The Synchronicity War Part 1

by Dietmar Wehr

  “I’ll be honest. I’m inclined to chew them out. I really thought more of them would get through. Then again, they are only exploration frigates after all.” Shiloh said nothing. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to say anything more, Johansen said. “How long will it take your CFPs to recover their drones?” Shiloh knew the answer to that. Iceman had already figured it out and had transmitted the information digitally to Shiloh’s consol.

  “Eleven hours and thirty-five minutes is the estimate from Iceman.” Johansen raised her eyebrows.

  “Iceman?” Shiloh forgot that she hadn’t been listening to his com channel chatter.

  “CFP0001’s call sign. He picked it himself.”

  “He? You’re referring to an A.I. as a male? Why not she? We like to refer to our ships as ‘she’ don’t we?”

  “Well, if the picked call sign had been Icewoman, then I’d probably refer to it as a she but it’s hard to think of IceMAN as a she.” Johansen didn’t have a snappy comeback for that one.”

  Chapter 14 - Stepping Over The Line In The Sand

  The squadron remained near Jupiter for several more days. Two more exercises showed that the five fighter A.I.s were getting better as time went along. As a result, Johansen was getting more and more irritated with her frigate COs which Shiloh thought was unfair. Their combat training was minimal and their ships weren’t really designed for multiple ship combat. With the exercises finally over, the squadron received orders to return to lunar orbit to pick up the rest of the Task Force, that Johansen would take to Bradley Base. When the eight ships and five fighters slipped into lunar orbit, Shiloh saw that Admiral Howard wasn’t wasting any time. Two tankers were ready to take the five fighters onboard and ferry them to their destination star system. Until the new carriers were ready, fighters had to be transported by tankers in place of some of the fuel shuttles, that they usually carried. Shiloh suspected that, as the fleet gradually transitioned to ships that could refuel themselves, tankers would eventually be used primarily as fighter transports. In addition to the two tankers, there was also a navy supply ship carrying new equipment as well as lots of recon and attack drones. After all ships were topped up with fuel, Johansen gave the order for the Task Force to head out for the trip to Bradley Base. The trip seemed long to Shiloh even though he’d made the trip multiple times. He wondered how the A.I.s were handling the wait. To the lightning fast minds of Artificial Intelligences, days of doing nothing must seem like eternities. Shiloh had briefed Iceman, Hunter and the others before they boarded the tankers and they knew what to expect.

  Upon their arrival at the star system containing Bradley Base, Shiloh was relieved to learn that no sign of any alien ships had been detected, although the base didn’t have any of the new jump detection gear prior to the Task Force’s arrival. If the aliens had carried out reconnaissance here, they did it very carefully. By prior arrangement, all five fighters had their unarmed practice attack drones replaced with the real things. As soon as the Task Force emerged from jumpspace, the tankers deployed the fighters which accelerated at 400Gs to take up their assigned patrol stations. Bradley Base was under a steel dome built on a moon orbiting the system’s only gas giant. Johansen’s squadron joined the two squadrons composed solely of exploration frigates and Senior Commander Korolev assumed command of the combined force as the designated Task Force Leader. That opened up some interesting possibilities now that Johansen and Shiloh were equals in both rank AND position but Shiloh wasn’t sure if Johansen had any interest in something other than a professional relationship. She had never given even a hint that she might be receptive to something more. Shiloh decided to wait and see. He suspected that whatever else, Johansen probably would not risk having rumors spread among her crew that their CO was spending quality time with a fellow officer on board her ship while on a mission, even though it wouldn’t be breaking any regulations. Off duty between missions, okay, but not while a mission was in progress.

