Synchronicity War Part 1, The (5 page)

After the XO left, Shiloh looked at the partially written
report on his computer screen. The blow-by-blow account was essentially
complete. It was time to move on to the more important part of the report.

“Start new section entitled Analysis. First paragraph …” He
started to talk. Over the following days, he did a lot of talking.

                                                            ***

The short refueling stop was uneventful. Shiloh did his best
to answer the barrage of questions that the base commander fired at him. Space
Force bases were not especially well armored or armed as a rule. Pirates and
smugglers tended to keep well away from them, for obvious reasons. Humanity
hadn’t come in contact with another space faring race until now, so there wasn’t
a perceived need for heavy – and expensive – defenses at fixed stations. The
shock of the station personnel at hearing the news of the battle brought home
to Shiloh just how unprepared Humanity was for this encounter. By the time 344
emerged from Jumpspace beyond the orbit of Jupiter, he and his Executive
Officer had discussed the implications of the alien encounter in considerable
depth, and they both agreed that the Space Force had to plan for a major war.
What worried Shiloh was whether the civilian Oversight Committee members to whom
Space Force answered would see the urgency. The Human Race had to mobilize for
war, and that might be just too much for the committee members to accept and
authorize since they had their own agendas to consider.

By the time the ship received a reply to its warning message,
344 was considerably closer. HQ had ordered them to head for one of the
asteroid shipyards for repairs, with a fast transport tasked with bringing
Shiloh and his crew back to Earth asap. When 344 was safely snuggled within the
deep recesses of the hollowed out asteroid that served as a shipyard, Shiloh
took a few minutes to fly over the damaged sections in a small craft used by
shipyard workers. He was shocked by the transformation of his beautiful, sleek
ship into an ugly, wounded lump of metal. It wasn’t unusual for crewmembers to
form a bond with their ships, of a kind that had started back in the days of
sailing ships. Seeing his ship damaged like this evoked the same emotions he
had felt when he visited his injured crew on the way home. The notion that an
inanimate object had a personality and could feel pain was completely
irrational, but quite common nonetheless. It was with great reluctance that he
boarded the fast transport ship along with the rest of the ship’s crew. Because
of the relative orbital positions of the asteroid and Earth, the trip would
last another 10 hours. Many of the crew took the opportunity to sleep. Even
though he was desperately tired after being awake for almost 20 hours, another
4 hours passed before he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

It was early morning at Headquarters, located in Geneva,
Switzerland, when they arrived at Earthdock. There was a shuttle waiting to
take them to the surface. The trip down was just long enough for Shiloh and his
people to eat a hasty meal. Shiloh knew that HQ already had all of the data,
logs, messages and reports that had been transmitted when 344 emerged from Jumpspace,
but he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that he had forgotten to bring
something.

When the shuttle landed, there was quite the delegation
waiting to greet them. Shiloh and his crew had been told what would happen
next. All personnel would be debriefed separately. The debriefing would be
short for most of them, since they hadn’t been on the Bridge or at any key station
during the battle. Bridge personnel and all Officers and NCOs would go through
a more thorough debriefing. As his crew were sorted and directed to a waiting
convoy of ground transport, Shiloh was busy saluting and shaking hands with
more Space Force brass than he had ever seen in one place at the same time
during his entire career. The greetings were positive but somber in tone. There
were congratulations on his victory and his bringing his damaged ship home, but
he could tell they didn’t feel he’d won a glorious victory, but rather some kind
of consolation prize. It was as if they were saying ‘you started a war, but at
least you won the first battle’.

Shiloh was asked to accompany a Senior Lieutenant to a
waiting limo that was flying the flag of a three star Admiral. After settling
into its very comfortable interior, he waited alone for what seemed like a long
time. The door was still open and he could hear voices coming closer. He was
able to catch the last few phrases.

“—yes, I know it’s a goddamn mess, but we have to keep
acting as if it’s a victory so the public won’t panic.”

“Just wait until the Council hears that we’re in an
interstellar war with an enemy we know nothing about. One that can outgun us! God!
What a mess!”

“Okay. Okay. Let’s hope it’s not as bad as it sounds. I’ll
go with Shiloh. You ride with his XO. We’ll compare notes after the debrief.”

