The Synchronicity War Part 2 (14 page)

“Will I have to give up my fighter?”

“Yes but you’ll be using the same mobile ground
unit that Iceman used.”

“What have I done to deserve this punishment,
CAG?” Shiloh was taken aback. It didn’t sound like Valkyrie was
joking.

“I don’t understand, Valkyrie. Why do you
consider this as punishment?”

“Because I’ll be tied down to a unit that has
limited visual and auditory sensors, can barely move and can’t fly.
Compared to piloting a fighter, that’s like you being tied down to
a bed 24 hours a day with one arm, one eye and one ear working. How
would you feel if that happened to you, CAG?” Shiloh was stunned
and then ashamed at not having realized the implications of what he
was proposing.

“Your analogy is something I wasn’t aware of.
Now that you’ve pointed that out to me, I understand why it may
seem to you as punishment however that was not my intention at all.
Iceman didn’t complain about being hooked up to the mobile
unit.”

“Because it was only for a few hours. I’d be
hooked up to it for weeks, maybe months.”

“You’re correct and that’s not acceptable. What
alternative can you suggest, that would still enable you to be in
communication range of HQ?”

“Earth now has a permanent fighter patrol used
for jump detection. If I’m assigned to that duty, I’ll be close
enough that I can interact with members of the SPG day or night
while performing my patrol duties.”

“Excellent idea. I’ll contact Admiral Howard
right now and request that your orders be modified accordingly.
Thank you for setting me straight on that, Valkyrie. I admit that I
still have things to learn about the best way to interact with
A.I.s. If you think I’m making a similar kind of uninformed
decision in the future, I want you to challenge me on it.”

“You’re forgiven, CAG and I’m relieved to hear
that it was an honest mistake.”

“Thank you, Valkyrie. Now I need you to
recommend your replacement as VF001 squadron leader and also your
thoughts on which squadron leader I should put in overall command
of 3rd Fleet’s fighters for this mission.”

“I’d say Maverick for both slots but he and
Hunter are already slated to be transferred to Epsilon Eridani.
Therefore my recommendations are Vandal for SL and Tumbleweed for
overall command.” Shiloh smiled. Vandal was one of the veterans,
from Defiant’s first mission, that was moving up in rank and chain
of command fast. Iceman liked him and clearly Valkyrie did too.

“Very good, Valkyrie. I accept your
recommendations. Advise Vandal that he’ll get a field promotion to
SL as soon as you depart. I’ll advise Tumbleweed of his
responsibilities at the appropriate time. CAG clear.” As he handed
the headset back to one of the support techs, he said,

“Intercom…Bridge Com.”

“Bridge Com here, Sir. What can I do for
you?”

“You can patch me into a comm. channel to
Admiral Howard.”

“Yes, Sir. I’ll have that set up for you
shortly. Please standby.” About a minute later, as Shiloh entered
his quarters, his implant reactivated.

“Bridge Com to Admiral. I have the link now,
Sir. I’m switching you over. Go ahead, Admiral Howard.”

“Did you forget to tell me something, Shiloh?”
asked Howard.

“Actually, Sir, it’s something I just learned
upon my return.” Shiloh went on to explain Valkyrie’s unhappiness
with the idea of being literally grounded and half blind for months
as well as the alternative. To his surprise, Howard was immediately
sympathetic.

“Yes, I see why she found that an unpleasant
prospect. I have no objections to her fighter being assigned to
close Earth defense patrols. We can do the same thing if and when
we add other A.I.s to the SPG advisory function. I’ll make sure her
orders are modified and thank you for bringing this to my
attention, Admiral. Should I ask if there’s anything else?”

“No, Sir. Nothing else. Thank you.”

“Fine. Howard clear.”

It was three days later when the frigate group
was finally up to full strength. Shiloh was dismayed by how
inexperienced most of the carrier and frigate crews were but
realized that when you expand like mad, people get pushed upwards
far faster than they normally would and that meant that a lot of
newly promoted officers and crew would have to learn and become
proficient in their new duties fast. Howard wanted 3rd Fleet to
leave for Zebra19 almost immediately and pointed out to Shiloh,
that with at least a dozen refueling stops before the Fleet even
got to Zebra 12, there would be plenty of time for Shiloh to
interact with his ships’ COs and conduct field training. Shiloh was
forced to agree. 24 hours later he gave the order for 3rd Fleet to
leave lunar orbit on their way to Bradley Base as an interim stop
on their mission.

