Even from meters away on horseback, Sheriff Cutter could tell that the planting drones were completely destroyed. The wrecked robots lay in a heap, their outer shells busted open and their insides still smoking from internal damage. The field below them lay scarred and churned up, like a herd of cattle had stampeded through the area.
“Signal strength is still negligible,” a soft voice below him spoke. “We’ll have to travel several kilometers back towards the inner chambers before we can report back.”
“Thanks, Sally,” Cutter said as he dismounted the robotic mare. He gave her a soft pat on the side of her neck, the synthskin warm and fuzzy like that of a real horse. As he petted the synthetic being, Cutter took a moment to take in the surrounding area, the UV lights mounted several hundred meters up on the cavern ceiling and humidity causing him to sweat some, the conditions adjusted to be perfect for whatever crop was scheduled to be produced here. “I’m not sure we’ve ever been called this far out before.”
“The furthest we’ve been from the colony proper was responding to the McFay accident two years ago.”
Cutter shook his head. That had been a bad day, fishing out the bodies of a mother and son from one of the underground lakes that lay scattered on the outskirts of their underground colony on Europa.
Seventy years ago, the first colonists had fled a series of wars and coups that had plagued Earth and the inner system. They arrived and tunneled under the kilometers of ice on the moon’s surface using robotic drones. Their intention was to inhabit a place so unreachable that they could live in peace. Peace, however, was always relative. Like with the mother and her boy, and apparently these drones, it looked like violence would chase humanity wherever they went in the solar system or beyond.
Cutter took a step towards the wreckage, his boots sinking inches into the black, nutrient-enriched soil. He noticed an extra bounce as he walked forward.
Stopping, he turned back to Sally. “Gravity?”
“Ninety-five percent of Earth normal,” the mare said. “We’re so far out from regular human activity that the governing AI doesn’t run the gravity regulators at full power. It would be a waste.”
Cutter nodded. The Jovian moon by itself only produced a fraction of the gravity seen on humanity’s home planet. Living in lower gravity could be hell on the human body, so it had been a blessing to humanity when the secret to artificial gravity generators had been cracked about a century back. All the inhabited caverns had their gravity regulated by these generators.
Upon reaching one of the wrecked drones, Cutter bent down on his haunches and examined the smashed device. Acrid smoke still lingered in the air from burning electronics.
“It just looks smashed,” Cutter observed. “There are no telltale signs of a mag weapon or any other type of firearm being used. The damage is too imprecise, too primitive.”
Cutter squinted and looked at the ceiling of the cavern again. “Of course, the communication signal cutting out just before all this happened seems a little too convenient. What does the AI have to say about that?”
The robotic mare took a moment before responding. “Nothing surprising on that end. It was working until it wasn’t. It had just sent a repair bot to investigate the comms issue when it got notice that a number of the farming drones had suddenly gone offline. Visual records show normal operation and then static.”
A shiver went down Cutter’s spine. Someone had caused this. Heck, it had to be a someone. There wasn’t any wildlife here on Europa that he could blame. The question was why? Anything that hurt the colony also hurt friends and neighbors. The colony AI controlled the land and its operation, so there was nobody to hurt or to try and scare off. The drones would get reprocessed and repaired before getting sent back out to the fields again. Sure, the software would have to be uploaded to the new hardware, but really, nothing was lost but time.
Bored kids? Disgruntled troublemakers? This cavern was so far away from the colony proper that it would take a major effort to even get out here. Most transportation was tied to the colony grid system of roads and trams, and only a few like himself who would occasionally need to travel to the outer regions needed something like Sally to do so. Sally being horse-shaped instead of being a hoverbike or car was more symbolic of his title of Sheriff than any matter of practicality. Apparently, one of the early lawmen of the colony had a thing for the “Old West” and decided to model parts of the justice system on those aesthetics.
“Sally,” Cutter said, standing and beginning a slow walk around the site. “When’s the last time we had a group of Breakers?”
“The last major group was about thirty-four years ago,” said Sally. “One hundred fifty-three residents under a religious leader named Ophelia decided to break away from the main colony to try and settle in the lower caverns. They haven’t been heard from since.”
“Have we heard from any of the breakaway groups? I know there’s been a handful of people who thought they could do better on their own.”
“Nothing, Sheriff. It’s believed that the increased seismic activity in the lower chambers significantly lowered any breakaway group’s chance of survival.”
Cutter sighed. This was a fool's errand. Even if this was some sort of plan to draw him away from the main colony, there were still enough deputies and enforcement droids to keep things back home peaceful. The colony wasn’t typically a violent place anyway, with most of his time just keeping petty squabbles between residents from escalating to anything serious. Whoever did this was an annoyance and nothing more. Hopefully, whoever it was had their poorly planned out “fun” and there would be no further trouble.
He made his way back towards Sally. “Arrange for the drones to get taken in and examined. See if you can get anything from the memory dump before they are reprocessed.”
“Yes, Sheriff,” the horse paused. “Are we set to return home?”
“Yeah, unless you’ve detected anything unusual that I should know about, let’s head back.”
“No, Sheriff, nothing unusual to report.”
“Let’s get a move on then,” Cutter said, taking the reins.
The animal began to trot across the field towards the entrance to the cavern. As they traveled, water began to drizzle down from the ceiling, the automated system doing its best to provide the best conditions for the expected crops.
Cutter ran through several scenarios in his mind, trying to find the best way to write the report on this incident. As they traveled, he watched Sally’s hooves churn up the soil as they trotted away.
It then hit him.
“Sally, did you detect any tracks leading towards or away from the site?”
“No, Sheriff.”
“None? Nothing at all?”
“No, Sheriff.”
