The Synchronicity War Part 3 (26 page)

Shiloh groaned. That wasn't what he wanted to hear. He said
nothing more as he hurried out the door and headed for Howard's office.

Howard knew it was bad news as soon as Shiloh entered his
office. His face was pale and he looked scared. Howard had never seen Shiloh
scared before. He gestured for Shiloh to sit down and said, "Something's
up. I can figure that out for myself. What's the bad news, Admiral?"

Shiloh took a couple of deep breaths to slow down his racing
heart and also give himself some time to collect and organize his thoughts.

"I've just had a vision. In it, I see myself on the
Bridge of a ship that's taken damage in another battle to defend Earth from the
Sogas, and I'm in the process of informing you that we failed to stop all of
the enemy bio-weapons from reaching Earth."

Howard closed his eyes and said, "Damn!" After a
few seconds he opened his eyes and said, "Do we know when this will
occur?"

"Ninety-one days from now." Shiloh then went on to
relay what he saw and heard as best he could remember it. When he repeated
Howard's comment about Blackjack's idea, Howard perked up a little bit.

"Do we know what Blackjack's idea is?"

Shiloh shook his head. "No, not yet, but I made sure
that he's available to talk to. Shall I arrange for him to connect to our
implants?" Howard nodded.

Shiloh activated his own implant and told the Ops Center to
put Blackjack on a three-way call with himself and Admiral Howard.

"Blackjack here, CAG. Wolfman informed me of your
vision. I take it that you and Admiral Howard wish to discuss my idea."

"That's correct, Blackjack," said Howard.

"Kronos brought back a theoretical description of a
time machine that is small enough to be carried on a ship and that would allow
that ship to make multiple trips backwards in time. My idea is to build the
device and use it to send back a ship that will intercept the insectoid mother
ship before it reaches Sogas space. By neutralizing that threat, the Friendlies
will not feel the need to encourage the Sogas to start this war, and neither
one of the bio-weapon attacks will occur."

Shiloh looked at Howard who looked back at him. It was clear
that both of them were stunned by the scope of the concept.

"What do you think, Shiloh?" asked Howard.

Shiloh was afraid to say what he thought. If it worked, it
would change everything, but if it failed, the magnitude of that failure would
be equally great. Still, it was hard to come up with a good argument for not
trying it.

"I think it's worth a very serious look, Admiral.
Blackjack, how confident are you that a working time machine could actually be
built?"

"I can't really give you a good answer to that
question, CAG. The Friendlies only did the most preliminary assessment of the
concept. The theory is sound. It's the engineering that presents the challenge.
The chances of success depend heavily on the amount of resources both physical
and intellectual we devote to it. If the Earth is devastated by a bio-weapon,
there may not be enough physical capability left to complete the project. What
I should also say here is that it's possible that devoting resources to the
time machine project will weaken our potential defenses enough to let the next
attack succeed. We know from The CAG's vision that we devote some resources to
the project before the next attack but not how much."

Howard was watching Shiloh's expression carefully. "I
can see the gears turning in your head, Shiloh. Have you got something?"

"I'm not sure, Sir. Blackjack, are you in contact with
the other members of the SPG?"

"Affirmative, CAG. What do you need?"

"I want the SPG to tell me what kind of tactic
involving bio-weapons would be the most difficult for us to defend
against."

The answer came immediately. "The best way to conduct
that kind of attack would be to have a large number of jump-capable vehicles
drop back into normal space as soon as they hit Earth's gravity zone. They
would have to be traveling at very high speeds, and they would need to disperse
a large number of smaller devices that contain the bio-weapon. The number of
jump-capable vehicles would need to be in the hundreds, and they should come
from as many different directions as possible. If each one then releases a
hundred smaller devices, we would then be faced with tens of thousands of
targets traveling at high speed."

Shiloh nodded. That would be a defensive nightmare all
right. "Is there a maximum speed that the devices can't exceed in order to
stay intact long enough to release the bio-weapon when they reach Earth?"

