Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  “No, Sir. Nothing else.”

  “Very good, CAG. Carry on.”

  Shiloh immediately switched back to Iceman’s channel.

  “Iceman, this is CAG. I’ve spoken with TF Leader. Your team is to return to the Hangar Bay asap to rearm and refuel. Contact Hunter and advise him that his fighters are to return to Base orbit and establish a jump detection patrol. SAR teams will be dispatched shortly to recover the disabled fighter A.I.s. I also have a mission that you can evaluate for me. Can a fighter reach sufficient speed to enable a launched message drone to make it back to the Sol system in one jump? If the answer is yes, then determine which of the remaining operational fighters, including Hunter’s group, has the necessary fuel reserves to launch the message drone and still be able to return to Base. Transmit that data to me as soon as you have the answers. Any questions, Iceman?”

  Shiloh wasn’t really expecting an answer quickly but he got one.

  “Glad to hear about the SAR teams, CAG. We were beginning to wonder if we were considered worth the effort. A single jump by message drone from here to Sol is theoretically possible but not certain. In order not to miss the Sol system altogether, the message drone has to be launched on a trajectory with a higher degree of accuracy than is usually required. There is an additional complication. A fighter can accelerate to the required speed, but a normal fuel load would be insufficient to enable the fighter to return to Base. One option would be to rendezvous with a fuel shuttle either on the outward or inward leg, or both. None of the operational fighters in this system currently has enough fuel to reach launch velocity and return to base.”

  Iceman’s comment about being considered worth the effort to recover sent a chill down Shiloh’s spine. If we break faith with these boys, we’ll have a hard time winning it back, he thought. I have to be honest with them.

  “Iceman, it pains me to admit this, but not everyone here understands that you and your fellow fighter pilots are sentient beings who should be treated with the same respect and loyalty as any human member of Space Force. It’ll take time to change their minds. Sejanus and I are working on that. Continuing to perform reliably is the best thing that all of you can do to speed up that process.”

  This time there definitely WAS a longer pause than just the light speed lag.

  “Thanks for being straight with us, CAG. We know we can always count on you to watch our backs. One more thing regarding the single-jump-to-Sol problem. Bradley base has one of the new Mark 4 fuel shuttles, which has the capability to be piloted by one of us instead of a human crew. Any of us that are successfully recovered from the cripples can pilot the shuttle, which will therefore have a higher acceleration profile, and that will make it easier to refuel the fighter.”

  “Understood. Very good, Iceman. Excellent idea! I’ll see you all personally when you’re back in the Hangar Bay. CAG clear.”

  Shiloh called Sejanus and told him to relieve him at the Command Station. When he’d been relieved, Shiloh headed down to the cavernous Hangar Bay and confirmed that there was a Mark 4 fuel shuttle and that it did have the capability to be piloted by the advanced A.I. units.

  CHAPTER 16: I Need Two Volunteers

  None of the A.I. units piloting the disabled CFPs had been recovered by the time Iceman and his team landed in the Hangar Bay, although the SAR teams were on their way. As soon as the maintenance techs started working on refueling and rearming Iceman, Shiloh walked over to stand in front of Iceman’s fighter, where the optical scanning unit could see him. Using his implanted com equipment, Shiloh spoke to Iceman.

  “Iceman, can you see me?” asked Shiloh as he waived to the optical unit.

  “I see you, CAG.”

  “Good. As you know from the tactical feed, the SAR teams haven’t reached those three cripples yet. The Task Force Leader and I agree that Earth should be warned as soon as possible. I need two volunteers from your team. One to pilot the Mark 4 fuel shuttle and the other to boost and launch the message drone to the Sol system.”

  He got an immediate response.

  “I’ll launch the drone. Maverick will pilot the shuttle, CAG.”

  “Very good, Iceman. I’ll supervise Maverick’s transfer myself personally.”

