The Synchronicity War Part 3 (15 page)

"I agree that the upgraded attack drone comes first,
but what's the impact if we move the gravity lens beam planetary defense
project to come up next, instead of enhanced enrichment?"

"We would have a very limited number of high yield
warheads, which means that they would have to be in the right place at the
right time in order to be useful,” answered Wolfman.

Or defend just one planet,
thought Shiloh before
responding. "Understood, but suppose we set up an early warning system
with raiders and message drones and keep our limited number of high yield
attack drones right here in Site B? Our Fighters can carry them, and with
retro-temporal communication we might even know exactly where the VLOs will
arrive when they get here. Then we can have the fighters standing nearby and
ambush them before they know what hit them."

"RTC is not foolproof, CAG," said Wolfman.
"It will only work if the attack CAN be defended against. There are
tactical scenarios that the Insectoids could employ which can't be defended
against with our current resources. The SPG would like to propose a variant of
your strategy. Instead of concentrating all our high yield warheads here, we
feel that moving them forward to a system that is highly likely to be visited
by additional VLOs is the way to go. That system would be Sol. Then, if word of
the battle gets back to the bug rear areas, any VLOs that move up are almost
certainly going to go there to overwhelm whatever opposition may be located
there. Consider the incentives they would have. An active defense implies
biological entities that might serve as hosts. It also implies metal from two
sources, the defenders and the defeated mothership. If we can stop them at Sol,
then they aren't going to be able to scout this far forward, and Site B will
remain hidden to them. I would also point out to you that if we're going to
keep a permanent defensive force at Sol, then we may also want to restart the
robotic asteroid mining complexes there because that could be an additional
source of enriched uranium."

It was a tempting plan. The derelict bug mothership drifting
in that star system now would make the perfect lure to get new VLOs away from
any gravity zone, so that the new attack drones could jump right on top of
them. And if the reinforcement VLOs were detected by the sentry raiders to be
bypassing Sol altogether, they could still get word back fast enough for the
ambush forces to move from Sol to the next bug destination and attack them
there. It was the perfect compromise between the ideal defense-in-depth
strategy and Shiloh's 'fortress' suggestion. He made his decision and then
waited to see if he got another vision.

Nope, no vision.

"I approve your variant strategy, Wolfman. Sol will
become the line in the sand that we don't let them cross. As soon as we have
working jump-capable attack drones, I want some of them deployed to Sol in case
the missing core ship shows up there. So now let's discuss how we implement the
decision that I just made. Daniels, you start."

Shiloh leaned forward to get a better look at the tactical
display. After getting used to the huge, 3D display of Midway's Flag Bridge,
the MUCH smaller display in Reforger's cramped Bridge was irritating to look
at. He now regretted his decision to take Reforger to watch the live fire test
of the new jump-capable attack drone instead of using Midway. Yes, using Midway
would have meant calling back the human crew from their post-Sol mission
R&R, whereas Reforger could be crewed for this test with just its A.I.
pilot, but what was the point of the CSO having all this authority if he wasn't
going to use it once in a while? 

"Voodoo reports he's ready to fire, CAG," said
Iceman, who was flying a raider in formation with Reforger.

"He has permission to fire, Admiral," said Shiloh.

 Iceman didn't acknowledge the order and that was fine with
Shiloh. Experience had taught the Space Force that humans had to acknowledge an
order in order to be sure that a) they had heard it properly and b) that they
were willing to obey the order. Neither of those two were a concern as far as
A.I.s were concerned. With the single exception of Valkyrie, no A.I. had ever
failed to understand his orders or failed to obey them, and Valkyrie's
exception had been a very special situation. He waited. Voodoo's fighter was
five light seconds away, so sending the fire order would take that long to get
to him. It might then take another second or two for Voodoo to actually fire
the test drone, as he made sure it was operating properly and had the correct
vector for the jump. After firing, the test drone would accelerate for another
four to eight seconds, which was needed primarily to confirm its trajectory.
Then there would be the microjump itself which at this  range would be as close
to instantaneous as you could get. The test drone would emerge from Jumpspace
half a kilometer from the target, which was an ugly lump of drifting rock that
was close to the same mass as what the missing core ship was estimated to be
now. Reforger and its escort were standing off at a safe distance of a hundred
kilometers from the target. With their zoomed in optics, they would get an
excellent view of the impact.

"Voodoo's fired," said Iceman quickly. Before
Shiloh had a chance to reply, the darkness on the display flashed into a light
brighter than the sun, lasting only a fraction of a second until the computer
filtered the intensity of the image. The after-image burned into his retinas
faded slowly. By the time it was gone, the display was dark again.

