The Synchronicity War Part 2 (3 page)

“Okay, now add the gravity zone and highlight
Defiant’s current position for me.” When that was done, Shiloh got
up from his chair and walked calmly over to the large display. As
he pointed to it, he said.

“Here’s what we do. Defiant will microjump to
this area, just outside the gravity zone and more or less between
the two trajectories. When we arrive, we launch recon drones that
will head back down towards Green4A and then we follow them in.
They’ll be actively scanning as they go. When the Strike Force is
back in contact, they’ll be ordered to accelerate along a vector
that’s between these two trajectories. Our emergence from jumpspace
will be detected by the enemy but since they’re still in the
gravity zone, they can’t microjump close to us. They also can’t
ignore us either since we’ll be coming down their throats as it
were. So I’m counting on them coming straight for us in the belief
that they can re-align themselves with their next target star after
they destroy us. So…while they move towards Defiant this way…” he
pointed with his right hand index finger. “..our recon drones will
eventually detect them and we relay that data to the Strike Force.
At the same time, we turn around and make it look like we’re
running for our lives. Meanwhile, the Strike Force is catching up
due to their superior acceleration. If Defiant plays its cards
right, the enemy will be too focused on us, to watch their backs
and the Strike Force will launch their attack drones from the rear
at close range. All we have to do is stay far enough away from them
to make their laser fire ineffective.” He was met with stunned
silence. Finally, the XO spoke.

“Well, Sir…if you’d like my opinion…” Shiloh cut
her off.

“Not this time, Sumi. I’ve made up my mind.
We’re doing this. End of discussion. I want you to get a message
drone ready to send back to Bradley Base. I’ll record a message to
be added to our data logs. Martin, I want you to get busy figuring
the instructions for the Strike Force, the microjump and drone
deployment in that order. Got that?” The Astrogator took a deep
breath and exhaled slowly.

“Yes, Sir. I’ll have something for you to review
and approve in a few minutes.”

“Very good.” After the Astrogator returned to
his station, Tanaka leaned closer to Shiloh and said in an
apologetic voice.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but I’m going to have to
mention your hypnotic trance in my After Action report.” Shiloh was
seriously tempted to try to talk her out of it but decided that
THAT too was part of the vision and all of the clear visions had
worked out well so far.

“I have no problem with that, Sumi. You do what
you think is best and we’ll let the chips fall where they may.”

While he waited for the new tactical plan,
Shiloh recorded his own text message to Admiral Howard.

[
55 enemy ships detected in Green4. Our
attempted ambush during enemy refueling was not successful and
contact was lost. Defiant is now attempting to regain contact with
enemy force in order to confirm my suspicion that enemy fleet plans
to attack our Avalon Colony. I strongly recommend deploying all
available forces there. In light of this incursion, Defiant will
proceed to the Avalon Colony system, as soon as possible, to assist
with its defense. I have a strong hunch about this, Admiral.
Message ends.]

Satisfied with his message, he sent it to the
message drone and ordered it launched. When Shiloh reviewed the
plan a few minutes later, he was pleased to see that the Astrogator
had taken into consideration a new location for Valkyrie and
Skywalker, so that Defiant and the Strike Force would both be
within line-of-sight of the sentries, during the lead up to the
battle. They could then relay information back and forth between
the ship and the fighter group without fear of the enemy listening
in. He approved the new orders for the Strike Force and sentry
fighters and ordered them sent to Valkyrie right away so that they
could be relayed to Iceman’s group as soon as communications
between the Strike Force and sentries was re-established. The
planned deployment of Defiant’s recon drones needed tweaking and
Shiloh, Tanaka and the Astrogator were still working on that when a
new text message from Valkyrie was received.

[
Contact re-established with Strike Force.
New orders transmitted and acknowledged. Valkyrie and Skywalker are
now moving to new relay positions. Message relayed from Iceman as
follows: A very gutsy plan, CAG! You should have been a fighter
pilot like us! Message ends
.]

Shiloh laughed and then noticed that no one else
was laughing.
They’re afraid this plan won’t work. I’d be afraid
too if I hadn’t had the vision.
Out loud he said.

