Synchronicity War Part 1, The (10 page)

“Second, as far as the danger is concerned, here’s how I see
it. The mission profile is to find alien infrastructure, bases or colonies.
Maybe even their home world, if we’re lucky. We’ll be able to scan for energy
and electro-magnetic emissions from the edge of each star system we enter. The
only time we have to maneuver close to planetary bodies is if we have to move
in from the outer system in order to refuel from a gas giant. Some of the
internal space that’s normally used to carry refueling shuttles will be used to
carry recon drones, instead. I hear that they’re not exactly known for being
comfortable ships, either. ”

Shiloh was silent for about twenty seconds and then said, “Okay.
I see your point. I guess if I was in your shoes, I might be tempted to do the
same thing, but I’m going to be selfish about this and tell you that I wish you
hadn’t volunteered. Now I’ll have to break in a new XO, and it’s going to be
hard to find someone as good at it as you are.”

As he said it, he wondered if he should also tell her of his
hope that someday they’d be more than comrades-in-arms, but she replied before
he had the chance.

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

They were both silent for a minute or so, and then Shiloh
asked, “So when are you due to report to your new ship?”

Johansen replied, “I’m supposed to report aboard the Gnat
tomorrow at 0900 hours as her XO. Mission briefing will be later that day, and
scheduled departure is for 1800 hrs tomorrow.”

“Well, do me a big favor please and come back alive.”

Johansen laughed and replied, “Okay. Since you asked, as a
favor to you I’ll make a special effort to get back.”

They both laughed.

Lt. Cmdr. Johansen called the CO when the ship was half an
hour from re-entering normal space at the target system.

“Yakamura here.”

“We’re half an hour from the target, Skipper.”

“Very well. I’ll be up the Bridge shortly, XO.”

“Understood.”

Shortly turned out to be less than two minutes. What Cmdr.
Yakamura lacked in physical stature, he more than made up with the intensity of
his personality.

As Johansen surrendered the Command Station to her CO, she
said, “I have a feeling about this one, Skipper.”

Yakamura looked at her in surprise. “Well, XO, that makes
two of us!”

Johansen stayed on the Bridge to see what the initial survey
results would be. She stood behind Yakamura and off to one side. The remaining
time it took to emerge from hyperspace went quickly. After the momentary
disorientation of emergence was over, Johansen waited nervously for the initial
reports. She looked over to the sensor station and saw several flashing red
lights.

Just then the sensor technician turned to look at Yakamura
and said in an excited but low voice, “We’re picking up lots of EM emissions.
They seem to be coming from multiple sources very close to planets, which could
mean they have installations on those planets’ moons.”

Yakamura, acting as if he had expected exactly that news,
spoke. “We seem to have hit pay dirt, everyone. Our task now is to be a fly on
the wall and get as much information about the alien presence in this system as
we can, without taking too many risks. Getting a limited amount of information
back to HQ would be better than not being able to get back at all.”

He turned to Johansen and said in a lower voice, “XO, I’d
like your input into what we do next.”

Without waiting for Johansen to reply, Yakamura got up and
walked over to stand next to the Astrogator’s station. Johansen followed and
stood on the opposite side. With both of them leaning over so that they could
communicate with the Astrogator without being overheard, Yakamura spoke.

“Okay, Tony. Show me how we’re oriented relative to this
star system.”

The Astrogator acknowledged the request and manipulated his
consol controls. A second later, the view screen in front of him changed to
show a white disk in the middle, surrounded by several planetary orbits as they
would appear if seen from almost edge on. A flashing yellow dot represented
Gnat’s current position, and a dotted curving line showed what the ship’s
course would be if allowed to continue on as it was.

Yakamura nodded. “Hm. We’re about 30 degrees above the
ecliptic, headed down through it. Okay. Now, on another screen, show me our
system-by-system path since leaving known friendly territory.”

The other screen soon showed a series of straight lines
connecting dots with names listed as Zebra 1, Zebra 2, etc., up to their
current system, which had been designated as Zebra 9.

Yakamura nodded again and said, “Just as I thought. Our
paths through Zebras 1 to 9 has ended up taking the shape of a slight curve as
we jumped from each star to the nearest star in the general direction that we
wanted to go. So, if we wanted to curve back towards home following a different
path, what would be the nearest target system?”

A dashed red line appeared from Zebra 9 through eight more
star systems to the slightly green sphere of stars that represented friendly
territory. The first star system along that path was a flashing blue dot.

