The Synchronicity War Part 2 (29 page)

“Flyby or rendezvous?” asked Valkyrie.

“Rendezvous.” said Shiloh.

“25 minutes give or take.”

“Do it.” ordered Shiloh.

By the time that Valiant closed to within 200
meters with the same velocity and course as the objects, a shuttle
with an engineering and medical boarding party was ready to launch.
A few minutes after launch, the shuttle got close enough to use its
external floodlights and Shiloh heard the pilot exclaim.

“Jeeesus! Will you look at that!”

“What do you see, Grissom?” asked Shiloh.

“Sorry, Sir, but those two pieces used to be one
ship that’s been cut in two. I’ve never seen anything like this
before.”

“Try to swing your bow around so that the bow
camera can get a look at it too.”

“I’m bringing us around now. Do you see it,
Valiant?”

“We see it now.” Shiloh understood the shuttle
pilot’s exclamation. Euryalus was a 25,000 metric ton freighter.
Not a small ship by any standards and yet a very powerful laser had
sliced it in two on an angle. Both pieces were following the same
vector and therefore had only drifted about 50 meters apart so far.
“Proceed to dock with the front section. Let’s check that
first.”

“Roger that.” It took another five minutes of
careful maneuvering before the shuttle could dock with one of the
external hatches. Shiloh was grateful that neither section was
tumbling, which would have made docking almost impossible.

“We’re docked!” announced the pilot. Within
another couple of minutes, they had the hatch open.

“No power inside. The air’s pretty stale and
cold. Life support’s obviously shot to hell. You may lose our
signal as we get deeper into the hull, Valiant.”

“Understood. Take your time and do a thorough
search. We don’t want to leave anyone behind if they’re still
alive.”

“Yes, Sir. We’re making our way forward now.”
The signal was already starting to break up. Within seconds all
Shiloh was hearing was static.

It was ten long minutes later when Shiloh barely
heard an excited voice.

“Valiant, we found a survivor! She’s barely
alive! We’re bringing her back to the shuttle now!”

“Can you tell me who she is, Grissom?”

“Uh, stand by, Valiant. I’ll try to find out.”
Seconds later Shiloh got his answer. “She’s out cold but her name
tag says Johansen.” Shiloh looked over to his Comm. Technician and
said,

“Switch me over to the medic, please.”

“Go ahead, Sir.”

“Doc, this is Shiloh. What kind of shape is she
in? Do we need to get her back to the ship right now or can the
boarding party continue to search for other survivors first?”

“My guess is she’s suffering from a lack of food
and water. I can give her water here and she’ll be okay, if you
want to continue the search, Admiral.”

“Okay, tell Grissom to continue the search. Tell
him I want him to bring back any logs or helm data if he can.
Shiloh clear.”

An hour later, he was standing beside her bed in
Sickbay. An IV was dealing with her dehydration and low energy. She
must have sensed his presence because she opened her eyes and
looked at him.

“Welcome back. I have to say, though, that you
look like shit.” Johansen tried to laugh but winced instead. When
she spoke, the words came out slowly as if she had to think
carefully about each one first.

“That’s..probably…because…I… feel…like…shit.”
Shiloh nodded in sympathy. After a pause, he said,

“You’re on Valiant. Howard sent me to find out
what happened here. I can pretty much figure it out on my own. We
managed to retrieve the helm data from your ship. I understand what
you tried to do but I don’t understand why you tried to do it. I
thought you were terrified of combat.”

“I am…I mean…I was. I don’t think I am
anymore…When the alert sounded…I realized that my ship couldn’t
dodge out of the line of fire no matter what I did. I was trembling
with fear so badly that I could barely manipulate the controls.
When I realized that escape was not an option, I got mad. Really
mad! The anger drove away the fear and it felt good not to be
afraid anymore. That’s when I decided to try to ram one of them but
the ship went dead before I could reach them.”

“When they figured out that you were trying to
ram them, they must have fired on you and without any armor, their
lasers managed to slice the ship in two. We searched the bow
section and didn’t find anyone else besides you. Do you know if
anyone else was aboard when you undocked from the station?” She
shook her head slowly.