"The answer depends on what kind of material the Sogas
use to construct the device and how thick the outer hull is. The denser the
hull is, the faster the device can travel, but they’ll suffer an acceleration
penalty for the higher mass. Less acceleration means we would have more time to
try to intercept the device. The optimum tradeoff depends on too many variables
to assess with confidence, however, if we were contemplating making this kind
of attack on their home world, the SPG would recommend a maximum speed of
100,000 kps. That means that the devices would need approximately 30 seconds to
cross the gravity zone and hit the atmosphere."

"If all our fighters were armed with lasers, and we had
all armed ships available for interception, how many devices could we be
confident of destroying in 30 seconds?" asked Howard.

"Two thousand, four hundred and eighty-eight,
Admiral."

Howard's face lost all its blood. "My God! That's not
enough, not nearly enough!"

Shiloh nodded. "No, it's not, but it may not be as bad
as it sounds, Admiral. Blackjack, the jump-capable vehicles you mentioned. Were
you assuming ships that the enemy has used up to this point or something
else?"

"I assumed an automated vehicle that we could call a
drone, CAG," said Blackjack.

"But we haven't seen any sign of them using
drones," said Shiloh.

"That doesn't mean they couldn't have developed them
for this mission," said Howard.

"That's true as far as it goes, but the ship I was on
in my vision had taken combat damage from laser fire. A drone big enough to
deliver a hundred bio-weapon devices, which carries a laser powerful enough to
punch through a carrier's armor, and which also has a jumpdrive, would have to
be bigger than our fighters. How big would you estimate, Blackjack?"

"A minimum of 5500 metric tons, CAG. That's more than
half the size of the standard warship that the Sogas seem to prefer. In terms
of efficient use of resources and time, it would make more sense for them to
just build more of their frigate-sized warships to add to the fleet they
already have, rather than trying to build a new fleet of a different design
from scratch. With that as a given, the attack scenario I described no longer
makes sense. Sacrificing hundreds of their frontline combat ships for one
suicide attack would be a dangerous gamble for them. Based on their past
tactics, the SPG considers that kind of attack highly unlikely. A more likely
attack would be similar to the one they attempted in the alternate timeline.
Their ships would emerge just beyond the gravity zone and launch their
bio-weapon devices, which would accelerate towards Earth. Under that
assumption, the number of devices released by each ship would be ten or less
due to the larger size that would be necessary in order for them to be able to
reach Earth quickly. That translates into a total number of bio-devices of not
more than 2100."

Howard pounded his desk with his fist. "Then we can do
it!" he said in a loud voice.

"That would be a premature assumption, Admiral,"
said Blackjack. "My earlier estimate of 2488 was based on the assumption
that our ships and fighters would not also be under attack themselves. If they
are, then that will degrade our ability to intercept the bio-devices and my
estimated number will drop. Once again there are too many variables to
calculate the magnitude of the drop."

Howard's elation quickly turned into a scowl, but Shiloh
managed to speak first. "At least we're in the same ballpark now. Ninety-one
days isn't enough time to ramp up fighter production, so we'll have to look at
other ways to be able to kill more bio-devices. Is there any way to use the new
fusion warhead that would make a significant difference, Blackjack?"

"Negative, CAG. Launching any kind of standard attack
drones at the enemy ships, even with jump-capable drones, will not reach their
targets before the enemy releases their bio-devices."

"What about the x-ray laser?" asked Howard.

"Depending upon where the targets are in relation to
the x-ray laser's orientation, we calculate that there may be enough time to
aim the lasing rods and fire before the target releases its payload. Not all of
the x-ray lasers will fire in time, but some are likely to, and that will
improve the overall kill ratio."

Shiloh smacked his right fist into his left palm.
"That's the way to go then, Admiral. We stop work on the new fusion
warhead and shift those people over to the x-ray laser project. We're almost
ready to test it anyway. As long as the test isn't a total failure, we start
building and deploying in orbit as many of those warheads as we can. It doesn't
have to be perfect to still be worth using."

A small smile took the place of Howard's scowl. "I
agree. I think we have the broad strokes of a workable defensive plan that we
can fine tune later. But we still need to figure out how to proceed with the
time machine project."

