Synchronicity War Part 1, The (25 page)

“Understood. Very good, Iceman. Excellent idea! I’ll see you
all personally when you’re back in the Hangar Bay. CAG clear.”

Shiloh called Sejanus and told him to relieve him at the
Command Station. When he’d been relieved, Shiloh headed down to the cavernous
Hangar Bay and confirmed that there was a Mark 4 fuel shuttle and that it did
have the capability to be piloted by the advanced A.I. units.

None of the A.I. units piloting the disabled CFPs had been
recovered by the time Iceman and his team landed in the Hangar Bay, although
the SAR teams were on their way. As soon as the maintenance techs started
working on refueling and rearming Iceman, Shiloh walked over to stand in front
of Iceman’s fighter, where the optical scanning unit could see him. Using his
implanted com equipment, Shiloh spoke to Iceman.

“Iceman, can you see me?” asked Shiloh as he waived to the
optical unit.

“I see you, CAG.”

“Good. As you know from the tactical feed, the SAR teams
haven’t reached those three cripples yet. The Task Force Leader and I agree
that Earth should be warned as soon as possible. I need two volunteers from
your team. One to pilot the Mark 4 fuel shuttle and the other to boost and
launch the message drone to the Sol system.”

He got an immediate response.

“I’ll launch the drone. Maverick will pilot the shuttle, CAG.”

“Very good, Iceman. I’ll supervise Maverick’s transfer
myself personally.”

Shiloh gave Iceman another wave and walked over to the
officer in charge of the bay. He told the officer what he needed, and several
minutes later Shiloh was standing beside a Maintenance Tech on top of
Maverick’s fighter. The technician had opened the hull where Maverick’s modular
electronic brain resided. Under Shiloh’s careful gaze, a crane lifted the 44
kilogram spherical unit out of its bracket. Shiloh knew that Maverick was still
receiving audio and video transmissions from his fighter and from the video
unit on the crane. He could see himself being transferred to the fuel shuttle.
Shiloh followed the crane over to the fuel shuttle and watched as Maverick was
gently lowered into its electronic interface port.

As the sphere settled into the shuttle, Shiloh said, “CAG to
Maverick. Status report.”

“Maverick to CAG. All systems within normal parameters. Fuel
is topped up and I’m good to go, Boss!”

Shiloh was about to ask Iceman the same question, but he
beat him to it.

“Iceman is fueled. Message drone is loaded. I’m good to go
too, CAG. Let’s do this before I change my mind.”

Shiloh chuckled. He knew that Iceman was sufficiently gung
ho that having doubts about this mission was not likely, assuming that A.I.s
were capable of having doubts at all.

“Standby both of you while I check in with TF Leader. CAG to
Task Force Leader.”

After a few seconds delay, he heard Korolev’s voice.

“Go ahead, Shiloh.”

“Sir, unless you tell me otherwise, we’re ready to initiate
the direct to Earth drone mission.”

“That’s fine, Commander. You may proceed. Korolev clear.”

Shiloh turned to look at Iceman’s machine and said, “Okay,
Iceman and Maverick. Taxi over to the launch pads. I, or Sejanus, will be
monitoring the mission all the way. I’d say good luck but I know you don’t need
it. You’re both too good to need luck.”

“Thanks, CAG. Okay, Maverick. Let’s go make some history,”
said Iceman.

“Lead the way, Iceman!” said Maverick.

Shiloh grinned again. The history comment and Maverick’s
reply could have been done between the two of them digitally, but they used
human language so that Shiloh could hear it, too. He watched as the two
machines carefully taxied over to the launch pad. Once inside, the inner
bulkhead panels closed to protect the integrity of the bay’s atmosphere, while
the smaller launch pad chamber had its air evacuated prior to the outer doors
opening to allow both vehicles to launch. By the time that Shiloh got back to
his Command Station and took over from Sejanus, Iceman and Maverick were on
their way in a curving trajectory to get clear of the gas giant before settling
down on a vector that was aimed at the Sol system.

