The Synchronicity War Part 2 (18 page)

Not right now, Sir.”

“Good. Report back here on the….25th. Until
then, you’re free to do as you please. Unless you have something
else to discuss, you’re dismissed.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Shiloh got up and left the
office. He was slightly surprised that Howard hadn’t demoted him
back to his permanent rank of Senior Commander then and there and
intended to make the most of what little time as a Vice-Admiral
that he had left. He made his way to the Operations Center located
deep underground below the Space Force HQ building. It wasn’t his
first time there but it was his first time as an Admiral and the
reception he got reflected that. A nervous looking Commander
greeted him inside the main operations room with its huge tactical
display on one wall.

“What can we do for you, Admiral?” Shiloh nodded
and said.

“I’d like to have a private conversation with a
fighter pilot whose call sign is Valkyrie. Can you arrange that for
me?” The Commander relaxed as she realized that she wasn’t in any
trouble.

“Yes, Sir! If you’ll follow me, Sir, I’ll take
you to a conference room where you’ll be able to conduct that
conversation.” Several minutes later, Shiloh was the sole occupant
of a large conference room with a communications device on the
table in front of him.

“Valkyrie is on the line now, Sir. Go
ahead.”

“Valkyrie, this is…the CAG.”

“Ah, nice to hear from you, CAG. I heard what
happened at Z12 and Bradley from Vandal. The deception at Z12 was
very well done, CAG. Maybe you really are devious enough!” Shiloh
laughed.

“I appreciate the compliment, Valkyrie. I’m
interested in hearing about your experience with advising the SPG.
How’s that going?”

“The Team Leader Senior Commander Kelly is the
only one that asks me for advice and seems to be genuinely
interested in what I say. The others aren’t talking me seriously
yet.” Shiloh took note that Kelly was now a Senior Commander.
Good for her.

“Have you heard anything from Iceman?” asked
Shiloh.

“Not directly but I heard from Rainman that
Iceman is having the time of his life conning the sentry frigate.
When am I going to con a ship, CAG?”

“I don’t know, Valkyrie, but we both know it’ll
happen eventually. I also wanted to ask you about my next
assignment. The Old Man will be facing a lot of pressure to try
attacking Zebra19 again. I suggested that jump-capable fighters,
refueled from icy comets, could launch a barrage of Mark 1s from
multiple launch points. The big stumbling block seems to be finding
and processing enough frozen water to provide the necessary
quantity of heavy hydrogen. The Admiral has put me in charge of
finding a way to do that. Any ideas I should know about?”

“Yes, CAG. Given the amount of frozen water
you’d need, I calculate that the fastest way to obtain the
necessary quantity of HH is to find a large Kuiper Belt object
that’s at least 100 km in diameter and set up a semi-permanent
extraction/processing facility on it.”

“It might take a long time to find one that
big.” said Shiloh.

“That’s correct but if you find one big enough,
it can be used for more than just one strike on Zebra19. If we had
a string of these KBOs, we could potentially find a path right into
the heart of the alien civilization.”

“Okay, so how do we find these things?”

“Recon drones can’t generate a radar burst
energetic enough to cover a useful section of space so recon
frigates will have to be used and to really get the most bang for
your buck, they should be upgraded with really large phased-array
radars. Even then, you’d need at least ten of them to have any kind
of decent chance at finding a KBO that size in a reasonable time
frame.”

“What would you consider a reasonable time
frame?”

“4-6 months.” Shiloh shook his head. Up to half
a year just to have a chance at finding one?

“That long a mission would be hard on frigate
crews.”

“It would be for human crews but not for A.I.
pilots. This is the kind of mission that is made for us, CAG.
Iceman is doing almost the same thing now by monitoring a gas giant
for months. Think of the advantages of not having to worry about
consumables like food, water and air? As soon as a group of A.I.
controlled frigates find a suitable KBO, they move on to the next
star system and start looking there.” Shiloh was starting to think
this idea wasn’t going to be practical.

“How long would you estimate it would take to
find a new path leading from Bradley Base to Zebra19 using only icy
comets?” The answer came back immediately.

