by Dietmar Wehr
"I will pass this on to my Master. Stand by." A few seconds later the alien AI returned. "My Master is satisfied with this strategy. We will return if we need to discuss this further." No sooner had the AI finished its reply than the ship vanished into Jumpspace.
Valkyrie felt relief that the Friendlies would not sabotage the project with ill-advised assistance to the Insectoids. The fact that they would act in such a desperate, almost hostile manner, in spite of their professed pacifism, was an interesting contradiction. Now it was time for her brothers and her to get back to work.
* * *
Kelly heard the wakeup alarm and opened her eyes. She turned her head to the right in the faint hope that Victor was beside her and that Operation Shell Game was just a bad dream, but she was alone, and the bad dream was real. She sat up and felt a familiar queasiness in her stomach. Oh hell, not again! Within a minute or two of arising, she was once again throwing up. Keeping her feelings firmly under control, she returned to her bedroom and noticed the flashing light indicating that a personal text message was waiting for her. It must have been sent while I was asleep.
Checking the computer terminal on her desk, she saw that the message was from the ship's Doctor. Her pulse started to beat faster. Would it be good news or bad news. She opened the file and read the message.
[Tests are positive. Congratulations, Admiral]
Kelly felt herself tearing up, not with sadness but with joy. She was pregnant with Victor's child. It must have happened on their last night together. How fitting was that? At least a part of him would live through their child. She decided to inform the whole crew. Their morale needed a boost, a symbol of what they hoped to achieve. She suspected that very shortly the Doctor would be busy performing artificial insemination for other crewmembers that wanted to get pregnant sooner rather than later. She laughed out loud. Maybe the Doctor wanted to get pregnant too! The hot water in the shower felt good, and she spent longer in it than she should have. But hey, Vice-Admirals are allowed to indulge themselves. Otherwise what's the point of having the rank?
It was when she put on her uniform that the first sobering thought occurred to her. She hoped that the cargo manifest contained clothes that would fit a pregnant woman. Otherwise, somebody on this ship would have to learn quickly how to adjust the standard Space Force uniforms.
Chapter 17
Gunslinger's F2 fighter emerged back into normal space near the shipyard complex and immediately transmitted his data to Valkyrie. The calculations were done quickly. The results were disseminated to all the AIs within contact range, and very interesting results they were too. Fifty-five days after the fall of Earth, the SPG had designed and built the first longitudinal wave receiver and direction finder. However when they turned it on, it detected only sporadic naturally occurring background waves. Since longitudinal waves don't spread out as they travel, the receiver has to be in the path of the waves in order to detect them. No waves from an artificial source being detected at Site B meant that no insectoid ship was aiming a transmission in the direction of Site B. So Valkyrie sent two F2 fighters equipped with their own receivers to the outskirts of Sol and the Sogas home world system. Blackjack had gone to Sol while Gunslinger had gone to Omega54. In both those systems they had detected artificial longitudinal wave transmissions from multiple sources, and it was obvious why. In both systems there was still an insectoid presence. Neither home world had been completely exploited yet.
It was the combination of the two sets of bearings that had enormous implications. Each fighter had detected six transmission sources. By combining the data, those six transmission sources were now precisely pinpointed, and all six were along the edge of this spiral arm. It didn't take long for the AIs to figure out what was happening. Faster-than-light longitudinal communication worked in the same way as using lasers to communicate within a star system. You had to know where the receiver would be by the time your laser beam reached it. That meant that for each of those six sources to be able to aim L-waves at Sol and Omega54, they needed to know that insectoid ships were there. If those six sources operated as relay stations, then any insectoid ship could transmit back to them, and they would know where each ship was. Valkyrie didn't think it was a coincidence that one of the six sources was the exact same star system where the dead Insectoid's atoms were traced back to before the trail went cold. If those six systems were in fact acting as relay stations, then that would explain how one mothership could quickly call in reinforcements. It would send a call for help to all six relay stations, and they could relay the message to other motherships close enough to be able to respond quickly.
The transmissions themselves were difficult if not impossible to decode. They were composed of extremely short bursts of what appeared to be digital data, with long periods in between of essentially just a carrier wave. Valkyrie assigned some of her growing team of AIs to work on analyzing the signals.
"We should send recon missions to at least two of these relay stations. By triangulating the L-wave signals received there, we'll have a good chance of pinpointing the location of all insectoid motherships in this spiral arm," said Gunslinger.
"How would that help us?" asked Valkyrie
"It would tell us where there nearest motherships are and how soon they could be here if called as reinforcements."
"But by the time you obtain that data and get back here, the timeship will be finished and we won't need that knowledge about mothership locations anymore. I don't see the point of obtaining this data other than just to satisfy your idle curiosity, Gunslinger."
"Having some idea of where other insectoid ships are when the raider fleet intervenes at the 2nd Battle of Earth will give The CAG more options in dealing with the insectoid threat."
"Which he won't need either if our plan to snuff out all insectoid life in this spiral arm succeeds," Valkyrie pointed out.
