Synchronicity War Part 1, The (13 page)

 “—ships, all ships, we’re under enemy fire! Ships from the
98th and 102nd are ordered to go active on all scanners and return fire at
will! Cabrera, Dejanus, Shiloh and Laroche, you’re ordered t—”

The voice was cut off so abruptly that Shiloh was startled.
He quickly checked to make sure that the interruption wasn’t a technical snafu
on his end. It wasn’t. Yakamura’s ship had stopped transmitting. Shiloh touched
the electronic screen pad that sent his ship to Battle Stations.

“Com, signal the squadron to go to Battle Stations with
Condition—”

He was about to say, ‘One’, which would have resulted in all
his ships actively scanning and immediately firing on any unidentified
contacts, but then he realized that Condition One might not be the best thing
to do. As far as he knew, his ships were not being fired upon, at least not
yet. And that could be for a number of reasons, such as them being out of
range, but it could also be because they hadn’t been detected yet. If they
suddenly went to active scanning, not only would they detect enemy ships, but
they would also be detected. He made a snap decision to give himself more
options by saying, ‘Four’.

Condition Four put all ships at Battle Stations, but with
passive sensors only, and holding their fire until ordered otherwise. Without
him ordering it, the large display screen on the wall switched from long-range
astrogation mode to short range tactical mode. The tactical situation was not
good. SFE144 was heading away from the main body of the Task Force, as were
Jessica Cabrera’s 051, Raphael Dejanus’ 077, and Hiram LaRoche’s 153. Mbutu’s
098 and Bettencourt’s 102 squadrons were still close enough to the tanker
squadron that they could be considered part of the main body of ships. Shiloh
could tell when ships from those two squadrons started actively scanning. A
cluster of red triangles appeared at the Task Force’s 8 o’clock position at a
surprisingly close range! Shiloh counted the red triangles. Twenty-eight! The
hair on the back of his neck stood up. How did 28 enemy ships get this close,
this quickly? Something wasn’t right. He tried to find out where the Command
Ship was in the cluster of green hexagons that represented friendly ships. The
Command Ship’s hexagon should have been a brighter green. Shiloh couldn’t find
it, and suddenly he realized that the reason he couldn’t find it was because it
wasn’t there! He also realized that some of his squadron’s COs were trying to
talk to him.

“144 squadron, standby! I’m going to try to re-establish
communications with the Task Force Leader!”

Turning to the Com Tech, he said, “See if you can raise the
Valley Forge again!”

While he was waiting for the results of that effort, Chenko
rushed onto the Bridge. Shiloh saw her, nodded, and pointed to the Helm
Station.

“XO, take the Con,” he told her. “Lt. Verlander, the XO will
be conning the ship from your station! Remain on the Bridge in case I need you!
I’ll retain squadron command!”

Turning back to the Com Tech, he said. “Any word from Task
Force Leader?”

The answer surprised him.

“Sir! I have Yellowjacket’s CO on the line.”

Shiloh nodded to him and heard the com channel switch over
to a static filled line.

“Shiloh! Valley Forge has been shot to pieces! We were close
enough to see it visually on our screens! Who’s in command of the Task Force
now?”

Shiloh thought fast. “It’s Mbutu! Does he know about
Yakamura?”

“Don’t know! Hanson! Contact Mbutu’s frigate. Notify him
that Yakamura’s gone and he’s in command now! Victor, you still there?”

Shiloh nodded even though Frank Rolen couldn’t see him.
“Yes, Frank. I’m still here. My squadron is still shaking down to Battle
Stations! What’s your squadron’s status?”

“Not good. Dragonfly’s lost all power! Firefly’s not
maneuvering anymore either, and we can’t raise her! My ship’s suffered a
glancing hit! We’re losing fuel and atmosphere but we’re still underway! I want
to jump my ships outta here, but I also don’t want to jump the gun if Yaka–
Mbutu has other plans! God, Victor, where did these bastards come from?”

“I don’t know, Frank, but you can’t afford to wait for Mbutu
to give you permission to jump. If your tankers are taken out, NONE of us will
get back home! My advice is jump your ships away from here right now on your
current heading, then dogleg it to the rendezvous point!”