  After a few days, Shiloh settled down into a routine. Korolev insisted on some kind of tactical exercise every 24 hours, which kept the fighters happy but made everyone else grumble. Shiloh was pleased when the duplicate autonomous units control station was assembled in the Base itself. That meant that the drones and fighters would not be left hanging if something happened to Vanguard. The Lt. Cmdr. assigned as Shiloh’s Deputy CAG, was one of the test pilots that he worked with at the Alpha Base. What Sejanus lacked in tactical skills, he more than made up for with his recognition of the fighter A.I.s as more than just soulless machines and the ease with which he interacted with them. When almost two months had passed without any signs of the aliens, Shiloh allowed himself to be less anxious. With additional frigates, supplies, drones and more importantly to Shiloh, more fighters arriving on a regular basis, his worry about the Line in the Sand not being sufficiently defended started to abate. When the 2nd batch of fighters arrived via tanker/transport, Shiloh and Sejanus discovered something very interesting about the fighter A.I.s. The new CFPs, were controlled by A.I.s that were far less developed in terms of their own identities. He queried Iceman about that and the A.I. had explained that the ‘rookies’ just needed time to develop new neural pathways that would be unique to them. At Iceman’s suggestion, each rookie fighter was ‘paired’ up with one of what Shiloh was starting to think of as the ‘veterans’. Even though they weren’t operating physically close together, low-powered laser communication meant they could communicate with each other far faster than with a human mentor. Within several days of the arrival of the rookies, all five of them had chosen their own call signs and were beginning to display their own unique speech patterns, much to the obvious delight of Iceman, Hunter and the others.

  The days turned into weeks and the weeks started to turn into months. With absolutely no sign of any alien incursion or even a quick recon mission, Korolev was beginning to wonder out loud if the whole Line-in-the-Sand strategy was a failure. Maybe the aliens had reconsidered their aggressive posture and were holding back or maybe they were flanking the Base system altogether to bypass its defenses.

  It was on the 55th day that the aliens made their presence felt. Shiloh happened to be on the Base itself, when word arrived by messenger drone, that a convoy of supply ships and tankers, escorted by another squadron of exploration frigates, had arrived at the uninhabited star system, used as the last refueling stop before reaching the Bradley Base system, and came under laser fire from a dozen alien ships when the convoy was too deep into the gravity zone of the gas giant to be able to microjump away. With Vanguard orbiting the Base, Shiloh decided to assume control of the fighters from the ground to save time. He arrived at the Base’s Control Center just in time to hear Korolev say.

  “Commander Johansen will take her squadron and the 88th to search the ambush system for survivors and to engage any enemy ships, that might still be lurking there. Any questions?” He was speaking to all five squadron leaders, whose video images were on the main display. Shiloh could see that Johansen wasn’t happy with those orders and he thought he knew why. Sending two of five squadrons away from this system would weaken it considerably and was in contravention of the stated goal of beefing up Bradley’s defenses. When it became clear that Johansen wasn’t going to say anything, Shiloh decided that he would.

  “If this attack is a diversion meant to pull some of our forces away from Bradley, then we’d be doing the wrong thing.” Korolev was clearly surprised by Shiloh’s presence and challenge

  “What would you suggest instead, Commander? Should I just ignore the fate of hundreds of our fellow comrades who may be injured and may die if they don’t get assistance?”

  “No, Sir. I suggest sending a much smaller contingent. Specifically a combat frigate carrying one fi…CFP accompanied by a support ship, to emerge at the edge of that system, where the CFP can be used to recon the ambush site. If there are survivors and no signs of the enemy, then the frigate and support ship can move in to render assistance.” Korolev di
dn’t blink an eye.

  “And what if the recon shows that there are enemy ships still in the vicinity, using the survivors as bait for another ambush the way they did in your first encounter, Cmdr.? The relief force will then be outnumbered and more time will be wasted while they send a drone back asking for more reinforcements. No! With two squadrons deployed, we’ll still have 24 frigates plus your 20 CFPs to defend this Base. I’ll take the risk of an attack here. I think the aliens know we’re too strong here and they’ve decided to bypass the base altogether. My order stands, Cmdr.” Turning to look at Johansen’s image, he said, “Do you wish to object to my order for the record, Cmdr. Johansen?” Shiloh’s heart sank when she said,

  “No, Sir. I’ll take the 88th and my squadron to search for survivors immediately, Sir.”

