Synchronicity War Part 1, The (22 page)

“Five of six bogeys intercepted. Sorry we let one get
through, CAG,” said Iceman.

Shiloh waited a few seconds before responding. “What did you
learn from this simulation, Iceman?”

“The fifth bogey could have been intercepted if Hunter and
Maverick had maneuvered close enough for converging fire,” said Iceman
immediately.

Shiloh had to stop to analyze that answer.
My God, he’s
right
, he thought. With attack drones coming from two completely different
directions, the frigate’s counter-fire would have been far less effective.
There was no way that a human pilot could reach that conclusion without the
assistance of some kind of computer.

“Since the objective of these simulated battles is to learn
from our mistakes, I would say that this exercise was a success from that point
of view. Your team has performed well, Iceman. Were there any equipment issues
that I should be aware of?”

“No, CAG. These birds performed perfectly. What are your
orders after we recover our drones?”

Shiloh grinned. He had the answer to that already figured
out. “After all drones have been recovered, I want your flight to re-assemble
and take up station behind Vanguard, in a V formation. Maintain the V formation
as precisely as you can. Let’s show the Squadron Leader and the other COs what
you fighters can do.”

“Ah, roger that, CAG. We’ll put on a good show for you.”

Shiloh couldn’t help chuckling. Iceman was sounding more and
more human by the minute. “Very good, Iceman. Unless you have something else to
convey, you’re free to carry out your orders.”

“Iceman clear.”

With the lengthy recovery process now underway, Shiloh felt
free to get up from his Command Station and walk over to Johansen’s station.

She looked at him as he came close and said, “My frigates
came out on top.”

Shiloh gave her a small smile and said, “One out of six
frigates got through the outer layer of defense. That’s true. But are you going
to congratulate your frigate COs when you debrief them, considering that they
lost 83% of their combined strength, or are you going to berate them?”

Johansen took a deep breath and said in a somewhat chastised
voice, “I’ll be honest. I’m inclined to chew them out. I really thought more of
them would get through. Then again, they are only exploration frigates, after
all.”

Shiloh said nothing.

When it became clear that he wasn’t going to say anything
more, Johansen said, “How long will it take your CFPs to recover their drones?”

Shiloh knew the answer to that. Iceman had already figured
it out and had transmitted the information digitally to Shiloh’s consol.

“Eleven hours and thirty-five minutes is the estimate from
Iceman.”

Johansen raised her eyebrows. “Iceman?”

Shiloh forgot that she hadn’t been listening to his com
channel chatter.

“CFP0001’s call sign. He picked it himself.”

“He? You’re referring to an A.I. as a male? Why not she? We
refer to our ships as ‘she’ don’t we?”

“Well, if the picked call sign had been IceWOMAN, then I’d
probably refer to it as a she. It’s hard to think of IceMAN as a she.”

Johansen didn’t have a snappy comeback for that one.

Chapter 14 Stepping Over The Line In
The Sand

The squadron remained near Jupiter for several more days.
Two more exercises showed that the five fighter A.I.s were getting better as
time went along. As a result, Johansen was getting more and more irritated with
her frigate COs, which Shiloh thought was unfair. Their combat training was
minimal, and their ships weren’t really designed for multiple ship combat. With
the exercises finally over, the squadron received orders to return to lunar
orbit to pick up the rest of the Task Force that Johansen would take to Bradley
Base. When the eight ships and five fighters slipped into lunar orbit, Shiloh
saw that Admiral Howard wasn’t wasting any time. Two tankers were ready to take
the five fighters onboard and ferry them to their destination star system.

Until the new carriers were ready, fighters had to be transported
by tankers in place of some of the fuel shuttles that they usually carried.
Shiloh suspected that as the fleet gradually transitioned to ships that could
refuel themselves, tankers would eventually be used primarily as fighter
transports. In addition to the two tankers, there was also a supply ship
carrying new equipment, plus lots of recon and attack drones. After all ships
were topped up with fuel, Johansen gave the order for the Task Force to head
out for the trip to Bradley Base. The trip seemed long to Shiloh, even though
he’d made the it multiple times. He wondered how the A.I.s were handling the
wait. To the lightning fast minds of Artificial Intelligences, days of doing
nothing must seem like eternities. Shiloh had briefed Iceman, Hunter and the
others before they boarded the tankers, and they knew what to expect.