“No one else. Just me.”

“Okay. I’ll bring back the search team and then
Valiant will head back to Sol. There’s nothing else in this system,
that warrants staying here any longer. The fleet that attacked you,
came from Sol. They tried to bombard Earth with what we think were
biological weapons but we stopped them all. The enemy fleet plus
two more, jumped away. I know one of them came here and we think
the other two are headed for Avalon and Bradley.”

“My God! Did we lose a lot of people fighting
them off.” Shiloh nodded.

“A LOT of people and a lot of ships. In fact,
Valiant is the only warship still operational and only because she
wasn’t in Sol during the battle. If you can handle combat now,
Angela, that’s a good thing because we’re desperately short of
commanders capable of conning warships now.” She said nothing at
first, then she said in a stronger voice.

“I don’t know how I managed to accomplish this
but the thought of conning a warship sounds very good to me. I
can’t wait to shoot back at those bastards!” Shiloh smiled and
nodded again. She was in a good mood and he didn’t want to spoil it
by telling her how bad he and Iceman expected things to get. If
Mankind was about to be decimated by some kind of plague, then
women of child bearing age, like Angela, would be far too valuable
to risk in combat.

“You get some rest and we’ll talk some more
soon.” She didn’t protest and closed her eyes.
By the time she
learns what the future holds in store for us all, she may wish she
had died on that ship.
Thought Shiloh.

Chapter 17 - Refusal of This Order is NOT an
Option

Trevor woke up to the sound of the sirens. It
was still pitch black outside. He wondered why the Colony would
have a drill now in the middle of the night. When his mother burst
into his room and told him to get dressed fast, she sounded scared.
As he, his parents and his brother, left their home and practically
ran to the designated shelter, he heard one of their neighbors
say,

“They’re attacking Nimitz!” Trevor looked up at
Avalon’s moon. Half of it was dark and the base was on the dark
side. As he watched, he saw pinpoints of bright light where the
base would be.

“What’s that noise?” someone else asked. Now
Trevor heard it too. A swooshing sound that seemed to come from
ahead of them and then from behind them. Then he smelled a strange
odor. It had a surprisingly pleasant, sweet smell to it. He inhaled
it deeply and kept on inhaling it as they ran. He was about to say
how much he liked the smell when he looked at his parents’ faces
and saw how terrified they were. He decided to say nothing and soon
they were deep in the community shelter with all their neighbors.
The doors were shut and they settled down as best they could in the
cramped space to wait. The silence was more scary than anything
else. He couldn’t go to sleep.

Hours later, the adults decided to open the
doors and peak outside. When it seemed that nothing dangerous was
happening outside, everyone left the shelter. It was sunny now.
There was a slight wind and Trevor noticed that the sweat smell was
gone. He looked up but the moon was now behind a hill. As they
slowly walked back to their house, another family further down the
street suddenly fell down clutching at their throats. Then a man
about halfway yelled out in a horrible voice as he fell down.

“Gas!” Trevor looked up at his mother who looked
back at him.

“Run!” she screamed. He turned and ran and ran
and ran. When he couldn’t run anymore, he turned around and saw
bodies lying in the street a long way back. No sign of his parents
or his brother. With his legs trembling from fatigue, he let
himself fall and started to cry.

“What have we got, Gunslinger?” asked
Johansen.

“Nothing on passives. No electro-magnetic
emissions of any kind either from Nimitz or the Colony. No sign of
any ships.”

“Alright. Let’s tell Firefly to launch a recon
drone to take a close look at the base and another one to fly over
the colony.”

“Drones on the way, Commander. We should have
visuals on the base in 5.5 minutes.” said Gunslinger. Johansen
switched the display to an external video feed so that she could
take a look at the tanker, Firefly that had accompanied Replenisher
to this system. Firefly’s task was to refuel any sentry frigates
returning from their patrols as well as keep Replenisher supplied
with fuel during what might be a long stay. The tanker’s flashing
position lights were a comforting change from the eternal lights of
stars and planets. It meant they were not alone in this system and
were among friends. She realized she must have been daydreaming
when Gunslinger announced that they had video feed from the first
drone. When the display was switched over, the Bridge grew very
quiet. Nimitz Base, or what was left of it, was now in daylight and
they could easily see the devastation. Laser blasts and a lot of
them. There wasn’t a single building or structure intact. No place
to hold an atmosphere. If there had been any survivors of the
attack, they would have had to done spacesuits and would have run
out of oxygen days ago.

