ‘Paryang Monastery’ 3-13-17

22 ‘Epilogue’ 4-3-17

Chapter 1

Crooked Halo

U.N. Quantum Corps Western Command

Table Top Mountain, Idaho, USA

January 13, 2049

1545 hours

For Johnny Winger, doing a full ANAD insert on Doc Frost was like doing a root canal on yourself. They had brought Frost and Mary Duncan all the way back to Table Top, hyperjetted straight from Singapore. Winger had decided not to do an insert until he could get the Doc into better facilities. Going after a Red Hammer halo inside someone you loved and respected wasn’t for the faint of heart.

The two doctors were placed on separate gurneys in Containment Level Four, strapped down and heavily sedated.

It was going to be ticklish, mainly because Johnny Winger had no idea what he might encounter.

Sergeant Gibbs was inside Containment with Winger, working as an assistant Interface Controller for ANAD ops. Winger sprang ANAD from his embedded shoulder capsule and commanded the master bot to assume a special configuration he had worked out on the hyperjet ride from Singapore: Config 55.

He hoped it worked.

It was a whole new way of fighting a war and Johnny Winger knew that half the time, they were inventing tactics as they went along.

Okay, Skipper, Dana Tallant patted down the incision she had just made in the side of Frost’s skull. Subject's prepped and ready.

Winger took the injector tube, attached by hose to the containment chamber. ANAD ready to fly?

The IC1 came back, Ready in all respects, Lieutenant.

Vascular grid?

Tracking now. We'll be able to follow the master just fine. You can replicate once we're through the blood-brain barrier. Just watch for capillary flow. When his capillaries narrow, your speed will increase. And viscosity will stay up.

Like slogging through molasses. ANAD's inerted and stable…ready for insertion.

The insertion went smoothly enough. A slug of plasma forced the replicant master into Doc Frost's capillary network at high pressure. Winger got an acoustic pulse seconds later and selected Fly-by-Stick to navigate the system. A few minutes' run on its propulsors brought the Autonomous Nanoscale Assembler/Disassembler to a dense fibrous mat of capillary tissues. The image soon appeared on Winger's IC panel.

Ready for transit, he told Gibbs. Cytometric probing now. I can force these cell membranes open any time.

Gibbs used ANAD's acoustic coupler to sound the tissue dam ahead, probing for weak spots. There, Lieutenant, right to starboard of those reticular lumps…that's a lipid duct, I'd bet a hundred bucks. Try there.

Winger steered ANAD into the vascular cleft of the membrane. He twisted his right hand controller, pulsing a carbene grabber to twist the cleft molecules just so, then released the membrane lipids and slingshot himself forward. Seconds later, ANAD was floating in a plasma bath, dark, viny shapes barely visible off in the distance. The plasma was a heavy viscous fluid. Winger tweaked up the propulsor to a higher power setting and took a navigation hack off the vascular grid.

Ventral tegmentum, Lieutenant. Just past the mesoencephalic nucleus. Looks like we're in.

Winger navigated ANAD through the interstices of Doc Frost’s brain for the better part of an hour. He had programmed the assembler to send an alarm when it encountered any kind of unnatural activity…especially assembler maneuvering or replication. If there were any halo bots left in his brain, he wanted to be ready.

At 1724 hours,