Synchronicity War Part 1, The (29 page)

“How do we know when they’ll be arriving at Green4?” asked
Shiloh to no one in particular.

Naturally Iceman spoke up first. “I have the answer, but
I’ll let the Astrogator field this one if he wants to.”

Shiloh’s eyebrows went up.
What a tactful way of letting
Martin save some face. You continue to astonish me, Iceman.
He could see
from Martin’s expression that Iceman’s gesture wasn’t lost on him either.

“Thanks, Iceman. It’s actually simple, Sir. We line Defiant
up for Green4, all the while keeping track of the bogey’s speed. When the bogey
jumps, we’ll know exactly how fast it entered Jumpspace, and that will tell us
when it’ll arrive at Green4. We then accelerate to a higher speed which will
get us there first, with enough time to deploy sentry fighters and recon drones
near both gas giants.”

“Very good. That’s what we’ll do. XO, bring the ship to a
jump vector for Green4. Iceman, you contact Maverick and Hunter. Tell them what
they need to do to keep tracking the bogey, and also make sure that the DCAG is
informed as well. Both fighters will stay in Blue2 after the bogey jumps away,
as per the original mission. Any questions?” No one had any. “Good. Carry on
then.”

It took almost an hour for Defiant to swing around to a
heading that it could use to jump to Green4. It and the bogey were now on
parallel vectors, and while the bogey was further ahead, Defiant at this point
was still traveling faster and was therefore catching up. At its closest point,
the distance between them would still be more than a million kilometers.
Defiant didn’t have to get close in order to beat the bogey to Green4. During
that time, the half dozen recon drones controlled by Maverick and Hunter used a
rapidly repeating series of rangefinder laser pulses to track the bogey. With
Defiant now on the precise vector for the jump to Green4, it resumed
acceleration. The bogey disappeared into Jumpspace 89 minutes later, and since
Defiant’s speed was already greater, it jumped three minutes after that.

That extra speed enabled Defiant to emerge 22 hours later
into the Green4 star system, 3 hours ahead of the bogey. Time enough to deploy
recon drones and a pair of jump detection equipped fighters around each of the
two gas giants, while remaining more or less equidistant from both. The drones
would passively search for reflected sunlight contacts, while the fighters
would attempt to pinpoint the exact location – and number – of ships emerging
from Jumpspace. Deploying only two fighters near each gas giant was a
calculated risk. A single fighter’s detection gear could only cover a limited
area, and if the bogey happened to emerge from Jumpspace outside that detection
range, the equipment wouldn’t see them. The space around each gas giant was so
large that even if Shiloh had deployed all of his fighters among the two gas
giants, it still wouldn’t have guaranteed detection, AND recovering his
fighters from both planets would prevent Defiant from being able to jump ahead
of the bogey to their next destination. The time to the bogey's expected
arrival in Green4 came and went. Because Defiant’s distance from either gas
giant was measured in millions of kilometers, ordinary light speed
communication by tight beam laser was too slow. The only way for a sentry
fighter to get word to Defiant quickly enough was to launch a message drone. It
microjumped to the area where Defiant drifted, and less than a minute after the
arrival time, the ship picked up a text message from a message drone sent from
one of the fighters monitoring the gas giant that Shiloh had designated as
Green4A.

[
55 ships detected emerging from Jumpspace. No visual
contact yet
]

The text message was followed by a data stream, containing
the precise coordinates. Shiloh was stunned. Fifty-five ships! This was no
recon mission. It was clearly a major attack. The lack of reflected sunlight
contact was very bad news. Without some idea of where at least one of those
ships was, the recon drones would have no way of knowing where to point their
laser rangefinders and therefore couldn’t determine where those ships were
heading, or how fast they were going. Using active radar scanning would tip the
aliens off to the fact that humans were aware of their presence. At least the
lack of contact reports of any kind from Green4B suggested  – but did not prove
– that the aliens were not intending to use it to refuel. Whatever else Defiant
might do, it had to refuel from Green4B as quickly as possible, otherwise its
options would be severely limited.