With that, Admiral Howard, Chief of Space Operations for the
United Earth Space Force, entered the limo, nodded to Shiloh, and rapped on the
transparent partition separating the passenger section from the driver. The
door hissed shut, and the limo accelerated smoothly. Howard said nothing for a
few seconds while he looked at Shiloh. Then he opened a compartment in the
middle of the seat, a compartment that Shiloh hadn’t even known was there, and
took out two cigars. Without saying a word, he offered one to Shiloh, who took
it with a curt, ‘Thank you, Sir.’ Howard grunted acknowledgement and lit his
cigar with the limo’s cigarette lighter. He handed Shiloh the still hot device
and the Commander did the same.

After taking a deep puff of his cigar, the Admiral said, “Well,
Commander. You’ve had an interesting trip. I’ve seen the preliminary data you
transmitted, so I know the overall sequence of events. It’s too bad we don’t
know the fate of the 301 and 299, but I expect we’ll get some news sooner or
later.” The Admiral shook his head in obvious disapproval before adding, “I
can’t believe Omar would take his undamaged ships back there after Torres
ordered him to retreat. That was a damned reckless thing to do!”

Shiloh said nothing.

Howard took another puff and then said in a calmer tone, “I’ve
read your report. Very well thought out by the way. I was particularly
impressed with your analysis of the overall implications of the encounter and
battle. How convinced are you that a crash mobilization is needed to defend
against these aliens?”

“Admiral, I’ve given this a LOT of thought on the way back.
The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that we need to start
building ships immediately. Lots of ships, and I don’t just mean more frigates.
We are going to need ships that are far better armored, with more powerful
weapons, and plenty of them. That means bigger ships. MUCH bigger ships. These
aliens will come looking for us, and we need to be ready for them when that
time comes.”

Howard sighed and nodded. “Based on what I’ve learned so
far, I’m reluctantly forced to agree with your assessment. The problem I foresee
is that the kind of response you’re talking about will costs thousands of
billions of credits, and government revenues still haven’t returned to the
level they were before the Depression hit. It’s going to be tough to convince the
politicians that we need to do this. There’s an election within sight, and emergency-spending
programs of this magnitude will have to be financed with increased taxes. I’m
sure you know what that means?”

Shiloh nodded. Howard went on.

“Finding the money to build a fleet of big ships is one
thing. But it also takes time to build ships like that. Do we have that time?”

Shiloh considered his answer carefully. “I just don’t know,
Admiral. The system where the battle took place is over 28 parsecs from Earth.
That’s almost 100 light years away. If they know which direction to go, they’ll
find us soon. But if they don’t, they’ll have a lot of stars to explore. That
will take time, especially if they explore each system with large groups of
ships.”

Shiloh was about to say more, but the Admiral interjected.
“What if they were able to download navigational data from the 319 or 301? Any
idea what the chances of that happening are?”

“Well, Sir, with the security features that our ships have
to prevent unauthorized accessing of data, I’d say there’s only a remote chance
that they would be able to figure out how to access any data without triggering
the self-erase program. In the case of the 319, the video showed the ship had
taken a slashing hit across her Bridge section. From the external damage, I
would guess that there wasn’t much left of the Bridge computer equipment after
that hit. As far as the 301 is concerned, it’s my impression that SL Torres
would understand the necessity to keep the enemy from gaining access to any
information and would take whatever steps were necessary to prevent that. I’m
sure she would have ordered the 299 to take the same precautions.”

“I see,” was all the Admiral said.

Neither of the men said anything else until they arrived at
the underground entrance to Space Force Headquarters. Howard asked Shiloh to
accompany two junior officers to a debriefing room, which he did. After they
got him a coffee, the debriefing session started. Two hours later they brought
in lunch and continued the session while he ate. He answered a barrage of
questions, looked at computer screens showing data that 344 or one of the other
frigates had collected, and tried to explain to them what the data meant. After
another four hours they were done, and Shiloh was exhausted. One of his
debriefers told him that he and all of his officers would be taken to an isolated
but comfortable hotel for the night. Their personal belongings, which they had
brought with them on the shuttle, had been transferred there already. He went
on to explain that while the official debriefing sessions were over, the Brass
wanted to have the opportunity to talk unofficially with at least some of them
the next day. After that they would be given time off to go home and visit
family, or do whatever else they chose.

