The Synchronicity War Part 2 (17 page)

“Who ordered the recon drones approaching the
Base to scan behind them?” asked Shiloh. After a short pause,
Tanaka answered.

“Tumbleweed sent the order to those drones the
moment we picked up our first contact, Sir. Shall I countermand
that order?”

“God no! He did the right thing! Are we still
sending tactical data to the Base?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Very good. I want to talk with Tumbleweed.”

“Ah, Falkenberg here, Sir. Tumbleweed’s fighter
was destroyed by enemy fire. Vandal has taken over command of the
fighter force. Shall I open a channel to him, Sir?” Damn! Shiloh
closed his eyes and let the sadness wash over him. Another one of
Iceman’s boys gone. It dawned on him that if Iceman had been part
of 3rd Fleet, it was entirely possible that Iceman’s fighter would
have been destroyed. Iceman’s vision and the outcome of the battle
at Zebra12 now took on a new light. It seemed as though everything
was happening as it was supposed to. The battle at Zebra12 wasn’t a
fluke after all. In Iceman’s vision, Shiloh had told him that it
was a good thing he wasn’t part of the Zebra19 mission. Everyone
had assumed that meant a battle at, or as it turned out, near
Zebra19. The battle here at Bradley Base was just the return
portion of the whole Zebra19 mission.

“Yes.”

“Go ahead, Sir.”

“Shiloh to…Vandal. Bring your boys home. Tell
them I know all of you did your best and I believe that your
collective efforts will save the Base from destruction. Over to
you.” After the expected 12 second lag, he got a reply.

“Thanks, Admiral. That got pretty hairy there
for a little while. We’ll be glad to get home. Over to you.”

“And we’ll be glad to have you back. Shiloh
clear.” Switching channels, Shiloh said.

“Admiral to all carriers. Our fighters are on
their way back. Let’s recover them asap. Shiloh clear.” 3rd Fleet
was still coasting towards the Base moon and Shiloh was content to
leave it that way until he learned the outcome of the last phase of
the battle. The reduced enemy fleet was already catching up to the
first wave of ship-launched recon drones and they lasted long
enough to reveal that the enemy was once again changing course
slightly.
They’re going to keep on changing course because they
have no way of knowing that we’ve deployed additional waves of
recon drones along their path.
Thought Shiloh. With the need
for split second commands now past, he deactivated and removed the
Command Helmet and the gloves. The noise level on the Bridge was
low. Personnel were speaking in low tones into their mics while
they watched the main display. As the enemy fleet reached each wave
of recon drones, its new position and course were updated. Shiloh
got up and walked to stand closer to the display. Tanaka was
anticipating his wishes and caused the display to zoom out so that
they could anticipate the interception attempt, which would also
happen very quickly.

The enemy force was now encountering the string
of recon drones fired by Korolev’s fighter group. Those fighters
had placed themselves close enough to the projected path that their
attack drones would be coming at the enemy ships from almost head
on and therefore would be difficult to detect by radar and hit with
laser fire. The actually interception happened in less than a blink
of an eye. 16 enemy ships destroyed. 9 of Korolev’s 10 fighters
were also destroyed. 2 enemy ships successfully ran the gauntlet.
In less than a minute, they ran across a skirmish line of recon
drones fired from the Base itself and Shiloh relaxed. The two
remaining bogey’s were clearly aiming to fly past the base moon
rather than smash into the base in a kamikaze attack. They would
fire lasers at the base during their fly by and that would account
for the damage that Korolev told Shiloh about in the vision. Shiloh
doubted very much that those two ships would return. Not only would
it require a massive amount of fuel just to decelerate to zero and
then accelerate back the other way again but they had to know that
they’d face all of the fighters left over from the first encounter
with no hope at all of surviving that battle. Far better to use
their remaining fuel to jump back home and report.

It took several minutes to confirm that the last
two bogeys had flown past and fired lasers at the metal dome that
covered the Base. When Korolev’s video transmission reached 3rd
Fleet, she said,

“Admiral, we’re okay. Damage to the Base is
serious but not critical. We won’t have to abandon the Base thanks
to your warning. I still don’t know why you decided to deploy those
recon drones when you did but if you hadn’t, I and a lot of others
would most likely be dead now. Even so, we did lose 12 people due
to decompression and laser blast effects but it could have been
much, much worse.”
Don’t forget the 8 A.I.s that gave their
lives too.
Thought Shiloh. “I hope 3rd Fleet will stick around
for a while. I’d be surprised if those last two bastards come back
but you never know, do you? Korolev clear.” Shiloh thought that she
probably expected him to reply but he didn’t feel like it right
now. He walked over to the Communications Station and nodded to the
com tech.