Upon their arrival at the star system containing Bradley
Base, Shiloh was relieved to learn that no sign of alien ships had been
detected, although the base didn’t have any of the new jump detection gear
prior to the Task Force’s arrival. If the aliens had carried out reconnaissance
here, they had done it very carefully. By prior arrangement, all five fighters
had their unarmed practice attack drones replaced with the real thing. As soon
as the Task Force emerged from Jumpspace, the tankers deployed the fighters,
which then accelerated at 400Gs to take up their assigned patrol stations.
Bradley Base was under a steel dome built on a moon orbiting the system’s only
gas giant. Johansen’s squadron joined the two squadrons composed solely of
exploration frigates, and Senior Commander Korolev assumed command of the
combined force as the designated Task Force Leader. That opened up some
interesting possibilities now that Johansen and Shiloh were equals in both rank
AND position, but Shiloh wasn’t sure if Johansen had any interest in something
other than a professional relationship. She had never given even a hint that
she might be receptive to something more. Shiloh decided to wait and see. He
suspected that, whatever else, Johansen probably would not want to risk having
rumors spread among her crew, even though a more intimate relationship wouldn’t
be breaking any regulations. Off duty between missions might be okay, but not
while a mission was in progress.

After a few days, Shiloh settled down into a routine.
Korolev insisted on some kind of tactical exercise every 24 hours, which kept
the fighters happy but made everyone else grumble. Shiloh was pleased when the
duplicate autonomous units control station was assembled in the Base itself.
That meant that the drones and fighters would not be left hanging if something
happened to Vanguard. The Lt. Cmdr. assigned as Shiloh’s Deputy CAG was one of
the test pilots he had worked with at the Alpha Base. What Sejanus lacked in tactical
skills was more than made up for by his easy and natural interaction with the
fighter A.I.s. He recognized them as more than just soulless machines.

When almost two months had passed without any signs of the
aliens, Shiloh allowed himself to be less anxious. With additional frigates,
supplies, drones, and – more importantly to Shiloh – more fighters arriving on
a regular basis, his worry about the Line in the Sand not being sufficiently
defended started to abate. When the second batch of fighters arrived, Shiloh
and Sejanus discovered something very interesting about the fighter A.I.s. The
new CFPs were controlled by A.I.s  far less developed in terms of their own
identities. He had queried Iceman about that, and the A.I. explained that the
‘rookies’ just needed time to develop new neural pathways that would be unique
to them. At Iceman’s suggestion, each rookie fighter was ‘paired’ up with one
of what Shiloh was starting to think of as ‘the veterans’. Even though they weren’t
operating physically close together, low-powered laser communication meant they
could communicate with each other far faster than with a human mentor. Within
several days of the arrival of the rookies, all five of them had chosen their
own call signs and were beginning to display their own unique speech patterns,
much to the obvious delight of Iceman, Hunter and the others.

The days turned into weeks, and the weeks started to turn
into months. With absolutely no sign of any alien incursion or even a quick
recon mission, Korolev was beginning to wonder out loud if the whole
Line-in-the-Sand strategy was a failure. Maybe the aliens had reconsidered
their aggressive posture and were holding back, or maybe they were flanking the
Base system altogether to bypass its defenses.

It was on the 55th day that the aliens made their presence
felt. Shiloh happened to be on the Base itself when word arrived by messenger
drone that a convoy of supply ships and tankers had come under laser fire from
a dozen alien ships. The convoy was too deep into the gravity zone of a gas
giant to be able to microjump away. With Vanguard orbiting the Base, Shiloh
decided to assume control of the fighters from the ground in order to save
time. As he arrived at the Base’s Control Center he heard Korolev speaking.

“Commander Johansen will take her squadron and the 88th to
search the ambush system for survivors, and to engage any enemy ships that
might still be lurking there. Any questions?”

He was speaking to all five squadron leaders whose video
images were on the main display. Shiloh could see that Johansen wasn’t happy
with those orders, and he thought he knew why. Sending two of five squadrons
away from this system would weaken it considerably and was in contravention of
the stated goal of beefing up Bradley’s defenses. When it became clear that
Johansen wasn’t going to say anything, Shiloh decided that he would.

“If this attack is a diversion meant to pull some of our
forces away from Bradley, then we’d be doing the wrong thing.”

Korolev was clearly surprised by Shiloh’s presence and
challenge.

“What would you suggest instead, Commander? Should I just
ignore the fate of hundreds of our fellow comrades who may be injured, and who
may die if they don’t get assistance?”

“No, Sir. I suggest sending a much smaller contingent.
Specifically, a combat frigate carrying one fi—CFP, accompanied by a support
ship, to emerge at the edge of that system where the CFP can be used to recon
the ambush site. If there are survivors and no signs of the enemy, then the
frigate and support ship can move in to render assistance.”

Korolev didn’t blink an eye.

“And what if the recon shows that there are enemy ships
still in the vicinity, using the survivors as bait for another ambush the way
they did in your first encounter, Commander? The relief force will then be
outnumbered, and more time will be wasted while they send a drone back asking
for reinforcements. No! With two squadrons deployed, we’ll still have 24
frigates plus your 20 CFPs to defend this Base. I’ll take the risk of an attack
here. I think the aliens know we’re too strong here, and they’ve decided to
bypass the base altogether. My order stands, Commander.”

Turning to look at Johansen’s image, he said, “Do you wish
to object to my order for the record, Commander Johansen?”