"Enhance the target image, Stoney," ordered Shiloh
to Reforger's pilot.

"There's no longer any target to enhance, CAG. That
asteroid has been blown apart," replied Stoney.

That comment was immediately followed by one from Iceman,
"The test was a complete success, CAG."

"VERY good! How soon can we have four more ready for
Casanova's group to take to Sol, Iceman?"

"Twenty-four hours. CAG, Voodoo has asked me to switch
him for one of Casanova's team. He wants in on the core ship ambush."

Shiloh waited, expecting to hear more, but when it became
obvious there wasn't going to be anything else, he said, "I'm not sure
what you're expecting from me, Iceman. Are you asking me to make a decision on
his request?"

"No, CAG. I'm not certain how to handle his request. I
instructed Casanova to pick the rest of his team. Would I be violating accepted
Space Force practice by forcing Casanova to give up someone he picked
himself?"

Sooo … A.I.s don't know how to handle every situation.
How very interesting,
Shiloh thought to himself.

"I understand your dilemma. My answer depends on how
you instructed Casanova. Did you say 'tell me who you want on the team' or did
you say 'I'm giving you discretion over who goes with you'?"

After a very slight pause, Iceman said, "I understand
that I should not take your question literally since A.I. communication doesn't
have grammar per se, but I don't understand the difference. Both options seem
to me to be saying the same thing."

"Okay. I'm going to try to make the difference more
obvious by using an example of myself with a human subordinate. Suppose
hypothetically that I had placed Commander Daniels in charge of the ambush
mission. If I said to Daniels, 'you're in charge of the mission. Recommend who
else you want for it', then I'm retaining the final say of who goes. On the
other hand, if I said to Daniels, 'you're in charge of this mission, and I'm
giving you discretion over who goes with you', then I've surrendered my
prerogative to veto any of his choices. In that case, changing one of his
choices would be frowned upon because of the potential for sending an
unintended message to Daniels that I don't have confidence in his judgment. It
also tells him that I can't be trusted to keep my word. Now that's for humans.
I don't know if A.I.s interact with each other that way, but if I gave you
discretionary authority over a tactical decision and then overrode your
decision later, how would you feel about it?"

"I would be concerned about your faith in my abilities.
I understand the difference now, CAG. In terms of how I expressed myself to
Casanova, the 'tone' of the communication was more in the form of giving him
discretion over his team. Am I correct in thinking that I should turn down
Voodoo's request?"

"You could do that, but another option would be to
forward the request to Casanova and let him decide. If you feel that Voodoo
deserves to go on this mission or that the chances of success would improve
with him on it, then there's nothing wrong with you acting as Voodoo's advocate
so long as Casanova understands that he still has the final say in this matter.
A smart subordinate will take his superior's suggestions unless there's an
overriding reason not to."

"Thank you for clarifying that, CAG, and for giving me
a better sense of how a military hierarchy should operate. We A.I.s are still
learning new concepts from you humans."

"That's good to know, Iceman. How long until we get
back to TN?"

"We'll be back in orbit within 34 minutes, CAG. Do I
detect anxiousness in your voice about getting back to Commander Kelly?"

Shiloh laughed and said, "I wish we humans weren't so
transparent sometimes, Iceman. I imagine that we must seem to be very simple
creatures to A.I.s."

"On the contrary, CAG. We are continually astonished at
the diversity and complexity of thought patterns and behavior of humans. Some
of us think that we'll never completely understand humans."

Shiloh allowed his surprise to show on his face, knowing
that Stoney and therefore Iceman could see him. On a more basic level he was
pleased that A.I.s weren't bored with humans.
If they were bored with us,
they might not care about us as much.
It was a scary thought.

                                               * * *

Shiloh understood that it was bound to happen sooner or
later, but that didn’t prevent him from being extremely annoyed when his
implant activated while he and Kelly were have sex.

"Iceman to CAG."

Shiloh's immediate impulse was to tell Iceman to call back
later, and if a human had called he would have done exactly that, but he
trusted Iceman's judgment concerning the distinction between something being
important AND urgent, versus being important and not urgent. Because Shiloh's
throat implant enabled Iceman to hear him, Iceman would know that Shiloh was
doing something that involved heavy breathing.

Before Shiloh could respond Iceman said, "Did I call at
a bad time, CAG?"

Shiloh turned his head slightly to one side so that Kelly,
who was on top of him, would notice that something was up.