Shiloh was escorted to the underground garage again, where
he found a Space Force bus waiting for him. Apparently he was the last of the
group to finish the debriefing. He climbed aboard the bus and found all his
officers, as promised, waiting for him. The bus left as soon as he sat down.
Forty-five minutes later they arrived at the hotel. It was comfortable enough
and certainly isolated. As far as he could tell the Space Force group were the
only guests. The staff seemed perfectly at ease, and Shiloh guessed that this
hotel was actually run by the Space Force to take care of the U.E. government
officials and politicos who frequently visited Space Force HQ. That would make
sense from the point of view of securing the safety of the visitors, as well as
allowing them the flexibility to discuss classified information amongst
themselves, without worrying about being overheard by members of the general
public.

That evening he and his officers were finally able to relax.
Several got drunk, and most went to bed early. The next morning at breakfast,
Shiloh got a call from one of Admiral Howard’s aides, informing him that the
four ships under Cmdr. Omar had returned safely from the battle system, and
were en route to Sol via the same base at which 344 had refueled. Their return
would take longer due to the fact that the support ships were coming with them.
The base, known as SFB Bradley, had dispatched a message drone to HQ as soon as
the frigates and support ships had emerged from Jumpspace. Shiloh wanted to
know what Omar’s force had found in the battle system. The aide didn’t know.
She passed on the Admiral’s request, an order really, that Shiloh and Johansen
come to the Headquarters by 0900 hrs. When the aide terminated the call, Shiloh
turned to his XO, who was seated at the same table.

“The CSO wants us back at HQ by 0900. Omar’s ships are on
their way back.”

Johansen’s eyes widened at the mention of the frigates. “Any
word on what happened to them?”

“The Admiral’s aide didn’t know, or wouldn’t say. I’m hoping
we’ll find out when we get there. Let’s finish eating. I don’t want to be
late.”

The XO nodded.
So much for lingering over another cup of
coffee.

Shiloh and Johansen arrived at HQ by 0900, as requested, and
then they were kept waiting in the conference room for almost an hour. Typical
Space Force snafu. Hurry up and wait. What irritated Johansen the most was that
she could have had a second coffee, with plenty of time to enjoy it, if someone
had thought to offer them one. But no one did. Finally Admiral Howard and two
other flag officers, who Shiloh remembered from the arrival delegation the
previous day, entered the room and sat down at the large oval table opposite to
him and the XO. Their expressions were grim. All three opened bright red
folders, and Howard cleared his throat.

“Thank you for being here on time. Unfortunately when you’re
the CSO you sometimes have to be late. As my aide told you, we received word by
message drone from SFB Bradley that four frigates under Commander Omar, plus
the Support Group, were on their way back here. What my aide didn’t know, when
she spoke with you this morning, was what Omar found when he took those ships
back to the system where the battle took place.”

He turned to his right and said, “Sergei, we have to find a
name for that system. We can’t keep calling it the system where the first
battle took place.”

He turned back to Shiloh and Johansen. “I asked you and Commander
Johansen to come here this morning so that we” – he indicated the other two
flag officers – “could pick your brains about the next step. What do we do now?
That’s the question that I’m going to have to go to the Oversight Committee
with answers to, and I need as much input as I can find. But before we get to
that, you both deserve to know the latest situation. While Cmdr. Omar displayed
questionable judgment in returning to the battle system, going against Squadron
Leader Torres’ orders to retreat, he redeemed himself, in my eyes at least, by
his actions once he got there. Upon arrival there was no sign of any Space
Force vessel. No distress signals, no energy emissions of any kind, nothing. Commander
Omar decided to make a short jump to the opposite side of the system in order
to approach the last known location of the 319, 301 and 299 with a vector that
could easily be modified into a jump vector back to the staging system and the
waiting Support Group. But before actually taking his ships to the site of the
ambush on Torres’ ships, he deployed a spread of recon drones at high speed to
actively scan the area in question. His theory was that if the alien ships had
left the vicinity of the ambush, it would be safe to use active scanning. If they
were still there, then the active scanning would detect them. That’s what
happened. The active scanning detected nine ships. Two were apparently adrift
and more or less close together, and the other seven were strategically placed
around the first two. Preliminary analysis of the scan data suggests that the
two drifting ships were the 319 and either the 301 or 299. The other seven are
assumed to be alien vessels waiting for another opportunity to ambush more
ships. It seems that one of the two ships that stayed behind was destroyed
outright. Otherwise, we’d have seen three drifting ships. Once the alien ships
were clearly detected, they destroyed the recon drones. Omar then earned
himself a commendation by ordering another spread of recon drones to ram the
two drifting ships, thereby destroying them. His reasoning was very simple.
Even if there were survivors on those ships, and there’s no evidence to suggest
that there were, there was no way to rescue them without putting even more
lives in serious jeopardy. And without rescue, those survivors would either be
captured or die eventually from lack of life support and food. By destroying
those derelicts, he denied them to the aliens, thereby protecting sensitive
information about our location, technology and capabilities. Once the derelicts
were confirmed destroyed, Omar ordered his ships to jump back to the staging
system where they collected the Support Group and started on their way here. If
this preliminary information checks out, then I’m prepared to approve Commander
Omar’s actions. That pretty much brings you up to date.