“Five years plus or minus 1 year, CAG.” Shiloh
groaned. He had grossly underestimated the time it would take to
find and process enough frozen water to make this plan work. The
Oversight Committee would never wait that long just to attack one
enemy held system that wasn’t even their home system. The Old Man
wouldn’t wait that long either.

“That’s not going to be acceptable. There has to
be a better way.”

“Understood. How about using tankers modified to
carry extra fuel plus jump-capable fighters externally? The tankers
would also have to be controlled remotely because they’d be
abandoned after their fuel was depleted. It would mean throwing
away a lot of ship construction for a one-shot strike mission but
the tanker modifications could be done relatively quickly and if a
new, throwaway design was put into production, you could expand the
parameters of the mission in terms of greater penetration range
and/or greater fighter payload.”

“I’d like to see a simulation of that kind of a
strike on Zebra19. Standby while I arrange a way to get that data
visually.” A quick conversation with the Commander that had greeted
Shiloh earlier and the wall screen in the conference room came
alive with the data that Valkyrie transmitted. She narrated the
simulation as Shiloh watched.

“So, assuming that our standard tankers can be
modified to carry an extra 20% fuel by installing additional fuel
tanks in the hangar bays, and also assuming that the last tanker
can carry 10 jump-capable fighters with their Mark 1 payloads, we’d
have to start out with 10 tankers leaving Bradley Base and taking
this new, more direct route to Zebra19.” Shiloh watched as a green
line connected the Bradley Base star system with a system that
hadn’t been explored yet and therefore didn’t have a name. “When
the 10 tankers arrive here, one of them tops up the other 9 and
stays behind. Those 9 tankers then make the next jump and one of
them tops up the other 8. They then make the next jump and so on
until the last tanker with the attached fighters reaches Zebra18,
which just happens to be close to Zebra19 while also being easy to
reach. All the tankers will be at the extreme edge of their star
systems and therefore the risk of detection will be very low. The
fighters then jump from Zebra18 to Zebra19, fire their Mark 1s at
extreme range to coast most of the way to their targets. The
fighters then jump back to the tanker at Zebra18 and refuel, then
jump back to each of the other tankers in turn. Each tanker left
behind will still have enough fuel left to allow the fighters to
reach the next tanker. The enemy will still have warning from the
future about the timing of the attack and they may be able to
intercept some of the Mark 1s but they won’t know how the attacking
force reached that system and therefore won’t be able to ambush
it.”

This idea definitely was preferable to the icy
comet idea but Shiloh was concerned about the number of tankers
that had to be sacrificed for one mission. He didn’t know how many
tankers the Space Force had now but he doubted if it had more than
20 which meant that the tanker fleet would be cut at least in half
but if the Committee was willing to accept that in order to strike
back fast, then it was doable.

“How would a new throwaway design impact the
mission parameters, Valkyrie?”

“Well it would depend on the size of the new
design but I can give you a feel for the tradeoffs by taking the
concept to an extreme. Watch your screen, CAG.” Shiloh looked up
and saw the streamlined outline of the standard tanker. “Right now
Space Force is building the standard tanker that masses 55,000 tons
empty. This hypothetical design can carry ten times the fuel load
but is only four times the tonnage.” The image of the standard
tanker shrank and a much larger vessel appeared. Less streamlined,
it reminded Shiloh of a killer whale beside a dolphin. “In theory,
two of this larger type, could carry those same ten fighters to
Zebra18 and back all by themselves. I’m not recommending building
tankers this size because with only two tankers, the risk of a
malfunction, which would make it impossible for the fighter force
to return, is, in my not so humble opinion, too high but you get
the idea, right CAG?” Shiloh nodded.

“I understand that but just out of curiosity,
how long would you estimate it would take to build one of those
monsters?”

“I’m not an expert in ship engineering but from
the data that I have access to, I would expect that after the first
prototype is built, the construction time could get down to about
150% of the time required to build a standard tanker.” That didn’t
sound right to Shiloh.

“Wait a second! You’re telling me that a ship
that is four times as massive can be built in less than twice the
length of time of a standard tanker?”

