The Synchronicity War Part 3 (28 page)

Shiloh shook his head in wonderment at her ability to focus
back to her duties so quickly. "By all means, Commander."

"Dreadnought still has full power and maneuverability.
Seven laser turrets out of action. Explosive decompression in five
compartments. Two fatalities reported so far. Twelve injured including your EO
and yourself. Minor damage to life support systems, but nothing critical.
Compared to the carriers, we got off pretty easy, CAG, but they vaporized a lot
of her armor. I don't think she could survive another fight like this in the
state she's in now."

"Understood. Do you want another A.I. to relieve
you?"

"Not until we're sure the battle is over and my crew
are taken care of, CAG, but thanks for the offer. I'll grieve for Casanova
later. Right now I'm still needed here."

Shiloh heard one of the crew say, "The medics are
here!"

He turned to see three medical personnel come through the
hatch. They saw him and started towards him. He pointed to the wounded EO and
said, "Him first." As they rushed over to the injured officer, Shiloh
heard the tactical display ping for attention.
Oh God! Now what?
He
looked at it and couldn't immediately see any change, but it soon became
obvious that the damaged and crippled enemy ships were blowing themselves up.
Well
that takes care of the prisoner issue.

With the relief that it wasn't another attack, came a wave
of lightheadedness.
Probably from blood loss and adrenaline fatigue,
he
thought. He carefully sat down. One of the medics noticed, came over, and
started to work on his head wound. Shiloh started to say something and then
noticed that the room seemed to get darker.
What the hell is wrong with the
lights?
His consciousness then fell into the abyss of blackness.

                                                      * * *

Benjamin Levinson woke to the sound of the sirens. He
concluded that they must be pretty loud sirens to be heard all the way down
here. He'd been living in this abandoned maintenance shaft for over a year now,
and he was pretty happy with it. He had running water, a more or less constant
temperature, and even the electricity to run his electronics. His enemies
wouldn't find him down here, and he'd be damn if he was going to leave the
city. His enemies would find him then for sure. He laughed at the prognosis of
the psychiatrists at the clinic. Severe paranoia? Ha!  What did they know? Even
paranoid people had enemies, and he had lots of them. Besides, with 99.9% of
everyone else gone, he might be able to scrounge some pretty good stuff for his
hideaway here. He decided to go up and look around.

The streets were completely empty. The sirens were still
blaring, and it was obvious now why he had heard them. Every siren in the city
must be going off. Something was happening, but what? He looked up between the
canyons of tall buildings and saw a fiery streak, followed by the sound of some
sort of collision. A few steps brought him to the street corner just in time to
see something metallic bounce off the building down the street and hit the
ground. He rushed over to it. There was smoke coming from it, and he could hear
the pinging sound that hot metal makes when it cools down rapidly. It looked
like a broken bottle, only made of metal instead of glass or plastic. There
seemed to be a small green light inside. Levinson looked around to make sure
none of those weird guys in their yellow hazard suits were around, and then he
tried to pick up the object. He dropped it and cursed out loud. He should have
realized it would be too hot to handle with bare hands. Looking around, he
spotted a section of newspaper being blown by the wind. He snagged it and
folded it until it was thick enough to provide some protection. He then used
the newspaper to pick up the ... whatever it was and examined it closely. The
inside looked pretty complicated, but there was a green light for sure. He
sniffed. Well, what do'ya know! The damn thing even smelled good. A sweet
smell. He inhaled deeply. The only thing wrong with living underground was the
smell. If this thing wasn't good for anything else, it might at least make his
cubbyhole smell nicer. He carried it back with a smile on his face.

                                                         * *
*

Kelly stood patiently on the spaceport tarmac while the
shuttle carrying crew and, more importantly, Vice-Admiral Shiloh arrived from
Dreadnought. It was almost 24 hours since the battle. Space Force was licking its
wounds, yet again. Howard had declared the battle over and told the ship crews
they could stand down. He had ordered her to escort Shiloh to his quarters and
make sure he was rested for the debriefing the next morning. She looked at the
setting sun. It would be dark in another half hour, but the day wasn't over
yet. She tried not to think of what Valkyrie must be feeling. Earlier today,
she had briefing talked with her. Valkyrie was still refusing to be relieved of
her duties, even though Dreadnought was now more or less powered down and had
almost no crew left on board. Kelly understood why. Casanova, or rather what
was left of his brain case, was still on the ship, and Valkyrie wanted to stay
close to it for as long as possible.

When the shuttle came to a stop and the door opened, Shiloh
was the last one to exit, as per protocol. Senior Officers were always the
first to get on and the last to get off. She noticed that he came down the
steps carefully, as if he wasn't completely sure of his balance. She also
noticed the white bandage wrapped around his head and the stain of dried blood
on his uniform collar. She walked towards him as he looked around.