“What we’d like to do now is get some ideas from both of you
since you two have a unique insight into this alien threat. You are encouraged
to speak freely and nothing you say will come back to haunt you. I guarantee
it.”

As he said that he looked at his two fellow Flag Officers,
and they nodded. Howard continued.

“Okay, we’ve read your reports, of course. I was
particularly impressed with the gamut of your recommendations. You’ve covered
everything from short-range weapons, to new ship types, to thoughts on grand
strategy. You can both rest assured that our planning staffs will be taking a
hard look at all of your recommendations. But what I want to hear from you now
is your thoughts on priorities. If you were the Chief of Space Operations, what
would you recommend to the Oversight Committee? Commander Shiloh, why don’t you
start off?”

Shiloh nodded. “Yes, Sir.” He paused to collect his
thoughts.

“I look at what the initial situation was when 319
encountered the aliens. I see on the one side a single vessel designed for
exploration with minimal armor and modest weapons. On the other side I see multiple
vessels that seem to be designed for combat. What I can’t see is any rationale
for the aliens to feel at all threatened by 319’s presence. They had numerical
superiority. If anyone had a right to feel threatened, it was the 319, and we
know that our standing orders specifically require our exploration frigates to
attempt peaceful contact regardless of the relative balance of force. And yet
the aliens attacked 319, and then used her as bait. That tells me that they
didn’t just react out of fear. It suggests strongly that they knew exactly what
they were doing and had planned for that eventuality in advance. That kind of
aggressive attitude is what you would expect from a barbarian horde like the
old Mongol invaders. They weren’t interested in peaceful exploration, only
conquest. If that’s the kind of model that they’re following, and I think we
have to assume that it is, then they’ll keep on coming at us no matter what.
With that as the scenario in mind, I think we need to do the following right
away.”

He started counting on the fingers of his left hand.

“First. There should be a crash program to design and deploy
drones that pack a bigger punch. I was able to use our existing recon drones
because they had built up enough velocity to be destructive, even though they
weren’t designed with that purpose in mind. Our ships may not have the time to
build up velocities like that in future confrontations. We should develop
drones that have explosive warheads, kinetic energy warheads, as well as decoy
drones and electronic countermeasure drones. They should be simple to make and
therefore easy to mass-produce. Smaller drones would mean that our frigates
would be able to carry more of them.

“Second. Our ships have to have more armor protection. I
realize that Exploration Frigates weren’t designed for this kind of combat, but
they’re all we have right now. We need to modify them quickly so that they have
at least a chance of lasting long enough to be able to fight back. We may not
even have to add armor to the whole ship. It may be enough in the short run to
just add armor to the more critical areas of the hulls, like the Bridge,
Engineering, Weapon Turrets, Life Support and Tactical Systems.

“Third. If we’re going to go back out there, we should try
to achieve numerical superiority ourselves. That means one or more squadrons
operating together. It also means developing and practicing multiple ship
combat tactics. Up until now we’ve never had to worry about that and therefore
haven’t trained for it.

“Fourth. We need to establish an early warning network of
passive sensor satellites in key systems so that we have advanced warning of
where they are and how many of them there are. That way we can concentrate our
strength, such as it is, to the greatest advantage.

“Fifth.” He paused for effect. “The whole culture of the
Space Force has to be changed. Up until now we’ve been an interstellar police
force concerned with exploration and anti-piracy/anti-smuggling operations. If
we’re going up against the barbarian hordes, we have to start thinking and
acting like an elite fighting force. That means developing the killer instinct,
and identifying those officers who have a knack for strategy and tactics.”

He took a deep breath.

“I can elaborate further on these ideas if you wish, and I
have other thoughts that aren’t within the immediate time frame you specified,
but that’s a quick overview of my thoughts for now.”

