The Synchronicity War Part 2 (31 page)

“That IS odd.” said the doctor. “Maybe we should
check on them.” It wasn’t a question. Johansen nodded.

“I’ll go with you.” she said.

As the two doctors and Johansen walked towards
the rooms where the colonists slept, she noticed that most of her
crew will following them. When they entered the first room, it was
eerily quiet. There were six beds in the room. Johansen walked over
to the first one on the right. She recognized the boy, Trevor, as
he lay there not moving. She called his name and shook his
shoulder. No response. She laid her hand over his forehead. It was
like touching ice. Cold and hard. He was dead. It very quickly
became obvious that all the colonists were dead. One of her crew
ran to the washroom to throw up. The doctors looked dazed. The
colonists had all seemed fine the night before. Johansen was
surprised that she felt no emotion at all. She would later leave a
message for Howard telling him that she thought her lack of emotion
was due to having been convinced that the colonists were doomed no
matter what.

As she stepped out into the corridor to join the
doctors there, the team leader looked at her with haunted eyes and
said,

“You were right all along. I don’t know how we
missed it. We checked everything!” Johansen nodded but said
nothing.

“At least we kept it from spreading.” said the
doctor. Johansen watched the growing horror in the woman’s face
when she said,

“No, we didn’t, but at least you and I won’t be
around to see it happen.”

Howard entered the Ops Center and looked around.
This will probably be the last time I see this place,
he
thought. He saw Dietrich walk over to him.

“Thanks for allowing me to be here one more
time, Sepp.” Dietrich waved the comment aside.

“You may not be the CSO anymore but you’re still
a three star Admiral. If you want to be here to see the last convoy
off, then you’ve earned that right and if the Committee doesn’t
like it, they can fuck themselves.” Howard laughed.

“You always did have a way with words, Sepp.”
The two men walked over to the center of the room and looked at the
big tactical display. Task Force 91 was waiting in lunar orbit for
departure clearance. Six supply ships and freighters, escorted by
the repaired carrier Resolute. All seven ships piloted by an A.I.
The supply ships and freighters carried 800 Space Force personnel,
mostly technicians but some officers too plus as much of the kind
of consumable supplies that would be difficult for either Haven or
the new colony of Terra Nova at Site B to produce such as
pharmaceuticals, stockpiles of rare elements, seeds from every
plant that might be useful and a considerable quantity of frozen
sperm and eggs to broaden the new colony’s genetic pool.

Howard reviewed the procedures that he and
Shiloh had agreed upon before Shiloh returned to Site B. Dietrich
had made sure they were implemented. The second that news of the
colonists’ death reach Space Force HQ, all traffic from the Earth
to the moon stopped. Those volunteers, that had been accepted for
Site B, that were already on the moon, were loaded aboard the
ships. Those, that were still on Earth, were held back. Iceman was
piloting Resolute and was in overall command of the Task Force. All
of the rest of the A.I.s in the Sol system, were loaded aboard
Resolute and were stored in its Hangar Bay instead of fighters.
When sentry frigates arrived, they’d be refueled by Replenisher
acting as an automated tanker and then sent on to Haven and then
Site B. When the last sentry frigate was refueled and Replenisher
was no longer needed, Gunslinger would be taken off her and
decontaminated, then put on board the last sentry frigate. Once
TF91 left, no more humans would be sent to Haven or Site B. It was
now up to Shiloh to convince as many Havenites as possible to move
to Terra Nova and start all over again. Iceman would be carrying
the last orders from Earth to Shiloh. Dietrich, as Acting Chief of
Space Operations, had given Shiloh a field promotion to Senior
Admiral (3 stars) and designated him as Deputy CSO. If…when
Dietrich died, Shiloh would assume full control of whatever was
left of the Space Force. His orders were simple. Win the war.
Destroy the enemy’s ability to continue the fight. After that,
rebuild Human Civilization.

“Iceman, are you there?” Iceman’s response
filled the entire room via the wall speakers.

“Ah, roger that, Admiral. TF91 is ready to leave
orbit when you give the word.”

“Very good, Iceman. Admiral Howard is standing
here beside me and I’m authorizing him to give the departure order.
Admiral?”