“Patch me through to all our ships, please.”
When that was done, the com tech looked up at him and nodded.

“This is the Admiral. Bradley Base has suffered
some damage but the enemy failed to destroy it completely and 3rd
Fleet can take a lot of the credit for that. I’m especially proud
of our fighter squadron pilots. I’ll be recommending to the Top
Brass that each squadron receive a unit citation. It appears that
the battle is now over. All ships can stand down from Battle
Stations. 3rd Fleet will stay in orbit around Bradley Base for at
least 24 hours and then we’ll resume our course for Sol. We’ve all
done well today and I want you to pass that on to your crews.
That’s all for now. Shiloh clear.”

The rest of the Fleet’s stay at Bradley Base was
refreshingly peaceful. Korolev didn’t mention her refusal to follow
Shiloh’s instructions and he decided to not make an issue out of
it. He did refuse her request to detach a dozen fighters from one
of his squadrons to make good on her fighter losses. She still had
15 fighters left that had been on jump detection patrol and too far
away to get into the fight in time, so it wasn’t as though he was
leaving the Base completely defenseless. VF002 has suffered losses
too and Shiloh was loathe to gut that squadron even more and wanted
to keep the other two squadrons intact as well. She clearly didn’t
like that decision but wisely decided not to push her luck.

Chapter 10 - We Won’t Live Forever

The rest of the trip back to Sol was also
uneventful although no one complained that it was boring. At least
no one complained when the Admiral was around. It did give Shiloh
an opportunity to consider what to say in his After Action report
carefully. In fact, he prepared two AA reports. One for official
files and another confidential report for Admiral Howard’s eyes
only. Howard’s report included descriptions of both visions and
Shiloh’s in depth thoughts on how Space Force might be able to use
deception again to overcome the defender’s advantage of having RTC.
The official report had none of that in it but did include
recommendations for promotions for half a dozen A.I. pilots and
several humans including Tanaka and Falkenberg.

After checking in with Space Force HQ, Shiloh
received a message of congratulations on the victory at Bradley
Base and instructions to bring 3rd Fleet to lunar orbit and to then
take a shuttle down to HQ for a formal debriefing with the CSO
(Howard). The trip down seemed to take forever. It was dark and
rainy by the time the shuttle landed. Shiloh found the gloomy
weather depressing. He did notice that Howard had sent one of the
cars reserved for Flag Officers for him rather than the usual bus.
He thought that was a nice touch. When he arrived at the almost
deserted HQ building, a tired looking Lieutenant escorted him to
Howard’s inner office and announced him. Howard got up from his
desk and came around with a smile on his face. They shook hands and
sat down.
How many times am I going to find myself in this
position?
He asked himself. Howard leaned back in his chair and
was clearly relaxed.

“I read both your reports. I think you handled
the situation at Zebra12 about as well as anyone could have and
your actions at Bradley Base resulted in a clear victory for our
side so in my opinion, you did very well.” His smile disappeared.
“Unfortunately, not everyone will feel the same way. The Oversight
Committee isn’t going to be happy with the fact that 3rd Fleet
didn’t even get to Zebra19 at all. It’ll be hard for them to find
fault with your actions but since you didn’t get the results they
were expecting, they’ll be pushing for another crack at Zebra19. I
was hoping that you might have some recommendations as to how we
could try this mission again. The idea of using deception again is
a good one but as you pointed out, there won’t be that many
opportunities to implement it. Do you have any ideas on how we
could get to Zebra19 and catch them off guard?” Shiloh did in fact
have an idea but it was so…problematic that he hadn’t offered it.
Now it seemed he was being given another opportunity to do so.
Okay, here it goes.