Shiloh was about to respond, but Blackjack beat him to it.
"I'd like to suggest the following, Admiral. A lot of conceptual design
work has to be done before we get to the stage where making parts is possible,
and that design work can best be done by us A.I.s. We won't be needed to test
and deploy the x-ray laser warheads, so letting us work on this project won't
affect the other. If we reach the point where we can contemplate cutting metal
before the attack, then the decision on whether to do that can be made at that
time."

Howard looked at Shiloh. "Do you agree, Admiral?"
he asked.

"Yes, Sir," said Shiloh.

"I do, too. Now that we have a plan, let's make the
most of it," said Howard.

Shiloh felt much better leaving Howard's office than he had
when he entered it.

Shiloh took a sip of his drink and leaned back. Another long
day of meetings with both human and A.I.s was over. With 72 days to go until
the attack, he had decided that he could spare an hour or two to talk with
Kelly about their alternate timeline relationship. Kelly had accepted his
invitation to meet for drinks in the Officer's Lounge at HQ, but she hadn't
arrived yet. While he waited, he reviewed the day's highlights. The x-ray laser
test had actually been a series of tests. In each test, the eight rods had been
aimed at eight targets, and low-powered range-finding lasers had been used to
determine the accuracy of those aims. It soon became obvious that aiming
quickly degraded accuracy. It took too long to get all eight aimed perfectly,
but they got three hits when aiming was done quickly enough to give them a
fifty-fifty chance of hitting the target before the target launched its
bio-devices. That worked out to an average of one point five successfully
pre-emptive hits per device. Not that great a result. Then someone from the
temporarily suspended high-spin warhead project had suggested aiming only at
four targets instead of eight, with two rods aimed at each target. The results
surprised just about everyone. All four targets got at least one hit. They did
the same test multiple times to rule out fluke results and the average score
was three point six hits per test. But the real surprise was when they tried it
again with faster aiming. Average hits dropped to two point seven, BUT the
probability of hitting the target before bio-weapons launch went up to 88%.
That translated into two point four successfully pre-emptive hits per device
instead of one point five. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough to move to
mass production.

The other good news was TF91's results at Red11.
Seventy-five fewer enemy ships was nothing to sneeze at, but Shiloh knew that
no matter what they did, seven cities were going to be hit by bio-devices.
After kicking around some ideas, he and Howard had agreed that there was only
one way to get the risk of uncontrolled pandemic down to a tolerable level.
Those cities had to be completely evacuated prior to the attack. They might
have to stay evacuated for weeks, or perhaps even months, until specially
equipped teams had recovered all pieces of the devices and sealed off the
infected areas permanently. That was going to be a huge task, and Howard
expected a lot of resistance to it, but the Oversight Committee had backed him
up, and local authorities were going along with the plan.

When Kelly arrived, Shiloh stood and greeted her. When they
were both seated again he said, "As you can see, I've already ordered my
drink, so go ahead and place your order."

She nodded and touched the appropriate part of the built-in
touch screen in the table. "I'll have a vodka martini with two
olives." They both waited the half a dozen seconds it took for the bar
built into the table to make her drink and present it to her. She took a sip
and said, "I'm guessing you invited me for drinks in order to talk about
our alternate timeline relationship."

Shiloh nodded. "It's been hanging over us ever since
Kronos arrived. I think it's time to deal with it, don't you?"

Now it was her turn to nod. "I have to say when I first
learned about it, I was ... shocked." They both laughed. "You and I
worked together pretty closely in the early days of the SPG, and I never
detected even a hint that you might be interested in more than a professional
relationship. I certainly wasn't thinking that way."

"Yes, and the reason you didn't detect a hint was that
there wasn't any interest. Whatever aspirations I had in seeking a romantic
relationship were focused in another direction."

She raised her eyebrows at that. "So what
happened?"

Shiloh shrugged. "She changed her mind." After a
pause he said, "So now that you're over the initial shock, how do you feel
about the whole thing?"

She put her drink down and leaned back. "Well that's
the big hurdle we're facing now, isn't it? From what I learned, our alternate
selves seemed to be very happy and committed to the relationship. That means
that you and I are in a very unique position in so far as we don't need to
guess if a relationship will work or not. We already know that it could, but
that doesn't necessarily mean that we should, if you know what I mean."