“Thank you, Sepp. Iceman, I’m very glad to have
gotten to know you and all of your fellow A.I.s. All of you are
Humanity’s finest creation. TF91 has the green light to leave
orbit. God speed, Iceman. Don’t forget us.”

“We won’t forget, Admiral. Humanity will rise
again. We promise you that.”

“Give my regards to Admiral Shiloh. Howard
clear.”

Shiloh was still at the Haven colony when the
message drone arrived from Earth. It carried two messages for him.
One from CSO Dietrich, which read.

[
Operation Triage is now in effect. All
surviving colonists died in their sleep. All outgoing traffic from
Earth to the moon has been cancelled. TF91 is being assembled as
planned and will be commanded by Iceman. He’ll be carrying your
final orders. Take whatever action you feel is warranted. Acting
CSO Dietrich. End of message
]

Howard’s message was more personal.

[
This may be the last personal message that
the ACSO will let me send. Angela is convinced that the bio-weapon
has not been contained and will spread. I hope she’s wrong. I’ve
told my children and their families to head for the hills. I’ll be
staying where I am. I’m too old to live in the wild for years. When
you come back to Earth, look for survivors in the outlying areas. I
doubt if the disease will kill us all. If you do find some, keep
them away from the cities until we’re sure they’re safe again. I
want you to do a dying old man a favor. When you find the enemy’s
planets, kill them all. They called the tune. Now they have to pay
the price. We can’t allow them the opportunity to take a 2nd crack
at us. While you’re doing that, find yourself a good woman and have
lots of kids. Howard. End of message
]

Chapter 19 - A Hellish Choice

Shiloh put his data tablet in his uniform pocket
and resumed his walk to the hastily built building that now housed
the SPG and the other teams brought from Earth. Kelly was waiting
for him at the door. She saluted when he entered and he returned
the salute. A lot of Space Force people were saluting him now. He
was still getting used to it. In the good old days, saluting was
something done only on formal occasions. Now it was becoming a
regular everyday thing and it just seemed to happen on its own.
Kelly was smiling and obviously had some good news.

“Glad you could spare us some time before
returning to Valiant, Admiral. Believe me, this will be time well
spent. I want you to meet someone.”

“Okay. Lead on, Commander.” She took him down
the corridor to a door with a sign that said, AWD2.

“Let me guess. Advanced Weapons Development
Two.” said Shiloh.

“Yes. Take a look at this.” she opened the door
and Shiloh saw a group of people sitting and standing around a
table, looking at something that was giving off a lot of light.
“Make a hole, people. The Admiral’s here.” she commanded. The
circle broke up and Shiloh saw that the light was coming from a row
of lights with cables connected to a black box. He looked at the
faces of the people around the table and all of them were
grinning.

“Okay, obviously there’s something special about
this black box. A new kind of battery?” Everyone shook their
heads.

“Far better than that, Admiral. It’s a solid
state device for pulling electric power from the fabric of
space-time. They used to call it Zero Point Energy. It was all the
rage at the beginning of the century but no one could figure out
how to tap into it. We do now!”

“Amazing! How much power is it generating?”

“This demonstration model is only putting out
500 watts of power but we’ve already proven that it can be scaled
up. With some engineering development, we should be able to power a
warship with this.”

“My God! You mean to tell me that our ships…”
Kelly laughed and interrupted.

“Never have to refuel at a gas giant again? Yes!
A ship powered with this technology could in theory jump all the
way from Site B to the enemy’s home system in one long jump,
assuming we knew where that system was.” Shiloh was stunned by the
implications of this invention. Not having to refuel at all, meant
that the enemy’s early warning system around their gas giants was
now obsolete. It also meant that recon missions could penetrate
deep into enemy territory without ever tipping the enemy off to
their presence.

“Could it be made small enough to power a
jumpfighter?” asked Shiloh. Kelly’s eyes widened as she realized
the implications of his question.

“We don’t know yet. Maybe yes and maybe no.”
Shiloh then had another idea.

“How about recon drones?” He heard the group
around the table start to whisper amongst themselves..

“I don’t know if our current recon drone is big
enough but I’m sure we could design one capable of being powered by
this technology without too much trouble, Sir.” said Kelly.

