The Synchronicity War Part 3 (3 page)

"I'm still concerned about being detected, which is why
we'll be smart about how we approach Earth. If they've deployed detection
stations to watch Earth, the logical place to put them is on the moon. We'll
approach the moon when it's in Earth's shadow so that there's no chance of our
ships being detected via reflected sunlight. Then we’ll scan the moon
thoroughly and if we find something that shouldn't be there, we'll withdraw. If
we don't, then we'll move into a low Earth orbit and do our survey."

"Still risky, CAG. The enemy may have placed their
detection gear in Earth orbit. There'll still plenty of orbiting debris that
they could use as camouflage."

"Point taken, Iceman. Just to be on the safe side,
we'll stay in Earth's shadow at all times and we'll launch our own recon drones
to scan the daylight side."

"Roger that, CAG. Better safe than sorry."

"Who will be piloting the escort raiders, CAG? I have
over 200 A.I.s who all want to volunteer," said Valkyrie.

"I'm not surprised. I'll let you decide within the
following parameters. This mission will be good training for future deep space
missions, so anyone who has already done an interstellar recon mission stays
here. Those A.I.s who seem to have a greater than average ability for strategic
or tactical thinking should be given priority because they may be put in
command of detached forces down the road. The more experience they get, the
better."

"Good. That means Casanova stays here," said
Valkyrie. Both Shiloh and Kelly chuckled. Kelly had been keeping Shiloh up to
date on Casanova's persistent efforts, as relayed to her by Valkyrie, to pursue
some kind of hard-to-understand cybernetic 'union' with Valkyrie. This made no
sense to Shiloh and he suspected none to Kelly either.

"Iceman, how are we fixed for drones?" asked
Shiloh.

"You name it, we got it, CAG. All the escort raiders
can carry full loads of whatever you want, even Mark 1bs with fusion warheads.
Although if they loaded up on those exclusively, there would only be enough
left to give one to each of the remaining raiders for local defense."

"No. The escort force will only carry one Mark 1b each
but I want each of them to also carry two Long Range High Speed message drones
and the rest of their payload can be recon drones. Resolute already has the
standard load-out for this type of mission. The Mark 1bs are merely a
precaution. I'm not expecting trouble and I intend to avoid it if at all
possible. We know from my vision that this new race could very well turn out to
be hostile but the mission objective is to attempt peaceful contact and gather
information about them. The attack drones will only be used as a last resort.
Iceman and Valkyrie, I want both of you to make sure that the escort force
pilots understand that completely."

"We've just told them, CAG," said Valkyrie.

"Well, now that we've got that settled, let's talk
about departure time. Are we finished loading supplies aboard Resolute,
Valkyrie?"

"She's all topped up and ready to leave the second you
give the word, CAG."

"Very good," said Shiloh. He turned to look at
Kelly who looked back at him with an expression that he knew indicated the fear
she was trying very hard not to show. "As soon as the escort force has
been loaded as instructed, we'll leave orbit."

"That'll be in approximately 34 minutes, CAG,"
said Iceman.

"Fine. I'll be aboard Resolute by then. Unless there's anything else, this
meeting is adjourned."

With the meeting over, Shiloh and Kelly walked slowly to the
shuttle that would take him to Resolute. She put her arms around his neck and
hugged him as fiercely as her pregnant body let her. He hugged her back as
fiercely as he dared.

"I know you'll come back, so I won't tell you to be
careful, but I will tell you to get this damn mission over with as fast as you
can, okay?" she said in a husky whisper.

"Roger that, Boss," said Shiloh and they both
laughed. After a long, tender kiss she let him go and he boarded the shuttle.

Resolute's Bridge was as quiet as a tomb. That was partly
due to the fact that with Helm, Weapons and Astrogation handled by Valkyrie,
they didn't need as many humans on the Bridge as usual. Shiloh wasn't alone,
though. Communications, Flight Ops and Engineering were handled by human crew
in order to lighten Valkyrie's load so she could concentrate on the important
stuff. She still had direct access to Communications if she needed it. Shiloh
looked over at the Flight Ops station and nodded his approval. Resolute wasn't
carrying any fighters. They had been left behind on Earth's moon when TF 91
left for Site B, but that didn't mean the Hangar Bay was empty. Far from it.
The carrier now held eight personnel shuttles modified with their own jumpdrives
and ZPG power units. They would act as FTL lifeboats if the carrier had to be
abandoned, since none of the escorting raiders had the capacity to carry human
passengers directly. The raiders could carry the shuttle/lifeboats attached to
their hulls externally and would if the need arose since there was limited
space on board the shuttles for food and water. So while the shuttles could in
theory carry humans back to Site B themselves, the stark reality was that,
depending on how far away from Site B they were, if the crew had to abandon
Resolute, they might all die of thirst before the shuttles got home. But if the
shuttles were carried by raider vessels with their much higher acceleration and
therefore higher potential jump speeds, they would make it back okay.

