Synchronicity War Part 1, The

The Synchronicity War Part 1

By Dietmar Arthur Wehr

Amazon Edition

Copyright 2013 by Dietmar Arthur Wehr

http://www.dwehrsfwriter.com/

The Synchronicity War Part 1 paperback version

The Synchronicity War Part 2 paperback version

Acknowledgements:
I wish to express my most heartfelt
thanks to Jill Linkert for her diligent editing and suggestions. Jill has made
me a better author.

Notes to Edition 4:
This novel has been completely re-edited
by someone who knows what they're doing. The formatting is substantially
different from Edition 3. It also now includes a Cast of Characters section and
a Glossary of Terms. As of this writing (March 11th), Parts 1,2 & 3 are now
available with the final installment (Part 4) expected to be published some
time during the summer of 2014. However, prior to that, I plan on publishing a
short prequel (Part 0?), which I will try to get Amazon to give away for free. If
you happen to be a fan of H. Beam Piper's works, then check out my website for
new material based on two of his books.

Contents

Cast of Characters:
2

Glossary of Terms:
3

Chapter 1 At The Edge Of The Abyss
.
4

Chapter 2 To Fallen Comrades
.
19

Chapter 3 Now What Do We Do?
.
28

Chapter 4 The Voters Will Never
Believe This
.
40

Chapter 5 You’re Not Nearly Devious
Enough
..
52

Chapter 6 Fly on the Wall
58

Chapter 7 The Best Laid Plans of Mice
and Men
..
69

Chapter 8 The Other Shoe Drops
.
82

Chapter 9 Payback’s a Bitch
..
89

Chapter 10 Give As Good As We Get
95

Chapter 11 The Better Part of Valor
107

Chapter 12 One Step Forward, Two
Steps Back
.
115

Chapter 13 The Iceman Cometh
..
121

Chapter 15 All Of Us Understand The
Situation
..
141

Chapter 16 I Need Two Volunteers
.
152

Chapter 17 Enter The Defiant
159

Chapter 18 It Sure Beats My Idea All
To Hell
166

Chapter 19 Time To Roll The Dice
.
178

Human:

Senior Space Force Officers:

Admiral Sam Howard, Chief of  Space Operations

Rear Admiral Sepp Dietrich, Chief of Personnel

Rear Admiral Sergei Kutuzov, Chief of Logistics

Base Commanders:

Sen. Cmdr. Korolev

Squadron Leaders:

Sen. Cmdr. Torres

Sen. Cmdr. Yakamura

Cmdr. Shiloh

Cmdr. Cabrera

Cmdr. Dejanus

Cmdr. LaRoche

Cmdr. Mbutu

Cmdr. Bettencourt

Cmdr. Rolen

Other Space Force Officers:

Cmdr. Adams (Exploration Frigate Commander)

Cmdr. Caru (Exploration Frigate Commander)

Lt. Cmdr. Angela Johansen (XO, FE 344)

Lt. Cmdr. Amanda Kelly (Team Leader, Strategic Planning
Group)

Lt. Cmdr. Svetlana Chenko (XO, FE 344)

Lt. Cmdr. Brad Falkenberg (Deputy CAG, CVL Defiant)

Lt. Cmdr. Michaels (2nd Officer, FE 344)

Lt. Cmdr. Farnsworth (2nd Officer, FE 344)

Sen. Lt. Sykes (Weapons Officer, FE 344)

Lt. Rodriguez (Astrogator, CVL Defiant)

Lt. Verlander (Helm Officer, FE 344)

A.I.s: (In Alphabetical Order)

Bulldog

Cyrano

Firefox

Hammer

Hunter

Iceman

CSO      Chief of Space Operations

CAG      Commander, Autonomous Group

TF         Task Force

KPS      Kilometers Per Second

Klicks    slang expression for kilometers

A.U.      Astronomical Unit equal to the average distance
between the Earth and its Sun.

