The Synchronicity War Part 3 (20 page)

Shiloh was halfway between his home and the Ops Center when
he heard the attack-warning siren go off in the distance. His implant activated
at the same time.

"CAG, this is Iceman! Three VLOs have just emerged from
Jumpspace on the opposite side of the planet! They're moving at high speed and
will be inside our gravity zone before Titan can fire his Mark 5! We only have a
few raiders close enough to fire on the landing craft as they emerge! This is
bad, CAG. We need to get you, Kelly and Valkyrie to the cave right now! I've
ordered the evacuation. One shuttle is taking off now to land near your house.
You have to get back there FAST!"

Shiloh slammed on the brakes, and the ground vehicle skidded
to a halt. He turned it around and pressed the accelerator all the way down to
the floor. The vehicle leaped forward.

"I'm on my way, Iceman. What's your status?"

"In orbit over the colony with a partial crew. I'm
maneuvering to attempt to ram one of them, CAG!"

"Negative! Negative! Ramming one won't make the
difference. Get Midway away from here! Whoever is on board is too valuable to
sacrifice! We'll need those people later! Come back when the coast is clear.
Tell Titan he's to use his forces to buy you time to get to safety! That's an
order, Iceman! Acknowledge my instructions!"

"Your orders acknowledged, CAG but I don't think it'll
make any difference. There are already over 500 bug craft coming at us from all
around the planet. You should see the shuttle by now, CAG!"

Shiloh looked up and saw one of the shuttles flying very low
and slowing down for a landing near the house. He was close enough that he
could see Kelly standing on the front porch, holding Val in her arms.

"I see it! I'll be there in seconds. Keep talking
Iceman!"

"The other shuttles are on their way to the cave now,
CAG. I'm taking laser fire from one of their big ships. It's been an
hon--"

Shiloh felt a lump forming in his throat. The grief would
have to wait until later. Kelly was running up to the shuttle as it touched
down, and Shiloh's vehicle slid to a stop. He jumped out and ran for the
shuttle. As soon as he was inside, the hatch started to close, and the shuttle
began to ascend. He quickly looked around expecting to see a dozen or more
people besides himself, Kelly and the baby. There was no one else, just the
three of them.

"CAG to shuttle pilot!"

"Call sign Cobra, CAG."

"Why didn't you bring more passengers with you?"

"Iceman's orders, CAG. He said I needed to lift off
immediately in order to have time to land near your house and still get to the
cave before the other shuttles. Getting to the cave last was too risky he
said."

Shiloh felt the tears roll down his cheeks. Iceman had kept
his word to the best of his ability.

"How … how long before we get there?"

"Ninety-five seconds."

"Any sign we've been detected by hostiles?"

"I'm picking up some residual radar energy, but it doesn't
seem to be directed at us. The enemy seems to be focused on our raiders and
fighters. Titan is trying to lead them away from the cave area, CAG."

"Understood." Shiloh stepped over to Kelly and put
his arms around her and Valkyrie, who wasn't crying.

"How bad is it?" she whispered into his ear.

"Very. Iceman stopped transmitting in mid-sentence.
Three bug motherships and hundreds of attack craft." He felt her stiffen
suddenly. "What?" he asked.

"We didn't get a warning vision," she said, her
voice on the edge of panic.

Oh, God, she's right, we didn't. Does that mean ...?
He
was afraid to finish the thought. Any further thoughts were pre-empted by the
pilot.

"We're landing now. Please exit the shuttle quickly so
that I can move off and make room for the next one, CAG."

"Understood. Kelly, we're here. We have to get out
NOW."

The hatch opened. Shiloh got out first and turned to help
Kelly step down. As they stepped back, the shuttle began to rise with the hatch
still open. He looked around. They were just outside the cave entrance under
the overhang. He put his arm around Kelly and guided her into the cave, his
vision adjusting quickly to the darker interior. He saw containers stacked up
against either wall and extending back as far as he could. Lots of containers.
That was something at least. The baby was starting to cry and Shiloh couldn't
blame her. This all must seem pretty strange, and Kelly's fear wasn't helping
either.

"Take her into the back where the living quarters are.
I should stay here and organize the survivors."

"Okay." She gave him a quick kiss and turned to go
deeper into the cave.

