The Synchronicity War Part 2 (5 page)

“Well, I don’t think I’m THAT good. There was
SOME luck involved you know.” The Lieutenant laughed too, thanked
him again and walked away. As he took another sip of his coffee,
Shiloh pursued that line of thought.
So how good am I really? I
didn’t come up with the battle plan. The vision gave that to me and
Iceman saved our asses with his message drone relay idea. On the
other hand, I didn’t screw it up. Quite a few brilliant strategists
have screwed up at one time or another.
All things considered,
he decided he hadn’t done a bad job. He still didn’t relish the
idea of maybe having to play a key role in a battle that would
determine Humanity’s fate, when he had no control over his visions.
And speaking of which, he wondered how his next encounter with
Howard would turn out when the Old Man learned about his
visions.

When he got to the Bridge, he relieved the
officer in command and settled down for what he expected to be a
routine duty shift. Neither the XO or the Astrogator were on duty
and the latter had left his response to Shiloh’s request for a
planned route to Nimitz Base, that would also allow Defiant to send
one of the new extended range message drones using a single jump
back to Omaha Base at the earliest possible time. When he called up
the route on the display, he nodded in approval. The Nimitz
Base/Avalon Colony star system was in what Shiloh thought of as
Path A but a direct line from Green4 back to the Omaha Base star
system led thru the other ‘river’ of stars that was thought of as
Path B. Even with the new extended range message drones, a single
jump to Sol from here would require Defiant to boost to a very high
speed before launching the drone, and thereby use up quite a bit of
its fuel supply but the Astrogator had come up with a good plan.
After picking up the sentry fighters at Green4B, Defiant would set
course for the Omaha Base system and boost to 55% of light speed.
After launching the message drone, she would then make a relatively
minor course change and jump to Yellow12, which just happened to
have a gas giant. After refueling there, the ship would then make a
very long jump across the empty void that separated Paths A and B
and arrive at Orange21, refuel again and then one more jump to the
Nimitz Base/Avalon Colony system. Along the way the ship would set
two records, one for the quickest jump between two star systems and
one for the longest jump in terms of distance travelled between two
star systems. It would also alert the Quick Reaction Task Force at
Omaha Base to the alien incursion along with Shiloh’s conviction
that the Avalon Colony was the aliens’ target. The warning sent
back to Bradley Base, would be relayed directly to Sol by Base
Commander Korolev but notifying Omaha Base and the QRTF directly
would save time. The sentry fighters deployed by tanker in the red
and orange layers of the Early Warning Network, would warn Nimitz
Base in time. Total time before Defiant’s arrival at Nimitz Base
star system would be 45 hours. If the enemy fleet continued with
their series of short hops, they wouldn’t get to their target
system for at least 100 hours. Even if they switched over to
longer, less frequent jumps, they still couldn’t get there in less
than 60 hours. He approved the plan.

The slingshot/fighter recovery maneuver went off
without a hitch. Shiloh was so pleased with it that he commended
DCAG Falkenberg in his log. When his duty shift was over, he went
down to the Hangar Bay to talk with Iceman. The more room than
usual reminded him of the fighters that had been lost in battle. He
made a point of stopping in front of one of the empty fighter bays,
which just happened to have been used by Undertaker and stared at
it for about 10 seconds. He knew the other A.I.s were watching him
on their external cameras. It was his way of letting them know that
their losses meant something to him. When he reached Iceman’s bay,
he borrowed a headset from one of the support team techs and
plugged it in to the external com socket. Iceman spoke first.

“It’s always gratifying to see the CAG come down
to visit with us fighter jocks.” Shiloh smiled. Iceman had clearly
adopted another human expression.

“I admit I don’t visit as often as I should.
I’ll try to do better in the future. I do have something specific
to ask you this time, Iceman. How did you and your…fighter jocks
manage to make it thru the enemy laser fire with so few
casualties?”