Shiloh’s heart sank when she said, “No, Sir. I’ll take the
88th and my squadron to search for survivors immediately, Sir.”

“Very good, Commander. Carry on. Task Force Leader clear.”

Korolev turned to Shiloh and said, “With Vanguard no longer
available for you to use to control your drones, you’ll no doubt want to take
your station on the ground here, Commander.”

The statement was so self-evident, that Shiloh could only
interpret it as a command for him to attend to his duties and to leave the
strategizing to wiser heads. He nodded his assent to Korolev and turned to
relieve Sejanus at the autonomous units control station.

“I’ll take over, Marcus,” said Shiloh.

As his deputy got up, he said in a quiet voice that Korolev
wouldn’t hear. “For what it’s worth, Boss, I agree with you.”

Shiloh nodded, but he said nothing.

When he was settled in, Shiloh reviewed the status of his 20
fighters. Four of them were in the Base hanger bay getting refueled plus a quick
maintenance check. As Sejanus was about to leave, Shiloh turned to him.

“I want you to go down to the hanger bay and get those
fighters ready to launch as soon as possible. Light a fire under the
maintenance crews if you have too.”

“You got it, Boss,” said Sejanus.

When he was gone, Shiloh looked at his Tactical display. The
15 fighters currently on patrol were slowly orbiting the gas giant at a
distance of a million kilometers so that their jump detection gear would
overlap as much as possible. This would allow for triangulation of the exact
position of any ships emerging from Jumpspace. Johansen’s 007 squadron and the
88th squadron were accelerating while coming to a new heading for their
eventual entry into Jumpspace. Shiloh was surprised to see that the projected
course would be exactly parallel to a line that ran from this system’s sun,
through the gas giant that Bradley’s moon was orbiting, to the ambush star
system. The alignment was so precise that Shiloh couldn’t help thinking it
wasn’t a coincidence, although he couldn’t come up with any reason for it.

A quick check of the Tactical display showed that it would
take almost an hour and a half for Johansen’s squadrons to get far enough away
from the gas giant’s gravity zone to be able to enter Jumpspace safely. With an
acceleration of 133Gs, their velocity would be over 7,220 kilometers per second
by the time they reached that point. Shiloh opened a com channel to Vanguard
and spoke in a voice low enough that Korolev wouldn’t hear him.

“Vanguard, this is the CAG. I’d like to speak with CO
Johansen.” The reply was almost immediate.

“This is Vanguard. Standby, CAG.”

Johansen came on the line after several seconds.

“What’s on your mind, Victor?” she said.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Angela. It smells like a
trap to me. How are you planning on proceeding when you emerge from Jumpspace?”
There was a pause.

“I haven’t got that far in my thinking yet. Any
suggestions?”

“Yes. Drop out of Jumpspace well away from the refueling
point, and I mean WELL away! If the aliens are waiting for you, they’ll try to
pick up your emergence point. Since we don’t know what the range of their
detection gear is, I’d rather you err on the side of caution.”

“The problem with that, Victor, is that the further away we
enter the system, the longer it’ll take to reach any survivors.”

“Granted, but you can make up for that by emerging with a
higher velocity. You’ve got enough fuel to do that, right?”

“Hold on. I’ll check that,” said Johansen after a short
pause.

As Shiloh waited for her to confer with her Astrogator, he
noticed that the status lights of one of the fighters in the hanger bay had
changed from yellow, indicating not available, to the green that meant
available for launch. He checked which fighter it was and saw it was Hunter,
the veteran leader of this flight of four. The other three would be rookies.
Shiloh would have been tempted to listen in to any human chatter from those
fighters if he hadn’t been waiting to hear back from his former XO.

“Victor? We’ve got enough fuel to emerge zero point seven
five AUs from where the convoy would normally be, and still get there at a
reasonable time. Any further away than that, and we wouldn’t be able to make up
the time.”

Three quarters of a standard Astronomical Unit was almost
twice the distance that the gravity zone of the target gas giant would require.
I’d double that if I were in command, and to hell with the added time
,
thought Shiloh.
Easy to say,
he then thought.
You’re not the Mission
Commander
.

“Let’s hope that’s far enough,” said Shiloh. He thought for
a couple of seconds before adding, “Listen. Keep your ships out of the target
gravity zone or at least most of them. Let your recon drones go in first while
you’re still decelerating. If it is an ambush, and you stay out of the gravity
zone, you can always microjump away.”

“That’s a good idea, Victor. I’ll definitely keep that in
mind, depending upon what the recon drones find.”

She paused, and something told Shiloh to wait before saying
anything else. When she spoke again, her voice had a sad quality to it. “I’m
glad you’re not on board Vanguard now, Victor.”

Shiloh couldn’t help thinking that she meant she didn’t want
him to suffer the same fate she faced. Friends sometimes said that kind of
thing to each other in situations like this, but so would lovers.
If she
gets back alive, I’m going to ask her how she feels about the two of us
, he
thought.