“Do we have enough fuel to jump there? And if so, how much
longer could we stay in this system and still be able to jump to that target
system?”

That request took longer to fill. While the Astrogator was
doing the calculations, Johansen looked at Yakamura.

 “I like the idea, Skipper,” she said, “but if we don’t
retrace our path, we run the risk of arriving in a star system that may not
have any gas giants to refuel at. On the other hand, we know that Zebra 8 DOES
have a couple of gas giants.”

“Quite right, XO. And so does THIS system. There’s a gas
giant on our side of the star. If there are no EM emissions, then I’m very
tempted to head there while we continue to observe the activities in the inner
system. We can refuel, and that would give us the backup fuel we’d need if this
system—”  he pointed to the flashing blue dot “—turned out not to have a gas
giant.”

As it turned out, they did have enough fuel to get to the
flashing blue dot system but not enough to spend much time observing enemy
activity. The nearest gas giant also turned out to have some EM emissions.
While Yakamura and Johansen were discussing whether or not to risk refueling there
anyway, the Astrogator took it upon himself to do some calculations and
presented his CO with an alternative. Jump back to Zebra 8, refuel, then jump
sideways to another star system that was more or less half way between Zebra 8
and the flashing blue dot system. Then, on to the blue dot system in order to
proceed back along the new return path from there. Both senior officers agreed
that this new route was preferable to any other. And because Zebra 8 was closer
to Zebra 9 than the blue dot system, it allowed the ship to spend more time
observing enemy activity within the Zebra 9 system.

Yakamura chose not to launch any recon drones. In order to
get information that the tanker itself couldn’t, the drones would have to get so
close to the EM sources that there was a high risk of detection. His orders
told him to avoid tipping off the aliens that they were being watched, at all
costs. Their fuel situation allowed them to stay for another 36 hours. They’d
still have enough fuel to line up with and then jump to Zebra 8 before maneuvering
to its gas giant, with a 24 hour supply in reserve. During that 36 hour period,
they observed enemy ships approaching and leaving the vicinity of a large rocky
planet that wasn’t habitable itself and therefore appeared to be a mining
outpost of some kind.

Johansen felt like the Gnat was indeed a ‘fly on the wall’
of this star system. The ships that were leaving were the most interesting.
They seemed to head in one of two directions. One direction seemed to be
towards another planet with alien activity, but the second direction seemed to head
into deep space, and the Gnat’s sensors were able to track a few ships actually
entering hyperspace. Because these ships were being observed from only one direction,
it was impossible for anyone to determine exactly which star system they were
headed for, although they could narrow down the field of candidate destinations
considerably.

Yakamura and Johansen took turns on the bridge so that they
could get some rest. Johansen felt a profound sense of relief when Yakamura
finally ordered the ship to line up its heading for a jump to Zebra 8. The jump
itself was uneventful, as was the refueling at Zebra 8. However upon arrival at
the halfway system, which Yakamura decided would be known as Zebra 10, their
plan hit a snag. Zebra 10 was occupied by the aliens. It only had one gas giant,
and it appeared that every single one of the dozen visible moons was home to
some kind of enemy activity. Johansen was afraid that Yakamura would stubbornly
insist on finding a way around this obstacle, but he surprised her by bowing to
the inevitable and declaring that they would be jumping back to Zebra 8 and
then continuing back the way they had come up the Zebra chain of star systems
to friendly territory.

By the time Gnat had returned to friendly territory,
Johansen was shocked to realize they had been gone for almost six weeks.

                                                          ***

Admiral Howard dropped his electronic notepad on his desk,
let himself fall into his chair, and immediately reached for the bottle of
whisky that he kept hidden in his desk drawer. Admiral Dietrich, Chief of
Personnel, and Admiral Kutuzov, Chief of Logistics, grinned in sympathy.

“I’d offer both of you some of this, but I think I’m going
to need all of it myself.”

Dietrich laughed and said, “Aw, come on now, Sam. That
wasn’t the worst session with the Oversight Committee you’ve ever had. Admit
it.”

Howard took a slug from his drink, slowly nodding, as he
said, “No It wasn’t THE worst, but it was damn close. I’d still like to know
how the Committee learned about the arm-twisting we did to GED’s CEO. Any ideas
on that?”

