The Synchronicity War Part 3
Read The Synchronicity War Part 3 Online
Authors: Dietmar Wehr
by Dietmar Arthur Wehr
Amazon Edition
Copyright 2014 by Dietmar Arthur Wehr
I want to thank Jill Linkert for her encouragement, support
and meticulous editing and Marc Simonetti for his professionally done cover
image.
Introduction:
This book had been edited carefully by
someone who knows what they're doing (not me). I've heard the complaints about
the poor editing of Parts 1 & 2 and both of them are in the process of
being re-edited by experienced editors. I hope to have new editions of the first
two books published soon. To those fans who have been eagerly awaiting this
book, I thank you for your patience and loyalty. This book has a cliffhanger at
the end. If you hate that kind of thing, take note of the fact that you've been
warned.
Cast
of Characters:
Human:
Victor Shiloh (Vice-Admiral and Chief of Space Operations at
Site B)
Sam Howard (Admiral and Chief of Space Operations for Space
Force)
Sepp Dietrich (Admiral and Chief of Personnel for Space
Force)
Sergei Kutuzov (Admiral and Chief of Logistics for Space
Force)
Amanda Kelly (Commander, Space Force)
Rostokov (Commander, Space Force)
Daniels (Head of Advanced Weapons Development at Site B)
Terrell (Member of Space Force)
Hagerson (Member of Space Force)
Dr. Furgeson (Medical Team Leader of survey mission to
Avalon Colony)
Angela Johansen (Commander, Space Force)
Benjamin Levinson (Civilian)
A.I.s
Blackjack
Casanova
Cobra
Gunslinger
Iceman
Jester
Pagan
Rainman
Shooter
Sniper
Stoney
Titan
Valkyrie
Vandal
Vixen
Voodoo
Wolfman
Contents
Chapter 22 (From Part 2) Thank You
For Sending That Vision
..
3
Chapter 3 Visit To An Alien Ghost
Town
..
29
Chapter 4 The Stuff of Nightmares
.
34
Chapter 5 The Fog of War Lifts
.
45
Chapter 6 The Time for Hiding is over
61
Chapter 7 Through the Looking Glass
.
68
Chapter 8 Down the Rabbit Hole
.
78
Chapter 9 The Ride of the Valkyrie
.
83
Chapter 11 It Was Bound To Happen
..
122
Chapter 13 The Rising Thunder
137
Chapter 14 Good News … Bad News
.
144
Chapter 15 No Further Instructions
Are Needed
.
154
Chapter 16 Yes, It IS Just Revenge!
159
Chapter 17 Our People Come First
170
Chapter 18 Twilight of the Gods
.
175
Chapter 19 Let Them Follow Their Own
Conscience
.
183
Chapter 20 You're Not Sentient, Are
You?
.
192
Chapter 21 Do I Look Like I Give A
Damn?
.
199
Chapter 22 The A.I.s Will Back Me Up
.
209
Chapter 23 This Is A Whole New
Ballgame Now
..
215
Chapter 24 What's The Bad News,
Admiral?
.
222
Chapter 25 You Are The Very Best We
Have
.
233
Chapter 26 I've Got a Ship To Fight!
245
The Science Behind The Synchronicity
Wars
.
256
22 (From Part 2) Thank You For Sending That Vision
Shiloh woke up to the sound of the com unit buzzer. He
gently moved Kelly’s arm from its position across his chest and rolled over so
that he could reach the unit. The room was still dark and therefore it was the
middle of the night. That meant that this was either very good news or very bad
news and he couldn’t imagine any possible news good enough to warrant waking
The Old Man up in the middle of the night.
“Shiloh here.” he said in a low voice.
“Iceman here, CAG. I woke you because Gunslinger has
returned and has some extremely interesting data. We A.I.s are pretty excited
by this. Should I have waited until you were awake on your own?” Shiloh was
tempted to say yes but he reminded himself that A.I.s in general and Iceman in
particular seemed to be overly sensitive to criticism of them by the CAG. If he
said that Iceman should have waited until morning, they might not wake him in
the future, for something that was REALLY important.
“If you’re not sure whether you should wake me up, then wake
me up. What’s the interesting data?”
“Gunslinger found a system that seems to have an alien
colony, which appeared to be under attack. He detected multiple nuclear
explosions both in orbit and on the ground. There was also some data which could
be interpreted as coming from an extremely large spacecraft. The problem is the
data isn’t conclusive.” Shiloh was wide awake now. If the aliens were at war
with someone else, that suggested the possibility that Humanity might be able
to enlist an ally.
“How big would this spacecraft be if in fact it exists?”
asked Shiloh.
“We’re talking about something spherical with a diameter of
10-15 kilometers, CAG.”
“My God!” gasped Shiloh.