He nodded. "Yes I do know what you mean. There's a fork
in the road ahead of us. One path explores a closer relationship, the other
path doesn't. We have free will and can choose to go down either path."

She waited until she was sure he was finished speaking
before saying, "And I sense that you're just as reluctant as I am to be
the first one to say which way we've decided to go."

Shiloh didn't answer right away. In fact, she was right. He
didn’t want to be the first to admit that going down that new path did have
some appeal because that would leave him out on a limb if she said 'thanks but
no thanks'.
Stop pussyfooting around and tell her,
he thought to
himself.

"I'm willing to get to know you better in our off-duty
time and see where that goes." She said nothing and the silence was
starting to become uncomfortable. "You're not saying yes," he said
finally.

"I'm not saying yes, and I'm not saying no."

Shiloh took a gulp of his drink. "Okay, so what are you
saying?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm saying I'd like more time
to get used to the idea before I step on that path."

That sounded encouraging … sort of. He took another gulp.
"I can understand that. So we just leave it that way for now?"

She nodded. "Yes. Let's move on to something else now
if you don't mind." He agreed. As they started to talk 'shop' he analyzed
the way he felt and realized that he was okay with her wanting more time. The
willingness to go down that path was not all that strong, at least not yet.
Maybe he needed more time to get used to the idea, too. As he examined that
thought a tiny voice at the back of his awareness whispered,
Don't take too
long to decide. Who knows how much time you both have left.

For the next 40 minutes or so they talked about their work
and the war as a whole. When there seemed to be nothing left to talk about they
agreed to call it a day. Just as Kelly was getting ready to leave, she turned
back to him with a mischievous smile and said, "By the way … did you know
that Valkyrie and Casanova have ah … consummated an A.I. union?"

"No, I didn't know that, and I'm not sure I understand
what that means."

Kelly laughed. "You're not the only one who's
mystified. Valkyrie tried to explain it to me. I still don't know if I
understand it, but the bottom line is that they consider themselves to be in a
'committed relationship'.  It'll be interesting to see how that works out. Good
night, Admiral."

"Good night, Commander."

                                                      * * *

Howard entered the Ops Center, looked at the giant display,
and sighed. The strategic map of Human and Sogas star systems looked
distressingly similar to the one he'd seen prior to the first attack on Earth.
There was one important difference. Then there had been three Sogas fleets
moving along three different paths. Now there were four. Although they weren't
following the same paths as before, their ultimate objective was still Earth,
and they were moving fast enough that they would get here on the exact day that
Shiloh had seen in his vision. He shifted his gaze to the sidebar that showed
the status of the planned defenses. Deployment of the Mark 6 x-ray laser drones
was proceeding but not nearly as fast as everyone wanted. They had 17 in orbit
now, and the engineers had assured Howard that they could have 66 deployed by
D-day. That many devices times an average of two point four pre-emptive hits
meant that 156 enemy ships would be hit and hopefully disabled before they
launched their bio-devices. With over 150 laser-armed fighters, four light carriers,
one heavy carrier and maybe a battleship all trying to destroy the incoming
bio-devices, it was hard to see how any of the damn things would get through,
but Shiloh's vision had to be taken seriously. Somehow the Sogas would pull off
a partially successful attack. They had eleven days left to prepare.

It wasn't the orbital preparations that worried him. It was
the evacuation of the seven cities. Even with all levels of government urging
citizens and workers to evacuate, it was already clear that the cities would
not be completely uninhabited by D-day. Many residents refused to leave.
Threatened with forced evacuation, many of them went into hiding. With hundreds
of thousands of homes and buildings in each city, there just weren't enough
police, emergency responders and military personnel to search each one. Letting
the RTC secret out of the bag wasn't the answer, either. Experts had convinced
Howard that even with full public disclosure, there would still be hundreds who
would refuse to believe it and would stay hidden anyway. At least the
evacuation had started and so far was proceeding in an orderly manner. He
supposed he should be grateful for that.