"The Old Man sent me, Admiral," she said as she
came up to him. "I'm supposed to make sure that you're looked after and
rested for tomorrow's debriefing session." She managed to keep her tone
professional, but inside she was on the verge of tears.
My God, he looks
like he's aged ten years! This battle has really hit him hard!
She was
surprised by the emotion she now felt.
Is this what my alternate self felt
for Victor?
There was no answer to her question, but that didn't matter
anymore. She knew what she wanted to do now. "Don’t worry about a thing.
I'll have you back in your quarters in no time." Shiloh didn't say
anything, but he did nod. He didn't react when she put her hand around his arm
and gently guided him forward. She signaled to a waiting Space Force limo
flying the 1 star flag of a Vice-Admiral to come closer. Shiloh got in the
back, and she followed him. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes for the
duration of the whole trip. She watched him intently. When the limo pulled up
in front of the Space Force Officers Guest Quarters, she gently shook him
awake. She took note of the fact that he didn't say anything when she steered
him away from the wing reserved for Flag Officers. Instead, they went to the
section usually assigned to Commanders, the wing where her quarters were. She
unlocked the door and turned to look at Shiloh. He stood there and looked back
at her with an expression that was one of complete calm except for the eyes.
The eyes were smiling in that way that only eyes can.
He knows what I'm
going to do next,
she thought. She smiled back, took his arm again and
pulled him inside.

The sex, while not that intense physically due to his
exhaustion and loss of blood, was intense on an emotional level. They both knew
instinctively that they had come perilously close to losing each other in the
battle, and their souls seemed to want to make up for lost time. What Shiloh
found most remarkable was that neither one of them said a single word once they
were inside her quarters, until hours later. When the soul hunger had been
satisfied, she ordered some food, which they ate while sitting up in bed. With
Kelly leaning back against his chest, Shiloh told her about the battle and the
loss of Iceman. She told him about her talk with Valkyrie. By the end they both
had tears in their eyes.

Having finished eating, she asked him if he was up for some more
sex. He said yes. She quickly cleared the bed of the leftover food, plates,
glasses, etc. By the time she was finished, she found Shiloh asleep … and that
was okay. She lay down beside him and put her arm over him. His shallow regular
breathing made her eyelids heavy, and she willingly surrendered to sleep.

Shiloh was on Dreadnought's Flag Bridge when the display
pinged, but the sound wasn't really a ping. It sounded like ... something else,
something familiar, and the sound was getting louder. He woke up and realized
two things. He'd been dreaming, and his implant was signaling. He looked around
and found a chronometer that said it was still the middle of the night. He then
remembered where he was, and with whom. A quick glance showed him that Kelly was
still asleep. He activated his implant.

"Shiloh here."

There was a short pause, and then he heard Howard's weary
voice.

"Howard here. I’m sorry to wake you, Victor, but this
can't wait."

Shiloh was instantly awake now. Howard usually called him by
his rank and occasionally by his last name, but the Old Man had NEVER called
him by his first name.

"That's okay, Sir. I'm listening."

"A message drone has just arrived. There's another
Goddamn enemy fleet heading our way, Victor. Minimum of 103 ships. They were
detected refueling at the Avalon System. They can be here in two days if they
push it. There's not enough time left to build up our stockpiles of x-ray laser
drones. Half our fighter force is destroyed. Midway and Dreadnought are the
only two ships left that can fight at all, and you know better than I do what
kind of shape they're in. There's no way we can stop them this time,
Victor."

To Be Concluded

Author's Comments:
With Part 3 now published, my next
writing project will be a short prequel i.e. Part 0. It can be read as a
stand-alone story but can also serve as an introduction to the whole
Synchronicity War universe. I doubt if it will be more than 25,000 words and
the price will be $0.99 to begin with and eventually zero. When that's behind
me, I'll start work on what I am now thinking will be the final part to this
series. I hope to have that done somewhere around June or July of 2014. Part 4
will have a conclusion to the war so I'm not planning on a Part 5 or 6 or 7. I
do however reserve the right to write a new series that's set in the same
universe. If you haven't already done so, I would ask that you sign up for
email notification from Amazon when my next book is published. You can find
that link by moving your cursor over my name or go to my Author Profile page
and the link should be in the upper right hand corner.

As with Parts 1 & 2, I would ask those of you, who like
Part 3 and feel it deserves a 5 star rating, to please post a review. They
really do help to keep the book visible and I've also gotten some useful
feedback from some of them. I would also be interested in feedback on Part 3's
cover. Unlike the first two books, this cover was commissioned by me with a
professional artist and I'd like to hear what you think of it. You can reach me
by going to my website and using the 'Contact Us' link. Feedback on the book
itself is also welcome.  

