The Synchronicity War Part 3 (9 page)

Titan's reply took less than eight point eight seconds,
which indicated that he hadn't waited to hear Shiloh's entire idea.

"An interesting plan, CAG, but I have a better one. We
modify six raiders so that we can control them remotely. Each raider will be
loaded with 10 Mark 1bs. Those six raiders plus six controller raiders will
begin their attack runs at very long range in order to reach 50% of light
speed. The rest of TF94 will jump to the edge of the planet's gravity zone and
fire 240 recon drones. The recon drones will saturate the targets with active
scanning and relay their data back to the controller raiders, which will have
enough time to order their unpiloted raiders to make last minute vector
changes. The recon drones won't last long, but with that many, they should last
long enough to pinpoint the targets' exact positions. When the final course
corrections have been made, the unpiloted raiders will streak in and collide
with the cores. The collisions themselves should be sufficient to cripple the
cores, but even if they aren't, the 10 Mark 1 detonations will obliterate
whatever's left. In terms of the VLA response, I expect them to fire at the
recon drones first. The raiders that launched them will follow in their wake,
but the unpiloted raiders will pass them, and because they then represent the
highest threat to the VLO cores, I expect that the defending ships will switch
their fire from the recon drones to the unpiloted raiders. While they're doing
that, our follow-on wave of raiders will be firing on their ships. If we don't
destroy them all on the first pass, we can swing around and make a second pass,
and I would expect us to have numerical superiority at that point."

Shiloh leaned back and took his time considering Titan's
plan. It had the advantage of using only two thirds of their attack drone
inventory, but on the negative side, they'd be using up almost all of their
recon drones. That didn't bother him that much. Recon drones were a lot easier
to manufacture than attack drones with their fusion warheads. If they had to,
they could ramp up the recon drone assembly line to build one new drone per
hour. What concerned him more was whether the unpiloted raiders could stand up
to defensive fire during the five to ten seconds when they would be within
range of enemy fire.

Knowing Titan as he did, Shiloh was sure the A.I. had taken
that into account, and so he asked him, "How confidant are you that the
unpiloted raiders will survive the defensive fire long enough to hit the
target?"

After the expected wait, Titan answered. "Highly
confident, CAG. Consider that by the time they are subject to defensive laser
fire, the unpiloted raiders will no longer have to maneuver. Even if the laser
fire damages the engines, the power plant and knocks out the unsophisticated
auto-pilot, the damaged raider will still hit its target."

A thought came to Shiloh. "What if the Bugs pilot their
craft in front of the incoming raider to collide with it before it reaches the
VLO core?"

"The auto-pilots will be programmed to track enemy
craft visually, and if any of them pose a collision threat, the raider will
fire a Mark 1 at it. And even if they do collide with a raider, at 50% of light
speed our raiders will have so much kinetic energy that, in my estimation,
enough of the raider will remain intact to cripple the target core. The Mark 1
fusion warheads won't be armed until the last second before impact with the
target. That way a premature collision won't detonate them"

"I see. What percentage losses do you expect in the
follow-on wave from enemy fire?"

"Twenty percent or less, CAG."

Quickly, Shiloh did the math. Twenty percent equated to five
raiders plus the six sacrificial lambs for a total loss of eleven raiders out
of a pre-attack force of thirty-four, with only five A.I.s lost. If they
achieved their objective, then 5 A.I.s was an acceptable price. While he hated
to lose any of them, he was enough of a realist to know that you don't win a
war without at least some losses, and making these kinds of tough decisions was
what being the CSO and CAG was all about.

"I approve your plan, but I'm curious about why the SPG
didn't think of this tactic."

"Some of us A.I.s are better at tactics, and others are
better at strategy. I belong to the former group, and the SPG belong to the
latter, CAG."

Shiloh laughed. "Maybe I should create a Tactical
Planning Group as well."

"If you did, I would be an excellent leader for that
group, CAG."

Shiloh laughed again, even louder. Like Iceman, Titan was
supremely confident of his own abilities. Come to think of it, all the A.I.s
were confident about their abilities. He had yet to come across one that had
any apparent self-doubts. And no wonder. Comparatively, humans must seem as
slow as turtles both physically and mentally. Thank God the A.I.s were
supremely patient!