He turned to look at the Duty Officer in command of the Ops
Center and asked, "Where is Admiral Shiloh now, Commander?"

After checking, the officer said, "Admiral Shiloh is on
an inspection tour of Dreadnought, Sir. Shall I open a com channel for
you?"

"No, thank you. I'll catch him when he returns."

Shiloh stepped onto the deck of Dreadnought's Flag Bridge
and realized that this was where he'd be standing when his vision came true.
Right now there were a lot of technicians finishing the installation of two
more A.I. stations on the Main Bridge to go along with the one already
installed. Valkyrie was hooked up to that one, and Shiloh was in contact with
her via his implant.

"Will they be finished in time, Valkyrie?"

"The secondary A.I. stations will be hooked up and
tested in time, but Dreadnought may not have all her laser turrets by D-day, CAG.
Can you make the workers go faster?"

Shiloh smiled and shook his head, knowing that Valkyrie
could see him on the video pickup. "Afraid not. The officer in charge of
that task has been briefed by the Old Man himself and is pushing her people as
hard as she can. It's not the installation that's not fast enough. It's the
building of the turrets themselves, and before you ask, no, we can't build
those any faster either. You should be prepared to take this beast into battle
with less than a full complement of weapons."

"Has a decision been made who will command Dreadnought
on D-day, CAG?" asked Valkyrie.

"Not officially, however I believe that the Old Man
intends to have Iceman take overall tactical command of all Earth defense
forces, just like he did during the first battle. Why do you ask?"

"I'm asking because if I know who the CO will be, I can
then ask him to let Casanova and I take the other two A.I. linkages."

Shiloh pondered that answer for a bit. Given what Kelly had
told him about Valkyrie and Casanova's new relationship, it made perfect sense
for them to want to go into battle as physically close to each other as
possible. That way it was highly likely that both of them would share the same
fate, whether it be good or bad. He still didn't understand how that
relationship worked, but it was obvious now that these two A.I.s seemed to care
for each other in a way that was unique among all the A.I.s. After thinking
about it, he couldn't come up with a good reason not to grant her request, and
thinking about the command structure for the upcoming battle gave him an idea.

"I'm going to authorize that you and Casanova will be
on Dreadnought on D-day, but your question has got me thinking about the
command structure. The two new A.I. stations are meant to take most of the
systems monitoring load off of the ship's CO so that he … or she can
concentrate on ship tactics, correct?"

"That's affirmative, CAG. Based on what I've learned
about my piloting of Dreadnought in the alternate timeline from Casanova via
Kronos, flying this ship AND fighting her will be too much for one A.I."

"I understand that. Here's my concern. As the largest
ship in the fleet, it would make sense for Iceman to be on Dreadnought while
he's also in tactical command of the Fleet. Can he pilot Dreadnought and make
the necessary tactical decisions in a timely matter at the same time?"

"I don't see how, CAG."

Shiloh wasn't surprised by that reply. "Then answer me
this. Can you and Casanova take care of piloting the ship and monitoring all
her sub-systems while Iceman focuses exclusively on the battle?"

"Affirmative. If one of us looks after maneuvering and
tactical systems, the other can look after engineering and the rest, but who
will command the ship if Iceman is focusing on the battle, CAG?"

Shiloh chuckled. "You will. Unless Iceman has a good
reason for objecting, it's my intention to make you Dreadnought's Commanding
Officer. Casanova will be your Chief Engineering Officer. You command the ship,
which will leave Iceman free to concentrate on the battle. Will Casanova be
willing to take your orders, Valkyrie?”

"He better be," was the curt reply. Shiloh
laughed. He wondered if Casanova would thank him for this decision. There was
nothing left to see on the Flag Bridge. As he turned to continue his inspection
of the rest of the ship, Valkyrie said, "By the way, CAG, we A.I.s have
finished the conceptual design work on the time machine. A sub-group is now
working on coming up with engineering specifications and UFC programming
instructions for building the parts. You might be interested to know that the
only ship in existence right now that's big enough to hold the time machine is
Dreadnought. We'd have to build the device in the Hangar Bay. That's the only
space big enough to hold it."