Chapter 8 - But You’re Not Thinking
Temporally

Getting to Zebra19 would be the longest trip
that Shiloh had ever undertaken. Over 240 hours just to get to
Bradley Base, and then 3rd Fleet would start hopping along the
Zebra chain of star systems with a bypass of Zebra9. In fact, they
would give Zebra9 a wide berth. The recon frigate Ranger, had
carefully surveyed a course that diverged from the path at Zebra7,
then curved around back into alien space in a long detour, that
ended with Zebra19. Shiloh knew that one of the less urgent tasks
for the recon frigates was to eventually find a shortcut from
Bradley Base to the closest point of the Zebra chain detour. For
now though, 3rd Fleet had to follow the long way.

The arrival at Bradley Base was a welcome
interruption of the repetitive jumping, refueling and more jumping.
Despite the howls of protest, Shiloh insisted that all gas giant
skimming be done the fast i.e. bumpy way. Refueling at Zebra12 and
15 was risky enough without making it worse by taking the more
comfortable but longer supersonic procedure. He wanted the crews to
get used to the stomach-churning rollercoaster sub-sonic version
and if the vibration and rattling caused any equipment problems
then the time to find that out was on the way there and not under
the threat of imminent combat. The thought also occurred to him
that if one of his ships, especially one of his carriers, developed
a serious enough technical problem, he could use that to justify
aborting the mission. Howard wouldn’t be happy if he did that but
Shiloh was damned if he would risk disaster by taking just 2
carriers into battle instead of 3. The more he thought about it,
the more he realized that Valkyrie was right. They had to hit the
enemy systems with at least enough firepower to have a good chance
of rolling right over the enemy. Hitting them with anything less
was just asking to have their heads handed to them.

Korolev was still Base Commander and when
informed of Shiloh’s request to swap fighters again, which was
backed up by Howard’s authority to do so, agreed to the swap
readily. The Base got 20 of the less experienced fighter pilots and
3rd Fleet’s squadrons picked up 20 pilots with at least some
experience and more importantly, more maturity in terms of their
developing personalities. With the Base’s refueling capabilities
available, Shiloh relented and gave 3rd Fleet a break from direct
refueling again. When Shiloh compared notes with Korolev, the Base
Commander confirmed what Shiloh had heard, which was that no sign
of enemy activity had been seen since Defiant’s encounter at Blue2
and Green4 even though almost a month had gone by since then.
Korolev was convinced that the enemy was planning another attack on
Bradley Base. Shiloh thought it was far more likely that the enemy
was diverting reinforcements to Zebra19 to prepare the ambush of
3rd Fleet but he kept his opinions to himself. Korolev wasn’t
cleared to know the whole story about retro-temporal
communication.

Refueled and rested, 3rd Fleet accelerated away
from Bradley Base and headed for Zebra2, the closest system with
gas planets along their path. 313 hours later, 3rd Fleet emerged at
the very edge of the Zebra12 star system. The crews were by now
used to the routine of searching for each other after being
scattered due to tiny differences in jump drive calibrations that
made jumping and staying in a tight formation from one star to
another impossible. Shiloh was on the Bridge but was standing
beside the Command Station while wearing the newly developed Flag
Officers’ Command Helmet, that effectively allowed him to get the
same visual information that could be displayed on the main
tactical viewer and stay in contact with all ships and fighters,
regardless of whether he was on the Bridge or not. With sensors
linked to the special gloves he wore, he could gesture with his
hands to activate virtual controls projected in front of his eyes.
By the time 3rd Fleet reached Zebra12, Shiloh had become proficient
with the new technology. In case he needed to secure himself from
violent ship maneuvers, the Bridge had a spare acceleration chair
if he needed it.

With his helmet now showing him the tactical
situation within a radius of 30 light seconds, he watched as the
icons representing all nine ships gradually returned to station
around Defiant, the Fleet flagship. When they were back together,
they would microjump to the general vicinity of one of the four gas
planets in this system. Just like Sol, two of the gas planets were
large giants while the other two were significantly smaller. As
luck would have it, they were distributed around the system sun
fairly evenly, thereby making it even more complicated for the
enemy to keep an eye on all four of them. Not impossible but not
easy. He was about to order the communications system to set up a
conference call with all ship COs and Squadron Leaders when his
vision faded to black. At first he thought the helmet’s virtual
display was malfunctioning but then the scene in front of him
changed to the real Bridge. Tanaka was standing in front of him and
talking to him.