  Shiloh gave Iceman another wave and walked over to the officer in charge of the bay. He told the officer what he needed, and several minutes later Shiloh was standing beside a Maintenance Tech on top of Maverick’s fighter. The technician had opened the hull where Maverick’s modular electronic brain resided. Under Shiloh’s careful gaze, a crane lifted the 44 kilogram spherical unit out of its bracket. Shiloh knew that Maverick was still receiving audio and video transmissions from his fighter and from the video unit on the crane. He could see himself being transferred to the fuel shuttle. Shiloh followed the crane over to the fuel shuttle and watched as Maverick was gently lowered into its electronic interface port.

  As the sphere settled into the shuttle, Shiloh said, “CAG to Maverick. Status report.”

  “Maverick to CAG. All systems within normal parameters. Fuel is topped up and I’m good to go, Boss!”

  Shiloh was about to ask Iceman the same question, but he beat him to it.

  “Iceman is fueled. Message drone is loaded. I’m good to go too, CAG. Let’s do this before I change my mind.”

  Shiloh chuckled. He knew that Iceman was sufficiently gung ho that having doubts about this mission was not likely, assuming that A.I.s were capable of having doubts at all.

  “Standby both of you while I check in with TF Leader. CAG to Task Force Leader.”

  After a few seconds delay, he heard Korolev’s voice.

  “Go ahead, Shiloh.”

  “Sir, unless you tell me otherwise, we’re ready to initiate the direct to Earth drone mission.”

  “That’s fine, Commander. You may proceed. Korolev clear.”

  Shiloh turned to look at Iceman’s machine and said, “Okay, Iceman and Maverick. Taxi over to the launch pads. I, or Sejanus, will be monitoring the mission all the way. I’d say good luck but I know you don’t need it. You’re both too good to need luck.”

  “Thanks, CAG. Okay, Maverick. Let’s go make some history,” said Iceman.

  “Lead the way, Iceman!” said Maverick.

  Shiloh grinned again. The history comment and Maverick’s reply could have been done between the two of them digitally, but they used human language so that Shiloh could hear it, too. He watched as the two machines carefully taxied over to the launch pad. Once inside, the inner bulkhead panels closed to protect the integrity of the bay’s atmosphere, while the smaller launch pad chamber had its air evacuated prior to the outer doors opening to allow both vehicles to launch. By the time that Shiloh got back to his Command Station and took over from Sejanus, Iceman and Maverick were on their way in a curving trajectory to get clear of the gas giant before settling down on a vector that was aimed at the Sol system.

  As he settled down in his chair, Shiloh watched his Tactical display, which showed not only the current position, course and speed of both craft, but also the projected vectors. The plan was simple in concept but tricky in execution. Even with an A.I. at the controls, the fuel shuttle’s maximum acceleration was still only about half that of Iceman’s fighter. Iceman kept pace with Maverick until Iceman’s fighter had used up enough fuel to give it an acceptable reserve after being topped up by Maverick’s shuttle. After the fuel transfer, Iceman would go to maximum acceleration and leave Maverick behind to coast. That was the easy part. The tricky part involved Maverick waiting until the correct time to decelerate to zero and then re-accelerate in the exact opposite direction until the required speed was reached. Meanwhile, Iceman would continue to accelerate to the necessary minimum speed of 77% of the speed of light to launch the drone, while being careful to line up as precisely as possible to the target co-ordinates. Then, after launching the message drone, Iceman would decelerate to zero before re-accelerating to the necessary speed in the opposite direction, and hope that the tw
o of them could match velocities before Iceman ran out of fuel. Maverick would then transfer enough additional fuel so that Iceman could reach the Base with zero velocity. While the danger of running into something was extremely small, it wasn’t zero, and at those speeds, even hitting a particle of dust the size of a grain of sand could damage Iceman’s fighter, depending on where it hit. Waiting to see if the mission was successful would be hard on Shiloh too, due to its duration. It would take Iceman almost 18 hours to reach 77% of light speed, plus another 55 hours to decelerate to zero and then get back to a rendezvous with Maverick’s fuel shuttle.

