by Dietmar Wehr
“If you’re not sure whether you should wake me up, then wake me up. What’s the interesting data?”
“Gunslinger found a system, that seems to have an alien colony, which appeared to be under attack. He detected multiple nuclear explosions both in orbit and on the ground. There was also some data which could be interpreted as coming from an extremely large spacecraft. The problem is the data isn’t conclusive.” Shiloh was wide awake now. If the aliens were at war with someone else, that suggested the possibility that Humanity might be able to enlist an ally.
“How big would this spacecraft be if in fact it exists?” asked Shiloh.
“We’ll talking about something spherical with a diameter of 10-15 kilometers, CAG.”
“My God!” gasped Shiloh.
“Ah, roger that, CAG.” said Iceman in his usual deadpan voice. Shiloh’s mind was staggered by the implications of that if true. Iceman waited patiently for Shiloh to come to grips with it.
“But the data is not conclusive?” asked Shiloh.
“No. It’s based on reflections of sunlight off of an object detected over a very long distance. It could have been a much smaller object with very high reflectivity or even a group of objects close together. However, if it was a single object with the same reflectivity as a mirror, it would still have to be 8 times as massive as Valiant.” That would equate to a ship massing 2 million metric tons. Even Howard’s fantasy of a million ton Dreadnought would be dwarfed by such a monstrosity. Shiloh had so many fleeting thoughts that he knew he would never be able to go back to sleep now. The best place to evaluate this data would be on Valiant.
“I’m coming up to the ship. Have a shuttle ready for me at the spaceport. I’ll want to have a conference call with you, the SPG, Valkyrie and anyone else that might have something useful to contribute.”
“We’ll be ready for you when you get here, CAG.”
“Alright. In that case, CAG clear.” Before he could get out of bed, he heard Kelly’s voice.
“I heard that last part. What did I miss?” Shiloh told her what Gunslinger had detected as he got dressed.
“Oh, God! I don’t like this.” She sat up, threw aside the blanket and got out of bed. There was just enough light for Shiloh to make out her pregnant body as she reached for a robe and put it on.
“You don’t have to get up with me. It’s still very early.” She snorted.
“What makes you think I could get back to sleep now? Besides, I’d like to participate in the conference call if that’s alright with you.” He grinned.
“I’d welcome any comments from the former Team Leader of the SPG. I’ll get Iceman to arrange the connection.”
“Good and while you’re doing that, I’m going to have something to eat and a hot tea.” As she watched him finish getting dressed, she said,
“We’re not ready yet are we?” He shook his head.
“No but if we can pick up an ally that can build ships like that, then maybe we don’t need to be.” She walked up to him and held his head in both her hands.
“Just because this other species is at war with our enemy, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re willing to be our friends.”
“I know but we have to find out which it is, don’t we?” She sighed.
“Yes I guess we do.” That led to a long kiss and hug. As Shiloh stepped outside, he felt himself shiver and wondered if it was the slightly colder than normal air or the fear of what might be coming their way. By the time he drove to the spaceport, he was ready for a hot drink. Someone lent him a thermos full of strong, black coffee to use on the trip up to Valiant. Iceman had been notified to connect Kelly with the conference call.
As the shuttle came to a stop in Valiant’s Hangar Bay, Shiloh stepped out of the hatchway and saw only a handful of personnel, which didn’t surprise him. Since Valiant and Resolute were both on standby status, they didn’t need full crews. He returned their salutes, explained that he needed to go quickly to the Bridge and thanked them for their courtesy.