"Wait one, Iceman," gasped Shiloh. Kelly stopped
what she was doing and giggled. When he had caught his breath, he said,
"How urgent is the reason for your call?"

"No immediate action is required, CAG. I called because
I know that you're usually awake at this time of the day."

"Call me back in 15 minutes … NO … make that 30
minutes."

"Roger that, CAG. Enjoy your sex. Iceman clear."

The connection broke before Shiloh could say anything more.
When he repeated Iceman's final words to Kelly, she laughed so hard she rolled
off him, but that turned out to be just a temporary distraction.

When Iceman called back, Shiloh's breathing was back to
normal.

"Iceman to CAG. Are you available now?"

"Yes, Iceman. What's the news?"

"A message drone from Omega34's sentry. The missing
core ship has arrived there and is apparently going to take a close look at
what's left of the Sogas colony."

"Well they won't find much there. Is there any reason
to think that they'll stick around?"

"Negative. The SPG thinks, and I concur, that the core
ship will leave that system as soon as they realize there's nothing left to
salvage from the colony. Their next logical destination would be the Avalon
system."

"I see. Am I correct in thinking that Casanova's team
will arrive at Sol before the core ship does?"

"You are correct, CAG. Even if the core ship heads
directly for Sol from Omega34, the ambush team will get there first."

"Excellent! Is there anything else we should discuss,
Iceman?"

"Nothing, that can't wait until tomorrow. CAG, I hope I
didn't spoil your sex session with Commander Kelly."

Shiloh wondered why the use of her former rank made that
statement sound deliciously taboo. "We managed okay," was all that he
was prepared to say, but Iceman wasn't ready to let it go.

"Perhaps if you or Commander Kelly were to notify me in
advance when you're thinking of engaging in sex, then I would know not to call
you for an appropriate amount of time, unless it was an emergency."

"No." Shiloh's response was immediate and firm.

"I sense that you would like to end this discussion
now. Is that correct, CAG?"

"Yes it is. I'm signing off now. CAG clear."

Casanova's awareness was stimulated by the laser com message
from several of his recon drones. The bug core ship had arrived. By sheer
coincidence, it emerged from Jumpspace within a couple of Astronomical Units of
the drifting derelict mothership. That meant that TF96's optical sensors would
catch the reflected light from it before it had a chance to slow down enough to
microjump somewhere else. That pleased him even though it wasn't crucial to a
successful ambush. With only a very tiny gravity zone around the derelict, the
new attack drones could still hit the newcomer unless it was in direct physical
contact with the derelict. A quick query to Voodoo, whose fighter was half a
light second away, got the expected response that Voodoo was also aware of the
target's arrival.

The big question now was whether core ship No. 6 would see
the derelict from its initial position. Casanova thought that it would and
would therefore jump here instead of to Earth, but Iceman's plan was clear.
Both Earth and the derelict would be covered by one raider and one fighter,
each carrying one Mark 1c attack drone. As soon as No. 6 committed to one of
the two locations, Casanova would order his team to come back together. Two
Mark 1cs probably would be enough to destroy No. 6, but he wasn't going to take
any chances. He wanted these Bugs dead for what they and their brothers had
made Valkyrie do. He understood why she had sacrificed herself, but that didn't
lessen his … what? Anger? Grief? He wasn't sure what to call it, but he was
feeling something that all his fellow A.I.s said they didn't understand. That
both puzzled and disturbed him. Valkyrie was the only one of the first cohort
of over 200 A.I.s that clearly had a female orientation as compared to the
others' male orientation, and he, Casanova, was the only one who wanted to
explore that male/female A.I. polarity. The only one out of 200+. Were he and
Valkyrie the abnormal ones, or were the rest of the A.I.s less than they could
be? He preferred to think the latter, and losing Valkyrie when she was just
starting to become receptive to his suggested 'union' was … difficult to
accept.

He calmed his thoughts and watched the data input from the
various optical sensors. No. 6 was decelerating as expected. With the speed,
rate of deceleration and distance known, it wasn't difficult to project when
the core ship would be slow enough to maneuver to the heading needed to
microjump. Since the reflected sunlight was taking almost 17 minutes to reach
him and his drones, that core ship should be microjumping just … about … now. 
Within two seconds, he was receiving data for a very bright object MUCH closer.
No. 6 was behaving as anticipated. Casanova quickly updated a message drone
ordering Wolfman and Pagan to jump to specific locations near the derelict. He
sent it and then another quick laser pulse to Voodoo instructing him to stand
by for further orders. There was no need to rush. No. 6 was now moving at a
very leisurely 404 kps and was maneuvering to change its heading so that it
would be directly behind the derelict. It would then speed up to overtake and
then match velocities with the derelict so that they would both be traveling in
the same direction at the same speed. That would take almost 22 minutes, plenty
of time to bring Wolfman and Pagan to the vicinity and maneuver for the perfect
ambush. It wasn't long before he detected the faint trace of No. 6's active
microwave scans, but his raider and Voodoo's fighter were so far away that even
if they weren't oriented so that any microwave signal was deflected away from
No. 6, the return signal would have been too weak to detect. All the active
scanning did for the Bugs was confirm that there wasn't anyone else close
enough to fire on them with lasers.