“SHIT, VICTOR! Some of my ships still haven’t recovered
their shuttles yet! We can’t leave them behind!”

Shiloh thought fast and replied. “We may have to, Frank! You
may be able to pick those shuttles up later if the enemy leaves, and we come
back here. If the tankers are destroyed, those shuttle crews are dead anyway!”

“You’re right, Victor. DAMN! Sprite’s just blown up! Okay!
Hanson! Message to all tankers! Micro-jump immediately and proceed
independently to the rendezvous point! Tell those shuttle crews we’ll try to
come back and pick them up later! Victor, we’re outta here! See you at the
rendezvous point!”

The channel cut off and Shiloh watched the green hexagon
that was the tanker Yellowjacket fade out. Other tankers’ symbols also faded
out, but two hexagons, Hummingbird’s and Pixie’s, broke into pieces indicating
that the ships had been blown apart by internal explosions presumably caused by
enemy fire. Shiloh checked his squadron’s status board and saw that all ships
were at Battle Stations. He then looked back at the Tactical display. Switching
back to the squadron Com channel he heard an angry voice.

“—when can we open fire, dammit?”

Shiloh replied before anyone else did.

“This is Shiloh. Here’s the situation. TF Flagship has been
destroyed. We have to assume that Mbutu is TF Leader now. Those tankers that
were still able to jump away have done so and are headed for the rendezvous
point. I’m going to try to contact Mbutu. Standby.”

Shiloh cut short his message to the squadron when he noticed
the Com Tech had switched Shiloh’s audio speakers to another channel with Task
Force Leader Mbutu on it.

“This is Mbutu. I’ve taken command of the Task Force. Most
of the tanker squadron has jumped away. My squadron and 102 are now taking
laser fire from enemy ships! All squadrons are ordered to close with the enemy
force and open fire! Squadron Leaders acknowledge these orders!”

As per standard operating procedure, squadrons replied in
ascending order of squadron number.

When it was the 144th’s turn, Shiloh said, “144th
acknowledges!” As soon as that was out of the way, Shiloh switched back to the
squadron channel and said, “We’ve been ordered to close with the enemy force
and open fire. Course changes will be downloaded shortly. Maneuvering will be
by autopilot. We’ll use one recon drone from each ship to triangulate the exact
position of enemy ships. Until that data is available, take your best shots,
using passive sensors only. I repeat, passive sensors only. No sense letting
the enemy pinpoint our location from our active sensors. Keep this channel
open.”

Shiloh muted his microphone and looked over at Chenko. “XO!
Plot a course change for the squadron that will put us on a heading we can use
for a dogleg micro-jump closer to the rendezvous point if we should need to do
that! You may also fire at will!”

“Acknowledged. Weapons Officer, you may open fire. Goran!
Launch a recon drone and send it towards the enemy force at maximum speed.
Begin active scanning as soon as possible. Course change is coming up! Course
change is set and all ships have acknowledged receipt. Squadron is ready to
change heading at your discretion, Sir!”

“Very good, XO. Here we go!”

Shiloh touched the electronic screen’s flashing red button
that activated the autopilots on all eight ships to maneuver in sync. He looked
at the Tactical display and heard Chenko say, “Squadron is coming around to the
new heading!”

It was too soon to be able to confirm that from the larger
scale of the Tactical display. Shiloh used his Command Station controls to
rotate the Tactical display to get a better idea of the relative positions and
vectors of all the various clusters of ships. The Task Force had emerged from
hyperspace more or less above the orbit of the farthest planet with a heading
that would take it even further from the system’s star. As each frigate
squadron finished refueling, it pulled away from the Task Force and headed
towards the planet where the enemy installations were expected to be. So from
the Task Force’s point of view, the four fueled squadrons had angled ‘down’ and
were now below the remaining two frigates.

