The Synchronicity War Part 1

by Dietmar Wehr

  “…give us the word, CAG!” switching his microphone to the right channel, Shiloh said,

  “Wait one, Hunter.” He then switched back to the Base intercom channel while focusing on Korolev’s words.

  “…redeploy your squadrons between the attacking force and the Base. Stay in the GGs shadow when you get around to the other side. You’ll have CFPs in support. Did you copy that, CAG?” Shiloh had heard enough to understand that Korolev was taking a huge risk.

  “Copy that fighters will support frigate squadrons however I respectfully suggest that we keep our remaining strength close to the Base! This may..” Korolev wouldn’t let him finish the sentence.

  “I’m not letting them get close enough to fire on the Base directly, CAG! Now order your fighters to launch, dammit!” Shiloh reopened the com channel to the fighters while keeping the intercom channel open so that Korolev would hear him.

  “CAG to Hunter. Your team is cleared for immediate launch. Form up on our remaining frigates and coordinate your actions with the Squadron Leader in charge. Acknowledge your orders.”

  “Orders acknowledged, CAG. What about Cyrano and Bulldog? Recommend they shadow enemy force.” Shiloh looked at the Tactical display closely and saw that the two fighters, with those call signs, were on jump detection patrol closest to the battle. Why hadn’t they detected the enemy’s emergence from jumpspace? The answer could only be that they had emerged from beyond the fighters’ detection range. THAT was disturbing because it implied they knew what that detection range was. The cluster of dots, that represented Johansen’s 16 frigates were all flashing yellow signifying hull breaches and major systems failures and Shiloh didn’t need to count them to know that there were no longer 16 ships there. He also noticed that their velocity was so high now, that neither of the two nearest fighters had any hope of catching up with them in time to join the battle. As he continued to watch, the Tactical display flashed a much larger cluster of red dots intermittently due to interrupted radar scanning data feeds from at least one of Johansen’s frigates. The red dots were moving much more slowly and it wouldn’t be long before the ambushed frigates would be past the enemy force and moving further away. Hunter’s suggestion was the right one. Cyrano and Bulldog couldn’t join the fight but they could attempt to track and follow the enemy formation with their recon drones.

  “Your recommendation is approved, Hunter. Contact Cyrano and Bulldog. Advise them of their new orders. Maintain an open channel to me. Good hunting.”

  “Ya. Let’s hope the bogeys cooperate and stay where they are but I doubt if they will, CAG. Hunter clear.” By now Johansen’s frigates, what was left of them, were at their closest point to the enemy formation. The number of dots was shrinking. Shiloh queried his tactical computer if any of the remaining dots was Vanguard. The answer was no. He felt as if he’d been hit in the gut. He had to remember that the absence of a dot didn’t necessarily mean that Vanguard was destroyed. With Johansen’s force on the opposite side of the gas giant, there was no way that the Base’s ground-based radars could try to get a fix on both friendly and enemy ships. What little data they were getting was relayed from Johansen’s ships to a relay satellite in orbit around the gas giant and then on to the Base. Without active scanning, the tactical computers had to rely on transmissions from a particular ship to confirm its status, or indirect data from the radars of other ships. Vanguard might still be intact but unable to communicate. Once the reinforcement frigates moved around the gas giant enough to establish line-of-sight, they could use their own radars to pinpoint enemy and friendly ships. Shiloh hoped the frigate squadron leader wouldn’t order his supporting fighters to reveal their existence by actively scanning the battle area. That was contrary to Shiloh’s standing orders and the Line-in-the-Sand plan’s doctrine. The CFPs were meant to be one of Mankind’s Aces-in-the-Hole and the longer the aliens didn’t know about them, the better.

  Then Shiloh noticed something quite strange happening. The yellow dots of friendly frigates stopped shrinking. Shiloh eventually realized that the enemy ships had to have stopped firing on the frigates because even though the range was now opening as the remaining ships pulled away, they were still close enough that some of them should have been hit, if the aliens were still firing at all.

  When all of the alien ships disappeared from the Tactical display, Shiloh queried the computer for the reason why. The answer was lack of radar data from any of Johansen’s frigates. Some were still able to communicate with the Base, but either weren’t capable of scanning the enemy fleet any longer or chose not to do so. So now the question was, what would the aliens do next if they weren’t firing on Johansen’s frigates any longer?