Shiloh turned his attention back to the main display. The
bulk of the Task Force was finally getting close to the Earth. Though still
over a million kilometers away, they were in Earth's shadow and would remain in
it as they moved closer. Titan, Valkyrie's choice as Escort Force Leader, had
already detached six raiders to make their own microjumps to other parts of the
system where they could take a close look at various elements of Space Force
infrastructure. TF92 would come back together at a predetermined rendezvous
point which was a particular asteroid, one whose position was accurately known
and which did not have any human facilities on it. One of the six detached
raiders was at the rendezvous point already, acting as a communication relay in
case anyone found something unexpected.

"Recon drones have been launched, CAG," said
Valkyrie.

"Acknowledged," said Shiloh as he watched the
drone icons move away from the Task Force on the display. One of the drones was
veering off to one side as it headed for the moon. When it left Earth's shadow,
it would keep its orientation such that no reflected sunlight bounced back to
the moon or the Earth, just in case there were enemy detection devices there.

"Any transmissions of any kind?" asked Shiloh even
though he already knew the answer. If there had been either the Com technician
or Valkyrie would have told him already.

"None so far, CAG. I'm not detecting any sources of
light or heat from Earth either, although at this distance our equipment isn't
sensitive enough to detect the light and heat from something like a campfire.
Naturally cloud cover would block just about anything smaller than a whole city
on fire."

Shiloh nodded, aware that Valkyrie was watching the entire
Bridge through several video cameras. "How long before our recon drone is
close enough to detect sources that small?"

"Hard to be precise, but I'd give it another 18 minutes
or so before we have any chance of detection, CAG."

"And how long before we can expect data from the moon
drone?"

"Four to five minutes. We should be able to tell what
the state of the lunar bases are by then, CAG."

"Very good, Commander. In the meantime, I'll take care
of some personal business." Shiloh got up from the Command Station chair
and headed for the exit that led to the room where he could eliminate some
bodily wastes. Valkyrie and the other A.I.s knew what the phrase 'take care of
some personal business’ meant. Even after all this time, they were still amused
and fascinated by the human need to excrete liquid and solid waste. He'd lost
count of how many times he’d had to change the subject to avoid a conversation
getting into the gritty details of the whole process. As he left the Bridge, he
consciously had to resist the urge to declare that someone else 'had the Con'.
Those words belonged to the days when he was a ship CO. and that was no longer
the case. He was now the Task Force Commander.  This was entirely superfluous
since his permanent rank of Chief of Space Operations granted him command of the
Task Force automatically. He wanted to engrain the principle into the crew and
the A.I.s to ensure that when someone else was in command of a Task Force,
their authority would be clearly understood. He also got pleasure from being
able to address Valkyrie or any other A.I. as 'Commander'. Strictly speaking,
she was the Commanding Officer of Resolute. He might be senior to her, but he
was just a passenger. He could tell her where Resolute went and what it needed
to do when it got there. She would decide how the crew could best carry out his
orders, and he was entirely okay with that. By the time he got back to the
Command Station, the lunar recon drone was close enough to get grainy video of
the main lunar base which was still bathed in sunlight.

"Damn!" he said in a low voice. The base clearly
had been attacked by high-energy lasers. The scene reminded him of what the
Nimitz base in the Avalon system looked like when Johansen's ship had gone
there to check things out. There might be salvageable equipment in that rubble,
but it might not be worth the time to look for it. In any case, that decision
would have to wait for another mission. TF92 didn't have time for anything like
that now.

"At least we can be sure now that the enemy did come
here at some point, CAG,” said Valkyrie.

"What about the boneyard?" asked Shiloh.

"Coming into view in 18 seconds, CAG."

Shiloh held his breath and waited. The 'boneyard', a term
left over from the late 20th and early 21st centuries, referred to a place
where military vehicles were parked when no longer in use. When all the A.I.s
had been evacuated from Sol, cargo capacity was in short supply, and all the
fighters had set down at a small base next to an open flat area of the moon.
Because they were designed to operate continuously in the harsh environment of
space, they didn't need any kind of shelter or atmosphere. If the enemy had not
destroyed them on the ground, then it would be relatively easy to re-activate
them at some future point. When the 18 seconds were up, Shiloh saw to his
surprise that all of the fighters seemed to be intact. If and when they were
recovered, they might need to be refueled with heavy hydrogen in order to bring
them onboard the carrier. The alternative was to send maintenance people in
spacesuits out to the fighters to retrofit ZPG power sources to them there. In
any case, there were 175 fighters that could be re-activated and brought back
to Site B at some point.

"Those fighters would be handy to have now, CAG. We
still have almost 100 A.I.s that are sitting around twiddling their quantum
thumbs," said Valkyrie.

"I agree. It would be great if our idle A.I.s had
fighters to keep them amused. We WILL recover them, but that will have to wait
for another trip. Let's start scanning the moon for alien detection gear,"
said Shiloh.