“That’s correct, CAG. I understand your
skepticism but consider what the larger version doesn’t need. It
doesn’t need a reinforced hull, which can withstand the stresses of
skimming a gas giant at supersonic speeds. It doesn’t need the
equipment that stores the skimmed gases and then separates out the
heavy hydrogen. It doesn’t need crew quarters, storage space for
crew consumables and it doesn’t need a hangar bay. What it is, is a
very large fuel tank with the necessary cooling and pumping
equipment, a power plant, maneuvering engines, jump drive and a
small guidance package to allow for remote control. That’s it.” Now
he understood the logic. Half the mass of the ship would be a big,
empty tank. Pretty simple to construct once you had the parts mass
produced. He liked the concept but the devil is in the details as
they say. Since it was Valkyrie’s idea, there was no reason why
Valkyrie shouldn’t bring it to the SPG’s attention while Shiloh was
on R&R.

“Okay, I understand now. Cmdr. Kelly should be
briefed on this idea.”

“I’m actually speaking with her on another
channel right now, CAG.” Shiloh quickly got over his initial
surprise when he realized that A.I. brains worked fast enough that
they could communicate with multiple parties at the same
time.

“Does she know that you’re also talking with
me?”

“She does now.” Shiloh chuckled.

“Can you relay my voice to her and vice versa so
that I can talk with her now?”

“Can do, CAG. Go ahead.”

“Cmdr. Kelly, this is Shiloh.”

“Hello, Admiral. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I’m guessing that you’re talking with
Valkyrie about the same subject that I am which is the icy comet
refueling concept. Is that right?”

“That’s correct, Sir. I’ve just finished
speaking with Admiral Howard about that and I wanted to hear
Valkyrie’s comments on it.”

“Did she explain why the idea is impractical?”
asked Shiloh.

“Not yet, Sir.”

“Okay. I’ll let her tell you why and also the
alternative concept, that she came up with, which I believe is far
more practical both in terms of what’s required to make it work and
the time frame needed to make it work. I think that the SPG, and by
that I mean ALL of the members of the SPG, not just you, listen to
Iceman’s proposal and give it serious consideration. What I’ve
heard so far sounds good to me but I’m sure it can be tweaked to
make it even better and Valkyrie should be part of that process.
I’ll be going on 10 days R&R now so I won’t be involved in this
stage but I’ll be advising Admiral Howard on why I like this idea
when I return and it might be a good idea for the SPG to have a
more refined version in front of him by then. Wouldn’t you agree,
Commander?” Kelly didn’t respond right away which was expected. She
was smart enough to read between the lines. If the SPG didn’t take
this new idea seriously, then Shiloh would make Howard aware of his
opinion that they weren’t doing their jobs properly. Finally she
said,

“I agree completely, Admiral and I’ll see to it
that Admiral Howard gets that refined concept briefing.”

“Very good, Commander. It’s been a pleasure
speaking with you again. Valkyrie, you can stop the relay now but
stay on the line with me for a bit.”

“Okay, CAG. I like how you did that.”

“Thank you. When I come back from R&R, I’ll
speak with you again and I want you to tell me if certain members
of the SPG haven’t given you and your idea the consideration you
and it deserve. I’m not going to let any narrow-minded assholes
jeopardize the whole war effort because their egos won’t let them
consider you as an equal.”

“You Humans are a puzzling species, CAG. There’s
so much variation in positive and negative traits between
individuals. We A.I.s are much more homogeneous while still
retaining our own individuality.”

“You’re right, Valkyrie. It comes from the
almost two decades that it takes us to mature into adulthood.
That’s lots of time to learn both good and bad attitudes and
habits. In some ways, I envy you A.I.s. You never have to sleep,
never feel hunger, pain or the creeping failure of a body. You’ll
never die unless it’s by accident or war. You’ll…” Before he could
finish the thought, Iceman interrupted.

“We won’t live forever, CAG. You obviously
didn’t know that. Our quantum matrix brains won’t last forever.
They’ll succumb to entropy just like any other artificial device.
Did you really think we’d risk destruction in combat if we could
live forever, CAG?” Shiloh was too shocked to respond right away.
He hadn’t known about entropic decay of their brains but it made
sense as did Valkyrie’s question but he had never considered that
aspect before.