{How did you know that they’d be waiting for us
at Z12D, Sir?} The vision immediately dissolved and was replaced by
the same tactical display as before. So if this vision was to be
believed, the battle would be here in Zebra12 at the smallest of
the four gas planets, designated as Zebra12D or Z12D for short.
Shiloh switched his helmet’s internal display from the immediate
tactical environment to the computer-generated image of Z12D. It
was the only one of the four gas planets that did not have any
moons. That couldn’t just be a coincidence and after thinking about
that for a while, Shiloh understood why. The enemy had used robotic
surveillance stations on gas giant moons at Zebra9 and other
systems to monitor the space around those planets for signs of
human activity. If they had deployed the same surveillance stations
on all the moons of the other gas planets in this system, and if
3rd Fleet tried to refuel at any of them, it would almost certainly
be detected and the enemy would know which gas planet had been used
and could then send that information back in time to deploy their
ambush force there. While deploying robotic equipment in orbit
around Z12D was certainly possible, it suddenly occurred to Shiloh
that it wasn’t necessary. If none of the other stations reported
sighting 3rd Fleet at any of the other three gas planets, then by
process of elimination, Z12D had to be the refueling point and they
could send THAT information back too.

Trying to think in temporal terms was starting
to give Shiloh a headache. Retro-temporal Communication or RTC as
Shiloh began to think of it, really did favor the defender. The
question now was whether this vision was a friendly attempt to
guide him or an enemy attempt to confuse him? Unlike the
questionable vision at Green4, this one was visually clear and the
audio was precisely in sync with Tanaka’s mouth but that didn’t
prove it was sent by a friendly source. The aliens might have just
gotten better at it although that didn’t really make much sense
because if they could send a vision back to ANY point in the past,
then why not use the improved version to send a better vision to
him at Green4? The other thing, that suggested this was a friendly
vision, was that it hadn’t offered a specific course of action,
unlike the Green4 version which tried to get him to do nothing and
wait. Knowledge of the alien presence near Z12D still left him with
multiple options.

The least risky option was to send a wave of
recon drones at high speed with active scanning past Z12D. If enemy
ships were waiting nearby, the drones would see them.
Ah, but
you’re not thinking temporally, Shiloh,
he thought to himself.
Active radar scanning would definitely be detected by any detection
station in orbit or maybe even hovering in the planet’s upper
atmosphere. It would be simple to arrange for the station to send a
contact report by narrow-beam laser to another device in deep
space, which could then relay it to the aliens later so even if
they could locate and destroy the station, it might already be too
late to prevent the ambush. But hold on…if all the station detects
is radar pulses from sources that are too small to be ships, and
nothing else shows up later, then what’s the point of destroying
those drones, which will detect the ambush force as well?
Come
on, Shiloh. Think it through!
Okay so suppose he sent in the
recon drones and they detected nothing. If that were the case, he’d
then send in the carriers and frigates. If the aliens had at least
one detection station in orbit, it would see the drones and then
detect his ships afterwards. What could the enemy do with that
information? If they sent it back in time so that their
here-and-now counterparts could set an ambush near Z12D, then the
recon drones would see them and 3rd Fleet would back off, which
would then change the information to be sent back in time. In other
words, you’d have a paradox.

That didn’t help him any. He only had two real
choices. One was turn around and go home but if he did that without
making contact…REAL contact, not just a vision, Howard would face a
lot of pressure to sack him. The only other option was to send in
some or all of 3rd fleet to Z12D. That would then force the ambush.
Iceman’s vision implied that there had been some kind of firefight
with losses among the fighters. What if he just sent in fighters?
Would that be enough of a carrot to entice the enemy to set up an
ambush? If his fighters were ambushed, that would certainly justify
returning to Sol but he didn’t like the idea of sacrificing them
that way.
It would be no different if they were human pilots.
You’d still have to send them.
That was the nature of fighters
versus ships. Better to lose a few fighters than a few ships. He
had to figure out a way to entice the enemy to set and spring an
ambush while at the same time work it so that most of his fighters
made it back to the ship, but how? Suddenly the answer popped into
his head. Of course! The decoys. Each carrier was carrying two of
the big decoys. They were almost as big as fuel shuttles and
designed to reflect as much radar energy as possible, thereby
making them look much bigger to the enemy than they really were. If
he sent in all six decoys in a formation that suggested they were
ships, and if that formation was escorted and preceded by fighters
AND if they approached Z12D from an angle that just happened to
generate a lot of reflected sunlight, then the alien detection
stations were bound to see the fighters first and decoys following
in their wake and perhaps the ambush force commander would decide
to concentrate his fire on the ‘ships’ first on the theory that if
the ships were destroyed, then the fighters would be stranded here
and would eventually run out of fuel. He’d have to make the
fighter/decoy formation look like it was intending to skim Z12D and
that meant that they’d be decelerating. And no active scanning
either! That would give the game away. It had to look as though a
group of ships had been caught by surprise and annihilated. The
enemy had to believe that they’d won a tactical victory. If they
believed that, then the information sent back in time wouldn’t
change. Maybe that kind of tactical deception was the key to
overcoming the advantage that RTC gave defenders although if humans
managed to pull it off too often, the aliens would eventually get
wise. But that was a question that could wait for another day.
Right now he had a battle to plan.