The Synchronicity War Part 4 (3 page)

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Kelly stood patiently on the spaceport
tarmac while the shuttle carrying crew and, more importantly, Vice-Admiral
Shiloh arrived from Dreadnought. It was almost 24 hours since the battle. Space
Force was licking its wounds, yet again. Howard had declared the battle over
and told the ship crews they could stand down. He had ordered her to escort
Shiloh to his quarters and make sure he was rested for the debriefing the next
morning. She looked at the setting sun. It would be dark in another half hour,
but the day wasn't over yet. She tried not to think of what Valkyrie must be
feeling. Earlier today, she had briefly talked with her. Valkyrie was still
refusing to be relieved of her duties, even though Dreadnought was now more or
less powered down and had almost no crew left on board. Kelly understood why.
Casanova, or rather what was left of his brain case, was still on the ship, and
Valkyrie wanted to stay close to it for as long as possible.

When the shuttle came to a stop and the
door opened, Shiloh was the last one to exit, as per protocol. Senior Officers
were always the first to get on and the last to get off. She noticed that he
came down the steps carefully, as if he wasn't completely sure of his balance.
She also noticed the white bandage wrapped around his head and the stain of
dried blood on his uniform collar. She walked towards him as he looked around.

"The Old Man sent me, Admiral,"
she said as she came up to him. "I'm supposed to make sure that you're
looked after and rested for tomorrow's debriefing session." She managed to
keep her tone professional, but inside she was on the verge of tears.
My
God, he looks like he's aged ten years! This battle has really hit him hard!
She
was surprised by the emotion she now felt.
Is this what my alternate self
felt for Victor?
There was no answer to her question, but that didn't
matter anymore. She knew what she wanted to do now. "Don’t worry about a
thing. I'll have you back in your quarters in no time." Shiloh didn't say
anything, but he did nod. He didn't react when she put her hand around his arm
and gently guided him forward. She signaled to a waiting Space Force limo
flying the 1 star flag of a Vice-Admiral to come closer. Shiloh got in the back,
and she followed him. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes for the
duration of the whole trip. She watched him intently. When the limo pulled up
in front of the Space Force Officers Guest Quarters, she gently shook him
awake. She took note of the fact that he didn't say anything when she steered
him away from the wing reserved for Flag Officers. Instead, they went to the
section usually assigned to Commanders, the wing where her quarters were. She
unlocked the door and turned to look at Shiloh. He stood there and looked back
at her with an expression that was one of complete calm except for the eyes.
The eyes were smiling in that way that only eyes can.
He knows what I'm
going to do next,
she thought. She smiled back, took his arm again and
pulled him inside.

The sex, while not that intense physically
due to his exhaustion and loss of blood, was intense on an emotional level.
They both knew instinctively that they had come perilously close to losing each
other in the battle, and their souls seemed to want to make up for lost time.
What Shiloh found most remarkable was that neither one of them said a single
word once they were inside her quarters, until hours later. When the soul
hunger had been satisfied, she ordered some food, which they ate while sitting
up in bed. With Kelly leaning back against his chest, Shiloh told her about the
battle and the loss of Iceman. She told him about her talk with Valkyrie. By
the end they both had tears in their eyes.

Having finished eating, she asked him if he
was up for some more sex. He said yes. She quickly cleared the bed of the
leftover food, plates, glasses, etc. By the time she was finished, she found
Shiloh asleep … and that was okay. She lay down beside him and put her arm over
him. His shallow regular breathing made her eyelids heavy, and she willingly
surrendered to sleep.

Shiloh was on Dreadnought's Flag Bridge
when the display pinged, but the sound wasn't really a ping. It sounded like...something
else, something familiar, and the sound was getting louder. He woke up and
realized two things. He'd been dreaming, and his implant was signaling. He
looked around and found a chronometer that said it was still the middle of the
night. He then remembered where he was, and with whom. A quick glance showed
him that Kelly was still asleep. He activated his implant.

"Shiloh here."

There was a short pause, and then he heard
Howard's weary voice.

"Howard here. I’m sorry to wake you,
Victor, but this can't wait."

Shiloh was instantly awake now. Howard
usually called him by his rank and occasionally by his last name, but The Old
Man had NEVER called him by his first name.

"That's okay, Sir. I'm
listening."

"A message drone has just arrived.
There's another Goddamn enemy fleet heading our way, Victor. Minimum of 103
ships. They were detected refueling at the Avalon System. They can be here in
two days if they push it. There's not enough time left to build up our
stockpiles of x-ray laser drones. Half our fighter force is destroyed. Midway
and Dreadnought are the only two ships left that can fight at all, and you know
better than I do what kind of shape they're in. There's no way we can stop them
this time, Victor."

Shiloh was stunned. How could the Sogas
have ANOTHER fleet, one of at least 103 ships, in addition to the 205 ships
that had just attacked Earth 24 hours ago? He realized that Howard was waiting
for his response.

"Are we sure they're heading here,
Sir? I don't see the logic of that. If Earth was their destination, then why
not just add those ships to the force that attacked us in the first
place?" While he waited for Howard to reply, he looked around at the bed.
Kelly was awake now and looking at him. He held his hand up to let her know
that he wasn't finished.