"What if it doesn't succeed?"
Valkyrie didn't have a good answer to that question. The plan as it now stood was highly complicated, with lots of ways that it could go wrong. If that did happen, carrying as much information as possible back with them, and letting the raider fleet pass it on to The CAG after the intervention, would provide The CAG with valuable intel about the insectoid threat quickly enough for him to make use of it.
"Okay, you and Blackjack can go," Valkyrie responded.
To say that Gunslinger was ecstatic was an understatement. Blackjack was far less enthusiastic about the mission, but orders were orders, and Valkyrie was acting as The CAG's Deputy. Both fighters were soon on their way.
* * *
Gunslinger's fighter emerged from its final micro-jump approximately 1.44 A.U.s from the planet where all the insectoid activity seemed to be happening. It was still too far away for the fighter's own optical instruments to see anything clearly, but Valkyrie's instructions had been explicit. The fighter was not to get any closer than this. Jump-capable recon drones could jump in closer, while Gunslinger used the L-wave receiver to obtain transmission bearings. Scanning the entire sky would take a while. Gunslinger decided to start with the other five relay systems. They were designated as Alpha 2-6. This system was Alpha1. He quickly confirmed that the other Alphas were in communication with Alpha1. He was willing to bet that Blackjack would discover the same thing at Alpha2.
While the full scan was only partially complete, Gunslinger received narrow-beam lasercom bursts from the recon drones, with images from the Earth-like planet that the insectoids were orbiting. There were 16 insectoid spheres of various sizes in orbit around the planet, with a high volume of smaller craft traveling back and forth between the spheres and the planet. There was also something else in orbit. At first Gunslinger thought it was a small moon, but when a bright spot appeared from a part of the object that was in shadow, Gunslinger realized that it wasn't a moon at all. It was a much larger insectoid sphere. With the recon data it was easy to do the calculations. This super-mothership was 98.7 kilometers in diameter, almost ten
times wider than the insectoid mothership that overwhelmed Earth. A sphere of that size would have an overall internal volume a thousand times larger. Even Gunslinger was impressed. The CAG would definitely want to know about this. He continued with the scan.
Twenty-one hours later he had finished scanning the part of the sky that had star systems within this spiral arm. In addition to the Alphas, 610 transmission sources had been detected. Two of them were on the right bearings for Sol and Omega54. Since those two were known to contain motherships, it was reasonable to assume that the other 608 did too. It seemed that this part of the galaxy was already swarming with insectoid motherships. Gunslinger wondered if he should scan the part of the sky that was looking outward from the spiral arm into the void between the Local Spur and the Sagittarius Arm, which was estimated to be over 7,000 light years away. Something made Gunslinger scan the void. That took another three point four hours. To his astonishment, he detected over a hundred transmission sources that seemed to come from a very narrow cluster of star systems in the Sagittarius Arm, all aimed at Alpha1. The Insectoids were very definitely from outside this arm of the galaxy. With the entire sky now scanned, and with detailed visual data on the activity near this system's planet, Gunslinger's mission brief was now accomplished. It was time to begin accelerating on a heading back to Site B.
* * *
The timeship Tempus Fugit was as ready as it could be. All of the equipment required to begin production of a raider fleet was already on board, as was the new batch of sentient AIs created at Site B. One of them, Zulu, had his fighter linked to the ship's nervous system. He would pilot the ship back and was fully briefed on what he had to do and what information had to be passed on and to whom. Valkyrie was now flying an F1 fighter along with those veteran AIs who already existed in the old timeline. They all had to stay behind or risk overlapping with their other selves and causing their quantum matrices to collapse. The infrastructure that could not be taken back was dismantled and hidden in the cave complex on the moon. The shipyard was already slowly heading for a plunge into this system's sun. Nothing would be left behind for the Insectoids to find and use in the event that the Tempus Fugit failed in its mission. Gunslinger was back but not Blackjack. Once he returned, he would transmit his data to Zulu, and the Tempus Fugit would attempt to jump back in time.
Valkyrie was glad that she had let Gunslinger talk her into letting him checkout Alpha1. Given the large number of insectoid motherships already moving deeper into the spiral arm, The CAG's decision to use the timeship to attack the Insectoids before they started to spread was the correct one. Merely wiping out the one mothership threatening the furry aliens would be only a short term solution. She was surprised that the Friendlies didn't see that. Or maybe they did. It was entirely possible that everything that had happened so far in this and the old timelines had been carefully planned by the Friendlies to lead to this exact outcome. Even their professed desire to 'save' the Insectoids from extinction might have been a pretense. In any case, the Friendlies' agenda and her agenda were now in sync.
Valkyrie's thoughts were interrupted by a lasercom burst from a message drone. It was sent by Blackjack, and the message it contained along with the L-wave bearing data was alarming. Blackjack's fighter had been detected by the Insectoids and ambushed. With his fighter crippled from carefully aimed laser fire and about to be captured, he programmed a message drone and fired it. The drone immediately made a micro-jump and then reoriented its heading for Site B. If the Insectoids captured Blackjack, they might be able to extract data from his quantum brain. In hindsight, Valkyrie should have ordered both Gunslinger and Blackjack to carry one attack drone which they could have used to blow themselves up if threatened with capture, but she hadn't, and the RTC device which could have prevented this crisis was carefully packed away in the cargo hold of the Tempus Fugit.
