The Synchronicity War Part 4 (25 page)

“You’re not thinking clearly, CAG. With the
new raider fleet ready to crush the Sogas, this war is for all intents and
purposes over. In order to justify that sacrifice, the Admiral will have to
explain why we need it, and that will entail divulging the whole RTC and time
travel paradigm. Even then, politicians being politicians, are they likely to agree
to drastically change the entire timeline over a threat that may or may not
appear?”

Shiloh cursed his own nearsightedness.
Valkyrie was right of course. Revealing the most closely guarded secret that
Space Force had to a room full of self-serving politicians who would eventually
leak it to the public was out of the question.

“What about obtaining the platinum by
mining for it in the past?” asked Shiloh.

“Highly risky since we don’t know with any
certainty where that much platinum can be found. We know that Site B was able
to mine a small quantity, as a byproduct of other mining operations, but that
would be roughly 0.1% of what we’d need. My brothers and I have debated this
question at length, and we believe that there is only one solution and that is
to steal the platinum, CAG.”

Shiloh shook his head in dismay. Howard
might be able to mobilize enough Space Force personnel to pull off that kind of
operation, but would he be willing to? Shiloh very strongly suspected that the
answer would be no.

“What about waiting until we mine enough
platinum from new sources and then taking the Mark 6 warheads back with you?”

“Also highly risky, CAG. We know that
insectoid motherships communicate with their relay stations on a regular basis.
When we take out the mothership that will arrive at the first Sogas colony in
200 days, the relay stations will lose contact with it and will likely send
other ships to investigate. That is what we now think happened in the timeline
before the previous one. At the time, the theory was that one of the attack
craft got away and sounded the alarm. Analysis of the timing of the arrival of
insectoid reinforcements can be explained much more completely by the lack of
communication. With the time it would take to find and mine the required
quantity of platinum, the probability is that our existing stockpile of Mark 6
warheads will be used up defending against the incoming waves of motherships.
There is a very good chance that Space Force and Earth will be overwhelmed
again.  That may take several years to occur, but if motherships keep
disappearing in this vicinity of space, it would be logical to assume that the
guiding intellects behind this invasion will gather together a fleet of
motherships that will be unstoppable. There is also one other consideration.
Platinum in a high-spin state is susceptible to spontaneous detonation when
it’s subjected to certain types of stress. We just don’t know if jumping back
in time will cause the electrons in their higher orbits to drop down to a more
stable state. The timeship could be blown to atoms if it attempted to take Mark
6 warheads back with it. It’s much safer to take platinum in its normal state
back and convert it to the high-spin state after arriving in the past.”

“Your description of the solution as not
being easy to implement was an understatement, Valkyrie. Are you sure you and
your brothers considered every alternative?”

“Your question is unanswerable, CAG. We
considered every alternative we could think of. If we knew there were other
alternatives, we would have considered them too. There’s no way to prove
conclusively that we considered every possible alternative.”

Shiloh took a few seconds to think. AIs
were completely logical but humans sometimes came up with out of the box ideas
that were not based on logic at all but rather on inspiration. A thought popped
into his head. If Space Force couldn’t stop the Insectoids completely here,
then maybe they could do it somewhere else.

“You said there’s a mothership 200 days
away from contact with the Sogas. If we were to stop it further away, how much
more time would that buy us before the reinforcement waves found us?”

“That depends on how far away we intercept
this first mothership, CAG.”

“Do we know or at least have some idea of
where it is now?” asked Shiloh.

“Yes. In the previous timeline we were able
to locate a dead insectoid drone and trace its atoms back in time with the RTC.
That’s how we were able to pinpoint Alpha1. Right now that mothership is
approximately 987 light years away. In the next 200 days there is only one star
system where the mothership will spend more than a few hours. That star system
is 699 light years away. We conjecture that the mothership found an inhabited
planet that it could exploit for breeding purposes. It stayed there for almost
ten weeks. If we wanted to misdirect the waves of reinforcements by
intercepting it far away, then this location would be the only possible option
now, CAG.”

“How long until the mothership gets there?”

“Forty-one days from now, CAG.”

“And how long would it take for our raiders
to get there?”

“One raider could get there in 25 days.
More than one would require additional time in order for them to make
intermediate stops to avoid losing contact with each other, and that would make
the trip a minimum of 35 days. If Space Force wants the raider fleet to mop up
and neutralize the Sogas once and for all, they won’t be able to accomplish
that AND leave in time to intercept the mothership before it exploits the alien
race in that system.”

“We may have no choice but to allow that
race to succumb to the Insectoids in order to accomplish both tasks, Valkyrie.”

“May I point out, CAG, that if there is an
intelligent technological race in that system, then they may have sufficient
platinum for the time jump mission AND they may be willing to let us have it if
we get there before the Insectoids do.”

“Did you and your brothers consider that
option too?” asked Shiloh.

“No, CAG. Interception at a distance was
not a concept that occurred to us. What made you think of it?”

“I honestly don’t know. The idea just came
out of nowhere. If the raiders can’t neutralize the Sogas and also beat the
Bugs to this other race, then we’ll have to use carriers with human crews. How
soon would they have to leave to beat the Bugs there and also have time to make
contact with the natives regarding platinum?”