“Ah, roger that, CAG.” said Iceman in his usual deadpan
voice. Shiloh’s mind was staggered by the implications of that if true. Iceman
waited patiently for Shiloh to come to grips with it.
“But the data isn't conclusive?” asked Shiloh.
“No. It’s based on reflections of sunlight off of an object
detected over a very long distance. It could have been a much smaller object
with very high reflectivity or even a group of objects close together. However,
if it was a single object with the same reflectivity as a mirror, it would
still have to be 8 times as massive as Valiant.” That would equate to a ship
massing 2 million metric tons. Even Howard’s fantasy of a million ton
Dreadnought would be dwarfed by such a monstrosity. Shiloh had so many fleeting
thoughts that he knew he would never be able to go back to sleep now. The best
place to evaluate this data would be on Valiant.
“I’m coming up to the ship. Have a shuttle ready for me at
the spaceport. I’ll want to have a conference call with you, the SPG, Valkyrie
and anyone else that might have something useful to contribute.”
“We’ll be ready for you when you get here, CAG.”
“Alright. In that case, CAG clear.” Before he could get out
of bed, he heard Kelly’s voice.
“I heard that last part. What did I miss?” Shiloh told her
what Gunslinger had detected as he got dressed.
“Oh, God! I don’t like this.” She sat up, threw aside the
blanket and got out of bed. There was just enough light for Shiloh to make out
her pregnant body as she reached for a robe and put it on.
“You don’t have to get up with me. It’s still very early.”
She snorted. “What makes you think I could get back to sleep
now? Besides, I’d like to participate in the conference call if that’s alright
with you.”
He grinned. “I’d welcome any comments from the former Team
Leader of the SPG. I’ll get Iceman to arrange the connection.”
“Good and while you’re doing that, I’m going to have
something to eat and a hot tea.” As she watched him finish getting dressed, she
said, “We’re not ready yet are we?”
He shook his head. “No but if we can pick up an ally that can
build ships like that, then maybe we don’t need to be.” She walked up to him
and held his head in both her hands.
“Just because this other species is at war with our enemy,
doesn’t necessarily mean they’re willing to be our friends.”
“I know but we have to find out which it is, don’t we?”
She sighed. “Yes I guess we do.” That led to a long kiss and
hug. When Shiloh stepped outside, he felt himself shiver and wondered if it was
the slightly colder than normal air or the fear of what might be coming their
way. By the time he drove to the spaceport, he was ready for a hot drink.
Someone handed him a thermos full of strong, black coffee to use on the trip up
to Valiant. Iceman had been notified to connect Kelly with the conference call.
As the shuttle came to a stop in Valiant’s Hangar Bay,
Shiloh stepped out of the hatchway and saw only a handful of personnel, which
didn’t surprise him. Since Valiant and Resolute were both on standby status,
they didn’t need full crews. He returned their salutes, explained that he
needed to go quickly to the Bridge and thanked them for their courtesy.
The Bridge was dead quiet since there was no human crewman
manning any station on it. Iceman had control of helm, weapons and
communications. He had also anticipated that Shiloh would want to see the Big
Picture. The tactical display showed the strategic situation with both human
and alien occupied space with appropriate green and red dots. The volume of
space shown was slowly rotated to give Shiloh a good feel for the 3 dimensional
aspect of what he was looking at. After almost 4 months of conducting Operation
Snoopy, they now had a pretty good feel for the extent of the alien ‘empire’ as
Shiloh preferred to think of it. One dot was flashing. That was the system
where Gunslinger had detected the nuclear explosions and the Very Large Object.
The star system was the furthest alien occupied system from Site B that they
knew of. Iceman waited patiently for Shiloh to finish reviewing the strategic
lay of the land.
“Is everyone on line, Iceman?”
“Ah, roger that, CAG. Wolfman will be the spokesman for the
SPG. Valkyrie, Gunslinger, Vandal are all hooked in as is Commander Kelly.”
Shiloh smiled. Kelly was no longer officially in the Space Force but Iceman and
the other A.I.s continued to refer to her by her old rank as a sign of respect
just like they continued to call him the CAG even though he was really the CSO.
In their minds, CAG had more status than CSO and he was okay with that.
“Then let’s begin. I think it’s pretty obvious that we have
to attempt to make contact with this other race. The only question in my mind
is how and when. Does anyone disagree with what I’ve said so far?” No one
spoke.
“Good. Then I’d like to hear from each of you, your thoughts
on the how and when, starting with Iceman, then working our way down by rank
and Commander Kelly will get the last word. You’re on, Iceman.”