“Okay. Who’s the team leader?” asked Shiloh.
Everyone started looking at each other. Shiloh looked at Kelly. She
hesitated.

“Well…if you want to know who to congratulate
for this breakthrough, you need to talk to this gentleman here.”
She put her left hand on the shoulder of a man, who Shiloh realized
wasn’t wearing a Space Force uniform. “This is Jason Alvarez,
Admiral. He’s a colonist. An electrician who likes to tinker with
electronics in his spare time. He came to us with this prototype
when he heard that some Space Force technical people were doing
research here. Jason, this is Vice-Admiral Victor Shiloh.” Shiloh
offered his hand.

“I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Alvarez. You
have no idea what a difference your breakthrough will make to the
war effort.” Alvarez smiled and started to blush as he shook
Shiloh’s hand.

“Thank you. I’ve never met a Space Force admiral
before. You really think this device will make that much of a
difference?” Both Shiloh and Kelly nodded.

“A HUGE difference. Commander’s Kelly’s planning
group will be burning the midnight oil trying to get their heads
around what this can do for us. If you don’t mind me asking, what
prompted you to bring your prototype to the…development team here?”
Alvarez looked a little uncomfortable.

“Well…ah…you see… I guess I must have fallen
asleep or something, although I was working on an electrical
installation job, because I had this weird dream. In my dream a
woman wearing a Space Force uniform, who come to think, looked a
lot like you, Commander Kelly, told me that without my energy
device technology, we would have lost the war. Silly isn’t it?” He
laughed and some of the others in the group laughed too. Shiloh
looked at Kelly who looked back at him. It was obvious they were
thinking the same thing. Alvarez had received a retro-temporal
communication.

“No, it’s not silly at all and I’m VERY glad you
followed your dream. Will you be moving to Terra Nova, Mr.
Alvarez?” Alvarez frowned.

“I don’t know. The colony here is just getting
to the size where it’s possible to live comfortably. There’ll be
lots of electrical work to do in a brand new colony but not a lot
of opportunity to buy the kind of things that make life more
comfortable, ya know?” Shiloh understood immediately. Importing
luxury goods was expensive and a new colony usually had little in
the way of exports to pay for those luxury goods. On the other
hand, UFCs could make any luxury good in existence now that the
second convoy had brought manufacturing data for thousands of
non-military goods. Attracting valuable colonists like Alvarez
would mean that some of the UFCs would have to be devoted to
manufacturing consumer goods but they could handle that.

“I’ll let you in on a secret, Mr. Alvarez.
You’ve heard of Universal Fabrication Complexes?” Alvarez nodded.
“We have some of those in the Terra Nova system right now. They’re
busy making more UFCs but in the not too distant future, some of
them will be reprogrammed to make basic AND luxury consumer goods
for the Terra Nova colonists. If you agree to move to Terra Nova,
I’ll guarantee you, that you’ll eventually have a more comfortable
life than you’d ever have if you stayed here.”

“That sounds pretty good but I have a lot of
friends here too. I’d hate to leave them behind.”

“Your friends would like to have some luxury
goods too, wouldn’t they? Convince them to come too.” said Shiloh.
Alvarez nodded and smiled.

“Okay. I’ll do that. Thank you, Admiral.” Shiloh
chatted with Alvarez and the group for a few more minutes and then
expressed his regrets on having to leave. He made sure to shake
Alvarez’s hand again before he left. As he and Kelly walked out of
the building, she said,

“Promising consumer goods to the Terra Nova
colonists was a brilliant way to convince more people to move
there. With a little luck everyone might want to go.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. I don’t want
EVERYONE to go. Just enough to make the new colony viable.” He
could see that Kelly didn’t understand why. “Think it through,
Commander. The enemy knows about the Haven colony. We have to
assume that at some point, they’ll visit all our inhabited planets
to see if their bio-weapon has wiped us all out and to finish off
any survivors. What are they going to think when they get here and
find no bodies and no colonists? They’ll come to the obvious
conclusion, that the colonist were moved somewhere else and they’ll
start looking for them. I don’t want them to know that a viable
colony exists until we’re ready to take them on. That means that
some of these colonists need to remain here.” Kelly’s expression
darkened.