“Well…there might be a way. The problem with
getting to Zebra19 is that they’ll have warning from the future
about the timing of the attack and by putting robotic detection
stations at all refueling points around that system; they’ll have
information about where the attack is coming from. If there was
some way to refuel without tipping them off, then the attacking
force could get to Zebra19. But that would be only half the
problem. They’ll be warned about the attack itself and will be
ready for that. Now I have to warn you, this idea has a lot of
problems attached to it. I don’t know if we could actually do it or
not but it might be worth investigating. We know that just about
all star systems have a shell of objects way out past all planets,
which are made up mostly of ice with some rocky material as well.
When some of these icy objects get knocked into the inner part of
the system, they become comets. If we could modify our refueling
systems to handle the separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen,
and found a way to get our hands on a lot of ice, then
theoretically we could refuel in the outer reaches of star systems
and never have to trigger their early warning network at all.”
Howard’s expression started to become more excited. Shiloh held up
his hand to pre-empt whatever it was that Howard seemed to be about
to say.

“The problems are 1) we’d have to find either
one big chunk of ice or multiple smaller chunks, without using
radar which would be like waving a red flag saying ‘here we are’
and 2) we have to have a means of processing a LOT of ice in a
relatively short time frame. Right now our ships aren’t equipment
for either of those tasks. Fuel shuttles might be modifiable for
melting and collecting water from these comets and bringing it back
to the ship but then it becomes a problem of volume.” He cited the
volume of water needed to extract enough heavy hydrogen to fill a
light carrier’s fuel tanks. Howard groaned when he heard the
figure. Shiloh continued. “We know that there are comets, which are
that big but the bigger they are, the less frequent they are so
finding them will be like finding a needle in a 100,000 haystacks.
The only other way I can think of that might work is to find
smaller chunks and bring them together in one spot. The smaller
they are, the easier it’ll be to find them but the more of them
that would have to be moved so there’s probably an optimum size
that gets you the most ice for the least effort. What that size is
I don’t know. We could try the idea out here in Sol to get some
idea of what that optimum size is.” Howard was nodding and Shiloh
paused.

“You’re right about refueling from comets being
problematic but assuming that we could do that, how could we
actually attack Zebra19’s targets without getting ambushed?” asked
Howard. Shiloh had an idea for that too.

“Jump-capable fighters emerge at various points
in the outer part of the target system and launch Mark 1s
programmed to accelerate to high speed, then coast while keeping
enough fuel for last minute terminal guidance maneuvers. Because
they’re hard to detect with radar from the front, the enemy is only
going to have a chance of stopping them if they create a radar
picket and even then, if the drones are going fast enough, the
enemy still may not be able to stop them all. The other thing to
consider is that if we fire off a LOT of Mark 1s, then we may be
able to simply overwhelm them no matter how many ships they have on
picket duty.”

“Jump capable fighters, eh? Why not use combat
frigates?”

“Well, the energy needed to push a ship through
jumpspace depends on mass and distance. Frigates can carry a lot
more drones than one fighter but also use a lot more fuel for
jumping. I did some very rough calculations and if we can develop a
jump drive small enough for use by a fighter, the amount of fuel
needed to bring each Mark 1 drone to the Zebra19 system is a lot
less for a fighter than for a frigate. To put it another way, if
fuel is going to be a critical resource, then fighters will let us
deliver more Mark 1s for the same amount of fuel than frigates
could. The other advantage is that we have a lot more fighters than
we do frigates and firing drones from as many directions as
possible will make interception that much more difficult for the
enemy.” Howard had a Cheshire cat smile on his face now.

“That makes sense to me. I’ve been looking for a
justification to give fighters jump capability. The tactical
advantages in a battle weren’t enough to overcome the inherent
paranoia regarding rogue A.I.s but you’ve now given me an
additional reason that will make it hard for the Committee to
refuse. If they want Zebra19 and other enemy systems hit hard, then
they’ll have to put aside their paranoia and approve that R&D
project. In the meantime, I’ve got another project in mind for you
and that is solving the problem of refueling using icy comet
chunks. Unfortunately that means that you can’t also continue to
command 3rd Fleet and THAT means that I’ll have to rescind your
temporary promotion to Vice-Admiral but just between you and me, I
suspect you’ll be wearing that one star on your collar again at
some point. So here is want I want you to do. First thing is taking
ten days off and get some R&R. You’ve earned it. When you come
back from that, put together a preliminary project plan of what you
want to do, how you want to do it and what you’ll need in the way
of equipment, ships, personnel, etc. I’ll try to get that for you
as quickly as possible and then it’ll be up to you to find the
technical solutions. Any questions?” Shiloh thought for a couple of
seconds and then said,