A.I.       Artificial Intelligence

SL        Squadron Leader

C.O.     Commanding Officer

X.O.     Executive Officer

W.O.    Weapons Officer

E.O.     Engineering Officer

Cmdr. Victor Shiloh noticed that the usual Bridge chatter
had died down to almost nothing as the Squadron emerged from Jumpspace.
Everyone knew the stakes. One of their own was missing, and they were here to
find her. FE 319 – Frigates didn’t rate names – had not reported back to base,
and it hadn’t sent a message drone. This was very worrisome. If the ship had
been able to return, it would have. If it had malfunctioned or there was some
other reason for a delayed return, such as a major discovery of some kind, it
would have sent the drone back. The entire squadron, seven Frigates under the
command of Squadron Leader Torres, had been sent to investigate. FE 344, under
Cmdr. Shiloh, was designated as the rear guard, staying behind at the point
where the Squadron emerged so that it could jump back into Jumpspace with a
warning for HQ if something nasty happened to the other six ships of the squadron.
FE 344 decelerated to a crawl, relatively speaking, while it changed its orientation
to enable it to jump away from this star system instead of closer to it. With
that maneuver done, Shiloh relaxed just a little bit. They could now jump at a
moment’s notice if they had to.

“Now we wait,” he said, loud enough for the rest of the
Bridge crew to hear him. He switched his command station’s main viewer to show
the long range Tactical display. He saw his ship, at the center of the display,
as a green triangle, with six other green triangles slowly moving to the top of
the screen, spreading out as they did so towards the inner part of this star
system. As he watched, the display showed clusters of smaller green dots moving
away from the green triangles. The Squadron had launched reconnaissance drones
for long range snooping. A star system was a big place for one small ship to
hide in. By comparison, a needle in a haystack was trivial. Without the recon
drones, it could take weeks to find the missing ship.

Nothing of significance was occurring to engage Shiloh’s
attention, and he began to ponder how the nature of faster-than-light travel
determined Humanity’s expansion into the rest of the galaxy. The rate at which
ships traveled through Jumpspace was determined by how fast they were moving
when they entered Jumpspace. The more velocity a ship had, the faster the
transit through Jumpspace, although the relationship was logarithmic rather
than linear. If you wanted to go twice as fast in Jumpspace, you had to build a
velocity that was ten times as fast in normal space. Entering and moving
through Jumpspace required energy that was generated by the fusion of heavy
hydrogen. The contra-gravity engines that moved a ship through normal space
also required lots of energy. So when a ship’s limited supply of heavy hydrogen
was low enough to be a factor in a planned transit between two star systems,
the Astrogator calculated the optimum combination of normal space acceleration,
Jumpspace duration and normal space deceleration at the other end, to minimize
the total consumption of fuel. What irked Shiloh, and most of the other exploration
frigates commanders, was the fact that their ships hadn’t been designed to be
able to refuel themselves by skimming the atmospheres of gas giants, separating
the tiny amounts of heavy hydrogen from the more abundant normal hydrogen. For
some reason, which no one seemed to understand, the designers had traded the
self-refueling capability for a larger fuel capacity. This meant that the frigates
could operate for longer periods of time before having to rendezvous with
tankers, but they still had a limited range of operation. That meant that
explorations squadrons were tied to tankers, which themselves could only move
forward if they were certain that the destination star system contained at
least one gas giant, and not all star systems did. SFE144 was operating at the
limit of its internal fuel supply. Regardless of what they did or didn’t find
here, the squadron’s frigates had just enough fuel to make it back to their
assigned tanker.

