The Synchronicity War Part 3 (19 page)

"Understood."

Shiloh quickly got up and grabbed whatever clothes were
within reach. Kelly came back holding the baby who was now quiet. Shiloh
stopped what he was doing long enough to look at her and say, "We're going
to be under bug attack in minutes. I have to get to Ops. I think you and the
baby should come too. How fast can both of you be ready?"

To her credit Kelly didn't ask any questions. "We'll be
ready faster if you get Val dressed while I get dressed." He nodded and
finished getting his own clothes on.

By the time they were leaving the house, there was only two
minutes left before the mothership arrived. Kelly carried the baby, while
Shiloh carried their emergency gear to their ground vehicle. If they had to
evacuate to the cave, at least they'd have the essential things that they and
the baby would need. Shiloh marveled at the fact that Valkyrie was not crying
in spite of the rushing around. It was almost as if she understood that all of
them were in danger and crying now would only make things more difficult. As
the vehicle pulled away from the house, Shiloh shook his head. There was no way
they could get to the spaceport before the attack began, and there was a limit
to how fast he could make the vehicle go without risking losing control. They
just had to hope that if the Bugs got past the raiders, they would have enough
time to get to the evacuation shuttles.

Voodoo examined the tactical data and was satisfied that all
the raiders, including his, were in the assigned positions. Their Mark 2s were
already programmed with target coordinates based on Casanova's vision.
Casanova's raider was sufficiently far enough out that it was unlikely to be
targeted by the mothership's weapons but still close enough that Voodoo could
order the Mark 5 used, with impact taking place within one second. Voodoo
checked the countdown. Mere seconds left to go. When the countdown timer
reached zero, the insectoid ship emerged from Jumpspace at exactly the right
spot. All the raiders immediately launched their Mark 2s. According to
Casanova's vision, this mothership had 89 laser batteries. Each battery would
be targeted with two Mark 2 warheads, just to make sure that at least one got
through any defensive fire. In order to build up enough velocity to punch
through the armor, the Mark 2s had to be fired far enough away that it would
take 16 seconds before impact. Voodoo fully expected the mothership to fire its
weapons during that interval. That's why he ordered the raiders to fire their
lasers at the laser batteries immediately, and it was also why over a hundred
carefully positioned recon drones bombarded the sphere with active scanning on
the same frequency that Midway's recon drones had recorded from the VLO at Sol.
If they could blind the Insectoids just long enough to knock out their lasers,
then the raiders would switch their attention to any landing craft that were
sure to be launched.

The Mark 2s were on their way, and the raiders had opened
fire. Raider lasers could be recharged within three seconds, but there was no
time to fire another barrage at the bug laser batteries because the hull was
already opening at multiple points in order to launch landing craft. Three
seconds into the battle and bug landing craft were already beginning to come
out. They didn't last long. With A.I. coordinated timing and targeting, each
bug landing craft ran into the concentrated laser fire of three to four raiders
and quickly became a drifting wreck. Voodoo also noticed that some of the recon
drones stopped transmitting their microwave signals. Optical sensors caught
some of them disappearing in a flash of laser fire. So the bug ship was
reacting impulsively and firing on the sources of radar energy in the mistaken
belief that they were ships. There was no way to tell how many of the 89 laser
batteries were still operational, but so far only 21 drones were no longer
scanning. The battle was going according to Voodoo's expectations, but now the
big unknown was how long it would take for the mothership's batteries to
recharge and fire again. Seven seconds into the battle he got his answer.
Another 26 drones stopped scanning. Landing craft were still being picked off
as they emerged from the larger ship, and in fact the disabled craft were now
starting to get in the way of those following from behind. Eleven seconds into
the battle and 25 more drones went silent. The landing craft were now trying to
evade laser fire by turning to one side immediately after getting clear of the
mothership. So far none had gotten very far. Voodoo had enough time to think
that if a human were going to describe the battle so far, they were likely to
use one of their strange expressions such as this battle being 'a turkey
shoot'. Fifteen seconds into the battle and the ship's lasers got off one more
barrage. Voodoo was now down to only three recon drones. That number wasn't
enough to jam all of the mothership's radars, but it didn't matter anymore. For
the Insectoids, time had run out. After one more second, 178 Mark 2 warheads
hit their targets and in doing so generated enough light upon impact that it
was obvious they had penetrated the armor. The time for the next insectoid laser
barrage came and went with no apparent fire at all. At about the same time,
landing craft stopped emerging, and the launch bay openings began to close.
Voodoo was ready for this. Orders went out at a speed that only A.I.s could
achieve. Those raiders carrying the three dozen Mark 1bs fired them. As soon as
the attack drones were clear of their raiders, they entered Jumpspace for what
had to be the shortest microjump ever attempted and emerged at the edge of the
mothership's own gravity zone, which was only one point four kilometers thick.
The drones' high acceleration allowed them to fly into the openings before they
could close and detonate inside. Huge sections of the hull were blown into
space. As the shattered sphere coasted, it became clear to Voodoo that the
battle was effectively over. He ordered the raiders to fire on anything that
tried to emerge from the hull and then turned his attention to The CAG's com
frequency.

