The Synchronicity War Part 2 (35 page)

“Ah, roger that, CAG.” said Iceman in his usual
deadpan voice. Shiloh’s mind was staggered by the implications of
that if true. Iceman waited patiently for Shiloh to come to grips
with it.

“But the data is not conclusive?” asked
Shiloh.

“No. It’s based on reflections of sunlight off
of an object detected over a very long distance. It could have been
a much smaller object with very high reflectivity or even a group
of objects close together. However, if it was a single object with
the same reflectivity as a mirror, it would still have to be 8
times as massive as Valiant.” That would equate to a ship massing 2
million metric tons. Even Howard’s fantasy of a million ton
Dreadnought would be dwarfed by such a monstrosity. Shiloh had so
many fleeting thoughts that he knew he would never be able to go
back to sleep now. The best place to evaluate this data would be on
Valiant.

“I’m coming up to the ship. Have a shuttle ready
for me at the spaceport. I’ll want to have a conference call with
you, the SPG, Valkyrie and anyone else that might have something
useful to contribute.”

“We’ll be ready for you when you get here,
CAG.”

“Alright. In that case, CAG clear.” Before he
could get out of bed, he heard Kelly’s voice.

“I heard that last part. What did I miss?”
Shiloh told her what Gunslinger had detected as he got dressed.

“Oh, God! I don’t like this.” She sat up, threw
aside the blanket and got out of bed. There was just enough light
for Shiloh to make out her pregnant body as she reached for a robe
and put it on.

“You don’t have to get up with me. It’s still
very early.” She snorted.

“What makes you think I could get back to sleep
now? Besides, I’d like to participate in the conference call if
that’s alright with you.” He grinned.

“I’d welcome any comments from the former Team
Leader of the SPG. I’ll get Iceman to arrange the connection.”

“Good and while you’re doing that, I’m going to
have something to eat and a hot tea.” As she watched him finish
getting dressed, she said,

“We’re not ready yet are we?” He shook his
head.

“No but if we can pick up an ally that can build
ships like that, then maybe we don’t need to be.” She walked up to
him and held his head in both her hands.

“Just because this other species is at war with
our enemy, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re willing to be our
friends.”

“I know but we have to find out which it is,
don’t we?” She sighed.

“Yes I guess we do.” That led to a long kiss and
hug. As Shiloh stepped outside, he felt himself shiver and wondered
if it was the slightly colder than normal air or the fear of what
might be coming their way. By the time he drove to the spaceport,
he was ready for a hot drink. Someone lent him a thermos full of
strong, black coffee to use on the trip up to Valiant. Iceman had
been notified to connect Kelly with the conference call.

As the shuttle came to a stop in Valiant’s
Hangar Bay, Shiloh stepped out of the hatchway and saw only a
handful of personnel, which didn’t surprise him. Since Valiant and
Resolute were both on standby status, they didn’t need full crews.
He returned their salutes, explained that he needed to go quickly
to the Bridge and thanked them for their courtesy.

The Bridge was dead quiet since there was no
human crewman manning any station on it. Iceman had control of
helm, weapons and communications. He had also anticipated that
Shiloh would want to see the Big Picture. The tactical display
showed the strategic situation with both human and alien occupied
space with appropriate green and red dots. The volume of space
shown, was slowly rotated to give Shiloh a good feel for the 3
dimensional aspect of what he was looking at. After almost 4 months
of conducting Operation Snoopy, they now had a pretty good feel for
the extent of the alien ‘empire’ as Shiloh preferred to think of
it. One dot was flashing. That was the system where Gunslinger had
detected the nuclear explosions and the Very Large Object. The star
system was the furthest alien occupied system from Site B that they
knew of. Iceman waited patiently for Shiloh to finish reviewing the
strategic lay of the land.

“Is everyone on line, Iceman?”

“Ah, roger that, CAG. Wolfman will be the
spokesman for the SPG. Valkyrie, Gunslinger, Vandal are all hooked
in as is Commander Kelly.” Shiloh smiled. Kelly was no longer
officially in the Space Force but Iceman and the other A.I.s
continued to refer to her by her old rank as a sign of respect just
like they continued to call him the CAG even though he was really
the CSO. In their minds, CAG had more status than CSO and he was
okay with that.

“Then let’s begin. I think it’s pretty obvious
that we have to attempt to make contact with this other race. The
only question in my mind is how and when. Does anyone disagree with
what I’ve said so far?” No one spoke.

“Good. Then I’d like to hear from each of you,
your thoughts on the how and when, starting with Iceman, then
working our way down by rank and Commander Kelly will get the last
word. You’re on, Iceman.”

“Ah, thank you, CAG. I think I should lead all
of our raiders to Omega89, which for Commander Kelly’s benefit is
the designation for the system where the data was obtained. If the
Very Large Object is there, I’ll initiate contact from long range
using low-powered com laser. If the VLO is no longer there, then
I’ll send out raiders on scouting missions to the nearest star
systems until we find some sign of another alien race and at that
point, all raiders will regroup, jump to the new contact system and
I’ll attempt to make contact again. That’s the how. The when should
be as soon as possible. We wait until all recon raiders have
returned, then proceed.” Valkyrie jumped in right away.