Shiloh was about to order Tanaka to microjump the ship to
Green4B to refuel, when the Bridge faded from his field of vision, and he saw
himself standing in front of Admiral Howard. But this vision was different.
Instead of the usual crystal clear image, this image was blurry, almost as if
he were looking at the scene through distorted lens. Howard’s voice sounded
strange too. The pitch was not quite right, and the words didn’t seem to be
synchronized with Howard’s mouth.

“I congratulate you on your decision to remain at the star
system where you detected the enemy fleet. If you had continued to track them,
you would not have been able to detect the much larger force that was following
in their wake, and we wouldn’t have been able to gather enough strength in time
to stop it. For your brilliant strategy, I’m promoting you to the next higher
level of rank.”

As Shiloh listened to Howard’s words, which were said in a
calm, almost monotone voice, he noticed that Howard was repeatedly jabbing his
pointed right hand in Shiloh’s direction and the expression on Howard’s face
did not look particularly pleased. If he’d been watching this scene without any
sound at all, he would have interpreted Howard’s body language as indicating
anger. The dissonance between the visual and auditory impressions was striking.

What is going on
, he asked himself. He looked around
to see if anyone was looking at him. No one was. Tanaka was conning the ship
from the Helm Station again. Falkenberg was down in the Hangar Bay supervising
the fighters and their support teams. There was something not right about this
vision, but Shiloh couldn’t put his finger on it, and he didn’t have time to
analyze it further. Decisions had to be made. The fighter at Green4A would be
following previously given instructions and maneuvering his drones under the
assumption that the fleet would head for the nearest gas giant. Even if the
drones didn’t detect any reflected sunlight from any of the alien ships before
they reached the gas giant, those ships would agitate the planet’s atmosphere
enough with friction and turbulence that their presence would be detected if
the drones were close enough. The drones would then attempt to pinpoint the
enemy’s exact locations and vectors using the range finding lasers as the ships
emerged from the planet’s atmosphere. In theory it should work, but it had
never been tried before, so no one really knew.

What Shiloh had to decide now was whether Defiant would
proceed to Green4B, as planned, to refuel so that it could boost a high speed
message drone, and also beat the enemy fleet to their next destination. But if
the vision were correct about an even larger follow-on fleet, then staying
right where they were would be the best option. On the other hand, if the
vision were wrong somehow, then perhaps there was a third option that he hadn’t
considered yet. His visions so far had all involved a change of plans from what
he otherwise would have done. If he applied that parameter to this situation,
he would proceed to refuel at Green4B. The mere fact that he was having some
kind of vision to begin with, strongly suggested that refueling to boost to the
next destination was NOT the optimal strategy, but staying in Green4 and doing
nothing just didn’t sit well with him. The only other strategy he could think
of was to attack that fleet before they could jump away. He needed to confer
with his senior officers and to his mind that included Iceman as well.
Falkenberg could join the discussion by video intercom, as could Iceman. Tanaka
and Rodriguez could step over to his station as they had done before.

When all four were present, either electronically or physically,
Shiloh said, “Valkyrie has detected 55 ships emerging from Jumpspace near
Green4A. He’ll try to pick up their precise locations and vectors as they
refuel. I now have to decide what our response will be. For reasons that I do
not want to go into now, I’m having doubts that our plan to refuel at Green4B
and then jump ahead of the enemy fleet is still our best option. I want to hear
assessments from all of you on an alternative strategy to attack the fleet here
in this system, and if you have a completely different idea, I’d like to hear
that too. You first, Brad.”

The Deputy CAG took a deep breath and said, “Well, we have
19 fighters still aboard and we have enough attack drones to give them five
each, which should be plenty, but the challenge will be to get targeting lasers
on each enemy ship, unless we want to use active scanning. Without one or the
other, the attack drones won’t know where to aim. Right now, Valkyrie doesn’t
have enough recon drones to target more than half a dozen ships at one time,
assuming that they can find their targets to begin with. If they were in fact
intending to refuel at Green4A, then the ideal time to hit them would be while
they’re still deep in the gas giant’s atmosphere. Their ability to see us will
be limited, but we’d have to get drones and/or fighters in close to be able to
precisely locate their ships from the wakes they leave behind as they plow
through the gas.”

Shiloh nodded and turned from the video screen with
Falkenberg’s image to his Astrogator.