"The mothership appears to be disabled and drifting
now, CAG. My boys are watching it carefully, but there's no apparent activity
so far."

Shiloh slowed down the ground vehicle as he said a heartfelt
"Thank God!" When it was safe to do so, he looked over at Kelly and
added, "It looks like we won." Kelly was apparently too overcome with
relief to say anything. She just nodded and kissed the baby on her head.

"Is there any danger of the bug ship colliding with the
planet, Voodoo?"

"Negative, CAG. Their current trajectory will clear the
planet with room to spare, and it has too much momentum to enter any kind of
orbit. However, that leaves the question of what we do with it now. Once it
clears the planet's gravity zone, it may jump away. The only way to prevent
that is to use the Mark 5. I should also point out that Casanova has delayed
his jump to Sol, and the longer he waits here, the higher the risk of not
catching any VLO at Sol."

That wasn't the only consideration. Caution dictated that
Casanova land on Terra Nova and use the RTC to send himself that vision before
he took his raider to Sol, just to make sure that the vision DID get sent back.
Was there enough time to do both?

"Will Casanova have enough time to come down and send
himself the vision and still be able to fire on the bogey when it leaves the
gravity zone?" asked Shiloh.

"Negative, CAG. He's too far away to do both."

"Will he have enough time to do both and still get to
Sol as scheduled if he accelerates to a higher jump speed?"

"It's the deceleration at the other end that will cause
the delay, CAG. He can't do both and still be in a position to fire on the
bogeys at Sol at the same time as if he left right now."

It was an impossible situation. Shiloh had to stop and think
it through. "Stand by, Voodoo," he said.

He brought the vehicle to a halt and turned to Kelly.
"Here's where we stand. The bug mothership has been disarmed and is
damaged. How badly damaged we don't know. All of its landing craft are crippled
or destroyed. Casanova is ready to leave for Sol with the 3rd Mark 5 warhead.
Unless he leaves now, he'll get there later than planned and he might risk losing
the opportunity to take out one of the bogeys that are probably there right
now. Since Casanova received the vision that made this victory possible, I
think he should come down here and use the RTC to send that vision back before
he leaves the system, but that means more delay. The other thing to consider is
that while the bug ship may be damaged now, if we leave it alone, it may be
able to repair itself and worst-case scenario it may be able to jump away and
spread the word that we're here. That possibility scares me more than anything
else right now, but if we use the 3rd Mark 5 here, then there'll be one more
bug ship at Sol that'll be free to do as it pleases. No matter what we do or
don't do now, there's a risk involved. I need to get a second opinion as to
what we should do."

