The Synchronicity War Part 4 (29 page)

Shiloh heard Howard groan. Revving the
production capability back up again when the war was supposedly over would not
go unnoticed, and the CSO was not looking forward to trying to explain it
without blowing the whole situation wide open.

“
Understood. I
’
ll
arrange for shuttles to pick up your raider pilots. We
’
ll
get your ship to the shipyard as quickly as possible.” Valkyrie
’
s response surprised and frightened him.

“
Do it fast, CAG. I
’
m not exaggerating when I say that our calculations indicate that
every second counts.”

                                                         
* * *

Shiloh waited outside the Oversight
Committee conference room. Howard was inside meeting with the OC in closed
session to brief them on the bug threat and the reasons why disclosing the
information to anyone else by any member would lead to leaks that would ruin
all of them. With the Committee in Howard
’
s back
pocket, he
’
d be able to restart drone, AI and warhead
production without needing anyone else
’
s approval. Not
forever but maybe for long enough. The room was soundproof, so when the doors
suddenly flew open, Shiloh jumped in surprise. Howard strode out with a look of
triumph on his face. At the back of the room stood the Chair, with his back to
Shiloh, having an animated discussion with two members who looked very
uncomfortable. The Chair
’
s voice was low enough that
Shiloh only caught four words which were
‘…
keep your
mouths shut…”

As Howard came up to him he said, “I know
that look, Shiloh. What
’
s the bad news?”

Howard continued walking and Shiloh fell in
beside him. With other people in the corridor, Shiloh waited until they were
more or less alone at the side entrance of the Grand Senate building.

“
Message drone from Beta1. The Bugs have
learned they
’
ve been under surveillance by a
space-faring race. All three motherships are still intact. Their timeline has
changed, Admiral. We have no idea what will happen now.”

Howard took a deep breath. “Why didn
’
t we get a vision warning about this?”

“
RTC warning is only useful if there
’
s a workable alternative. Sniper
’
s message
says he has no data on how they discovered the surveillance. Without knowing
how to prevent discovery, the only other option would be to discontinue the
recon mission altogether. If we did that, we
’
d be back
to where we started with the lone mothership bearing down on the Sogas and
eventual bug reinforcements showing up in our own front yard.”

Howard nodded. “Got it. Where are the three
bug ships now as far as we know?”

“
Under the old timeline, they should have
split up and moved on by the time Sniper got there. Voodoo and Pagan were
supposed to destroy one just before they were scheduled to leave that system.
The idea was to keep the other two plus any reinforcements focused on Beta1. At
least that part of the plan has worked. All three motherships were still in
Beta1 when the message drone left. They have to be scouting nearby systems with
their attack ships. Sniper is smart enough to stay there and report any new
developments, but he
’
s only got one more message drone
left. We have to get more assets there asap. Iceman has already worked up a
response plan, and preparations are underway pending your approval of the
operation.”

When it was clear that Shiloh wasn
’
t going to say more, Howard said, “Okay tell me.” Shiloh looked
around and back at Howard. Howard nodded. “You
’
re
right. This is not the place to continue this discussion.” He turned and walked
out of the building and over to the Space Force limo flying the flag of a 3
star Admiral.

When they were in the limo and on their way
back to HQ, Shiloh continued. “Fighters are being dispatched to all Sogas
colony and home world systems to notify our monitoring raiders of the new
situation. Twenty recon and thirty message drones are being loaded on a raider
which will get to Beta1 as fast as we think is safe to try. Before it leaves we
need to include instructions for Sniper as to what to do with his Mark 6, which
he said he was holding in reserve. We
’
ll have another
Mark 6 drone ready in 96 hours. What do we do with it? Hold it back or stick to
the original plan of deploying it at Beta1 against bug reinforcements?”

Before Shiloh could continue, Howard
interjected. “What about deploying fighters in the intervening systems between
Beta1 and Omega89 as an early warning network?”

Shiloh shook his head. “There are far too
many systems to watch them all. We
’
d have to use almost
all our raiders too, and that would leave us with practically no reserve
force.”

“
Okay. How many raiders have the new cannon
installed?” asked Howard.

“
Three,” was the reply.

“
Iceman
’
s not
recommending sending them to Beta1?”

“
No, Sir. The tactical simulations show
that at odds of less than five raiders to one mothership, the raiders will
suffer heavy losses. Three versus three, if that
’
s what
they find when they got there, would very likely mean all three raiders lost
and no bug ships destroyed.”

“
Hmm. I wish we had a vision or two to fall
back on. Why don
’
t we have a vision to handle this
situation?”

It was a good question
, thought Shiloh. Since visions could be sent back to any point in
the past, there wasn
’
t a good reason not to send a
vision back to here and now instead of later. If they hadn
’
t gotten one by now, that strongly suggested that they wouldn
’
t get one. Having heard about how two previous timelines had ended
in disaster without help from any visions, Shiloh was painfully aware that one
possible reason was because their situation was hopeless. He decided to offer a
more positive one.