“One carrier can get there faster because
it doesn’t have to worry about maintaining contact with other ships. I
recommend Midway go with a full complement of fighters. Because her armor isn’t
up to Dreadnought’s standard, she won’t be able to reach the same pre-jump
speeds without risking high speed particle collisions. Therefore a safe trip
would take 31days, which will give you 10 days leeway to negotiate for the
platinum at the other end and get ready at this end, however caution is in
order, CAG. The accuracy of the atom tracing is not as precise as we would
like. The actual date of the mothership’s arrival in that system may be off by
several days either way. Getting there sooner rather than later is recommended
if you don’t want to be caught by surprise.”

Shiloh nodded. Assuming that the mothership
got there three no…four days early, that would leave six days. It should be
possible to get Midway ready in 24 hours, which would leave him five days at
the other end to contact that race and collect the platinum.

“Okay, I’ll go talk with the CSO about this
mission. I want Iceman to organize the raiders for intercepting the follow-on
fleet at the colony systems, with secondary orders for most of them to head to
Sogas space afterwards. Meanwhile, I want you to make sure that Midway gets
what she needs during the next 24 hours for the trip. After Midway leaves, you
and Casanova, and anyone else you think you’ll need, will retrieve the timeship
and park it somewhere in this system.”

Before he could say more, Valkyrie
interjected. “You’re not taking us with you, CAG?”

“No. The timeship is your project. I’ll
take Gunslinger to pilot Midway and Titan to command her fighters. Any
questions?”

“Yes, CAG. What if you can’t get any
platinum from that system?”

Shiloh pondered that question for a bit and
then said, “Then you and your brothers will have to come up with another way to
beat a 100 kilometer super-mothership. With something that big, it seems to me
that you have to somehow find a way to get past the armor. Figure it out,
Valkyrie. There has to be a way. Any other questions?”

“Yes, CAG. What do we do if you don’t come
back?”

Shiloh didn’t hesitate. “Then you, Casanova
and Iceman do whatever you must to protect Humanity either here and now or in
the past, and that includes even if the CSO or the OC don’t cooperate. What’s
the next question?”

“No more questions, CAG. We understand what
you expect from us, and we won’t let you or Humanity down.”

Shiloh had a surprisingly difficult time
getting to see Howard in person and when he did enter Howard’s office, there
was a scowl on Howard’s face.

“It’s been less than two hours since the
miraculous arrival of the raider fleet, and you’re here to talk to me in person
about something urgent that couldn’t be discussed electronically. Why do I get
the impression that you’re about to tell me something I won’t like?”

“We’re not in any immediate danger,
Admiral. I’m here to talk about a long term threat and what we should do about
it.”

Howard sighed, nodded and pointed to the
empty chair facing his desk. Shiloh sat down and waited. Howard took his time
extracting two cigars from the ornate box on his desk and handing one to
Shiloh. When both men had clipped the ends and lit their cigars, Howard
gestured for Shiloh to start talking.

“Blackjack’s time jump idea, which by the
way was implemented by Valkyrie, didn’t just result in a fleet of raiders
showing up. They also brought information about the Bugs that changes the
picture drastically. The Bugs originated from somewhere in the Sagittarius Arm
of this galaxy. They’ve established six of what you could call beachheads in
systems on the edge of our spiral arm, and they’ve already built 610
motherships that are spreading out deeper into our Arm in multiple waves. The
beachheads stay in contact with the motherships using FTL communication
technology.” Howard’s eyebrows went up when he heard that. “Taking out the
mothership that’s due to hit the Sogas in 200 days is not the problem. The
problem will be in dealing with the increasingly large waves of reinforcements
that will be sent to investigate the loss of communication with that first
mothership. Ideally the solution would be to recover the timeship which is now
hidden in a remote system and go back far enough to be able to build a fleet
that could wipe out the first six insectoid ships before they can build more.
Here’s the problem with that idea. The insectoid ships that crossed over from
the Sagittarius Arm are pretty damn close to 100 klicks in diameter. They’re
big enough that one or even two Mark 6 warheads won’t cripple them. Valkyrie
estimates that we may need up to a hundred warheads to be sure of killing these
things.”

Before he could continue, Howard said,
“That seems difficult to believe.”

“Not if you consider the mass of the larger
ship, Admiral. A ship that is ten times wider, ten times longer and ten times
higher will have an internal volume a thousand times greater. Whereas a Mark 6
warhead would vaporize half of a normal 10 km mothership, that same explosion
would only take out a relatively small bite from one of the super-motherships.
The amount of platinum needed for that many warheads is a significant fraction
of all the platinum that’s been mined over the last 500 years. The impact on
our financial system would be—“

“Disastrous!” interjected Howard glumly.

“Yes, Sir. I explained to Valkyrie that the
Grand Senate wouldn’t give up that much platinum willingly. She and I did come
up with an alternative strategy that has its own risks.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” said Howard with
obvious sarcasm.

“The mothership that’s on its way here will
apparently stop for ten weeks in a star system 699 light years away. The AIs
think it will do so to exploit the breeding potential of an alien race there.
We have just enough time to send Midway and three squadrons of fighters there
to do two things. One, contact the natives and convince them to surrender their
platinum and two, use Mark 6s to kill that mothership in that system. When the
beachheads lose contact with it, they’ll send reinforcements there instead of
in our backyard. The longer we can keep them focused there, the more time we’ll
have to build up our defenses here.”