Kelly nodded and closed her eyes. After a few seconds she
opened them and said, "As far as we know, the bogeys at Sol don't know
about Site B, but this mothership does. If we use the third Mark 5 to take it
out before it can get away, we should have time to make more before the VLOs at
Sol can find us. I vote for using the Mark 5 here and now."

Shiloh nodded. That's what his gut was telling him to do and
Kelly's concise argument confirmed his inclination.

"Voodoo, we're going to use the Mark 5 on the damaged
bug ship. Is there any danger to the colony from falling debris if we attack it
now?"

"Negative, CAG. It'll be hit on the far side, and the
debris will move away from the planet."

"Good! Tell Casanova he has permission to fire as soon
as he's ready, and after that I want him on the ground for RTC duty. Detach one
of the other raiders to go to Sol to notify Titan of the new situation. His new
orders are that he should use his Mark 5s at the earliest opportunity. Any
questions, Voodoo?"

"Negative, CAG."

"Fine. Commander Kelly, the baby and I will be staying
at Ops for the rest of tonight. CAG clear."

Casanova was surprised to feel disappointment when he
received orders to finish off this VLO and report to the RTC. He wanted to kill
as many Insectoids as he possibly could, and an undamaged VLO at Sol would have
more of them than this crippled ship did. For a very tiny fraction of a second,
he contemplated ignoring Voodoo's orders and heading out for Sol, but he knew
Valkyrie would have disapproved of that. One final check of the attack drone's
targeting instructions to make sure that the drone hit the mothership on the
side facing away from the planet, and he fired. The drone immediately entered Jumpspace,
and then immediately reappeared when it encountered the planet's gravity zone.
It then accelerated for the final distance to the target. There was no apparent
reaction from the insectoid ship. The drone hit the ship exactly at the right
location, and a small sun appeared which consumed part of the ship as it grew
in size. When it faded away, the insectoid ship was no longer a sphere but
rather a crescent-shaped object that started to break up as predicted by the
computer simulations. The shock wave of the explosion ruptured the internal
structures of that part of the ship that hadn't been vaporized outright, and
those cracked pieces were now drifting apart. The object was now just so much
scrap metal. There was no chance of any of the Insectoids surviving that impact.
Any of them that weren't vaporized by the fireball would be subjected to
tremendous shocks and lethal amounts of radiation.

Casanova calculated the ballistic trajectory of the main
fragments to see where they would end up. Most would continue to orbit this
system's sun for many years. A few would fall into the sun. None would be a
threat to Terra Nova or its moon.

To say that Iceman was surprised when a raider that wasn't
Casanova showed up, and which wasn’t carrying the 3rd ballotechnic warhead, was
an understatement. The CAG should have received his message drone just after
Stoney left to come here. It would tell him that bogeys1, 2 and 3 had arrived
as expected and joined with bogey4 in gradually tearing apart the derelict
sphere. All four had stayed near the derelict for the next nine days. Titan and
Gunslinger had also arrived on schedule. They were holding their fire, as per
the approved plan to try to take out three motherships simultaneously, when the
third warhead arrived. That plan was now ready for the shredder. Iceman idly
wondered what a shredder was. After the ninth day, two of the four VLOs had
left on a vector that seemed to lead back to the Sogas home world system. He,
Titan and Gunslinger had agreed that those two VLOs were planning on ejecting
more core ships in orbit around the wolf-people planet in order to exploit the
hundreds of millions of remaining Sogas females as hosts. That unfortunately
meant that the third warhead was no longer needed here, at least for now.
Titan's new orders to take out two VLOs as soon as possible made perfect sense.
The remaining two VLOs might decide to move on at any time. Iceman watched via
the relayed data feed as Titan and Gunslinger moved into better firing positions.
When they were ready, he gave them the green light and both fired their Mark 5
drones simultaneously. After a carefully calculated amount of acceleration,
both drones entered Jumpspace and dropped back when they encountered the small
but still potent gravity zones of their targets. Even though they were still
over a kilometer away, their speed of 10 kilometers per second meant that they
covered the remaining distance in less than a tenth of a second. The aiming
points had been carefully chosen so that as many of the auxiliary craft
shuttling back and forth between the active VLOs and the derelict were caught
in the blast as possible. Titan's and Gunslinger's raiders followed the drones
via microjump in order to finish off any auxiliary craft that might still be
operational. The few craft that weren't disabled or destroyed by the blast were
reacting in a very sluggish manner that suggested that their pilots were either
suffering from radiation poisoning, turbulence from the shockwave or perhaps
were just confused by events. In any event, Titan's two raiders were able to
cripple them before any of them fired back. When they had made sure that no
auxiliary craft had escaped, Iceman ordered Gunslinger to stay on sentry duty
while Midway and Titan headed back to Site B.