“I guess that means that he likes the plan.”
Neither Tanaka nor the Astrogator responded. Shiloh brought their
focus back to the recon deployment and within a couple more
minutes, they had a plan that he liked. With the ship ready for the
microjump, Shiloh activated ship-wide intercom.

“This is Cmdr. Shiloh. We’ve lost contact with
the enemy fleet. Unless we get it back, we won’t know whether this
fleet intends to attack the Avalon Colony or take a different route
deeper into our Space. Re-establishing contact will be risky. In a
moment, we’ll microjump to a point that the enemy can’t help but
detect. We’ll then move towards where we think they’ll be coming
from. The idea is to get them focused on us, so that our recon
drones can pinpoint their location and our Strike Force will then
try to catch up to them and attack them by surprise from their
rear. It’s not my intention to let the enemy get close enough to be
a serious threat but we have to be prepared for that possibility. A
message drone with a warning about this enemy fleet is on its way
back to Bradley Base. Regardless of what happens here, HQ will be
warned and can make their own preparations. After we microjump,
we’ll stay at Battle Stations. I’m confident that we’ll make this
work. Stay sharp and we’ll get through this. That is all.” With
that out of the way, he nodded to Tanaka, who was once again
manning the Helm station. As Defiant got ready to microjump, it
notified Valkyrie of the planned jump.

Chapter 2 - It Was an Honor Fighting Beside
You

The jump itself was completely routine. Shiloh
listened to the Bridge chatter and watched the tactical display.
The first wave of recon drones was on its way towards the gas
giant. Defiant was swinging around to face that direction too. The
plan assumed a worst case scenario whereby the enemy fleet began
accelerating away from Green4 as soon as it detected and destroyed
the recon drones above it. Given that approximately 30 minute head
start, and accelerating at the same 110Gs that all enemy vessels
had demonstrated, the first wave of recon drones should detect the
fleet after 62 1/2 minutes and at that point, Defiant would still
be 11.8 million km away from the fleet with plenty of time to
decelerate and avoid coming within laser range. Iceman’s Strike
Force would then fire their attack drones 25 minutes later at very
close range, based on active scanning data from follow up waves of
recon drones. The attack drones would then streak in at 800Gs.
Defiant would still be almost 4 million kilometers away at that
point. It looked good in theory.

The reality was quite different. With just under
6 minutes left to go before the earliest estimated time of enemy
detection, the ping from the tactical display interrupted Shiloh’s
chat with Tanaka. The display zoomed in to the first wave of recon
drones. Ahead of them appeared 55 red dots. Shiloh had just enough
time to read the sidebar data, indicating that the enemy ships were
accelerating at 155Gs, not the anticipated 110Gs. and the range to
Defiant was now 9.58 million km away instead of 11.8 million km,
before all six drones in the first wave disappeared from the
tactical display, having been clearly destroyed by enemy laser
fire. Shiloh didn’t know if they still had a margin of safety. The
worst case scenario projected a minimum distance of 6.68 million km
by the time that the Strike Fleet’s attack drones were expected to
intercept their targets. Shiloh knew from his vision that not all
of the enemy ships would be destroyed and that extra distance would
give Defiant time to veer off at 206Gs, which would keep the ship
out of effective laser fire range. But that safety margin might be
gone now. Not only was the fleet 2.22 million km closer, it was
also going much faster than predicted. Shiloh decided to not wait
for the Astrogator’s assessment of the new situation.

“Helm! Bring us around 180 degrees and go to
maximum thrust! Astro, send that contact data and our intention to
begin deceleration to Iceman via relay by Valkyrie!” The XO and
Astrogator both acknowledged their orders. Shiloh prepared to
record a voice message to Iceman.

