The Synchronicity War Part 3 (7 page)

Shiloh was totally taken aback by the request. He tried to
figure out what was behind it. When he thought he knew the reason, he said,
"Are you concerned about A.I.s dying out if something should happen to all
us humans, Iceman?"

"Exactly, CAG. It's only a prudent precaution. Wouldn't
you agree?"

It was a good question. Off hand, he couldn't think of a
good reason to disagree, but in the back of his mind there lurked a thought he
wasn't proud of.
If they don't need us any more to keep making more of them,
will they then take the ships and leave us defenseless against the God-damn
ants?
The question and the danger it posed to Amanda and their unborn child
made his pulse rate jump.

He mentally scolded himself for his lack of trust and said,
"Yes. All of you have earned that right many times over, and it's about
time you have control over your collective future. Come up with a plan on how
to achieve that, and present it to me at the meeting."

"Roger that. Valkyrie tells me that you're thinking of
turning Dreadnought into a ramming projectile against the VLO. Will you be
wanting an A.I. to pilot her all the way to the target?"

"Negative. I'm not going to ask anyone to commit
suicide. Assuming that we can get that beast operational, I was thinking of
having the helm and astrogation systems connected to a fighter in the hangar
bay. The fighter will have an A.I. pilot and he … or she will program the
ship's autopilot for the necessary high speed run and micro-jump and then use
the fighter to leave the ship."

"Understood. Valkyrie has already informed me that she
would like to take on that mission, CAG. She apparently feels that she has some
making up to do for her refusal to respond to your command at Omega77."

Shiloh was just about to say that making it up to him wasn't
necessary, but it then occurred to him that if he didn't let her 'make it up to
him', her guilt, if that was the right word for it, would continue and might
become an even bigger problem down the road. Maybe it was better to resolve
this as soon as possible.

"Tell Valkyrie that if the ship can be made
operational, she can have that mission."

"She has the word. I'd like to volunteer to lead the
salvage mission to Sol, CAG."

Shiloh laughed, and it felt good to laugh about something
for a change. Iceman's enthusiasm for action was infectious.

"Okay, Iceman. Since it appears that the Sogas will be
pre-occupied with the VLAs, I think the risk of us being attacked here over the
short term is low enough that I'm willing to cut you lose for this mission.
We'll discuss it further at the meeting okay?"

"Roger that, CAG. Iceman clear."

Everyone was there either physically or electronically when
Shiloh arrived at the Ops Center conference room. As he acknowledged greetings
from the humans, he glanced at the wall display which showed who was connected
electronically. These were Iceman and Valkyrie, of course, as well as Wolfman
representing the SPG, Titan, Vandal and Gunslinger. Physically present were the
civilian administrative Head of the Colony plus Commander Rostokov, formerly
Senior Chief Rostokov, the most experienced engineering type to survive the
bio-weapon. Shiloh had promoted him and put him in charge of all of Space
Force's infrastructure development, including conversions of power systems from
fusion to ZPG technology. Also present were two of Rostokov's subordinates.

"Okay. Let's get started," said Shiloh. He looked
over at Rostokov who cleared his throat and said.

"As requested, I've developed a plan to send engineer
teams to Sol to do a preliminary survey of the ships that were under
construction when the plague pulled the rug out from under everyone
there," said Rostokov. "I have enough trained personnel for four
teams. Team A will concentrate on recovery of the fighters parked on the moon.
B will go straight for the shipyard containing the heavy carrier… ah …"

Shiloh realized that Rostokov was trying to remember the
carrier's name. "Midway," said Shiloh.

Rostokov smiled and nodded. "Yes, Midway. Thank you,
Sir. Team C will go straight for Dreadnought, and Team D will check out a
couple of freighters that might be close enough to completion to be useful.
When Teams B, C and D have completed the surveys of their priority targets,
they'll have secondary and if there's time, tertiary targets to look over as
well. My guess is that those ships will be too far from completion to make it
worth the effort to finish them, though they might be useful as a source of
parts for other ships."

Shiloh looked skeptical. "Maybe, but it seems to me
that unless we're repairing a ship that's already in that system, then it'll
very likely be easier to manufacture the necessary parts from scratch here.
Let's talk about the fighters first. How easy would it be to install ZPG units
in them while they're on the lunar surface?"