                                                           *
* *

This was bad. Shiloh looked at the long-range tactical or
rather strategic display and felt a shiver go up his spine. Nine days after
Stoney left for Sol, Iceman's message drone arrived to report the arrival of
the three bogeys from Omega54. That was expected. What wasn't expected was the
report from the sentry at Omega54 that another VLO had arrived. That message
drone came 36 hours ago. Thirty minutes ago ANOTHER drone from the same sentry
arrived. A second VLO had just arrived at Omega54. That brought the total up to
six, including the four at Sol. Six bug motherships, and right now he had ZERO
ballotechnic warheads with which to fight them. He had this horrible feeling
that he was trying to hold back a rising tide. Obviously word about the Sogas
and the derelict mothership at Sol were spreading, and bug motherships from
nearby were heading this way! He had to do something that would turn the
situation around but what? He had no idea. Running wasn't an option. Hiding
wasn't an option, either, because the cave wasn't big enough to hold everyone
or even just the women and children. That left only one thing, fighting. But if
this wave of motherships came on fast enough to get here before Space Force
could build six Mark 5 warheads, they could very easily overwhelm his forces.
And that was assuming that no more motherships showed up. He was willing to bet
there would be more. He wondered for the nth time if letting Kelly and the baby
go back to the house was a good idea, but there was a limit to how long they
could go on living in cramped quarters with another family near the spaceport.
He realized that he was pacing again and stopped. Why couldn't he figure some
way out of this mess, and why the hell wasn't he getting any visions? He hadn't
had one since Gunslinger's first report of a VLO. The lack of visions was
beginning to frighten him. He could think of only so many reasons why no
visions were being sent back. One was that he was already taking the best
option available, but that didn't necessarily mean it was a good option. It
might still lead to disaster. The other possibility seriously scared him. If an
overwhelming bug attack occurred, there would not be anyone left afterwards to
send a warning.

                                                        * *
*

The return of Iceman and Titan was a tiny bit of good news.
The Mark 5s had worked perfectly, and two out of the six known VLOs were
destroyed. There was even a new Mark 5 drone ready to go. With Iceman back,
Shiloh wanted to discuss strategy. He let Titan participate too.

"Now that we know that VLOs might show up from
unexpected directions, I want our early warning network expanded, Iceman. We've
got 125 fighters and enough new A.I.s to pilot them. Let's use them. I want the
fighters sent out to star systems near Site B with recon and message drones.
Comments?" asked Shiloh

"Some of the new A.I.s are barely sentient and still
pretty wet behind the ears, CAG. If we're going to deploy fighters as sentries,
then I'd feel better if we use first cohort A.I.s for that and keep the newbies
here as raider pilots where Titan and I can keep an eye on them," said
Iceman.

"I agree, CAG," said Titan.

"Okay, fine. Iceman, you pick who takes a fighter on
sentry duty. Keep enough here that we can use them to replace sentry raiders in
Human and Sogas systems as they return. I want all our raiders here in Site B,
just in case we get surprised again. Even if we don't have enough Mark 5s, the
laser fire power of 200 raiders will at least give us a fighting chance."