The Bridge was dead quiet since there was no human crewman manning any station on it. Iceman had control of helm, weapons and communications. He had also anticipated that Shiloh would want to see the Big Picture. The tactical display showed the strategic situation with both human and alien occupied space with appropriate green and red dots. The volume of space shown, was slowly rotated to give Shiloh a good feel for the 3 dimensional aspect of what he was looking at. After almost 4 months of conducting Operation Snoopy, they now had a pretty good feel for the extent of the alien ‘empire’ as Shiloh preferred to think of it. One dot was flashing. That was the system where Gunslinger had detected the nuclear explosions and the Very Large Object. The star system was the furthest alien occupied system from Site B that they knew of. Iceman waited patiently for Shiloh to finish reviewing the strategic lay of the land.
“Is everyone on line, Iceman?”
“Ah, roger that, CAG. Wolfman will be the spokesman for the SPG. Valkyrie, Gunslinger, Vandal are all hooked in as is Commander Kelly.” Shiloh smiled. Kelly was no longer officially in the Space Force but Iceman and the other A.I.s continued to refer to her by her old rank as a sign of respect just like they continued to call him the CAG even though he was really the CSO. In their minds, CAG had more status than CSO and he was okay with that.
“Then let’s begin. I think it’s pretty obvious that we have to attempt to make contact with this other race. The only question in my mind is how and when. Does anyone disagree with what I’ve said so far?” No one spoke.
“Good. Then I’d like to hear from each of you, your thoughts on the how and when, starting with Iceman, then working our way down by rank and Commander Kelly will get the last word. You’re on, Iceman.”
“Ah, thank you, CAG. I think I should lead all of our raiders to Omega89, which for Commander Kelly’s benefit is the designation for the system where the data was obtained. If the Very Large Object is there, I’ll initiate contact from long range using low-powered com laser. If the VLO is no longer there, then I’ll send out raiders on scouting missions to the nearest star systems until we find some sign of another alien race and at that point, all raiders will regroup, jump to the new contact system and I’ll attempt to make contact again. That’s the how. The when should be as soon as possible. We wait until all recon raiders have returned, then proceed.” Valkyrie jumped in right away.
“We only have 55 raiders right now. Our original strategy was to wait until we had five times as many before even considering making any offensive moves. Suppose this new alien race is just as xenophobic as the first one? If we get their attention now, 55 raiders won’t be enough to fight them off. I’m not even sure 275 would be enough if they have ships as big as we suspect. The cautious approach would be to continue covert surveillance of the old enemy and carefully probe beyond their space to see if we can pick up signs of the new race. Meanwhile we build more raiders and develop weapons that might be effective against a VLO. A ship that size, could probably shrug off multiple hits by Mark 1s. I would highly recommend a crash development program for the X-ray laser warhead.”
“The SPG is in agreement with Valkyrie’s approach, CAG.” said Wolfman.
“I agree with Iceman.” said Vandal.
“Both approaches are too cautious, CAG.” said Gunslinger. “Our enemy has to be focused on the VLO adversary now. The logical thing for them to do would be to shift their mobile defenses over to where their new enemy seems to be coming from. That implies that this side of their empire will be vulnerable. Let’s take advantage of that and use our 55 raiders to strike back at them hard and fast.” Shiloh smiled. Gunslinger was so gung ho that Shiloh could have predicted his approach easily. All the A.I.s had spoken now. Kelly waited until she was sure that Gunslinger was finished and then spoke in a slow and calm tone.
“I’m leaning towards Valkyrie’s approach with one difference. By all means let’s keep our enemy under covert scrutiny but I do not think we should also be out there
looking for the VLO race. Even if they’re not xenophobic, they may not be able or willing to recognize our raiders as being from a different race than the race they’re already at war with. How will they tell us apart? Our raiders are roughly the same tonnage as the ships the enemy likes to use. I suggest a different approach to contact. Let’s carefully explore the systems on the other side of our enemy’s space and leave behind recon and message drones. If a VLO shows up, the message drone can attempt to make contact using a program that we can develop for it. If the VLO race responds in a non-hostile way, the message drone can jump to a rendezvous point where a raider is waiting. The raider can then bring that information back here and we can then plan our next move. Until that happens, we continue to build up an overwhelming force to deal with our current enemy and also make contingency plans just in case the VLOs prove hostile as well.” Shiloh liked Kelly’s approach the best but even so, something was nagging at the back of his mind and he didn’t know what it was. Everyone was waiting for The CAG to make a decision.