"If I decide to create a TPG, I'll give your proposal
serious consideration, Titan. With regards to this strike mission, here are
your orders. You will take TF94 to Omega54 with the primary objective of
destroying or at least crippling all six VLOs under construction. However, that
objective is not, I repeat not to be accomplished at all costs. If, in your
assessment, TF94 would suffer a loss of more than … two thirds of its strength
in trying to take out all six, then eliminating a lesser number of targets in
order to conserve task force strength is an acceptable outcome. We can always
go back for a second strike if necessary. Mopping up the remaining smaller
craft is a secondary objective that should only be attempted if it can be
accomplished with minimal losses. Any questions?"

"None, CAG. I've already picked and contacted the boys
I want to take along. TF94 will be loaded and ready on schedule."

"Excellent. Let me know when TF94 is ready to leave
orbit. CAG clear."

When TF94 was ready, Shiloh broadcast to all TF94's pilots,
told them that he had the highest confidence in them, and wished them 'Good
Hunting'. Eleven hours after TF94 had jumped away, the Friendlies returned.
Shiloh was expecting to have another video conversation with the tall alien,
but no visual communications were offered. As soon as Terra Nova acknowledged
the alien ship's announced arrival, it transmitted the science data as
promised. The download took almost an hour, and Shiloh had to get all the A.I.s
that were still on Terra Nova or its moon to help record the massive amounts of
data. When the download was complete, the alien ship jumped away without any
further communication. This struck Shiloh as very odd and more than just a
little unfriendly.

It was the second morning after the data download.  Shiloh
arrived at his office in the Ops Center building and found his Head of Advanced
Weapons Development sitting there, talking to himself. The man had his back to
Shiloh, and when Shiloh walked around to stand behind his desk, he was shocked
by Daniels' haggard look. There were dark rings around his bloodshot eyes, and
he had a haunted expression.
Oh, oh. This looks like bad news,
he
thought to himself.

"What's the matter, Daniels?" he asked as he sat
down.

"What? There's nothing the matter, but I had to see you
right away. My team and I have been up all night talking with the A.I.s about
the science data. Incredible … incredible stuff. Whether we can actually
engineer any of it … I don't know, but we have to try."

Shiloh held up his hand. "Slow down. I have no idea
what you're talking about. Start at the beginning."

"The beginning … right. Well … the A.I.s are struggling
to comprehend the implications of what the data means. Most of it is
experimental data, the kind of thing that a scientist would do in his lab.
Proof of concept experiments … that kind of stuff. There's actually very little
engineering knowledge in it, but we've come up with a list of improvements to
equipment that we're already using. For example, our inertial dampeners. If
what the A.I.s suspect is the case, we might be able to triple the efficiency
of our dampeners. That means that our ships and drones could accelerate three
times as fast without overloading the IDs. We can make use of that improvement
by adding more power units to our ships. Our carriers could then accelerate
about 50% faster than the raiders currently can, and when we upgrade the
raiders … my God, they'll be able to accelerate at almost 2,000Gs!" He
stopped talking and seemed to be mesmerized by something in the distance that
only he could see.

Shiloh waited a few seconds and then asked. "That all
sounds very impressive but what about weapons, Daniels?"

Daniels snorted and waived his hand in the air. "How
about lasers that are 10 times more powerful than what we can build now, and
that's just the tip of the iceberg … NO … it's just the TIP of the tip of the
iceberg. Take X-ray lasers for example. We were well on our way to engineering
an X-ray laser weapon that was powered by a nuclear detonation, which meant
that the weapon would be a one shot system that destroys itself when it's used,
but you'd get a hell of a bang for your buck. Now we're seeing inklings …
remember the iceberg analogy ... that it may be possible to build a device that
fires an X-ray laser more than once. And if we can figure out how to do that,
we might be able to go one step further and build a gamma ray laser that will
slice through even the thickest armor like a hot knife through butter. The
science data says it's possible in theory, but figuring out the engineering for
the damn things will be hellishly difficult. That's why we need a lot more
A.I.s."

That last statement puzzled Shiloh. "Why do we need a
lot more A.I.s?"