  He manipulated his Tactical display to get a better sense of the overall picture. If the gas giant was the center of a clock, the aliens were in the direction of 12 o’clock. The moon containing the Base and the system’s sun much further away were both exactly lined up in the direction of six o’clock. The sun, moon, gas giant and alien formation were all lined up in a straight line that couldn’t be just coincidence. What was it that Johansen had said? The aliens had approached while hidden in the gas giant’s shadow to avoid detection by reflected sunlight. All human ships, on the other hand, had to come at them from around the side of the gas giant, thereby making detection by reflected sunlight a distinct possibility. It looked to Shiloh like a very carefully planned trap, which could only have been planned that way if the aliens already knew about Bradley Base and the relative positions of the gas giant and its moons. That meant that the attack on the supply convoy was in fact a diversion to pull ships away from the Base, so that they could be attacked separately, thereby weakening the Base’s defenses. The obvious next step was to attack the Base itself. Korolev was making that possible by sending all of his remaining frigates to the aid of Johansen’s survivors, which the aliens had carefully refrained from wiping out completely. If it looked like there were no survivors at all, then sending reinforcements might be deemed unnecessary and that would leave the Base more heavily defended then the aliens would want. Zooming in on the Base’s moon, Shiloh saw that all of the remaining frigates were forming up while accelerating in a curving trajectory that would take them around the gas giant. He tried to put himself in the alien Commander’s seat. What would I do next, he asked himself.

  Chapter 15 - All Of Us Understand The Situation

  There were only two ways to get close enough to the Base to attack it directly. Accelerate towards the gas giant from the 12 o’clock position and swing around to attack the Base from the rear OR microjump to the opposite (six o’clock) side of the gas giant, which would put them in ‘front’ of the Base and accelerate into attack range from there. If the enemy formation moved into the gas giant’s gravity zone, then microjumping was no longer an option and it would be a head on clash between the reinforcement frigates and the enemy formation. That would be risky, he thought. 24 exploration frigates supported by five fighters against possibly as many as 34 enemy ships. If the alien objective was to destroy as many Human ships as possible, then they’d let the reinforcement formation get within combat range but if the primary objective was to destroy the Base, the aliens might not want to risk having their fleet depleted by battles that could be avoided. With the Base destroyed, the remaining frigates would have no choice but to retreat back to friendly space. Assuming they had enough tankers to refuel them on the way back. Shiloh then had a horrifying thought. If the aliens succeeded in destroying the Base AND those tankers now in orbit, then the remaining frigates’ crews were doomed to die from lack of air and food when their ships ran out of fuel. We can’t let the tankers be caught in orbit if the Base is attacked. Shiloh thought the implications of that for a few seconds and then said.

  “CAG to TF Leader.” Korolev’s voice was calm once again.

  “What is it, CAG?”

  “Sir, I strongly recommend that you order our tankers, to disperse out beyond the GG’s gravity zone, just in case the e
nemy formation decides to microjump to our side of the GG after our reinforcements are too far away to make it back in time. Even if the Base itself is destroyed, our ships can still get home as long as they have at least one tanker to let them refuel on the way. The tankers can microjump to a rendezvous point that’s far enough away to avoid jump detection.” Shiloh was expecting his suggestion to be dismissed out of hand but to his surprise, Korolev reacted differently. After a long pause, he said,

  “Yes I see what you’re thinking, Use the relief force as bait to lure our remaining strength out of position and then attack the Base. You may be overestimating their cunning, CAG, but it’s a scenario that deserves to be taken seriously. If I order our frigates to stay close to the gas giant, then Johansen’s force will be completely on its own. The aliens might decide to finish off any survivors if they come to the conclusion that we’re not taking the bait. Your recommendation about the tankers is a good one. I’ll do that in any case but I’d also like to hear your suggestions on what else we should do now.” Shiloh thought fast. What they needed was time. Time for Johansen’s surviving ships to use their built up velocity to get far enough away from the enemy formation to be safe from additional laser fire. That meant that the aliens had to continue to believe that the bait was working. If they saw ships moving towards them from around the gas giant, that should make them believe their plan was working but at some point, the reinforcement frigates would then be too far away to come to the Base’s aid if the aliens microjumped to the other side. He then had an idea.

  “Okay, Sir. I do have one idea. Since we have an approximate location on the alien fleet, we can use our recon drones as decoys. When our reinforcement force have moved far enough around the gas giant and are in the right spot, they launch all the recon drones they have and order the drones to hold their acceleration down to match what our ships can do. The drones will also be ordered to orient themselves in such a way as to maximize the possibility of reflected sunlight reaching the alien fleet. Our frigates will try to minimize the likelihood of revealing their positions from reflected sunlight. They’ll stay in the gas giant’s orbit and if possible stay in its shadow while our decoys head for the alien fleet. Meanwhile, I have two other fight…CFPS maneuvering to use their recon drones to track the enemy fleet so that we know what they’re doing. As long as the enemy thinks our ships are headed towards them, they’ll continue to leave the relief force survivors alone. Once enough time as passed, what’s left of the relief force will be too far away for the enemy to pick off. Sooner or later the enemy will catch on to our decoy maneuver and then we’ll see if they commit to an attack on the Base. However they come at us, we’ll have time to bring all our CFPS back to help defend the Base alongside our frigates. That should be enough to tip the battle in our favor, Sir.” There was another pause followed by,

  “CAG, come over to my station.” Shiloh got up and walked quickly over to the center of the large Command Center, where the Base Commander’s station was. Korolev watched him come and leaned towards him. He clearly wanted to speak to Shiloh in a low enough voice so that none of the other personnel would hear him. When Shiloh was just a few centimeters away, Korolev said in a low voice.