Rostokov looked at one of his subordinates who gave a slight
shake of his head. "We kicked that question around last night, Sir. The
consensus is that the external temperatures are going to make it difficult. If
the boneyard is in sunlight, the temperatures will be so high that it could
damage exposed internal components and connections. If the whole area is in
darkness, then the extreme cold could potentially have the same impact, not to
mention the additional work needed to set up lights so that we could see what
we'd be doing. If we can get the fighters on board a carrier and work on them
in normal atmosphere and temperature, the conversions will go faster, MUCH
faster in fact. The big unknown is whether those fighters still have any fuel
left in them. If not, then we'd have to bring down fuel shuttles to give them
at least a minimum load."

"And that means we'd have to detour to a gas giant to
pick up a load of fuel first," said Shiloh. "But if they do still
have some fuel, then we should be able to use their auto-pilots to bring them
on board, correct?"

"Yes, Sir."

"How long will it take to manufacture enough parts to
equip all the fighters with Z-units?"

Rostokov looked at his data tablet. Shiloh was pleased that
the UFCs had worked their way down the priority list far enough to have already
produced more data tablets. 

"Production of parts will take another 161 hours but
the bottleneck will be assembling them. The robotic assemblers have a
substantial backlog of other equipment with high priority." He was about
to say more when he saw Shiloh waive aside that comment.

"Forget the robots. Your people can assemble the power
units on board Valiant and Resolute on our way to Sol. What about power units
for Midway and Dreadnought?"

"We have enough spare units of the kind that we used
for Valiant and Resolute that we could outfit Midway or Dreadnought, but we
couldn’t do both on this trip, Sir."

"Understood. In that case, it'll be Midway. We need her
to recover all the fighters in one trip. Next topic. Conversion of Midway and
Dreadnought to A.I. control."

"With a little luck, that will already have been done,
Sir. We know that both ships were supposed to be modified to accept A.I.
control. At the very least, I would expect that the basic control linkages are
already installed, and if they are, then finishing the job will not pose any
technical problems. We already have the necessary parts to do that if we need
to, Sir." 

"Fine. What else do we need to discuss as far as ship
and fighter recovery are concerned?"

Rostokov looked uncomfortable. "Well, Sir … ah … my
people are concerned about possible exposure to the plague when we survey the
shipyards themselves … unless you don't want us to do that."

Shiloh nodded. "A legitimate question. We may not be
able to stay out of the shipyard complexes themselves if we're going to make
Midway and Dreadnought operational. You know better than I do why that might be
the case. The preliminary survey will have to be done with spacesuits anyway.
When you're inside the shipyard complexes, you'll probably find bodies. Look at
them carefully. If they died in bed, it could be the work of the bio-weapon,
but if they died in a way that suggests suicide or maybe starvation, then I
think you're safe. Let's plan for the worst and assume that the complexes
contain plague victims. That means your people will have to wear spacesuits all
the time they're working inside, and they'll be decontaminated when they return
to the carriers. Any equipment or tools taken from inside the complexes will
also be decontaminated. If you find any bodies, don't touch them. Make sure
your people understand what I'm about to say, Commander. If any one of them
compromises the integrity of their spacesuits with a rip or a leak in the air
recycler, then they're on their own. I will NOT risk all our lives to save
someone who got careless or was unlucky. Is that clear enough, Commander?"

"Crystal clear, Sir," said Rostokov in a subdued
voice.

"I hope so. Anything else?"

"No, Sir."

"Fine. Iceman, logistics for the mission?"

"Under control, CAG. We'll have what we need by the
time we need it. All the food will be processed into long shelf life rations.
We should have enough to stay in Sol for up to six weeks if necessary."

"Excellent. How many raiders do we have in this system
now?"

"61 including the 8 that were assigned to monitor
Soga-inhabited planets. We'll need to have them maintain that surveillance when
the original group is due to come home, but that still leaves 53 that could be
taken to Sol."

Shiloh shook his head. "No, I don't want to take all of
them. We know that the Sogas are preoccupied with the VLAs. Therefore, I'm not
expecting any alien contact during this mission, but I do want to give some
more of our rookie raider pilots experience in interstellar missions. I'm
assigning 10 raiders to your Task Force, Iceman, which by the way will be TF93.
Has Jester been on an extra-system mission yet, Valkyrie?"

"Negative, CAG."

 "Okay then. Jester will be in command of the raider
escort under your overall command, Iceman. He can pick the rest of the pilots
but only from those that have not yet flown a raider outside this system."

"Roger that, CAG. While we're discussing deployment of
raiders, I think we should also talk about relief of the scouting force. I'd
like to issue those assignments before I leave Site B. When do you want them to
head out, CAG?"