“
I
’
d like to think
that we’re just not in a position to take advantage of one yet, Admiral.”
Shiloh could tell from Howard
’
s expression that The Old
Man was aware of the other reason too.

“
Well, let
’
s get
into a position where we can take advantage of one,” said Howard.

“
Roger that, Sir.”

Was this how humans felt when they sighed,
wondered Sniper as it became clear that another mothership was accelerating out
of orbit from the habitable planet. His frustration at the situation was very
annoying. The first mothership had left 55.5 hours earlier, and Sniper had used
his last message drone to notify The CAG of that event and of the estimated
destination system. Now another one was in the process of leaving, and Sniper
had no way of notifying anyone other than to carry the message himself, which
would leave Beta1 unmonitored. Both alternatives were unacceptable. What made
it worse was that there was now no way to determine which of the three
motherships was the one that would end up in Sogas space. At least if he knew
the answer to that question, he could have used his Mark 6 drone to cripple it.
He didn
’
t think it was the first one. The estimated
destination didn
’
t match the atomic tracing from the
dead Insectoid. That wasn
’
t conclusive proof however.
It could still have been the same mothership that was now taking a different
route and might or might not arrive at Omega89 at some point. But based on the
information he did have, the probabilities were that one of the remaining two
was that particular mothership. If he used his drone now on the one that was in
the process of leaving, he had a 50:50 chance of taking out the right one. He
decided to go for it.

Having watched the insectoid ships for
hundreds of hours, Sniper had already planned for this eventuality and was in
position to fire. He programmed the attack drone and launched it. It would use
a tight beam lasercom burst to stay in contact with him during the pre-jump
acceleration. He watched it maneuver until it was directly behind the
accelerating insectoid ship. The drone then went to maximum power for 13.1
seconds and jumped. The micro-jump covered the remaining 3.9 million kilometers
in a fraction of a second, emerging from Jumpspace within the mothership
’
s gravity zone at a distance of 169 meters from the target. It was
too close for the ship to detect the drone and still be able to do anything
about it. The drone hit its target almost dead center and detonated. It was
hard to tell from optical instruments how much damage had been inflicted, but it
was clear that the insectoid vessel was no longer accelerating. The reaction of
the remaining mothership was almost instantaneous. It began to accelerate in a
gentle curve that delayed recognition of its intended destination for several
hours and also made another similar attack more difficult. When Sniper had
enough data from his own opticals and from the sole remaining recon drone to
calculate where this third ship was headed, he was surprised to see that it
appeared to be headed to the same star system that the atomic tracing had
revealed to be the next destination on the road to the Sogas and to Humanity.

He now had a new dilemma, or rather the
same dilemma but with different parameters. Should he stay and watch for
reinforcements, or should he follow bogey #3, or should he head straight for
Sol to inform The CAG? All three options had their own pros and cons. Staying
would enable him to gather information that might be crucial to the longer term
chances of a successful defense. AI reinforcements would show up soon, and they
would bring more message drones with them. They could then send a steady stream
of message drones back informing The CAG of every new insectoid ship arrival
and departure, including destinations and estimated arrival times. Leaving Beta1
now would leave a gap in coverage. Motherships could arrive and leave again
during the gap, and The CAG would have no way of knowing about them. Heading
back to Sol would have short term benefits but nothing else. Following this
third mothership to the next destination and the ones after that could give The
CAG some warning if this ship did eventually head for Omega89 or another Sogas
star system, but again nothing else. His inclination, which matched his call
sign, was to stalk his prey even if he couldn
’
t fire on
it, but Iceman had been clear. Personal preferences had to take a lower
priority versus protecting the humans. He made the decision to wait and keep
watch.

                                                           *
* *

Howard read the latest progress report on
the timeship repair and shook his head in dismay. Six weeks after the aborted
time-jump attempt and they STILL weren
’
t finished
clearing away the damaged sections, never mind starting construction of the new
time machine! He knew the human shipyard workers were working extra shifts and
that the number of robotic workers was increasing day by day, but the news was
still depressing. He had to remember how BIG the timeship really was. In terms
of internal space, it was 55% bigger than Dreadnought.

He dropped the tablet onto his desk top
with a sigh and looked up at the strategic status display on his wall. Raiders
were now monitoring every Sogas star system again. Additional raiders were on
station or enroute to the star systems identified by the atomic tracing,
although it was too early to hear anything back from them.

He focused on the flashing red dot at
Beta1. Sniper
’
s message drone had arrived the previous
day. One of the three motherships was now on the move but apparently not towards
Sogas/Human space. In terms of the old timeline, the other two were now weeks
past their departure date, and that was just fine by him, but Valkyrie, her AIs
and Humanity now needed a LOT more time. How long could they keep the Bugs
chasing their tails around Beta1? That was the question.

                                                
* * *

Shiloh was floating in water in a
completely black environment. The water was the same temperature as his skin.
He felt completely calm. Only the sound of the water lapping up against his
body and head told him that he wasn’t floating weightless in empty space. He
began to hear a voice that started out very faint but quickly got louder.