  “Very good, Cmdr. Carry on. Task Force Leader clear.” Korolev turned to Shiloh and said,

  “With Vanguard no longer available for you to use to control your drones, you’ll no doubt want to take your station on the ground here, Cmdr.” The statement was so self-evident, that Shiloh could only interpret it as a command for Shiloh to attend to his duties and leave the strategizing to wiser heads. He nodded his assent to Korolev and turned to relieve Sejanus at the autonomous units control station.

  “I’ll take over, Marcus.” said Shiloh. As his deputy got up, he said in a quiet voice that Korolev wouldn’t hear.

  “For what it’s worth, Boss, I agree with you.” Shiloh nodded but said nothing.

  When he was settled in, he reviewed the status of his 20 fighters. Four of them were in the Base hanger bay being refueled plus a quick maintenance check. As Sejanus was about to leave, Shiloh turned to him and said.

  “I want you to go down to the hanger bay and get those fighters ready to launch as soon as possible. Light a fire under the maintenance crews if you have too.”

  “You got it, Boss.” said Sejanus. When he was gone, Shiloh looked at his Tactical display. The fifteen fighters currently on patrol, were slowly orbiting the gas giant at a distance of a million kilometers, so that their jump detection gear would overlap as much as possible, thereby allowing for triangulation of the exact position of any ships emerging from jumpspace. Johansen’s 007 and the 88th squadrons were accelerating while coming to a new heading for their eventual entry into jumpspace. Shiloh was surprised to see that the projected course would be exactly parallel to a line that ran from this system’s sun, through the gas giant that Bradley’s moon was orbiting, to the ambush star system. The alignment was so precise that Shiloh couldn’t help thinking it wasn’t a coincidence although he couldn’t come up with any reason for it.

  A quick check of the Tactical display showed that it would take almost an hour and a half for Johansen’s squadrons to get far enough away from the gas giant’s gravity zone, in order to be able to enter jumpspace safely. With acceleration of 133Gs, their velocity would be over 7,220 kilometers per second by the time they reached that point. Shiloh opened a com channel to Vanguard and spoke in a voice low enough that Korolev wouldn’t hear him.

  “Vanguard, this is the CAG. I’d like to speak with CO Johansen.” The reply was almost immediate.

  “This is Vanguard. Standby, CAG.” Johansen came on the line after several seconds.

  “What’s on your mind, Victor?” she said.

  “I have a bad feeling about this, Angela. It smells like a trap to me. How are you planning on proceeding when you emerge from jumpspace?” There was a pause.

  “I haven’t got that far in my thinking yet. Any suggestions?”

  “Yes. Drop out of jumpspace well away from the refueling point and I mean WELL away! If the aliens are waiting for you, they’ll try to pick up your emergence point. Since we don’t know what the range of their detection gear is, I’d rather you err on the side of caution.”

  “The problem with that, Victor, is that the further away we enter the system, the longer it’ll take to reach any survivors.”

  “Granted but you can make up for that by emerging with a higher velocity. You’ve got enough fuel to do that, right?”

  “Hold on. I’ll check that.” said Johansen after a short pause. As Shiloh waited for her to confer with her Astrogator, he noticed that the status lights of one of the fighters in the hanger bay, changed from the yellow indicating not available to the green which meant available for launch. He checked which fighter that was and saw it was Hunter, the veteran leader of this flight of four. The other three would be rookies. Shiloh would have been tempted to listen in to any human chatter from those fighters if he wasn’t waiting to hear back from his former XO.