As he settled down in his chair, Shiloh watched his Tactical
display, which showed not only the current position, course and speed of both
craft, but also the projected vectors. The plan was simple in concept but
tricky in execution. Even with an A.I. at the controls, the fuel shuttle’s
maximum acceleration was still only about half that of Iceman’s fighter. Iceman
kept pace with Maverick until Iceman’s fighter had used up enough fuel to give
it an acceptable reserve after being topped up by Maverick’s shuttle. After the
fuel transfer, Iceman would go to maximum acceleration and leave Maverick
behind to coast. That was the easy part. The tricky part involved Maverick
waiting until the correct time to decelerate to zero and then re-accelerate in
the exact opposite direction until the required speed was reached. Meanwhile,
Iceman would continue to accelerate to the necessary minimum speed of 77% of
the speed of light to launch the drone, while being careful to line up as
precisely as possible to the target co-ordinates. Then, after launching the
message drone, Iceman would decelerate to zero before re-accelerating to the
necessary speed in the opposite direction, and hope that the two of them could
match velocities before Iceman ran out of fuel. Maverick would then transfer
enough additional fuel so that Iceman could reach the Base with zero velocity.
While the danger of running into something was extremely small, it wasn’t zero,
and at those speeds, even hitting a particle of dust the size of a grain of
sand could damage Iceman’s fighter, depending on where it hit. Waiting to see
if the mission was successful would be hard on Shiloh too, due to its duration.
It would take Iceman almost 18 hours to reach 77% of light speed, plus another
55 hours to decelerate to zero and then get back to a rendezvous with Maverick’s
fuel shuttle.

During the next three days, Shiloh and Sejanus took turns
monitoring Iceman and Maverick’s progress. When it was Shiloh’s turn at the
Command Station, he used the time to write his After Action report. The details
of the actual battle were quickly recorded. What was harder to write, were his
recommendations. The Line-in-the-sand strategy was now obsolete. The aliens
didn’t need to push past Bradley Base in order to continue exploring Human
Space. They apparently already knew what was beyond Bradley. Therefore there
was no longer any line to hold here. The Base was still valuable as logistical
support for any future offensive actions by the Space Force, but Shiloh
strongly suspected that the enemy would bypass it in order to strike deeper
into Human territory.

With that conclusion, the obvious question was what should
the Space Force do instead? He spent long hours looking at star maps of
colonized and uninhabited but explored star systems between Sol and those
systems known to be used by the enemy. Since the alien ships also used fusion
power fueled by heavy hydrogen, star systems with gas giants would be just as
useful to them as they were to humans. Shiloh came up with a plan to station a
flight of five fighters in each uninhabited star system that contained at least
one gas giant. Systems with more than one gas giant would need more than one
flight of fighters. Each flight would have one fighter outfitted with modular
fuel skimming equipment so that the flight could refuel itself as needed. While
the fighters would carry some attack drones, in case they needed to defend
themselves, their main payload would be message and recon drones to detect
enemy activity and report it back to the nearest Base. With this early warning
system in place, HQ could deploy frigates and other combat units along the most
likely paths of advance and attempt to interdict the enemy strike force. It
sounded good in theory, but space was vast, and timely communication was the
key. The enemy could move along a broad axis of advance. Concentrations of
defending ships had to have enough time to move to where they were needed the
most, and Shiloh was afraid that the standard message drones didn’t have the
fuel capacity to reach the speeds necessary for quick jumps over long
distances. He added a recommendation to develop a very fast and therefore long
ranged version of the message drone, knowing full well that it probably
wouldn’t be ready in time for the next alien attack.

Before finishing his report, Shiloh learned what the
reinforcement squadron found when it matched velocities with Johansen’s
survivors. Only six of the original 16 frigates were still intact. Vanguard was
one of the six. Her sister ship, Sentry, was not. Two of the surviving frigates
were so badly damaged that they had to be abandoned and destroyed after the
surviving crew were transferred. Vanguard was capable of maneuvering but only
at a reduced rate of acceleration. Johansen herself was still alive but
seriously wounded. With all wounded crew transferred to the rescue frigates,
the remaining crews brought their damaged ships back to orbit around Bradley
Base as best they could. The rescue squadron CO decided to detach half his
squadron to escort back the damaged ships, while the remaining four frigates
used their superior acceleration to get the wounded back to better medical
facilities at the Base as quickly as possible.