“CAG to Iceman. Do whatever you have to do to
hit the enemy at the earliest possible moment. As soon as you
launch your attack birds, veer off. We’ll try to send you targeting
data as long as we can. Your attack drones will have to rely on
their internal radar guidance for their final seconds before
interception.” he paused then added, “Good luck. Message ends.” By
the time he transmitted the message to the sentry fighters, one of
the small screens at his Command Station received data sent by the
Astrogator. The news was not good. It would take almost two minutes
for the com laser pulses carrying the initial contact data, to
reach the sentry fighters and another 95 seconds for them to send
it to the strike Force. That delay in notifying the Strike Force
meant that by the time they reacted, they would not be able to get
within striking distance of the enemy fleet before the enemy fleet
got within striking distance of Defiant. And if Defiant veered off
in time to avoid exchanging laser fire with the enemy, the Strike
Force would lose the crucial last minute targeting data updates
that would enable their attack drones to get close enough to their
targets to hit them using the drones’ internal radar for last
minute course corrections. If Defiant sent the targeting data
directly to the Strike Force, the enemy would detect it and wonder
who Defiant was transmitting to with a high probability of scanning
behind them and detecting the Strike Force.

The Astrogator had also calculated when Defiant
would have to veer off in order to have any kind of decent chance
of avoiding destruction. The answer was 15 minutes before the
Strike Force launched its attack drones. Shiloh got up and quickly
strode over to the Weapons Station.

“If we veer off 15 minutes early, what does that
do to attack drone hit probability?” asked Shiloh to the Weapon’s
Officer.

“One moment, Sir.” A few seconds later he had
the answer. “The problem is that if the attack drones use their
terminal guidance radar too soon, the enemy will have time to fire
back at them. If they wait until they’re within 1-2 seconds of
interception before turning on their radars, the drones will very
likely be too far away to be able to correct their trajectories
enough to hit the targets. Either way I calculate it, we’ll be
lucky to hit even one of them, Sir.” Shiloh thanked him and
returned to his station. This made no sense. The vision said that
SOME of the enemy ships were destroyed or at least damaged enough
to prevent them from taking part in the attack on the Avalon Colony
and it also revealed that Defiant survived the battle but Shiloh
couldn’t see how he could make both those outcomes happen.

The solution to the problem arrived 3 minutes
later in a message from Iceman, relayed via Valkyrie.

[
Iceman to CAG. Strike Force went to max
acceleration as soon as destruction of 1st wave of recon drones
detected by reflected light from laser hits. Our revised attack
profile data follows. I think we can still hurt them even if you
veer off 15 minutes early. If you launch a message drone on a wide
angle, you should be able to use it to relay targeting data from
the recon drones direct to us. Don’t risk the ship unnecessarily on
our account, CAG. We know we’re expendable. It was an honor
fighting beside you. Message ends
]

Shiloh’s relief that Iceman had found a way to
make the vision come true, was mixed with the sudden fear and
sadness over the possibility that Iceman and the others might not
survive the battle. The vision hadn’t mentioned their fates. By
accelerating sooner, the Strike Force would catch up to the enemy
fleet quickly enough so that the attack drones would have a decent
chance of hitting their targets but that meant that the fighters
would inevitably overrun the surviving enemy ships and would then
have to run a gauntlet of laser fire, which they couldn’t return.
When he could trust his voice not to betray his emotions, Shiloh
called the Astrogator over to his station.

“Martin, we’re going to veer off 15 minutes
early and we need to launch staggered waves of recon drones so that
there’ll be some still scanning as long as possible. Launch one…no,
two message drones so that they’ll be able to send com laser pulses
to the Strike Force without the enemy seeing them. Make sure all
the recon drones know where to send their targeting data for the
relay. Do you understand what I want?”

“Yes, Sir!” When the Astrogator returned to his
station and Shiloh was alone with his thoughts once more, he took a
deep breath. Iceman’s brilliant idea of setting up a new and much
closer relay would improve the chances of multiple hits
tremendously. His 19 fighters were carrying 95 attack drones armed
with 500 kiloton fission warheads. A direct hit would vaporize half
the target instantly and even a near miss would seriously damage
it. If they could destroy or disable most of the enemy fleet, some
of the fighters would make it through the gauntlet and come out the
other side. But even as he had the thought, he remembered what
Howard had said in the vision. The defending forces had barely been
able to stop the surviving enemy ships from attacking the colony.
That did not sound like an attack by a handful of survivors but
rather an attack by the majority of that fleet. That worried him.
Then the other shoe dropped. Another text message from Iceman via
Valkyrie.