“Can we get our fighters that close before the enemy
re-emerges from the atmosphere, Astrogator?”

“There’s no way to know for certain. We don’t have any data
on how fast they can refuel, Sir. But if their refueling time is similar to
ours, then the answer is yes. Defiant would have to jump as close as possible
to the opposite side of the gas giant from where the enemy fleet is, so that
their jump detection gear wouldn’t pick us up. We’d launch our fighters, which
would accelerate at maximum in order to make a close, high speed pass, and then
fire their attack drones when they had visual contact with the enemy ships.”

He was about to say more when Tanaka interrupted. “What if
they keep some of their fleet in orbit to stand guard while the rest refuel? If
I were their fleet commander, I wouldn’t risk exactly that kind of ambush by
refueling all ships at the same time. How would we deal with that?”

There was a short pause, and then Iceman spoke. “We launch
our fighters and use the gas giant’s atmosphere against them. Our recon drones
will monitor their position and speed as they refuel. The fighters will enter
the atmosphere far enough away that the enemy won’t spot them. When the
distance has dropped to less than 100 kilometers, our fighters will swing
around so that they’re behind the alien ships still refueling and then move
back up to the edge of the atmosphere. The enemy won’t be looking down at the
planet for signs of human activity. They’ll be watching the space around and
above them. When all 55 ships have finished refueling, our recon drones will
relay that data to our fighters, which will emerge from the atmosphere, stay
behind the enemy fleet at close range and launch attack drones. At precisely
that same time, our recon drones will go to active scanning, use that data to
triangulate each enemy ship’s exact position, and relay that data to our attack
drones. The enemy will react to the radar scanning from above and fire at our
recon drones while our attack drones get within one kilometer of their targets.
They can then use their own radars for terminal guidance, and that fraction of
a second before impact won’t be enough time for the enemy to retarget their
lasers.”

No one said anything for almost five seconds.

Finally Shiloh said, “That plan will require split second
coordination to work, but other than that, I don’t see any flaws with it. Does
anyone else?”

The responses were uniformly ‘no’.

“Iceman, have you calculated all of the vectors and signal
times needed to make this work?” asked Shiloh.

“Ah, roger that, CAG,” was the immediate response.

Shiloh took note of the fact that Iceman referred to him as
the CAG and not as the ship’s CO.

“Very good. In that case, I want Iceman to coordinate this
attack. He will issue the necessary orders to Defiant’s Helm and all the
fighters involved, as well as monitor the attack as it proceeds, and react as
needed if things don’t go as planned. Iceman, make sure you keep the Defiant’s tactical
computer updated on all vector changes and transmissions. XO? You’ll monitor
but not interfere with Iceman’s Helm directives.”

As Tanaka nodded, Shiloh continued, “Iceman, how soon do we
need to begin the attack plan?”

“The longer we wait, the less chance of pulling this off,
CAG. I would not recommend waiting more than five more minutes. The sooner, the
better.”

“Understood. Does anyone have any questions?” No one spoke
up. “In that case, return to your stations.”

When everyone was back at their assigned stations, Shiloh
took a deep breath.
I hope I’m doing the right thing
, he thought to
himself.

“Okay, Iceman. The mission objectives are the total
destruction of that alien fleet. With that as your goal, you have my permission
to commence that attack plan.”

“I won’t let you down, CAG.”

Almost immediately, Defiant’s engines started pushing her
onto a new vector. The main display showed a countdown to a microjump. Shiloh’s
station started showing increased activity in the Hangar Bay as the support
teams began to load more attack drones onto each fighter. The moment that
Shiloh had been dreading, being in command of a major battle WITHOUT any
reliable vision to guide him, was now upon him. If this plan went wrong, and he
survived the battle, Howard would be within his rights to court martial Shiloh.

It was time to roll the dice.

 To Be Continued

Author’s Comments:

If you look up my other books on Amazon or Smashwords,
you’ll see that I’ve written three sequels to books by H. Beam Piper. The
Synchronicity War Part 1 is my first original novel and series. Part 2 and 3
are now available.

The
Synchronicity War Part 2

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I haven’t plotted out ALL of the details yet, but I can
assure you that Victor Shiloh and Iceman are in for one hell of a ride.