As the seconds ticked by, the target swung around so that it
was directly behind the derelict and began to speed up exactly as predicted.
Casanova was pleased by the precision of his calculations. When the core ship/
derelict rendezvous was just over ten minutes away, Casanova received com laser
bursts from Wolfman and Pagan, who were now at their specified new locations.
Wolfman then asked him if he could begin his attack run. Leave it to the
strategist to be trigger-happy! Casanova now regretted letting Wolfman talk him
into allowing him to come along, but the argument that Wolfman needed actual
combat experience to give him a better strategic perspective had been
persuasive.  Casanova sent back a curt NO. Wolfman, Pagan and even Voodoo were
backup players, just in case Casanova's attack drone missed or failed to
completely destroy No. 6, but no one else was going to get in the first shot!

Eventually the rendezvous took place. No. 6 came right up to
the derelict … and slid in behind it from Casanova's point of view! He waited
to see if it would reappear on the other side, but it stayed hidden from his
view. A query to the other three showed that they could see No. 6 just fine
because they were looking at the target from different angles. All three asked
permission to begin their attack runs. Casanova did some quick calculations and
transmitted his orders. As he did so, his raider pivoted and began to
accelerate at its maximum rate so that he was moving sideways relative to the
target. Sure enough, he soon began to see the target gradually appear from
behind the derelict's outline. Casanova's raider now began to curve around in
order to line up with the target. The other three were already lined up and
were counting down to their own drone launches.

His raider was now also directly behind both the core ship
and the derelict, with those two hulls so close to each other that it was hard
to detect any space between them at this distance. One final check of the
attack drone's auto-pilot's settings, and Casanova fired. If the other three
were following his instructions, then he had timed it perfectly. Two point two
seconds after launch, his attack drone entered Jumpspace and re-emerged three
kilometers behind the core ship traveling at 209 kps. If the Bugs had their own
A.I.s controlling their ships, there might have been enough time to fire a
laser if it happened to be pointing in the right direction, but they didn't.
Biological entities were so slow that they had no chance of even being aware of
the impending impact. Casanova microjumped ahead so that he was less than one
light second away from the target and saw his drone hit and detonate. The lower
yield fusion explosion vaporized half the target. A second and a half later,
Voodoo's drone hit from the opposite side and vaporized all but a few pieces of
the other half. Wolfman and Pagan followed instructions and held their fire
after microjumping closer as well.

Casanova noticed that he was experiencing a new feeling. It
wasn't quite satisfaction. He was familiar with that one. This was something
close to that but different in a subtle way. Whatever it was, he liked it. He
would ask The CAG if he could lead more anti-Bug missions. With this mission
accomplished, he gave Wolfman and Pagan orders to stay here until relieved,
just in case another VLO showed up. He ordered Voodoo to follow him back to
Site B.

                                                              *
* *

Shiloh stepped outside of the spaceport Operations Center
and felt the cool breeze blow past him. Terra Nova had very little axial tilt,
and therefore its seasons had relatively narrow swings in temperature. They
were in the middle of 'winter' now which meant that even at night the
temperature wouldn't drop below freezing. In the daytime, it might be cool
enough to warrant wearing a jacket. He started to walk along the edge of the
landing pads. He needed to get some fresh air and clear his head. He had left
instructions that no one was to contact him unless it was an emergency.
Casanova had returned with the news about the missing core ship. The attack
jump drones had worked perfectly. That was the good news. The bad news was the
status report on the high yield warhead project. The low yield version was a
design that they had 'inherited' from the pre-plague Space Force. Its method of
construction was familiar to them, but the high yield warhead was a brand new
beast. None of his Space Force people had the training or background knowledge
to figure out how to build the thing, and nuclear warhead design was not one of
the technical skills that his A.I.s had learned before the collapse. The
Friendly database was no help either since they hadn't bothered to learn how to
build ANY nuclear devices. So they were stuck. They knew the theory but not the
engineering knowhow. The theory could be turned into engineering knowhow by
trial and error, but that would take months, and time was something that he
couldn't count on.