"Because solving these engineering problems will
require a multi-discipline approach. The concepts are almost certainly going to
be so complicated that only someone who's an expert in several scientific
fields will understand them. For we humans, that will take decades to learn.
The A.I.s can become experts in a matter of weeks or even days, but grinding
through the data and conceptualizing possible approaches to the engineering
solutions will go a lot faster if there are multiple A.I. experts who can
combine their computational power. Look at it this way. One A.I. expert can
find the solution, but it might take a decade or more to do it. A hundred A.I.
experts can find the same solution in a couple of months and that's just for
one engineering project. If it sounds like I'm exaggerating, I'm just passing
on what the SPG A.I.s told me. They've 'tasted' the data and factored in their
own computational abilities, so I'm inclined to think they have a better grasp
of the magnitude of this than I do."

Shiloh nodded his understanding. If the A.I.s believed it
would take that kind of an effort, then he believed them, but something was
bothering him. He finally figured out what it was.

"Everything you've told me has the potential of being
incredibly favorable to our race's survival, and yet you look like you've just
been told you have a terminal illness. What aren't you telling me,
Daniels?"

Daniels sighed, closed his eyes and leaned back in his
chair. With his eyes still closed he said, "Time travel."

"You mean Retro-Temporal Communication?" asked
Shiloh.

Daniels shook his head. "No. I mean actual, honest to
God time travel. When the SPG started to analyze the data download, the first
thing they had to do was translate the alien math into human math. That took
them almost a whole day. One of the SPG A.I.s, who goes by the call sign
Blackjack of all things, seems to be particularly brilliant when it comes to
theoretical math. He told me last night that the Friendlies have developed a
math that proves that sending matter backwards in time is possible, AND that
they've experimentally proven that it can be done."

There was something in Daniels tone that made Shiloh ask,
"Why do I feel there's a 'but' coming?"

"Because there is, and it's a HUGE 'but'. They were
able to send one single hydrogen atom back in time. Just ONE, and it took a
machine the same mass as one of our raiders. The problem is that if you want to
send something more massive back in time, you need to scale up the time machine
by the same factor. So sending a human would require a device that masses the
same as Earth's moon. THAT'S what's haunting me. Don't you see, Sir? If we
could actually travel back in time, not just send information back, we could
alter the past and not only win the war but prevent the Plague. We could save
billions of humans, but the engineering required is many orders of magnitude beyond
anything we could ever hope to achieve in our lifetimes!"

Shiloh noticed that Daniels had tears running down his face,
and he suddenly understood. Someone close to Daniels had been a victim of the
bio-weapon. He could see a faint light at the end of a very long tunnel but
despaired of ever being able to reach that light.

"Who did you lose to the Plague?" asked Shiloh.

"My sister and her family, Sir."

Shiloh nodded but said nothing for a while. When he did
speak, he spoke slowly and with a low tone.

"I think there is something we should keep in mind when
we consider the possibility of altering the past. My experience with
retro-temporal communication has taught me that we have to be very careful
about messing with the past. Sometimes the obvious solution isn't the best one,
and if there was ever a case where good intentions could have bad outcomes,
time travel might very well be it. I'm actually relieved that time travel isn't
easy. If it was, we'd be tempted to do those obvious things, and we might make
things even worse. This isn't just our family's future that we're trying to
alter, it's the future of the entire Human Race and I suggest to you that we
should not risk the few survivors we have in order to try to save everyone. Let
go of that longing, and you'll be a lot happier, Daniels."

Daniels took a deep breath and nodded. "You're right of
course. I was looking at it too narrowly. I'll try to stay focused on the other
possibilities. Speaking of which, how should we prioritize our engineering efforts?
There are so many things that we could be working on, but we have such limited
resources."

"I'll need more information before I can answer that
question. Tell the SPG to evaluate the time, resources needed and probability
of success for any concept that would improve acceleration, detection, stealth,
communications, armor and weapons. When I've seen that report, I'll set some
priorities. Any questions?"

"No, Sir. I'll get right on that."

"Very good, Daniels. Carry on then."

Daniels smiled as he stood up and saluted. "I feel
better now. Thank you, Sir."

After Daniels left, Shiloh leaned back in his chair and
wished he were just a frigate commander again. Conning a ship was so much
simpler than making life or death decisions for the whole Human Race. And while
the Friendly data certainly had the potential to enhance Space Force's combat
capability, getting that result depended on him setting the right priorities.
Should he concentrate their limited resources on weapons first? That was the
obvious thing to do, but it might not be the strategically smart thing to do.
Then again it might be, and that was the conundrum. Ah well, that's what he had
the SPG for. No sense worrying about priorities before he saw the evaluation he
asked for. With a sigh he picked up his data tablet and started reading the
first of many daily reports.