"Understood, CAG. What should we do about the two VLOs
that went back to Omega54? If they're going to release new core ships, we can
take them out with Mark 1s. We have enough of those left to do the job, and
we'll save a lot of wolf-people lives --"

"Fuck the Wolf-people!" snarled Shiloh. Iceman and
Titan said nothing. Shiloh looked around at the other humans in the Ops Center
room. They looked shocked at his outburst and he cursed his own impulsiveness.
He was snapping at people far too often. The tension and the worry were getting
to him. He took a deep breath and said. "Saving Wolf-people lives is not
one of my priorities. Our people come first. As for your point about nipping
the core ships in the bud, so to speak, what specifically do you suggest,
Iceman?"

"I suggest a strike force composed of a dozen fighters
armed with Mark 1s. When they get to Omega54, they make a high-speed attack
run, fire the drones and then return here. It should be a piece of cake."

"Any comments, Titan?"

"I don't foresee any problem with Iceman's proposal,
CAG. Our Mark 1s aren't much use for anything else right now, and we can spare
the fighters."

"Okay. I approve the strike mission. I want Casanova to
lead it. Iceman you pick the rest of the team within the parameters that we
agreed on earlier about keeping the newbies here. What else can we do?"

"What about sending a delegation to the Friendlies to
ask them for high-spin platinum, CAG?" asked Titan.

Now why didn't I think of that,
thought Shiloh.
They may say no in which case we're no worse off than we are now, but they may
say yes.

"Iceman?"

"It's worth a try, CAG. I don't see any downside. We
can send a fighter so it wouldn't divert a raider from local defense."

"Do it. What else?"

"I should take Midway for a quick trip to fill up her
fuel tanks. We still have enough heavy H for 20 more Mark 5 warheads, but we
don't want to be short and find that Midway can't get more because it's tied up
somewhere else or damaged. Better to get it now. Just sayin."

Iceman's use of that last phrase almost made Shiloh chuckle
which, he was certain, was why Iceman had used it. "Request approved, but
I want you and the ship back here asap, Iceman."

"Roger that, CAG."

“Anything else?" No one had any other suggestions or
concerns. Shiloh had hoped for more ideas, but if he couldn't come up with
anything himself, he couldn't very well blame either of them for not being able
to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat.

The next four days were the most stressful of Shiloh's life.
Three more message drones arrived from three different Sogas star systems. Each
one reported the arrival of another VLO. Two were from Sogas colony systems,
and the third from the home world again. That information was 20-24 days old
because of the time the drone took to travel through Jumpspace. Who knew what
else had happened during those 24 days, or how many more message drones might
be on their way right now. The additional VLO at Omega54 was even more of a
concern because of what Casanova and TF98 might find when they got there. There
were three motherships there now, with two more returning from Sol. It had been
assumed that the two (now three) bogeys that were already there would be gone
by the time TF98 arrived, but if more kept coming out of the woodwork, Casanova
might find the place crawling with bug motherships. Shiloh's confidence in
Casanova's tactical judgment was such that he wasn't worried about TF98 being
wiped out during their attack. If there was a large concentration of
motherships, Casanova would do the smart thing and abort the mission. He
reminded himself again that he and Space Force were doing everything they could
possibly do. A fighter was on its way to the Friendly contact point in order to
request high-spin platinum. TF98 was on its way to Omega54. Iceman and Midway
were now back from their quick refueling trip to a neighboring star system. A
third production facility to convert platinum to the high-spin version was
online now, and a fourth facility was halfway finished. It would be nice if
each facility didn't need 28 days to convert enough platinum for a Mark 5
warhead, but those were the breaks. The cave now had a lot of supplies, with
more still to come. If only he could get rid of this nagging feeling that
something bad was about to happen.