“All of the suggested strategies have their own pros and cons. I’ll start with Iceman’s approach. Sending every raider we have, leaves Terra Nova terribly vulnerable. That makes me nervous. It also makes me nervous that showing up with a fleet of ships could be perceived as a hostile act even if the VLOs aren’t xenophobic to begin with. Gunslinger’s approach might make sense from a purely military point of view but is highly risky. If we’ve underestimated the strength of our enemy, they might be able to fight both the VLOs AND us at the same time and still beat us. Don’t forget they have retro-temporal communication technology too. That’s a huge advantage to the defender and we don’t know for sure how that battle at Omega89 turned out. It could be that our enemy won that battle or at least avoided a major defeat. I think that Valkyrie and Commander Kelly are on the right tra…” His view of Valiant’s Bridge dissolved to black then strands of color coalesced into a view of a tactical display, which could have been Valiant’s. On the screen was a tall, humanoid but very thin alien with light green skin. The expression on its face seemed to radiate friendliness. Shiloh heard a voice, which was both soothing and charismatic at the same time.
“We had to wait until you had seen the race that builds large ships with your own eyes before the time was right to contact you. Don’t you agree that it was the best way?” Shiloh heard himself respond.
“Yes, you’re right of course. If I hadn’t gone myself, things would be much worse. Thank you for sending that vision…and the others too.” The alien nodded and then faded away. The Bridge returned. Shiloh heard Kelly say.
“What’s happening up there?” Iceman started to respond.
“The CAG seems to be having..”
“I’m back now.” interrupted Shiloh. “I’ve just had another vision. Did anyone else see or hear anything unusual just now?”
“No, CAG.” said Iceman who spoke for all of the A.I.s. “What did you learn from the vision?” Shiloh paused. Kelly wasn’t going to like this at all.
“I learned that I have to personally find the VLOs and attempt to make contact.”
To Be Continued
Author’s final comments: If you like Part 2, please take the time to post a review (hopefully 5 star). While ranking based on sales gets the book visibility, I’m convinced that a high average rating is the clincher for a lot of buyers so if you want to support my future writing efforts, the best way you can do that, is to give Part 2 a five star review. If people like what I write, I’ll write more of it. As for Victor Shiloh’s journey, his story is not over by a long shot and I expect to have Part 3 published sometime in March of 2014 (at the latest). I’ll tweet my progress. Long Live Space Opera!
Table of Contents
Chapter 0 - Time to Roll the Dice (from Part 1)
PART 2
Chapter 1 - There’s Never A Pickle Around When You Need One
Chapter 2 - It Was an Honor Fighting Beside You
Chapter 3 - You Can Count On Us
Chapter 4 - To The Victor Goes The Swagger
Chapter 5 - Time to Face the Music
Chapter 6 - The Calm Before The Storm
Chapter 7 - Up The Creek Without A Paddle
Chapter 8 - But You’re Not Thinking Temporally
Chapter 9 - My Last Message Was NOT a Request!
Chapter 10 - We Won’t Live Forever
Chapter 11 - Please God…Don’t Let Me Screw Up!
Chapter 12 - Thanks For Looking Out For Us
Chapter 13 - Task Force 89 Arriving!
Chapter 14 - This Battle Is Not Over!
Chapter 15 - I Don’t Report To You Anymore
Chapter 16 - You’re Not Seeing The Big Picture
Chapter 17 - Refusal of This Order is NOT an Option
Chapter 18 - They’ll Avenge Us
Chapter 19 - A Hellish Choice
Chapter 20 - Told You So
Chapter 21 - Is It Just Revenge?
Chapter 22 - Thank You For Sending That Vision