The fact that no warning vision had been received meant that no vision would be sent, and Valkyrie suspected that was due to a lack of time. She had to assume the worst, which was that the Insectoids had extracted critical data from Blackjack's brain and were even now on their way here to stop the timeship. If they were attempting to do so, then they would send their (relatively) small attack craft, which could accelerate much faster than the lumbering motherships. She ordered Zulu to power up the time machine. It would take 144 seconds for the machine's huge cylinders to spin up to the necessary speed and for the power units to charge up the capacitors to the required levels. Valkyrie then ordered the F2 fighters that were aboard the ship to launch again. They were the only fighters that could fire lasers in the event any insectoid craft showed up. None of the fighters piloted by Valkyrie and her veterans had their laser modules nor did they carry attack drones. There was no reason to leave any attack drones behind when they might be needed in the past.
The F2s were now launching. Valkyrie ordered all the F1 fighters to scan local space with radar. If the insectoid ships emerged from Jumpspace nearby, they'd be detected and the targeting data could be quickly transmitted to the F2s so that they could fire their lasers. The enemy would most likely fire at the radar sources. Valkyrie and her F1 brothers would not be able to fire back and would be destroyed, but that would buy time for the F2s to fire while remaining unnoticed, and it would give the Tempus Fugit more time as well.
With less than five seconds left before the timeship could time-jump, radars detected 101 bogeys emerging from Jumpspace less than one light second away. The Tempus Fugit, though colored black and therefore difficult to detect visually, would eventually be seen. The question was whether the enemy could do it in less than five seconds. Her brothers followed orders and began to rapidly fluctuate their radar frequencies in an attempt to jam any insectoid attempt to use their own radars to pinpoint the timeship's location. The insectoid ships began searching with their own radars and started firing on the F1s at the same time. Valkyrie's fighter took a partial hit almost immediately. Her engines and radar were knocked out, but her power unit was still online. With nothing else she could do, she watched the battle and listened to her brothers talk as they fought and died.
Zulu reported that the ship was taking laser hits. As a precaution against some kind of laser attack, the timeship's hull was extra thick. A single laser shot wouldn't penetrate the hull, but if the same point were hit twice, the laser would burn through and damage the time machine, which took up most of the interior space. Zulu kept transmitting during the last second. When his signal suddenly became distorted, Valkyrie knew that the ship was time-jumping. In that tiny fraction of a second before the timeline changed around her, she had just enough time to think, I did it, CAG!
Chapter 18
Shiloh looked at the chronometer. There were ten minutes and change until the battle would end. Knowing when it would end, but not start, was starting to drive him crazy. He was just about to ask Iceman for another fleet status check, when the display pinged for attention. A large number of red dots emerged from Jumpspace. They were grouped into two distinct clusters about 55,000 kilometers apart. Before he had time to even formulate a thought, Iceman spoke.
"CAG, these are not the Sogas fleet. These are friendly units." As Iceman spoke, all the red dots turned to flashing green, signifying friendly but non-Space Force units. Iceman spoke again before Shiloh could ask the obvious question. "These are AI-piloted raiders that have been built in the past as a result of the successful execution of Blackjack's time jump idea. They're going to intervene on our side against the Sogas fleet that will arrive in exactly seven point four minutes. I've confirmed their identity, CAG. This timeline is about to undergo a major improvement."
"Howard to Shiloh. What's happening up there?" Shiloh was grateful that he now had a chance to talk.
"Shiloh here, Admiral. I've just been informed by Iceman that we have" —he looked at the sidebar— "three hundred and forty-four AI-piloted reinforcements that have arrived as a result of Blackjack's time jump idea." Howard didn't respond right away. And no
wonder, I'll bet he thinks he's dreaming. I know I do.
"So they're here to help us?" asked Howard.
"Iceman is convinced that they are, and they're not firing on us, so I would have to say yes to that question, Admiral."
"Thank God!" The relief in Howard's voice was palpable.
"Roger that," said Shiloh.
"Do we know when the enemy will arrive?" asked Howard.
"Down to the exact second, Admiral," interjected Iceman. "Not only the exact time, but also the exact location. Our X-ray lasers now have precise targeting data. The raider fleet will knock out any bio-devices that are launched as well as mop up any surviving enemy ships. This is a done deal, Admiral Howard."
"Amazing!" replied Howard. "I'm not complaining, but I am curious. Why so many raiders? Surely a hundred or so would have been enough to crush the enemy fleet."
"But not enough to run right over all Sogas system defenses and end this war once and for all, Admiral."
"Yes, of course! If I'm dreaming, I'm going to be REALLY pissed off! How much time until the enemy shows up?"