So in terms of their R&D priorities, they were back to
square one. They had to find a way to kill a fully-grown mothership other than
using up dozens of low yield warheads of which they had a limited supply.
Production of enriched uranium was dropping. The ore body they were mining was
giving out, and they hadn't found a new source yet. The asteroid mining complex
in Sol wasn't an easy answer either. Upon a closer examination, the engineers
were now of the opinion that it would take months to get the operation back up
and running, and when one of his Space Force people remembered that the mining
complex only produced a small quantity of uranium as a byproduct of other
metals, that pretty much killed the reactivation idea.

The bottom line was that 98% of the pre-plague production of
uranium came from Earth itself, and there was no way that they could access
those sources now. Daniels and his staff wanted to switch to the gravity lens
beam in spite of its risky timeframe, but even if they could get a working
prototype in time, it wasn't the ultimate weapon that Daniels has originally
made it out to be. Yes, in theory they could generate a narrow beam of focused
gravity that would rip apart anything it encountered. Unfortunately there was
no chance of slicing a sphere in half unless it was absolutely stationary. All
they would accomplish from firing at a moving sphere would be a deep gash a few
centimeters wide. While it would undoubtedly have some effect, he didn't think it
would cripple the mothership. Hitting the landing craft with the beam was even
more problematic because they were much smaller and therefore harder to see and
hit at all. If only there was some way of getting more bang for their low yield
warhead punch.

He reviewed the effectiveness of their low yield warheads
against the first VLO in his mind. Dreadnought had blasted a deep hole in the
thing, and they needed multiple hits by fusion warheads to penetrate into the
guts of the machine where the critical systems were bound to be located. That
much was clear from the fact that much smaller core ships could maneuver, jump
and act aggressively. It made sense that as a small sphere expanded in size,
that extra space would be devoted to room for more soldier Bugs, more landing
craft, and more laser batteries. It also made sense that there would be layers
of armor representing growth phases. Analysis of Dreadnought's ramming impact
had shown that the VLO had had a LOT of armor. That damn thing was so massive
that it even had its own small gravity zone, which precluded the tactic of
having the jump drone emerge from Jumpspace INSIDE the target. That idea had
apparently been brought up at the original brainstorming session and discarded
when the SPG had calculated that the VLO did have a gravity zone. Any attempt
to jump into the thing would cause the attack drone to drop back into normal
space while still outside the sphere.

Shiloh tried to remember what he'd been taught about gravity
zones and Jumpspace. Ships avoided entering a planet's gravity zone because the
forced emergence back into normal space was sudden and stressful on both ships
and crews. There was one other thing that he couldn't quite remember but had a
feeling was very important. He activated his implant.

"Ops here, Chief. What can I do for you?"

Shiloh tried to remember the name of the human manning the
Com Station but couldn't. "I'd like a direct connection with Iceman."

"I'm switching you over now, Sir. Go ahead."

"CAG to Iceman."

"Iceman here."

"Tell me what you know about what happens when an
object traveling through Jumpspace encounters a gravity zone, Iceman."

"Objects traveling through Jumpspace slow down as they
approach a planetary or stellar body. What humans call the gravity zone
boundary is really just that point when the object slows down to the point of
going slower than the speed of light, and it then drops out of Jumpspace. So
it's not like hitting a concrete wall, but rather like hitting a very steep
hill that gets steeper the higher you go."

"So the object will have traveled some distance past
the gravity zone boundary by the time it's finished dropping back into normal
space, correct?" asked Shiloh.

"Roger that, CAG."

"How far past the boundary does it go?"

"That depends on how fast it was going just before it
entered Jumpspace. The faster the pre-jump velocity is, the farther it will be
past the boundary when it drops back into normal space," said Iceman.

THAT was what Shiloh couldn't remember!

"Okay! So given the gravity zone of your typical ten
kilometer bug mothership, how fast would a jump drone have to go in order to
emerge from Jumpspace INSIDE the bug ship?"

After a half second pause, Iceman answered. "The attack
drone would need to have a minimum pre-jump speed of five point four percent of
light, but that will just get it past the outer layer of armor. To get it
within a kilometer of the center would require a pre-jump speed of ten point
one percent of light. At 800Gs, the attack drone would need 65 minutes and 59
million kilometers to reach that velocity. Unless the target is maintaining a
precise position, which is highly unlikely, aiming the attack drone accurately
from that far away will be extremely difficult."