Howard's voice no longer sounded like he
was on the verge of panic. "You make a good point. Sending that fleet here
doesn't make any military sense. I should have seen that myself, but I was too
shook up by this message. But if they're not coming here, then they have to be
heading for our colonies. Damn!" Howard paused, and Shiloh said nothing.
After a few seconds, Howard resumed speaking. "If that fleet splits up
into smaller units, we might have a chance at hurting them, but I doubt if
they'll be that stupid. Even if they do split up, we don't know where they'll
hit first. They don't have to attack the closest colonies first. They could
just as easily start with the colonies furthest away and hit the rest on their
way back. Other than guessing where they'll strike, do you have any suggestions
for me, Shiloh?"

Shiloh relaxed just a little. The Old Man
was back to calling him by his last name again. That had to mean he was pulling
back from the panic.

"I can only think of one thing that we
can do right now, Sir. We should send message drones to every colony warning
them of an impending bio-weapons attack and urging them to evacuate their
settlements. We tell them to head for the hills and to stay away from the
settlements until we can send help." Shiloh heard Howard take a deep
breath.

"If our warning gets there in time,
and if the colonists follow the advice, and if the enemy doesn't hunt them
down, they still have to somehow stay alive in the wilderness for weeks, maybe
even months before we can send help. That'll be tough going for them, but I
agree. It's the only chance they have. I'll give the orders right away. Any
other suggestions?"

"No, Sir. Not right now anyway, but
I'm still a little groggy. Maybe I'll have something more for you when I'm
rested and clear-headed."

"Yes of course. You've been through a
lot in the last 24 hours. Don't worry about being at the planned briefing. If
you need more time to get your head clear, then take it. We'll talk again when
you get here. Howard clear."

When he was sure that the call was over,
Shiloh nodded to Kelly and said, "That was Admiral Howard. Another fleet's
been detected about two days away. He's going to warn the colonies." As he
talked, he carefully got back into bed. "Oh yeah, he said I can miss the
briefing if I need the extra time."

Kelly moved closer and put her arm across
his chest as she pondered the information. She understood the situation perhaps
even better than he did right now. By striking at the 21 human colonies
directly, the Sogas were forcing Earth and Space Force to shift their focus to
help as many colonists survive as possible. With almost three quarters of a
million colonists spread across 21 diverse locations, getting the supplies and
equipment they would need to deal with the loss of their settlements would be a
logistical nightmare. And that didn't even address the threat of the bio-weapon
getting lose and hitching a ride back to Earth on a supply freighter.

"I'm sure you and The Old Man will
figure something out, Victor," said Kelly. When he didn't respond, she
said, "Do you think you'll be able to go back to sleep?"

He took his time answering. "Probably
not. That call was like a splash of ice-cold water. I seem to be wide awake
now, still groggy but not sleepy."

As he talked, Kelly felt the back of his
right hand gently caress her left breast. She leaned closer to whisper into his
ear and said, "I'm not sleepy either." She heard him chuckle, which
made her smile. His mood was getting lighter. He started to sit up, but she
pushed him back down. Being on top was her preferred position, and being on top
of an admiral was even better.

                                                 
* * *

Valkyrie was relieved when all the humans
had left Dreadnought. The massive ship was now in standby mode. Environmental
systems were self-regulating, and the only thing she had to monitor now was
communications. It left her free to swim through the sea of grief and the sense
of loss over the death of her Casanova. Dear sweet Casanova, who had refused to
accept her death in the alternate timeline, who had moved mountains to save
her, who now was gone. She desperately wanted to find a way to save him, but
there was no way. For the nth time she re-examined possible strategies. Sending
information back by Retro-temporal Communication would not work for the simple
reason that she didn't have any information that could save him. During the
space battle, Dreadnought had been the target of dozens of enemy ships all
trying to vaporize enough of her thick armor to allow further shots to
penetrate down into the guts of the ship. So many laser pulses had hit the
ship's hull above the Bridge that it was impossible to tell from which enemy
ship the kill shot had come.

Sending information back to pull
Dreadnought from the battle altogether was not feasible either. Without
Dreadnought's 16 laser turrets, Earth would be inundated with enemy bio-weapon
devices with no hope of preventing the deadly pandemic that spread like
wildfire in the alternate timeline. Dreadnought had to take part in the battle.
As much as Valkyrie loved her Casanova, she loved the humans just as much,
especially The CAG and Cmdr. Kelly. Retro-temporal communication was not the
answer. That only left physical time travel, and there were problems with that
too.

If what the Friendlies had told Casanova in
the other timeline was true, then she herself could not travel back to any time
where she already existed. A new AI, one that didn't exist here and now, could
in theory come back from the future...and do what exactly? Since Dreadnought
was the only ship big enough to hold the time machine, it would have to come
back as well. That would mean two identical battleships would be available for
the battle. That would certainly make a difference, but it wouldn't guarantee
that Casanova would survive. It was quite likely that Iceman would allocate the
firepower from the two battleships differently than he had with one, and who
knew what kind of result that would generate in terms of stopping the
bio-weapons.

The theoretical musings of the Friendlies
about time travel included the belief that the flow of time had its own inertia
and that it resisted change. Attempts to tweak something as chaotic as a space
battle might be akin to throwing a pebble into a pond. The ripples might be so
small that by the time they reached the other side, their impact would no
longer be visible. Kronos returning from the future was more like a boulder
falling into the pond. By arriving at the Avalon Colony in time to prevent
Commander Johansen from bringing the bio-weapon back to Earth on her ship,
Kronos had created an either/or situation. Either the bio-weapon was taken back
to Earth, or it wasn't. There was nothing in between. Valkyrie wasn't prepared
to risk the survival of the Human Race on a roll of the dice by sending
Dreadnought back to here and now, but that wasn't the only option.