In my article on space combat in Part 2, I briefly mentioned
the electro-gravitic effect discovered by and named after Thomas Townsend
Brown. Dr. Paul LaViolette talks about it in depth in his book The Secrets of
Anti-gravity Propulsion. Brown discovered that if an object has one side with a
very high concentration of negative ions while the opposite side has a very
high concentration of positive ions, the fabric of local space will become
curved and the object will 'slid down' the slope of that curve. The bigger the
difference between the two charged ends, the steeper the slope of the curve and
the faster the object will move. The B-2 bomber is considered by many
aeronautical experts to be the first field deployment of this technology
although the Air Force has never admitted this. Brown was able to demonstrate
this effect by charging two metal disks that were attached to the ends of a
rotating device. As electric current was used to move ions to where Brown
wanted, the disks began to move causing the device to rotate around its axis.
Brown claimed that the whole thing could be made self-sustaining by hooking the
rotating portion to a generator that would supply the power to the disks and
have surplus electricity left over for other uses.

But that is not the only real world science that deals with
gravity and is in my books. In Part 3, I mention a gravity beam weapon and I
wrote that it was based on research conducted by Russian scientists at the
beginning of the 21st century and that is true. I found the information in an
article by Nick Cook, who is an aerospace consultant for Jane's Defense Weekly
and who wrote a bestselling book about anti-gravity called The Hunt for Zero
Point. In his article (http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1064.htm), he
talks about the gravity research conducted by Dr. Evgeny Podkletnov and the
potential for weaponization of that research. In my book I asserted that the
Russians weren't able to make it into a practical weapon but that is still to
be determined in real life.

The title of Cook's book also relates to the next example of
(potentially) real science. Zero Point Energy is the name often used to
describe the foamy sea of energy that scientists believe exists everywhere even
in the vacuum of empty space. Tapping into that energy is the new Holy Grail of
what some call fringe science. There are some who claim they've figured it out
in their basement or garage or small laboratory and there are also those who
claim that the government has gotten their hands on the technology long ago and
are using it covertly in order not to upset the Military/Industrial/Banking complex
that would suffer financially if our oil-based economy shifted suddenly to
unlimited energy. I don't really know if anyone's cracked the secret but I do
know that a lot of people are working on it and I wish them success. It would
be a game changer for sure. Just think of how much better off you'd be if you
could buy a power device and never have to pay for electricity or gasoline ever
again.

The next item of potentially real science is bomb-pumped,
x-ray laser weapons. Fans of David Weber's Honor Harrington series will
recognize the concept where rods of special materials convert the raw power of
a nuclear explosion into coherent beams of concentrated x-rays. Weber has made
excellent use of the concept but he didn't invent the idea. To the best of my
knowledge, the first person to suggest something like that was Dr. Edward
Teller, otherwise known as the 'father of the H-bomb'. My recollection is that
he suggested the idea to Ronald Reagan as part of Reagan's Strategic Defense
Initiative (Star Wars).

The last example of real science is the ballotechnic nature
of high-spin platinum. Believe it or not, I did NOT make that up. If you don't
believe me just Google 'ballotechnics'.  Back in the late 20th century during
the last few years of the Cold War, western intelligence agencies were all in a
flutter about rumors that the Russians had figured out how to make something
called Red Mercury, which supposedly could be used to make nuclear bombs small
enough to carry in a suitcase. That rumor was never confirmed publically (which
doesn't mean it wasn't true) but the idea of some metals having the ability to
store and then suddenly release energy via electrons in higher than normal
orbits has been confirmed. As far as I know, nobody is building fusion bombs with
high-spin metals but the basic science is real. Just as an interesting side
note, I nearly fell out of my seat when I saw Spock use a small portion of red
liquid from his huge floating ball, to do some interesting things in the movie
remake of Star Trek. The other fascinating aspect of something that has mercury
in it (maybe) and might be red is its use in a bell-shaped device that was THE
most secret military project of the Nazis by the end of WW2. Far more secret
than rockets and even more secret than the atomic bomb. If you want to read a
non-fiction account of what REALLY happened at the end of the war, get your
hands on The Reich of the Black Sun and The SS Brotherhood of the Bell, both by
Dr. Joseph Farrell. He knows what he's talking about and it will blow your
socks off.

I wish I could say that retro-temporal communication was
based on real science but as far as I know, it isn't. This in spite of
persistent rumors that the US government has stumbled onto the technology to
either look through time or travel through time. Interestingly the Nazi Bell
project supposedly had some bizarre temporal effects too. Just sayin.

D.A.W.