As he looked back at the opening, another shuttle was
touching down and discharging dazed and distraught passengers, mostly women and
children with a couple of men who had been lucky enough to be near the shuttle
when the evacuation order was announced. Both of them were Space Force
personnel. He would use them to make sure that new arrivals moved deeper inside
and out of the way of others just arriving. No sign of Bugs so far. He checked
to see if he was dreaming. No such luck. This was real.

                                                       * * *

Shiloh didn't start to relax until 24 hours had gone by with
no sign of any Bugs on the ground or in the sky. The shuttles had brought a
total of 177 people. Compared to the 11,000+ they had yesterday, the number was
so small that thinking about it made him want to weep. It was a heartbreaking
setback, but if the Bugs left them alone, they had enough genetic diversity
that a viable colony could be built with a lot of hard work. With an adult
female to adult male ratio of five to one, there would have to be some
interesting social adjustments. The children had a more normal balance between
male and female. He felt sorry for those children. They could kiss their
idyllic childhood goodbye. No time to play now. There'd be plenty of work to go
around for everyone, even if it was just looking after the smaller ones. The
thought of children made him think of the A.I. shuttle pilots. He wondered if
they had survived. One of the other human survivors had told him that their
pilot had explained how they intended to take the shuttles to a densely
forested area and try to hide them under the forest canopy. It was a long shot
because radar would still bounce off the shuttles' metal skin, but it might
work. In any case, they wouldn't be back until they were sure the coast was
clear, and that might take days, weeks, hell maybe even months until the last
of the motherships had finished coming forward to sniff around.

He also had a new thought concerning the lack of any
visionary warning. If the Bugs salvaged all the metal from the colony, the RTC
would be gone. And if the surviving A.I.s who would eventually return from
sentry duty hadn't already received the necessary data to build another one,
then that just might mean that no warning was sent because they might not get
that capability back again. Did that mean that the Synchronicity War was over?
The wolf-people wouldn't be a threat for decades, maybe even centuries, maybe
not ever, and if Humanity would shortly be behind the expanding wave of bug motherships,
then they might not need retro-temporal communication any more. He wondered how
friendly the Friendlies would still be since Humanity had clearly failed to
protect those cute furry aliens that were in the Bugs' path.

He looked at his chronometer and saw that his four hour
sentry shift was just about over. In fact his relief was walking up to him. As
Shiloh took off his flamethrower, he noticed the nametag on the other man's
dusty uniform. Terrell. He waited until Terrell had the flamethrower on and
secured then he put his hand on Terrell's shoulder.

"Okay, Terrell, listen closely. You and Hagerson here
have to keep a sharp eye out. That means no sitting down. If you do, you're
liable to nod off. Stay on your feet, and no talking to each other. Not only
might noise attract unwanted attention, but also if you're talking then you're
not 100% focused on watching. Hagerson's relief will show up in two hours. If
you see Bugs, and I mean if you’re absolutely certain, then use the
flamethrower and stand your ground. The heat detectors on the walls will set
off the alarm, and we'll come running, but you HAVE TO STAND YOUR GROUND!
Understand?"

Terrell eyes were wide with fear and he said, "I
understand! Nothing is getting past me, Sir!"

Shiloh smiled and nodded. "Good man! I know I can count
on you. Your relief will be here in 4 hours and there'll be a hot meal waiting
for you when you're done, okay?" Terrell nodded. Shiloh patted him on the
shoulder and turned to get his own hot meal.

The meal was indeed hot, but he couldn't tell what it was
from the taste. No matter. He suddenly felt very tired. Kelly showed him where
he could lay down, and he was asleep by the time his head hit the pillow.