It was an hour later when things started to happen. By that
time, the rest of the Squadron was far enough away that there was an
appreciable time lag in two-way communications. The other six ships kept in
constant contact with 344 by tight beam, low-powered lasers, and 344 acted as a
relay station, keeping each ship in the squadron in contact with the rest,
albeit with an even bigger time lag. It was easier for them to stay in contact
with one fixed location – 344 – than it would have been with multiple moving
locations. The relay ship kept track of the moving ships by the direction of
the incoming laser beams and by the navigational data that each ship provided
about its speed and course. Computers onboard the relay ship aimed the return
laser where the target ship would be by the time the laser beam arrived there.
Theoretically, two ships could communicate from opposite sides of a star system,
but the time lag of many hours made it not worth the effort. Shiloh became
aware that his Executive Officer had arrived on the Bridge to relieve him.

“You’re relieved, Skipper,” said Lt. Commander Angela
Johansen.

Shiloh nodded and swiveled his command chair around to face
her. After getting up, he waited while she sat down and adjusted the command
chair to better fit her body’s smaller dimensions. A properly adjusted chair
made a four-hour duty shift a lot more tolerable. As she did so, he couldn’t
help noticing – once again – that she had a very attractive figure. Not that he
was actually tempted to do anything with that fact. While physical
relationships between officers were not prohibited, they were ‘discouraged’ on
the theory that anything other than a professional relationship might result in
biased performance reviews. When she was finished, he leaned over so that their
conversation wouldn’t distract the rest of the Bridge crew who were also in the
process of being relieved.

“No sign of 319 yet, or of anything else for that matter.
The ship’s in stealth mode. Maintain the status quo. I’m going to hit the sack,
but I want you to call me if there’s any new development.”

“Understood. I’ll pass that on to Michaels when he relieves
me. What do you think happened to the 319, Skipper?”

Shiloh shrugged. “There’s no distress beacon, no message
drone beacon. That’s not a good sign. It suggests to me that whatever happened
to the 319, it happened so fast that they didn’t have time to launch a message
drone, or else the message drone was destroyed or disabled.” He paused while
both of them pondered the implications of that. “Listen, stay sharp and make
sure everyone else stays sharp too. I don’t want us to be surprised, right?”

The XO nodded. “Right.”

Shiloh gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder as he
moved away, heading down to his cabin. He was surprised how tired he was. This
mission was a lot more stressful than the survey missions the exploration
frigate squadrons normally engaged in, and it wasn’t the first time an FE had
gone missing. That first ship had belonged to another squadron exploring a
different sector of space, and no sign of it had yet been found. When 319 was
declared overdue, their nearest forward base had ordered their squadron to
search for her under the rules of engagement that had been designed for war but
never used – until now. Hence the ship was operating in stealth mode. There were
no running lights and no energy emissions of any kind, except for the tightly
focused communication beams that were impossible to detect unless another ship
happened to pass exactly between the sender and the receiver.

By the time Shiloh reached his cabin, he was too tired to
think about their situation anymore. He didn’t even bother to remove his
uniform as he let himself fall face down on his bunk. Sleep came almost
instantly … and when his wakeup alarm sounded, he immediately woke up. For a
few seconds he thought he must have set it to the wrong time. He checked it and
realized that he had slept seven hours, which gave him one hour to shower,
dress and grab something to eat in the Officer’s Mess before heading back to
the Bridge for his duty shift. While he got ready to take a shower, he decided
to check with the Bridge.

“Intercom,” he said, activating the two com implants, one in
his ear and one adjacent to his voice box. “Bridge ...”

“Bridge here, Skipper.”

“Status report, Michaels.”

“No sign of the 319. The Squadron is continuing its sweep
pattern. No change in ship’s status.”

“Acknowledged.”

By the time he had showered, dressed and began drinking a coffee
in the Officers’ Mess, he was feeling much more alert. Just as he started to
eat his breakfast, the Bridge called him.

“Shiloh here.”

“Skipper, 301 reports that one of their recon drones has
detected a vessel at long range. It seems to be drifting. As far as they can
tell at that range, the ship is the right size to be the 319. The SL has
ordered 323 and 299 to rendezvous with her at the drifting ship. It’ll take
them approximately five and a half hours to intercept the drifting vessel with
zero velocity. The drone is being vectored for a flyby, and 301 expects to have
a positive ID in approximately 34 minutes. With the time lag in transmission,
we should know about 9 minutes after that. “

“Did the Squadron Leader have any instructions for us?”