“Ah, thank you, CAG. I think I should lead all of our
raiders to Omega89, which for Commander Kelly’s benefit is the designation for
the system where the data was obtained. If the Very Large Object is there, I’ll
initiate contact from long range using low-powered com laser. If the VLO is no
longer there, then I’ll send out raiders on scouting missions to the nearest
star systems until we find some sign of another alien race and at that point,
all raiders will regroup, jump to the new contact system and I’ll attempt to
make contact again. That’s the how. The when should be as soon as possible. We
wait until all recon raiders have returned, then proceed.” Valkyrie jumped in
right away.
“We only have 55 raiders right now. Our original strategy
was to wait until we had five times as many before even considering making any
offensive moves. Suppose this new alien race is just as xenophobic as the first
one? If we get their attention now, 55 raiders won’t be enough to fight them
off. I’m not even sure 275 would be enough if they have ships as big as we
suspect. The cautious approach would be to continue covert surveillance of the
old enemy and carefully probe beyond their space to see if we can pick up signs
of the new race. Meanwhile we build more raiders and develop weapons that might
be effective against a VLO. A ship that size, could probably shrug off multiple
hits by Mark 1s. I would highly recommend a crash development program for the
X-ray laser warhead.”
“The SPG is in agreement with Valkyrie’s approach, CAG.”
said Wolfman.
“I agree with Iceman.” said Vandal.
“Both approaches are too cautious, CAG.” said Gunslinger.
“Our enemy has to be focused on the VLO adversary now. The logical thing for
them to do would be to shift their mobile defenses over to where their new
enemy seems to be coming from. That implies that this side of their empire will
be vulnerable. Let’s take advantage of that and use our 55 raiders to strike
back at them hard and fast.” Shiloh smiled. Gunslinger was so gung ho that
Shiloh could have predicted his approach easily. All the A.I.s had spoken now.
Kelly waited until she was sure that Gunslinger was finished and then spoke in
a slow and calm tone.
“I’m leaning towards Valkyrie’s approach with one
difference. By all means let’s keep our enemy under covert scrutiny but I do
not think we should also be out there looking for the VLO race. Even if they’re
not xenophobic, they may not be able or willing to recognize our raiders as
being from a different race than the race they’re already at war with. How will
they tell us apart? Our raiders are roughly the same tonnage as the ships the
enemy likes to use. I suggest a different approach to contact. Let’s carefully
explore the systems on the other side of our enemy’s space and leave behind
recon and message drones. If a VLO shows up, the message drone can attempt to
make contact using a program that we can develop for it. If the VLO race
responds in a non-hostile way, the message drone can jump to a rendezvous point
where a raider is waiting. The raider can then bring that information back here
and we can then plan our next move. Until that happens, we continue to build up
an overwhelming force to deal with our current enemy and also make contingency
plans just in case the VLOs prove hostile as well.” Shiloh liked Kelly’s
approach the best but even so, something was nagging at the back of his mind
and he didn’t know what it was. Everyone was waiting for The CAG to make a
decision.
“All of the suggested strategies have their own pros and
cons. I’ll start with Iceman’s approach. Sending every raider we have, leaves
Terra Nova terribly vulnerable. That makes me nervous. It also makes me nervous
that showing up with a fleet of ships could be perceived as a hostile act even
if the VLOs aren’t xenophobic to begin with. Gunslinger’s approach might make
sense from a purely military point of view but is highly risky. If we’ve underestimated
the strength of our enemy, they might be able to fight both the VLOs AND us at
the same time and still beat us. Don’t forget they have retro-temporal
communication technology too. That’s a huge advantage to the defender and we
don’t know for sure how that battle at Omega89 turned out. It could be that our
enemy won that battle or at least avoided a major defeat. I think that Valkyrie
and Commander Kelly are on the right tra--” His view of Valiant’s Bridge
dissolved to black then strands of color coalesced into a view of a tactical
display, which could have been Valiant’s. On the screen was a tall, humanoid
but very thin alien with light green skin. The expression on its face seemed to
radiate friendliness. Shiloh heard a voice, which was both soothing and
charismatic at the same time.
“We had to wait until you had seen the race that builds
large ships with your own eyes before the time was right to contact you. Don’t
you agree that it was the best way?” Shiloh heard himself respond.
“Yes, you’re right of course. If I hadn’t gone myself,
things would be much worse. Thank you for sending that vision…and the others
too.” The alien nodded and then faded away. The Bridge returned. Shiloh heard
Kelly say.
“What’s happening up there?” Iceman started to respond.
“The CAG seems to be having--”
“I’m back now.” interrupted Shiloh. “I’ve just had another
vision. Did anyone else see or hear anything unusual just now?”
“No, CAG.” said Iceman who spoke for all of the A.I.s. “What
did you learn from the vision?” Shiloh paused. Kelly wasn’t going to like this
at all.
“I learned that I have to personally find the VLOs and
attempt to make contact.”