  “Victor? We’ve got enough fuel to emerge 0.75 AUs from where the convoy would normally be, and still get there at a reasonable time. Any further away than that and we wouldn’t be able to make up the time.” Three quarters of an standard Astronomical Unit, was almost twice the distance that the gravity zone of the target gas giant would require. I’d double that if I were in command and to hell with the added time, thought Shiloh. Easy to say, he then thought. You’re not the Mission Commander.

  “Let’s hope that’s far enough.” said Shiloh. He thought for a couple of seconds and then added. “Listen. Keep your ships out of the target gravity zone or at least most of them. Let your recon drones go in first while you’re still decelerating. If it is an ambush, and you stay out of the gravity zone, you can always microjump away.”

  “That’s a good idea, Victor. I’ll definitely keep that in mind, depending upon what the recon drones find.” She paused and something told Shiloh to wait before saying anything else. When she spoke again, her voice had a sad quality to it. “I’m glad you’re not on board Vanguard now, Victor.” Shiloh couldn’t help thinking that she meant she didn’t want him to suffer the same fate as she faced. Friends sometimes said that kind of thing to each other in situations like this but so would lovers. If she gets back alive, I’m going to ask her how she feels about the two of us, he thought.

  “Message received and understood.” said Shiloh not wanting to say more when he knew that all transmissions were recorded. There was a long pause that started to become awkward. Finally she said,

  “I’ll keep this com channel open in case you have any other thoughts or suggestions but right now I have other things that need my attention. Thanks for the advice, Victor.”

  “You’re welcome, Angela. I’ll be standing by if you need me.” The sound coming from Vanguard disappeared but a quick check revealed that the com channel was still open. Shiloh understood that Johansen has muted her microphone so that she could talk to her crew privately. Shiloh did the same thing. He didn’t want to distract her with his chatter to his fighters or to anyone else at the Base. A second fighter in the hanger bay was now ready for launch. Shiloh switched his earphones to the channel reserved for the hanger bay’s launch operations.

  “…it easy, Hunter. Our people are working to get you and your team ready as fast as possible.” said Sejanus.

  “You tell them that if my team isn’t ready for action in two more minutes, I’m going to complain to the CAG himself!” Wow, thought Shiloh. He’s actually shouting. Don’t tell me there’s no sentient consciousness behind that voice.

  “Okay, Hunter. I’ll tell them.” Sejanus’ voice was heavy with amusement. The two minutes went fast and Shiloh noticed that all four fighters were ready by the deadline. He switched on his microphone.

  “Hunter, this is CAG.”

  “Go ahead, CAG.” said Hunter.

  “I suspect that the attack on our supply convoy is intended to divert our defenses in order to attack us in detail there AND here. Your flight will be held in reserve until we see if they attack us here. I know I can count on you and your team to accept that as the professionals that you are. Are you getting the tactical feed okay?”

  “Ya, we’re getting that. We’ll calm down and be ready when you need us, thanks CAG.”

  “Very good, Hunter. CAG clear.”

  The next hour and
twenty minutes were eerily uneventful. No further message drones from the convoy, which by itself was worrying. No signs of any alien presence in this system. Suddenly Shiloh’s earphones were filled with the sounds of a ship going to Battle Stations. At first he thought Korolev was sending the Base to its Battle Stations but then he heard Johansen’s startled voice.

  “Victor! We’re under laser attack! Not sure from where! Vanguard’s already taken one hit! We’re evading! Going to active scanning now! Oh God! There’s 34 of them! They must have seen us from the reflected sunlight off our hulls! We didn’t see them because they’re in the gas giant’s shadow! We can’t microjump yet! Gotta fight it out. I’ve already lost fo…” Shiloh saw that the com channel was broken off at Vanguard’s end. He hoped it was due just from damage to their com system and not the destruction of the ship itself. He was just about to hit the alarm when he heard the Battle Stations warning Siren going off anyway. Clearly Korolev was aware that the relief mission was under attack. Shiloh then heard the Task Force Leader and Hunter talking at the same time. He concentrated on Hunter first.