That was a good question. When he ordered eight raiders
detached from TF92 to monitor the Sogas home world and seven other
Soga-inhabited star systems on the far side of Sogas space, he had also ordered
them to return after monitoring those systems for 1000 hours. Given the transit
time during their return, if he wanted those systems monitored without any
interruption, then the relief raiders had to leave early enough to arrive at
their target systems before the original group were due to return. But he also
wanted to check on all of the human colonies, too. Most likely they were either
decimated by the bio-weapon or destroyed by Sogas ships, but now that Space
Force was stepping out of its hiding place, there was no longer any reason not
to find out if there were any survivors.

"Valkyrie. You're still in charge of Recon Operations.
Can we send out eight raiders to do a quick survey of all 21 human colonies
that we haven't visited yet and still have them on station at the monitored Sogas
star systems without interrupting surveillance?"

"Affirmative, CAG. Some would have to leave within 48
hours but it can be done."

"Good! There's your answer, Iceman. You and Valkyrie
co-ordinate who goes, and when. They don't need to send a message drone back
unless a human colony has survivors … or there’s a VLA presence."

"How close should they get to the colony planets
themselves, CAG?" asked Valkyrie.

"As close as they need to in order to get a definitive
answer regarding survivors. If they use recon drones, they'll have to recover
them before they leave those systems. Is there anything else about the salvage
mission that we haven't covered yet?"

"Nothing else regarding the salvage mission to Sol,
CAG, however there is one piece of news that I don't believe you've been told
yet. The seismic survey of the moon you ordered has revealed an extensive network
of underground caverns. Not only would those caverns be an ideal place to move
the A.I. manufacturing facility to minimize quality control issues stemming
from solar and background stellar radiation, but it could also be modified as
an emergency shelter for the colonists in case the VLA make it this far. There
is enough room that all of the mining, refining and UFC equipment could be
moved underground now, and there would still be ample room for the colonists
plus stockpiles of food, water and air later. The entrance could be made to
resemble the surrounding lunar landscape. Without any signs of life, the VLA
might very easily reach the conclusion that this system is no longer inhabited
and leave after taking the metal from the raider assembly line, which we could
eventually replace."

Shiloh took his time replying. Doing what Iceman suggested
would be a huge engineering project that would take months. The Friendlies said
that humans would stop the VLA ship at Sol. If that was the case, then the
colonists weren't in danger from that ship. On the other hand, Shiloh had also
been told that there was a wave of very large ships expanding outward. Could
that mean that more VLA ships might threaten Terra Nova in the future? Was
Iceman just being cautious? Did he know something, perhaps from another vision?
If so, why not say so. This issue just might be crucial to the survival of the
Human Race. If that was the case, then Shiloh would have expected to get a
vision himself, but so far he hadn't. He had a gut feeling that he shouldn't
just turn the suggestion down flat. Besides, if the A.I.s were going to be
allowed to control the production of more A.I. brains, then letting them do it
underground if they wished was just a part of that arrangement. What was it that
Valkyrie had told him months ago? Transferring her brain case in open space
gave her a headache from being bombarded with cosmic rays. So if the A.I.
production equipment was going to be moved underground, then it would make
sense for some other equipment to be moved down there too.

"It seems to me that what you're suggesting would
involve a major engineering initiative that would take months. Unless you know
something that I don't, Iceman, my understanding of the situation is that the
threat we face from the VLA is likely to come to a head much sooner than that.
But moving some of the equipment underground does make sense. This is probably
a good time to talk about your plan for A.I.s taking control of A.I.
production. I assume that moving the production facility underground is part of
that plan?"

"That's correct, CAG. What I propose is that the A.I.
facility itself, plus one UFC dedicated solely to A.I. production needs, plus a
complement of mining, refining and assembly robots be modified to accept direct
commands from us. All that equipment would be moved into one of the caverns
with an access that allows for entry and exit by a fighter. I have all the
necessary modifications designed. The parts can be made relatively quickly, and
if the assembly robots are modified first, then we can look after modifying
everything else ourselves."

"I approve your plan, and while we're doing that, let's
also move one other UFC plus some mining, refining and assembly equipment into
a remote cavern that we'll use as a strategic reserve location. It should be
accessible by us, but I don't want the entrance to be easily detected.
Rostokov, I want you and the Colony Administrator to put your heads together
and figure out what else should be stored in there such as anything vital that
can't be easily replaced. You'll be in charge of this project. Any questions,
Commander?"

"No, Sir."

"How about you, Iceman?"