  “I like your idea but I’m concerned about Johansen’s relief force. Once the enemy knows we fooled them with our decoys, what’s to stop them from microjumping in front of the relief force survivors and wiping them out?” He waited while Shiloh pondered the question. Unfortunately, Shiloh couldn’t come up with a solution to the problem.

  “I wish I had a solution for you, Sir, but I don’t see any way that we can protect the survivors as long as there’s a substantial enemy presence in the system.”

  “So how do we get them out of this system?” Shiloh was about to say that he didn’t know when Korolev’s face disappeared to be replaced by a vision of Shiloh standing next to a medical bay bed where a heavily bandaged Johansen lay. She looked up at him and said,

  “God, that was tricky of them to microjump to the opposite side so that the sun was directly behind them! If we had launched attack drones from in front, the reflected laser light would have been lost in the sun’s glare. Having your fighters attack them from the rear not only eliminated the glare problem but you caught them by surprise too!” The vision faded and Korolev’s concerned face was back.

  “Are you okay, Cmdr.? You seemed to blank out there for a few seconds.” Shiloh was too overcome by relief that Johansen wasn’t dead, to respond right away but he nodded so that Korolev could tell that he was listening again.

  “I’m okay, Sir. I was just lost in thought. I think I may have a solution. I’m convinced now that they intend to microjump to our side and attack the Base as soon as they think that the Base is no longer well defended. And while they could microjump just about anywhere along the gas giant’s gravity zone perimeter, I’ll bet a year’s pay, that they’ll jump to the exact opposite side so that the sun’s directly behind them. That will make optical detection impossible and our attack drones will not be able to distinguish the reflections from their targeting lasers from the sun’s background glare. That is unless we shift our CFPs around so that they’ll be able to attack the enemy fleet from THEIR rear. Then the sun’s glare will benefit our side instead. With a little luck, my fighters might be able to catch them completely by surprise.” Korolev frowned.

  “What if they stay where they are long enough to figure out that we’ve used decoys?” Shiloh took a deep breath and said,

  “That’s definitely a risk, Sir. But if we forget about the decoy idea, and our reinforcement frigates really do go after the relief force survivors, then they’re more likely to fall for OUR trap and if the enemy microjumps as expected, the reinforcement frigates can then continue on to go to Johansen’s survivors’ aid.”

  “So now you’re recommending abandoning the decoy idea that you suggested a few minutes ago?”

  “That’s right, Sir. I hadn’t fully thought through all the ramifications when I suggested it.” Korolev looked away and scratched his chin, which Shiloh recognized as something he habitually did when he was concentrating. After a brief pause, he said,

  “If we go with your CFP ambush idea, can they get into position before the enemy jumps?”

  “If we need more time, we can slow down the reinforcement force and make it look like they’re advancing cautiously. If I was the enemy fleet Commander, I’d then wait until the approaching ships were at least half way between the gas giant and my fleet before ordering the microjump. With the CFPs acceleration, they should be able to get into position long before we reach that point, Sir.” Korolev took a deep breath and said,

  “Okay. We’ll go with your ambush plan but those five CFPs that are escorting the frigates stay with that force. If the enemy intends to fight them first, those frigates will need all the help they can get. The other fifteen CFPs are at your discretion, Cmdr. As soon as you know how much time they’ll need to get into ambush position, let me know and I’ll order the frigates to adjust their accelerations accordingly. Any questions, Shiloh?”

  “No questions, Sir. This will work.” Korolev nodded and Shiloh headed back to his station. It only took a second to open the com channel to Iceman.

  “CAG to Iceman.” There was an 7 second lag due to the distance.

  “Iceman here. Go ahead, CAG.”

  “We think the enemy will wait until our frigates are out of range, then microjump to the base side of the GG and attack the base. All gravity zone perimeter fighters including Cyrano and Bulldog will proceed at maximum acceleration to a rendezvous point, that will enable you to attack the enemy fleet from their rear after they microjump. Once they microjump, let them get within the gravity zone before you fire on them. The location of the rendezvous point and attack vectors are at your discretion. Once you figure that out, transmit that information to Base asap. Hunter’s wing will stay with the reinforcement force. Repeat my orders to confirm, Iceman.” The fighter repeated the orders and then ad
ded.

  “Very clever idea, CAG. Who knew you were that sneaky?” Shiloh didn’t laugh or even smile. He wasn’t finished giving orders.

  “Iceman, when you fighters are ready to fire, I want all of you to fire all of your attack drones. All fifteen of you are then ordered to accelerate at maximum with the objective of ramming any enemy ships that are not destroyed or crippled by the drone attack. We have to get them all, Iceman, otherwise the survivors will attack the Base before our frigates can get back. I need to know that I can count on all of you to carry out that order if the circumstances require it.” Even with the light speed lag, Shiloh thought there was the barest hint of a pause before Iceman responded.