The enemy force, meanwhile, was approaching the two frigate
squadrons from below and off to one side, although the 98th’s and 102nd’s
vectors were sufficiently fast that the enemy’s relative position to them was
rapidly shifting to their rear. What this meant was that all four refueled
squadrons had to ‘pull up sharply’ in order to narrow the range to the enemy
ships. It was clear from listening to the Weapons Officer’s report of miss
after miss, that at this range and with passive sensors only, Shiloh’s squadron
was just too far away. Once the squadron deployed its recon drones and was able
to triangulate their active scan data, they would be able to improve laser fire
accuracy somewhat.

The only way to tell from the Tactical display if a ship was
hit by laser fire was if the ship’s display symbol slowed down, moved
erratically, or broke up altogether. While a few of the enemy ships were
clearly damaged, the frigates of the two squadrons closest to the enemy force
were taking crippling hits at a faster rate and falling behind the others as
the damaged ships stopped accelerating. Shiloh winced as one of Mbutu’s ships
broke up and disappeared. A few seconds later another frigate did the same
thing. The enemy force appeared to concentrate their fire on one target at a
time. It was clear that while the Task Force outnumbered the enemy in total
number of ships, the frigates that were close enough to be hit were outnumbered
almost two to one. When another of Mbutu’s frigates stopped maneuvering and
fell behind, Shiloh called out to Chenko.

“XO! Check to see who’s next in line for command of the Task
Force if Mbutu is taken out!”

Chenko checked and said, “Bettencourt is the next most
senior, then Dejanus, Rolen, Cabrera, LaRoche and then yourself, Sir!”

“Thank you, XO.”

Shiloh manipulated his com channel controls. The channel to
Mbutu was open but silent. “Shiloh to squadron. I’m monitoring communications
with the Task Force Leader, but he’s not transmitting at the moment. I’m going
to keep this channel open until further notice. We should start to get
triangulated targeting data from our recon drones any second now. When we do,
my Weapons Officer will designate a target, and I want the entire squadron to
fire on that target and keep firing on it until a new target is designated.”

While he was talking, he noticed that Chenko quickly rushed
over to the Weapons Station and huddled with Sen. Lt. Sykes.

Shiloh called to him. “Sykes!”

The Officer looked up, as did Chenko.

“Sir?”

“Your targeting priorities should be the ship closest to our
frigates. As soon as the target loses the ability to keep up with their
formation, I want you to switch to another target. If we damage their ability
to maneuver, then our ships will eventually pull out of their effective weapons
range! Right now that’s all I’m going for.”

“Understood, Sir!”

Sykes and Chenko resumed their low-voiced consultation. One
of Shiloh’s ship commanders responded.

“Even if we cripple some of their ships, those cripples
might still be able to fire! We should keep firing on the same target until
it’s completely destroyed!”

Shiloh bit back a curse just in time and said, “Negative! We
could end up wasting shots on a lifeless hulk that refuses to blow up! We need
to even the odds against the 98th and 102nd as fast as possible, and that means
knocking as many enemy ships out of the fight as we can. When we whittle them
down enough, I think they’ll break off the attack altogether, and then we can
pick off the stragglers at our leisure!”

A shout from Sykes told Shiloh that they now had more
precise targeting data from their recon drones. Shiloh noticed from the Tactical
display that the other three squadrons had also followed his lead and launched
their own recon drones. Enemy ships started falling behind at a noticeably
faster rate now, although by this time Mbutu’s squadron was down to only four
ships still able to accelerate away, and Bettencourt’s squadron was down to
just three. Chenko had finished coaching Sykes and was back at the Helm. Shiloh
did a quick recount of the remaining enemy ships still able to keep up with the
frigates. That total was now down to 18. The range from squadron 144 to the
enemy was starting to drop much faster as the squadron’s heading was steep
enough that it would eventually pass behind the enemy formation, unless those
ships made their own radical course change, which is exactly what they
proceeded to do.

“They’ve broken off!” yelled Chenko.

Shiloh had enough presence of mind to realize that this was
the first time he had seen Chenko get excited about anything. He checked the
display and saw that Chenko was correct. The projected course of the enemy’s
main body of ships was now swinging away from all six frigate squadrons. Shiloh
was about to speak when he heard Cmdr. Mbutu’s voice.