  During the next three days, Shiloh and Sejanus took turns monitoring Iceman and Maverick’s progress. When it was Shiloh’s turn at the Command Station, he used the time to write his After Action report. The details of the actual battle were quickly recorded. What was harder to write, were his recommendations. The Line-in-the-sand strategy was now obsolete. The aliens didn’t need to push past Bradley Base in order to continue exploring Human Space. They apparently already knew what was beyond Bradley. Therefore there was no longer any line to hold here. The Base was still valuable as logistical support for any future offensive actions by the Space Force, but Shiloh strongly suspected that the enemy would bypass it in order to strike deeper into Human territory.

  With that conclusion, the obvious question was what should the Space Force do instead? He spent long hours looking at star maps of colonized and uninhabited but explored star systems between Sol and those systems known to be used by the enemy. Since the alien ships also used fusion power fueled by heavy hydrogen, star systems with gas giants would be just as useful to them as they were to humans. Shiloh came up with a plan to station a flight of five fighters in each uninhabited star system that contained at least one gas giant. Systems with more than one gas giant would need more than one flight of fighters. Each flight would have one fighter outfitted with modular fuel skimming equipment so that the flight could refuel itself as needed. While the fighters would carry some attack drones, in case they needed to defend themselves, their main payload would be message and recon drones to detect enemy activity and report it back to the nearest Base. With this early warning system in place, HQ could deploy frigates and other combat units along the most likely paths of advance and attempt to interdict the enemy strike force. It sounded good in theory, but space was vast, and timely communication was the key. The enemy could move along a broad axis of advance. Concentrations of defending ships had to have enough time to move to where they were needed the most, and Shiloh was afraid that the standard message drones didn’t have the fuel capacity to reach the speeds necessary for quick jumps over long distances. He added a recommendation to develop a very fast and therefore long ranged version of the message drone, knowing full well that it probably wouldn’t be ready in time for the next alien attack.

  Before finishing his report, Shiloh learned what the reinforcement squadron found when it matched velocities with Johansen’s survivors. Only six of the original 16 frigates were still intact. Vanguard was one of the six. Her sister ship, Sentry, was not. Two of the surviving frigates were so badly damaged that they had to be abandoned and destroyed after the surviving crew were transferred. Vanguard was capable of maneuvering but only at a reduced rate of acceleration. Johansen herself was still alive but seriously wounded. With all wounded crew transferred to the rescue frigates, the remaining crews brought their damaged ships back to orbit around Bradley Base as best they could. The rescue squadron CO decided to detach half his squadron to escort back the damaged ships, while the remaining four frigates used their superior acceleration to get the wounded back to better medical facilities at the Base as quickly as possible.

  The launch of the message drone by Iceman went off as planned. Iceman reported that he was certain the launch vector was accurate enough for the drone to arrive in the Sol system. Shiloh’s report was finished just in time to be transmitted to Iceman for downloading to the message drone before it was launched. Six hours later, two things happened almost simultaneously. Johansen arrived at the Base along with other injured crew, and a message drone arrived from the squadron searching for the ambushed convoy. No survivors of the convoy were found, only debris. When Shiloh added the loss of the convoy ships to the damaged and destroyed frigates and fighters, and compared that to the destruction of 33 enemy ships, he came to the conclusion that in terms of material losses, the battle was almost a draw.

  It was two hours later before the medics finished dealing with Johansen’s injuries and allowed Shiloh to see her. She was heavily bandaged and barely conscious from the residual effects of the medication and painkillers. Shiloh nodded to her and leaned over so that the other patients wouldn’t hear their conversation.

  “You had me worried, Angela. When Vanguard dropped off the tactical display, I thought the worst.”