The launch of the message drone by Iceman went off as
planned. Iceman reported that he was certain the launch vector was accurate
enough for the drone to arrive in the Sol system. Shiloh’s report was finished
just in time to be transmitted to Iceman for downloading to the message drone
before it was launched. Six hours later, two things happened almost
simultaneously. Johansen arrived at the Base along with other injured crew, and
a message drone arrived from the squadron searching for the ambushed convoy. No
survivors of the convoy were found, only debris. When Shiloh added the loss of
the convoy ships to the damaged and destroyed frigates and fighters, and
compared that to the destruction of 33 enemy ships, he came to the conclusion
that in terms of material losses, the battle was almost a draw.

It was two hours later before the medics finished dealing
with Johansen’s injuries and allowed Shiloh to see her. She was heavily
bandaged and barely conscious from the residual effects of the medication and
painkillers. Shiloh nodded to her and leaned over so that the other patients
wouldn’t hear their conversation.

“You had me worried, Angela. When Vanguard dropped off the tactical
display, I thought the worst.”

When she replied, her voice was gravelly and a little
slurred. “Sooo … my first battle as a CO and I manage to get my brand new ship
shot out from under me. They’ll probably bust me back to Lieutenant Commander
and ship me off to be XO on a supply ship.”

Shiloh smiled and shook his head. “Not a chance. You were
following orders and considering how outnumbered your were, I’d say you did
pretty well. Vanguard is still space worthy, although her jumpdrive needs some
minor repairs. She may not be able to fight until she’s fully repaired back at
Sol, but she’ll live to fight another day.”

Johansen nodded slightly, coughed a bit and said, “Tell me
what happened after my force was ambushed.”

Shiloh told her the basic details.

She scowled and said, “God, that was tricky of them to
microjump to the opposite side so that the sun was directly behind them! If we
had launched attack drones from in front, the reflected laser light would have
been lost in the sun’s glare. Having your fighters attack them from the rear
not only eliminated the glare problem but you caught them by surprise too!”

Shiloh didn’t realize he’d been anxiously waiting for her to
say that, until he felt himself relax.
So another vision has come true
,
he thought.

“Yes, we managed to turn a crushing defeat into an expensive
tactical victory, but from a strategic point of view, we lost.”

“I … I don’t understand what you’re referring to, Victor.”

A clear-headed Johansen would have known what he was
referring to, but this Johansen was too fuzzy-headed with painkillers to see
it.

He smiled at her. “Let’s start with the convoy ambush. How
did they know that we used that particular system to refuel ships on their way
to Bradley Base? How did they even know that Bradley Base existed? And how did
they know that this system’s sun and the gas giant would line up precisely with
the star system where the convoy was ambushed, so that they could use the GG’s
shadow to ambush your ships? The only way they’d know all that without having
surveyed those systems themselves, which we’re as certain as we can be they
didn’t do, is if they got all that data from one of our lost ships. That means
they know where all our colonies and home planet are too.”

“Oh my God,” she said as the implications sank in.

“Yea,” agreed Shiloh.

Neither of them said anything for a minute or so.

“What can we do, Victor?”

Shiloh told her about his recommendations for a buffer zone
of systems, monitored by CFPs as an early warning system.

“That’s brilliant, Victor. Really brilliant. Can we
manufacture and deploy that many fighters fast enough?”

Shiloh shrugged. “We just have to try it and find out,” he
said.

There was another pause. Shiloh was about to ask her about
the nature of her feelings, if any, for him when a nurse came in and told him
he had to leave now and let her get rest. He promised Johansen he’d visit her
again soon and left. When he came the next day, she was asleep. He left a note
to let her know he’d come to visit.