Kutuzov looked at Dietrich and said, “I imagine that the
Committee has its spies in the Navy. They ARE the Oversight Committee, after
all. They’re supposed to know what we’re doing. Yeah, they reamed you a new one,
but at least they didn’t reverse the GED strategy. And now that the Committee
has implicitly approved it, you no longer have to worry about potential legal
consequences. We should thank our lucky stars, and the person who leaked the
info, that he or she waited until the Senate had approved the Emergency Funding
Bill AND Yakamura returned with the news of the alien outpost. Without that
good news, the Committee might not have been so forgiving.”

“I think you’re right,” Howard agreed. “Well Sergei, now
that the funding bill’s been approved, I imagine you’re going to be even busier
than before. How’s the planning for Operation Dropkick coming along?”

Kutuzov rolled his eyes. “My planners have reached a
stalemate. Half want to shift all military industrial activity and shipyard
construction to multiple star systems as far as possible from where we suspect
the aliens to be, and the other half want to concentrate most of the buildup
right here in Sol. As you know, there are Pros and Cons either way.
Concentrating most of the activity here simplifies the logistics involved
enormously, but then we risk having most of our industrial eggs in one basket.
On the other hand, dispersing the buildup minimizes that risk but slows down
the pace of the buildup because each industrialized system will have to build
its own infrastructure from scratch. And you can’t really start building ship
and supply factories until you’ve reached a minimum level of capacity in
mining, refining and fabricating raw materials, not to mention the duplication
in personnel.”

“So what’s the answer then?”

Kutuzov looked thoughtful as he replied. “Well, in light of
what the Oversight Committee said this afternoon about wanting to see some
tangible results from the buildup quickly, I’m thinking that we compromise the
two extremes and concentrate the buildup in this system for at least the next
six to nine months. Then we’ll gradually shift additional capacity to rear area
systems as it becomes available.”

Howard nodded. “I like it. That would simplify your
personnel problems too, wouldn’t it, Sepp?”

Dietrich nodded back at him as he replied. “It certainly
would. Are we agreed that’s the way we’ll do it?”

All three men looked at each other and nodded.

“Then I’ll get my people started on the personnel side of
Dropkick.” Dietrich paused before adding, “Now that the SPG’s budget has been
approved, have you decided who will be running that group on a permanent
basis?”

“No,” Howard replied, “Kelly’s done an outstanding job, but
I’m still toying with the idea of giving it to Shiloh.  Scuttlebutt has it that
so far most of the recommendations from the group originated with Shiloh. On
the other hand, I would hate to lose his tactical skills in the field.”

Dietrich jabbed his finger in Howard’s general direction and
said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about Shiloh’s actions out there. I’ve read
his combat report, and I can’t help thinking there’s something he left out.
Don’t you think it’s strange that all of sudden he would deploy sensor drones,
for no apparent reason?”

Howard chuckled. “I know what you mean. It’s almost as if he
had a gut feeling that his ship was under observation. I suppose it’s possible
that he’s too embarrassed to admit that he based his action on what was
essentially a hunch. Still, I agree with what the Duke of Wellington said when
asked after the Battle of Waterloo whether he’d rather be lucky or good. He
said ‘I’d rather be lucky’. If Shiloh’s victory was just plain dumb luck, then
I’ll take it for what it is.”

Kutuzov leaned forward. “Well, whatever you decide to do
with Shiloh, you’re going to have to make up your mind soon. If Shiloh’s going
to steer the Strategic Planning Group, Dietrich will have to find another
Commander to take the 144th.”

Howard nodded and considered his options. He had the strange
feeling that this decision was going to turn out to be very important in the
long run, and yet Shiloh was only a Commander, one of just over two hundred
currently qualified for ship command. How could the outcome of this war depend
on this one man? With Dietrich and Kutuzov starting to become impatient, Howard
made up his mind and spoke.

“Okay. I’ve decided. Regardless of whether Shiloh’s a tactical
genius or not, he’s an experienced ship jockey, and when we start getting new
ships out of our construction program we’re going to need all the experienced
officers we can lay our hands on. So Shiloh will keep his SL slot for the 144
^th
,
and Kelly will be promoted and confirmed as Head of Strategic Planning.”

The three admirals moved on to discuss other issues, and
eventually the meeting broke up with Dietrich and Kutuzov going back to their
offices. Howard wondered if he had made the right decision. He also wondered if
he would ever know. Sometimes he couldn’t help thinking,
being an Admiral
sucks.