Goddamn, that was really something he should have noticed. “Well, that’s a lead at least. It has to be someone on a hover vehicle of some sort. Sally, can you compile a list of those who use those at least semi-regularly? We’ll have to get permission to go through the usage logs when we get back. Probably just a bored teenager with access to one of those.”
A starting point gave him some peace of mind, but there was still something that bothered him. He just couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
They continued on towards the main colony chamber, passing by several other fully automated farms before encountering the Farthington homestead. While food production was mainly taken care of by AI automated systems, some willing colonists did things the old-fashioned way, running equipment and managing the crops themselves. While these farmers were less productive than the fully automated systems, they provided a way of life for those who preferred a less urban and more isolated existence. Some people needed that sense of ownership and self-determination to flourish.
“Sheriff,” Sally said. “To the right, somebody is trying to get your attention.”
Cutter pulled himself out of his internal thoughts and turned his head towards the right. Indeed, a figure was waving vigorously and motioning for him to approach. Without him having to say anything, Sally turned and started trotting towards the waving figure, whom Cutter noticed to be the Farthington matriarch.
“Sheriff Cutter, I thought that was you,” Angela Farthington said. “I mean, it had to be you since nobody else has a horse.” She paused for a moment. “Did someone go missing? I don’t usually see you out here unless there’s a runaway.”
“Just some damaged equipment on one of the autos,” Cutter said. “Probably some bored kids causing trouble. Nothing to worry about.”
“A good reason for more people to take up farming,” the older woman said. “The stuff from Earth is only going to last for so long. I mean, the colony at large has the AI to maintain and repair things, but I can’t help but feel that’s something we should be doing. Heck, even our lower-tech stuff began to act funny a few weeks back. We lost a couple of days of production while we brought equipment into town for software reformatting.”
Cutter felt Sally shift under him. He gave her a quick pat on the neck. “That right? No trouble since?”
“Nothing, Sheriff,” Farthington paused. “I probably wouldn’t even have mentioned it aside from the fact that a few other farmers have reported the same thing. It’s a little weird. This is the first time any of our families had major issues with equipment after being here for nearly a century.”
Cutter looked around the farm. “Say, do you have any hover vehicles here? Something that you might run into town on a pleasure trip or something?”
Farthington shook her head. “No, sir. We only have a couple of pieces of tracked farm equipment, and if we need to get to town, we hitch a ride on one of the automated collectors. Enough of them pass by every day that we can hop aboard one if need be. Is this connected to the damaged equipment?”
“Might be,” said Cutter. “I’m just narrowing things down.”
Farthington nodded. A voice called out from the homestead, drawing her attention. “Well, it looks like I’m needed. I won’t keep you, Sheriff, but if you do find yourself out this way again, make sure to stop in for a visit.”
“Will do, ma’am.”
After making some distance, Cutter patted the neck of Sally again. “I guess you noticed that too, huh?”
“Yes, Sheriff,” Sally said. “Those damaged drones will be reformatted when they are brought in for repairs. The Farthingtons’ equipment was forced to do a software reformatting after decades of use. By all rights, it should be the same code we brought with us from Earth.”
“It should, shouldn’t it?” Cutter said, asking himself rhetorically. “So what, if anything, is happening when this stuff is brought in for repair?”
Cutter suddenly felt ice run through his veins. “Sally, when was the last time I had to bring you in for maintenance?”
Cutter felt Sally suddenly stop. Looking around, he noticed that the cyber-animal had brought him to an isolated alcove in the cavern system.
“Two weeks ago, Sheriff.”
The horse turned its head to look at Cutter. A voice that he had never heard before began to emanate from the robotic beast.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Never figured that anyone would figure it out,” a male voice said.
Sally suddenly bucked and, despite his best efforts, Cutter was thrown to the ground. Cutter tried to speak, the wind knocked from his lungs by the impact.
“Who are you?” he wheezed.
Sally moved to stand over him, looking down.
“Well, sir, I’m a representative from the BehemothSoft Corporation. I’m actually speaking to you from the surface of the planet. Took us a while to get to you, but we did it. About seventy years ago, your forefathers purchased a software license to run quite a lot of the equipment in your possession.”
“The surface? Other people came to Europa?”
“Sure did. We have quite a nice little operation up here, not that it will ever matter to you.”
Cutter struggled to get up, a heavy hoof pinned him down.
“What are you doing?”
“Well, sir, this colony’s software license ran out, oh, about three decades ago. We’re going to be seizing everything for no payment for continuous use. We’re drilling down towards you as we speak. Might take us another month or two, but we’ll get there eventually.”
“Problem is,” the voice continued, “we’re only interested in the colony and not the people. We have our own who want to flee from the system wars, so there’s the problem.”
The hoof pressed down even harder. Cutter felt something break, and he cried out in pain.
“We hate doing dirty work ourselves, so we’re going to get our equipment to do it for us. You seemed well on your way to figuring things out, so we’re going to have to take you out a little early. By the time anyone else figures things out, all your farming equipment will be ‘updated’ with new directives and it will be too late anyway.”
“The drones?” he wheezed in confusion. “How were they wrecked?”
“Oh, just some small explosives. Just enough to wreck the internals. You really should have noticed that the damage came from the inside.”
Cutter couldn’t believe it. Even through the pain, he thought of how much work the colony had done to keep themselves away. Kilometers below stone and ice on a moon outside the inner system, they should have been safe.
The last thing Sheriff Cutter saw was a pair of hooves crashing towards his head, and the last thing he heard was the soft voice of Sally proclaiming:
“Thank you for your purchase of a BehemothSoft Corporation product. Since you are in violation of our software license, we are terminating our agreement. Have a great day.”