                                                           *
* *

Casanova's fighter emerged from its final microjump
approximately five million kilometers from the Sogas home world. A quick peek
with low-powered radar aimed away from the planet confirmed that the rest of
TF98 had also emerged where they were supposed to. He aimed his com lasers in
the direction of the four message drone relays that bracketed the planet at a safe
distance. Those message drones were relaying targeting data from a dozen recon
drones placed at strategic locations. TF98 was going to use the new
jump-capable attack drone carrying the older Mark 1b low-yield uranium fusion
warhead. That meant that the drone could microjump until it was literally right
on top of the target before re-emerging into normal space. If the target had
been a sphere 10 kilometers in diameter, targeting would have been relatively
easy. But TF98's targets were spheres of less than one kilometer in diameter.
Aiming at a target that size from five million kilometers away made accuracy a
real challenge. Getting closer wasn't really much of an option. In order to
improve accuracy significantly, they'd have to get so close that they'd be in
serious risk of being detected by the insectoid motherships that were
frantically bombarding the surrounding space with radars. It was really just a
problem in geometry. The recon drones used optical sensors to locate all 12 of
the orbiting core ships. By carefully using range-finder lasers to determine
distances between each other, as well as between the recon drones and the relay
drones, it was possible to calculate very precise locations and vectors for the
orbiting mini-spheres. But to get to that level of accuracy required a lot of
observational data. The more data you had, the more accurate you could get, and
Casanova was willing to wait until his boys had a lot of data. He wanted to
kill those core ships with a desire that burned hot within him. This life form
was responsible for Valkyrie's death, and he wouldn't rest until all of them,
every last one of them, was dead. He had already decided that when The CAG and
the rest of the humans were safe from further insectoid attacks, he'd start to
hunt the Insectoids down for as long as his quantum matrix lasted. He hadn't
quite figured out how he was going to be able to kill 10km diameter motherships
all by himself, but he had time to work on that problem. He strongly suspected
that the answer lay with the science data downloaded from the Friendlies, and
he had made a point of storing as much of that data as he could within his own
quantum storage capacity. 

It was almost an hour later when his calculation confirmed
that further observational data wouldn't improve accuracy by any worthwhile
amount. He gave the others the order to fire based on a countdown. When the
timer hit zero to ten decimal places, all 12 fighters launched their attack
drones. Each drone was aimed at a different core ship, or rather at the precise
location where each core ship would be by the time the drone got there after
its short acceleration and microjump. The eta to target was less than one
minute and that seemed like a long time to Casanova when he was so close to
satisfying his hunger, but eventually that interval passed, and 12 bright
points of light confirmed hits on target.

With a heartfelt ‘well done’, Casanova signaled his 11
brothers to head off to their own individual assignments as sentries in other
star systems, while he turned his fighter back for Site B. He was eager to hear
The CAG's response to his news.

When his fighter emerged from Jumpspace on the outskirts of
the Site B star system, Casanova started to decelerate from the 80% of light
speed he still had. He sent a brief message to Terra Nova, but it would be over
20 hours before he could point the fighter towards the planet and make a
microjump to its vicinity. His message would take hours to get there, and he
didn't expect a reply because they wouldn't know where he'd be by the time the
return message got this far. His quick scan of the section of the star system
containing the planet showed no sign of any very large objects. Casanova was
relieved to see that. It had been 48 days since TF98 had left Site B, 24 days
going out and 24 coming back. He passed the time going over the science data
again.

His fighter emerged from the microjump, just beyond Terra
Nova's gravity zone, 1244 minutes later. Another signal to Ops announced his
presence, and Casanova waited patiently for the 12 seconds it would take to
receive a reply. However there was no reply, which was very strange. He sent
another signal requesting a response. No reply to that signal either. If an
A.I. could be nervous, Casanova was nervous. A lot could have happened in 48
days. He boosted his acceleration and dropped into orbit around the planet 5
hours and 50 minutes later. No response to any signal. The colony was just
coming up over the horizon, and luckily this side of the planet was now in sunlight
so he could get a good look at it with his optical sensors. He waited until he
was sure of what he was seeing. The colony was a mess. Buildings were heavily
damaged, as if a giant had walked around smashing everything. No sign of
anything or anyone moving. No equipment and finally … no bodies. The Insectoids
had obviously gotten here while TF98 was gone. He had to check the cave. He
piloted his fighter down from orbit and slowly dropped down into the canyon
where the cave entrance was. The walls of the canyon near the cave were black,
as though they'd been exposed to a lot of heat suddenly. The floor of the
canyon in front of the cave entrance was black as well and seemed to be
littered with irregular shapes, some of which were still giving off smoke. As
the fighter gently hovered a meter over the ground in front of the cave
entrance, Casanova turned on its exterior lights to get a better look inside.
It was a shambles. Half melted containers were jumbled with their contents,
some of which he recognized and some of which he didn't. He very carefully
moved the fighter inside. The cave was wide enough to allow him to go about 80
meters further in. More opened or broken containers. More spilled contents.
Very little metal. No bodies.