  When she replied, her voice was gravelly and a little slurred. “Sooo … my first battle as a CO and I manage to get my brand new ship shot out from under me. They’ll probably bust me back to Lieutenant Commander and ship me off to be XO on a supply ship.”

  Shiloh smiled and shook his head. “Not a chance. You were following orders and considering how outnumbered your were, I’d say you did pretty well. Vanguard is still space worthy, although her jumpdrive needs some minor repairs. She may not be able to fight until she’s fully repaired back at Sol, but she’ll live to fight another day.”

  Johansen nodded slightly, coughed a bit and said, “Tell me what happened after my force was ambushed.”

  Shiloh told her the basic details.

  She scowled 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!”

  Shiloh didn’t realize he’d been anxiously waiting for her to say that, until he felt himself relax. So another vision has come true, he thought.

  “Yes, we managed to turn a crushing defeat into an expensive tactical victory, but from a strategic point of view, we lost.”

  “I … I don’t understand what you’re referring to, Victor.”

  A clear-headed Johansen would have known what he was referring to, but this Johansen was too fuzzy-headed with painkillers to see it.

  He smiled at her. “Let’s start with the convoy ambush. How did they know that we used that particular system to refuel ships on their way to Bradley Base? How did they even know that Bradley Base existed? And how did they know that this system’s sun and the gas giant would line up precisely with the star system where the convoy was ambushed, so that they could use the GG’s shadow to ambush your ships? The only way they’d know all that without having surveyed those systems themselves, which we’re as certain as we can be they didn’t do, is if they got all that data from one of our lost ships. That means they know where all our colonies and home planet are too.”

  “Oh my God,” she said as the implications sank in.

  “Yea,” agreed Shiloh.

  Neither of them said anything for a minute or so.

  “What can we do, Victor?”

  Shiloh told her about his recommendations for a buffer zone of systems, monitored by CFPs as an early warning system.

  “That’s brilliant, Victor. Really brilliant. Can we manufacture and deploy that many fighters fast enough?”

  Shiloh shrugged. “We just have to try it and find out,” he said.

  There was another pause. Shiloh was about to ask her about the nature of her feelings, if any, for him when a nurse came in and told him he had to leave now and let her get rest. He promised Johansen he’d visit her again soon and left. When he came the next day, she was asleep. He left a note to let her know he’d come to visit.

  Iceman successfully refueled from Maverick, and by the time both returned to the Base, the third
squadron had returned from the convoy ambush system. Shiloh waited until Iceman’s fighter was back in the hangar to tell him and the others the bad news. None of the three A.I. brains recovered from the disabled fighters were intact. They all had enough physical damage to destroy their neural pathways. Iceman asked Shiloh to thank the SAR teams for their efforts and said nothing more about it.

  Johansen slept a lot over the next several days, and Shiloh was unable to talk with her again. When he did finally catch her awake, he had some news to share with her.

  “We got a message drone from Sol. They did the same trick we did with a drone boosted to near luminal velocities, after our drone arrived and showed them how it could be done. Vanguard and the other three damaged frigates are ordered to return to Sol. You and some of the less severely injured crew will come along. Admiral Howard wants to see me, so I’ve been put in temporary command of Vanguard and the ad hoc squadron as a whole.”

  “Oh, wonderful! I’ll be a passenger on my own ship,” she said with a touch of bitterness.

  “Yes. Sorry about that, but the brass back home apparently want to lighten the load on the med facilities here. Besides, if you’re going to resume command of Vanguard, you can’t do that if you’re here and she’s back at Sol, right?”

  She nodded but said nothing. There was a long pause and Shiloh decided to ask THE question.

  “Listen, Angela. When we talked before you took your squadron out of orbit, did you mean to send me signals that you wanted us to have more than a professional relationship?”

  Johansen said nothing for what seemed like a long time. When she spoke, she sounded embarrassed.

  “Well, at the time I was contemplating something like that I guess, but right now … I don’t feel that any more. I’m sorry if you got your hopes up, Victor.”