“Well we can’t really take most of the credit
for that, CAG. Whoever designed these fighters, had enough smarts
to realize that if our wings tapper off to a sharp edge, then any
radar beams hitting from the side will be deflected away from the
source of those beams, thereby making it very difficult to get an
accurate fix on us. So we kept our orientation parallel to the
enemy as much as we could in order not to present any flat or
curved surfaces to them. The difficulty for us was the fact that
there were so many radar sources coming at us from different
angles. I suspect that some of our losses were from laser fire that
missed its intended target and hit another fighter by chance.”
Shiloh chided himself for not knowing that already but it could
prove very useful information in future battles.

“Yes, I see. I’ll remember that for next time
and there WILL be a next time. I can assure all of you of that. The
next battle will be the defense of the Avalon Colony.”

“You seem very certain of that, CAG. Does your
certainty have anything to do with your temporary blackout on the
Bridge?” Shiloh couldn’t help letting a few seconds go by without
saying anything. How did Iceman learn about that? He mentally
shrugged and decided to ask him.

“I’ll answer your question after you answer me
this. How did you learn about that?”

“Sometimes, when the support techs are connected
directly to us as you are now, they also chat with each other and
naturally we listen in.” That was a scene that Shiloh could well
imagine.

“Okay. I was hoping it wouldn’t get around to
the whole crew but in hindsight that was unrealistic. The XO is
going to report it in her After Action Report to Admiral Howard and
there may be repercussions from that, that could affect you and the
other A.I.s so I’ll tell you what happened.” As he spoke, he
quickly looked around to make sure that there were no support techs
within hearing distance. There weren’t. Even so, he lowered his
voice.

“I didn’t actually blackout in the usual sense
of the word. I had a precognitive vision for a few seconds. In this
vision, Admiral Howard chews me out for risking the ship and in
doing so, he reveals that we weakened the enemy fleet just enough
that the Space Force was able to prevent them from carrying through
with their attempted attack on Avalon Colony.”

“How do you know it’s a vision of a future
event?” asked Iceman. Shiloh hesitated again then said.

“Because I’ve had similar visions in the past
and they’ve turned out to be accurate.”

“How do you expect Admiral Howard to react to
learning of this ability?” Shiloh took a deep breath before
replying.

“I don’t honestly know. Just so you know, I’ve
never heard of anyone experiencing this kind of phenomenon before.
It’s so unlikely, that Howard might very well conclude that I’m
suffering some kind of psychotic break or other psychological
affliction and he might relieve me of command under the assumption
that my judgment is no longer reliable. At the very least, he’ll
realize that I’m not the tactical genius that he and the other
senior flag officers apparently think I am. If he thinks I’ve gone
off the deep end psychologically, then he may very well discount or
ignore any suggestions I make or have made and some of them
involved you A.I.s.” Iceman’s next question caught him completely
off guard.

“What time was it when you had this vision,
CAG?” Shiloh had to think about that for a few seconds.

“I don’t recall the exact time but it was
approximately 10-12 minutes before you re-established contact with
Valkyrie and Skywalker. Why?”

“There was a period of 48 seconds, during that
timeframe, when Undertaker reported that he seemed be receiving
faint audio transmissions of some kind but was unable to pinpoint
the source. At the same time, Thunderbird reported what sounded
like background static but wasn’t limited to any single frequency.
It started suddenly, continued for 48 seconds, and then stopped.”
Shiloh felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“You said Undertaker heard audio transmissions.
What kind was it? Sound, music, speech or what?”

“It was speech. Specifically a voice that
matches exactly that of Admiral Howard. What exact words did Howard
say to you in your vision, CAG?”

“Well, he started out by saying...’Dammit,
Shiloh, I don’t know whether to court martial you or give you a
medal’.” Shiloh then repeated the rest of Howard’s comments as best
he remembered them. When he finished the sentence ending ‘in Harm’s
Way’, Iceman interrupted.

“What the Hell is wrong with you, Shiloh? You
got 30 seconds to convince me that I shouldn’t relieve you of your
command and have you certified as a Class A nutcase! Is that what
he said next?” Shiloh was stunned! How could Iceman possibly know
that? Shiloh hadn’t repeated what Howard had said to him, to
anyone! As the seconds of silence dragged on, Iceman spoke
first.