The images from the 2nd drone, 15 minutes later
were far worse. Gunslinger was flying slowly about 100 meters off
the ground. There were bodies everywhere and not just of humans
either. Dead birds too. Hundreds of them, many clustered around a
human body. The drone flew around the colony twice. Just as
Johansen was about to order Gunslinger to bring the drone back,
Gunslinger said.

“I detected some movement down there. I’m
bringing the drone back around for another pass.” Seconds later
they all saw movement. Two people were standing in the street and
waving a white piece of cloth in an obvious attempt to get the
drone’s attention.

“My God! There are survivors!” gasped
Johansen.

“Yes, Commander. I’m instructing the drone to
wiggle its wings to acknowledge their attempt to contact us.”

“Get us into geosynchronous orbit fast,
Gunslinger , and get the shuttle prepped for launch. We have to
send our medical team down there asap!”

“Already in progress, Commander. Shall I order
Firefly to send a long range message drone back to Sol?”

“Not yet. Tell her to get one ready but to hold
off on launching it.”

“Understood, Commander. We’ll be in geosynch.
orbit in approximately 3.4 minutes.” Johansen unbuckled herself and
said,

“I’m going down to the shuttle bay. Gunslinger
has the Con.”

By the time she arrived at the shuttle bay, the
medical team was quickly loading the shuttle with gear and
supplies. As she approached, the woman in charge of the medical
team smiled at her and said,

“So there’re survivors! That means no biological
weapons.” Johansen frowned.

“I’m not sure we should jump to that conclusion
just yet.” The Team Leader waived her doubts off.

“Look, it’s clear from the visuals that the dead
all died within seconds of each other. You can tell that by the way
they fell. Except for a few at one end of the town, the rest all
fell with their heads pointed in the same direction i.e. they were
running away from something when they fell down. I’m pretty sure
we’re looking at a chemical attack. That would explain the sudden
deaths and if it was airborne, then it would also explain why some
survived if they happened to be out of the path of the gas. The
birds died when they ate contaminated flesh from the dead
bodies”

“Nevertheless, our orders are clear. We’re to
treat this as a biological attack regardless of what the evidence
says and I expect you to enforce those orders with your team.”

“You may be in charge of the mission but I’m the
senior medical officer and if I’m convinced that there’s no
biological agent at work here then I’ll act accordingly.” Johansen
realized that her insistence, on following orders that no longer
seemed to make sense, would sound unreasonable to anyone who didn’t
have knowledge of the visions and what they represented, but she
knew what was at stake here and if the contagion somehow spread to
earth, she was determined that it would be in spite of her
precautions and not because of negligence on her part.

“Let me put it this way, Doctor. I have
discretion over whether any survivors are brought back to Sol. If I
even suspect that they might be carrying something dangerous, they
stay here and anyone, who doesn’t follow the mission orders to the
letter, will stay here too. So unless you plan on becoming a
colonist here for the rest of your life, I suggest you put your
arrogant attitude aside and take all precautions, regardless of
whether you think they’re necessary or not!” The Team Leader looked
shocked.

“You can’t possibly be serious about leaving
them here! A handful of people aren’t going to be able to survive
here indefinitely!”
She’s right too. I might be able to justify
not bringing them back with us but sooner or later, the Oversight
Committee will bow to public pressure and order the Old Man to send
someone else to bring them back.

“Obviously I can’t make the decision to leave
them here forever but I can certainly make the decision to not
bring them back on MY ship. Now considering that there’s a war on
and that the enemy has already attacked this colony twice, do you
really want to risk staying here for weeks, maybe even months
before another ship comes to take you all back?” Now the Team
Leader looked worried. She hadn’t considered another attack.