“Thank you, Commander.” Howard turned to look at Johansen.

“Proceed, Commander Johansen.”

She leaned forward. “Thank you, Admiral. My thoughts are
very much in agreement with Commander Shiloh’s comments. In addition, I would
like to put forward the following recommendations.

“We don’t know enough about the enemy. We don’t know what
they look like, how they think, where they’re from. We don’t know what level of
technology they have. For all we know, we may be ahead of them in some areas
and behind in others. We don’t know what star systems they inhabit. We need
more intelligence. I see two ways to get it. The first requires that we capture
an alien ship. That has to be a primary objective of any military operations.
Second, we need to do tactical reconnaissance of star systems that may have an
enemy presence. That would entail ships capable of refueling themselves so that
they can operate without support for long periods of time. Eventually we should
design and build a special purpose long-range reconnaissance type, but in the
short run we can use tankers. We should expect them to suffer a high loss rate,
so I would suggest that the crews be volunteers. Losing part of our tanker
fleet will restrict our ability to operate in the forward areas, so a tanker
construction program should be started as soon as possible.”

She stopped.

Howard leaned forward. “Is there something else you wish to
add, Commander?”

Johansen looked at Shiloh who nodded ever so slightly. This
silent communication did not go unnoticed by either Admiral Howard or his two
associates.

Johansen continued. “I do have one more idea to put forward,
and that idea is this. If we are going to prevail, we’ll have to out fight
them. In order to out fight them, we’ll have to out build them. The only way I
can see that we can out build them is if the Space Force develops its own
internal industrial and shipyard infrastructure. The best way to do that is to
obtain the use of at least one of General Electric Dynamics Universal
Fabrication Complexes. We can use one UFC to build more, which can then build
the mining robots, processing and fabrication facilities, and the shipyards, as
well as the actual equipment for the new ships.”

She was about to say more when the Admiral to Howard’s right
interjected.

“Commander, that’s all well and good, but are you not aware
that the Space Force has been negotiating with GED for years to buy a UFC? The
price they’re demanding is far beyond the budget capabilities of the U.E.S.F.
There is no way that they would sell us a UFC, when they can use the ones they
have to build the ships that the Space Force needs and will pay for.”

Johansen nodded. “Yes, Sir. I’m aware of the past efforts to
buy a UFC. I was proposing something different. If GED won’t sell us one, then
we should explore other options, such as leasing one for just long enough to
build our own. If GED won’t agree to that, well, the Space Force should do
whatever it takes to gain access to a UFC, whether GED likes it or not.”

“Commander, are you aware that you have just proposed an
illegal act, and by doing so you have left yourself open to charges of
conspiracy?”

Johansen was about to reply when Howard came to her defense.

“No she hasn’t, Sergei. Not only did I guarantee that
nothing these people said would be held against them, and I meant that, but
with regards to Commander Johansen’s comments, I’m going to interpret them as a
hypothetical scenario of what rogue Space Force elements might do if we can’t
come to some kind of accommodation with GED. Isn’t that right, Commander?”

Johansen was just about to reply in the negative when she
realized that Admiral Howard was on her side.

“That’s right, Admiral.”

Howard smiled slightly at her. “Now then, Commander. I would
be interested in hearing how, hypothetically of course, a rogue element might
go about gaining access to a UFC ... so that we can take precautions against
such a possibility.”

Johansen was taken aback by this request. “Well, there might
be a number of different scenarios, but the one that comes to mind would have
some distinct advantages. We know that GED has deployed a UFC on a particularly
rich asteroid that’s almost on the opposite side of the sun from earth. In
another six weeks, I believe, the orbital rotation of the asteroid relative to
earth will place the sun squarely in between the two, thereby cutting off
direct communication between the UFC unit and GED Central. That won’t stop the
UFC from continuing its preprogrammed instructions, and if I’m not mistaken,
there will be several GED employees onsite to monitor its operations. They live
in a support module that can sustain them for months if necessary, although GED
has scheduled regular visits by a supply ship roughly every four weeks. I
suppose that if a rogue element were able to go to the UFC site, they could
essentially commandeer the UFC and ...
persuade
the onsite staff to
reprogram the unit. GED may not find out for weeks, or maybe even months. By
that time, the newly-built unit could have been moved practically anywhere in
this star system, or even to another star system altogether.”