“No Sir.”

“Very well then. We’ll wait until there’s a positive ID
before I inform the crew. Anything else, Commander?”

“No Sir.”

“I’ll be up to the Bridge shortly then. End message.”

Shiloh pondered the information he’d just received. If that
really was the 319, then perhaps it was just a malfunction of some kind.
Anxious to get back to the Bridge, he finished his breakfast quickly and headed
up. Even though he was almost 15 minutes early for his duty shift, he decided
to relieve the Second Officer now. After relieving Lt. Commander Michaels, he
did a quick check of the ship’s systems and status, and then settled in to
await word of the drifting ship’s identity.

The time-lagged word came through the comlink just about
right on schedule. It WAS the 319. Squadron Leader Torres had ordered the drone
flyby video feed to be retransmitted to the relay ship and then to the other
ships of the squadron. Shiloh watched the video in real time and then replayed
it in slow motion with maximum zoom. The drone got to within one klick of the
319, and the video clearly showed that the 319 had suffered some kind of damage
to its hull. Shiloh could see in its hull what appeared to be a long straight
gash that cut diagonally from the Bridge almost all the way back to the Engineering
Section. He couldn’t imagine any kind of malfunction that would cause that
particular kind of damage. What he could imagine was an attack by an energy
weapon like a laser. He decided to keep his suspicions to himself for now, but
the crew deserved to know that their sister ship had been found.

“Intercom … ship-wide … Attention all hands. We’ve just
received confirmation that one of 301’s drones has positively identified a
drifting ship as the 319. No contact with her crew has been achieved, so there’s
no way to know at this time what the status of her crew is. As soon as we get
additional information, it will be passed on to all of you. Let’s hope the news
is good. That’s all for now. End message.”

Now that he’d gotten that duty out of the way, Shiloh
checked the incoming data feed from Torres. The Squadron Leader hadn’t
expressed an opinion as to the cause of 301’s situation either. However good
the drones’ optics were, the definitive answer would have to wait until human
eyes got up close and personal. What the SL had done, though, was to order the
recon drone to swing around for another slower – and closer – pass. The drone
would still make it back to the 319 before the 301, 323 and 299 arrived in the
vicinity with zero remaining velocity. But once there, Torres would send over a
ship’s boat with a boarding party that included not only medical and
engineering personnel, but also an inspection team to look closely at the
exterior damage. Until then, they just had to wait and see.

The remainder of Shiloh’s shift went surprisingly fast. After
being relieved by Lt. Cmdr Johansen once again, he went back to the Officers
Mess for lunch. He was alone, as usual, since his eight hour ‘day’ just
happened to coincide with most officers’ eight hour ‘night’.

His lunch finished, Shiloh leaned back in his chair and
lingered over his coffee. Even though he wasn’t tired, he felt the urge to
close his eyes. Then something happened that had not happened to him since he
was in his teens. He felt an unusual, yet strangely familiar sensation come
over him. When he opened his eyes, he saw himself standing in front of Admiral
Howard’s desk back at U.E.S.F. HQ. He heard the Admiral speak.

‘It’s a good thing you launched those recon drones when you
did, Commander. The mission would have ended very differently if you hadn’t.’

Then he felt that same urge to close his eyes for a few
seconds.

When he opened them again, he was back in the Officers’ Mess
on board the 344. The last time he had a ‘vision’ like that was when he and
some friends were climbing in the rugged wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. In
that vision, he saw and heard a rescue paramedic congratulate him on having the
foresight to attach a second safety line to his friend before climbing the
cliff they had planned to ascend. So he did, in fact, attach a second safety
line. Halfway up the cliff the first line snapped, and his friend only suffered
a painful gash instead of a fatal plunge to his death. At the time he thought
the vision must have been just his imagination, and yet here he was having
another one.