"Roger that, CAG. Search pattern has commenced."
Scanning the moon's entire surface would take hours. In the meantime, TF92
would gradually move closer to the Earth while staying in its shadow, and
they'd get a good look at the planet via other recon drones. A few minutes
later Valkyrie said, "I'm getting usable images from our Earth drones,
CAG. Here's what drone 1 is seeing." The main display showed a planet that
didn't look like Earth at all. Instead of white clouds, blue ocean and green or
yellow land masses, the planet was almost a uniform slate grey.

"What the hell?" exclaimed Shiloh.

"My spectral analysis suggests that the atmosphere is
full of dust particles. The only known explanation for so much dust to be pushed
into the atmosphere in the time since we last had contact, is that the planet
has been impacted by one or more substantial asteroids," said Valkyrie.

"How is that possible? We knew where all the
potentially dangerous asteroids were and their vectors. None of them were on a
collision course."

"Unless the enemy gave them new vectors," said
Valkyrie.

"Son of a bitch! I'll bet that's just what they
did!" said Shiloh. "It makes sense from their perspective too. They
make the Earth as uninhabitable as it's possible to do with a relatively modest
effort. Damn! That much dust will block so much sunlight that all plant life
will die, and temperatures will drop to below freezing everywhere. How can
anyone survive that?"

"They couldn't, unless they went underground with
several years worth of supplies," answered Valkyrie.

"Yes, and we know that there are underground
installations like that. The question is, did anybody manage to go down into
them before being contaminated with the bio-weapon? AND if they did manage to
do that AND if they have working radio gear AND if they're listening with it,
we may or may not be able to send and receive signals through all this
atmospheric crap. A lot of that dust is likely to contain iron or other metal
particles that will interfere with EM transmissions," said Shiloh.

"You're analysis is correct. CAG. The other
consideration is that if we did receive radio transmissions from the planet,
then any alien detection gear in the vicinity will receive them too. The enemy
will know that some humans are still alive on Earth AND that they're
communicating with someone in space," said Valkyrie.

Shiloh nodded and sighed. "So that means we shouldn't
try to establish communications with any survivors right now. They'll just have
to survive as best they can until we know it's safe to establish two-way
communication."

"Do you want to continue this approach, or should I
take us to the rendezvous point now, CAG?" asked Valkyrie.

After a brief pause, Shiloh responded. "Resolute doesn't
need to get any closer. You can take us back out beyond the gravity zone, but
there's no point in jumping to the rendezvous point this soon. The others won't
be there for a while anyway. In the meantime, we can continue to collect data
on the Earth and moon."

"Roger that, CAG. I'm changing vectors now."

Shiloh sat back and folded his arms in front of him. The
enemy had once again shown the extent of their xenophobia. They had gone out of
their way to kill every last human they could find, even though a few thousand
survivors of the bio-weapon, if there were that many, couldn't possibly pose
any serious threat to the aliens for centuries. He remembered the last message
sent by Admiral Howard.  The aliens had called the tune. Now they had to pay
the price for their aggressiveness. If he got the chance to do to their Home
World what they did to Earth, he would do it.

Resolute stayed in a wide orbit around Earth for another 22
hours. Low orbit passes by recon drones confirmed that the surface of the planet
was now a frozen, dark hell. The scan of the moon showed no sign of any alien
detection gear. As Resolute accelerated away from Earth in preparation for a
short jump to the rendezvous point, Shiloh ordered the recon drones to attach
themselves to the large space structures still orbiting the planet, which the
aliens hadn't bothered to destroy. The drones would keep a continuous watch
over the planet and record any transmissions from the surface for future
action.

When all elements of TF92 were back together again, the
humans on board Resolute received more good news. All of the far flung
infrastructure built by Space Force was apparently still intact. This included
the refueling station on Europa, which Shiloh actually didn't care about any
more, as well as all the asteroid mining, refining and shipyard installations,
which he did care about. In fact, there were two freighters, the first heavy
carrier and the mammoth million-ton battleship, that were still in their
construction slips. Based on pre-collapse data, they should be very close to
being usable. Shiloh was particularly interested in the heavy carrier and the
battleship, but for different reasons. If they were going to recover all the
fighters stored on the moon and take them back to Site B, Resolute and Valiant
would have to make multiple trips, but if they could make the carrier Midway
operational, then the three ships could bring back all the fighters in a single
trip. The battleship might be useful in a different way. If the aliens who built
that Very Large Object turned out to be a threat to Humanity, then a collision
with a million ton projectile traveling at very high speeds would make one hell
of a big hole in that huge sphere. The shock of the impact alone might be
enough to kill every living thing on board. That, however, assumed that the
ship could be moved and jumped, and their data suggested that it might not be
that far along in the construction process. One more thing to do in this system
which they simply didn't have the time to do. With the preliminary survey of
the Sol system now out of the way, the Task Force lined itself up with the next
jump destination and resumed its journey to Omega89.

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