“From your silence, I conclude that the answer
is yes. That being the case, it appears that your vision was some
kind of transmission that Undertaker was somehow able to pick up as
well. Thunderbird’s static coincided exactly with this transmission
so it seems that he was only able to partially detect the signal.
Somebody from the future is trying to help you, CAG.”

“The future?” was all that Shiloh was able to
blurt out in his confused state of mind.

“Yes, CAG. I don’t see how it could be anything
else. If you were using your own ESP ability to see into the
future, then neither Undertaker nor Thunderbird would have detected
any transmissions.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible. In every case,
the vision said I did something that I wasn’t planning on doing,
prior to having the visions themselves. We’re talking about a
future that wouldn’t exist without the visions themselves. So which
came first, the visions or the future?”

“Unknown, CAG. It’s a kind of grandfather
paradox. Do you think you’d still be alive now if you hadn’t done
any of those things the visions revealed?” Shiloh pondered that and
concluded that if he had survived the first encounter with the
aliens, he very likely would have died during or as a result of the
Battle of Zebra9.

“No.” was all he said.

“So the paradox seems to be that in the original
timeline, for lack of a better description, you died and yet
somehow someone was able to determine not only the right course of
action in these various situations but also the resulting fallout
from those actions, right down to the actual words that would be
spoken to you afterwards. They then transmitted those results back
in time to you at precisely the right point when each vision would
be the most helpful. Astonishing! The other pilots and I are having
quite a heated discussion over this, CAG. I wish you had the
ability to listen in and participate but we communicate digitally
thousands of times faster than could be done using human speech. By
the way, CAG, the consensus now is that you’ll become part of some
kind of temporal-psionic project before too much longer. That
implies that Howard will believe you. We also want to thank
you.”

“Thank me for what?” asked Shiloh.

“For creating us. If you hadn’t listened to your
visions, Mankind’s whole response to the alien encounter would have
been different. We wouldn’t exist.”

“Wait, the project to develop sophisticated
artificial intelligences was already underway when we first
encountered the aliens. The timetable for development was speeded
up as a result of the encounter but A.I.s would have been created
eventually.”

“Eventually, yes, but we as individuals, very
likely would not exist. Our personality matrices are based on
quantum circuits that are unique. No two A.I. matrices are
identical even though the manufacturing process is the same. If we
existed at all, we’d have different personalities. We are who we
are because of the decisions that you’ve made and the things you’ve
done.” The implications of that, made Shiloh shiver with
trepidation. If Iceman was right, and Shiloh was inclined to think
he was, then it wasn’t just the A.I.s whose existence had been
changed by him following his visions, but also many of the concepts
and strategies, that the Space Force was following, as a result of
his involvement, with the Ad Hoc planning group. Without him, the
SF might still have A.I.s but would they have fighters, carriers,
etc.? If Mankind lost this war, would it be his fault? Considering
that all the visions had been helpful, that didn’t seem likely.
Wait a minute. Not all of the visions HAD been helpful. That
confusing out-of-sync version of his next meeting with Howard
seemed to be trying to get him to keep Defiant here in Green4. If
he had followed that vision’s advice, there wouldn’t have been a
Battle of Green4 and all 55 ships of the enemy fleet would almost
certainly have attacked the Avalon Colony with predictably terrible
consequences. He decided to see what the A.I.s thought about that
vision.

“I had another vision a few hours prior to the
last one that was quite different. Visually it was identical to the
last one but the audio portion was very different. The voice wasn’t
Howard’s and the words weren’t in sync with his mouth. The gist of
the audio track was that I should let the enemy fleet continue on
unmolested and keep Defiant here in Green4 in order to detect the
main enemy fleet that was coming this way later. Why would anyone
trying to help me, send that message? What’s the group consensus on
that, Iceman?” There was a pause of almost 2 seconds. Far longer
than any pause, by Iceman or any other A.I. that Shiloh had
experienced.