“We only have 55 raiders right now. Our original
strategy was to wait until we had five times as many before even
considering making any offensive moves. Suppose this new alien race
is just as xenophobic as the first one? If we get their attention
now, 55 raiders won’t be enough to fight them off. I’m not even
sure 275 would be enough if they have ships as big as we suspect.
The cautious approach would be to continue covert surveillance of
the old enemy and carefully probe beyond their space to see if we
can pick up signs of the new race. Meanwhile we build more raiders
and develop weapons that might be effective against a VLO. A ship
that size, could probably shrug off multiple hits by Mark 1s. I
would highly recommend a crash development program for the X-ray
laser warhead.”

“The SPG is in agreement with Valkyrie’s
approach, CAG.” said Wolfman.

“I agree with Iceman.” said Vandal.

“Both approaches are too cautious, CAG.” said
Gunslinger. “Our enemy has to be focused on the VLO adversary now.
The logical thing for them to do would be to shift their mobile
defenses over to where their new enemy seems to be coming from.
That implies that this side of their empire will be vulnerable.
Let’s take advantage of that and use our 55 raiders to strike back
at them hard and fast.” Shiloh smiled. Gunslinger was so gung ho
that Shiloh could have predicted his approach easily. All the A.I.s
had spoken now. Kelly waited until she was sure that Gunslinger was
finished and then spoke in a slow and calm tone.

“I’m leaning towards Valkyrie’s approach with
one difference. By all means let’s keep our enemy under covert
scrutiny but I do not think we should also be out there looking for
the VLO race. Even if they’re not xenophobic, they may not be able
or willing to recognize our raiders as being from a different race
than the race they’re already at war with. How will they tell us
apart? Our raiders are roughly the same tonnage as the ships the
enemy likes to use. I suggest a different approach to contact.
Let’s carefully explore the systems on the other side of our
enemy’s space and leave behind recon and message drones. If a VLO
shows up, the message drone can attempt to make contact using a
program that we can develop for it. If the VLO race responds in a
non-hostile way, the message drone can jump to a rendezvous point
where a raider is waiting. The raider can then bring that
information back here and we can then plan our next move. Until
that happens, we continue to build up an overwhelming force to deal
with our current enemy and also make contingency plans just in case
the VLOs prove hostile as well.” Shiloh liked Kelly’s approach the
best but even so, something was nagging at the back of his mind and
he didn’t know what it was. Everyone was waiting for The CAG to
make a decision.

“All of the suggested strategies have their own
pros and cons. I’ll start with Iceman’s approach. Sending every
raider we have, leaves Terra Nova terribly vulnerable. That makes
me nervous. It also makes me nervous that showing up with a fleet
of ships could be perceived as a hostile act even if the VLOs
aren’t xenophobic to begin with. Gunslinger’s approach might make
sense from a purely military point of view but is highly risky. If
we’ve underestimated the strength of our enemy, they might be able
to fight both the VLOs AND us at the same time and still beat us.
Don’t forget they have retro-temporal communication technology too.
That’s a huge advantage to the defender and we don’t know for sure
how that battle at Omega89 turned out. It could be that our enemy
won that battle or at least avoided a major defeat. I think that
Valkyrie and Commander Kelly are on the right tra…” His view of
Valiant’s Bridge dissolved to black then strands of color coalesced
into a view of a tactical display, which could have been Valiant’s.
On the screen was a tall, humanoid but very thin alien with light
green skin. The expression on its face seemed to radiate
friendliness. Shiloh heard a voice, which was both soothing and
charismatic at the same time.

“We had to wait until you had seen the race that
builds large ships with your own eyes before the time was right to
contact you. Don’t you agree that it was the best way?” Shiloh
heard himself respond.

“Yes, you’re right of course. If I hadn’t gone
myself, things would be much worse. Thank you for sending that
vision…and the others too.” The alien nodded and then faded away.
The Bridge returned. Shiloh heard Kelly say.

“What’s happening up there?” Iceman started to
respond.

“The CAG seems to be having..”

“I’m back now.” interrupted Shiloh. “I’ve just
had another vision. Did anyone else see or hear anything unusual
just now?”

“No, CAG.” said Iceman who spoke for all of the
A.I.s. “What did you learn from the vision?” Shiloh paused. Kelly
wasn’t going to like this at all.

“I learned that I have to personally find the
VLOs and attempt to make contact.”

To Be Continued

Author’s final comments: If you like Part 2,
please take the time to post a review (hopefully 5 star). While
ranking based on sales gets the book visibility, I’m convinced that
a high average rating is the clincher for a lot of buyers so if you
want to support my future writing efforts, the best way you can do
that, is to give Part 2 a five star review. If people like what I
write, I’ll write more of it. As for Victor Shiloh’s journey, his
story is not over by a long shot and I expect to have Part 3
published sometime in March of 2014 (at the latest). I’ll tweet my
progress. Long Live Space Opera!