The Synchronicity War Part 4 (34 page)

“No, Sir.”

“Good. You’re both dismissed,” said Howard
with a wave of his hand.

Shiloh and Kelly retreated to the Officers’
Mess and spent the next hour making a list of people that they agreed should be
on the team. Luckily all of them were somewhere in the Sol system and could be
back on Earth within a few hours. While they waited for the team to assemble,
the two of them talked about how to conduct the brainstorming sessions. Kelly
convinced Shiloh that no idea, no matter how bizarre, should be judged and
excluded right away. Rejection would only cause team members to hold back for
fear of losing credibility in the eyes of the other members. Not only that, but
bizarre idea A might inspire workable idea B via some unconscious connection.
When the team could no longer come up with any new ideas, they would go back
and review each suggestion in a non-critical way to see if weaknesses could be
overcome rather than used as excuses to dismiss the idea. When all the ideas
had been carefully reviewed, they would be presented to the AIs for simulation.

By the next day the entire team had been
assembled. Shiloh commandeered one of the conference rooms in the Space Force
HQ building and ordered food and drinks delivered at regular intervals. The
brainstorming and review was complete 11 hours later, and Shiloh called a halt
so that everyone could make their own arrangements for dinner. The plan was to
reconvene at his quarters two hours later. By then, the AIs would have run
through all the unconventional ideas enough times to determine the most likely
outcome of each. Shiloh told Iceman to hold the results until the team was back
together in his quarters. During the two hour dinner break, he ate in his
quarters while listening to classical music. When the break was over and the
team was together again, Shiloh asked Iceman to give them the results of the
simulations.

The results were bad. None of the unconventional
tactical ideas had panned out. Iceman spent fifteen minutes explaining why some
of the results were the way they were. The team was unable to find any flaws in
the AIs logic. Unless the Bugs acted irrationally and stupidly, Humanity was in
dire danger, and the timeship might be discovered before it was repaired. The
news, combined with fatigue, caused expressions and moods to crash. It didn’t
take Shiloh long to realize that in their present frame of mind, the team
wasn’t going to accomplish anything in the next few hours, so he told them they
were done for the day. They should go get some sleep and come back at 0800
hours the next morning.

Kelly was the last one to get up and head
for the door. When she got there, she turned around and looked him directly in
the eyes with a thoughtful expression.

Before Shiloh was even aware of the thought
behind the words, he said, “You don’t have to leave you know.”

A small smile made an appearance. It was
very clear that she knew exactly what he was referring to. After a short pause
she said, “I’m aware of what we had in the other timelines, and I’m tempted to
say yes, but given the dire nature of our situation, I think the smart thing to
do would be to avoid distractions and stay focused on the mission. Don’t you?”

“Yes, when you put it that way, I have to
agree,” said Shiloh.

She turned back towards the door. When it
slid open she stopped and without looking at him said, “Ask me again if we’re
both still alive after the next battle.” Before he had a chance to reply, she
stepped across the threshold and walked quickly down the corridor.

That night Shiloh had a peculiar dream. It
was the kind of dream that felt different somehow. He was running and had the
distinct feeling that something was chasing him. Ahead of him was the edge of a
cliff. He looked to the right and saw six white and black horses. No, wait…they
weren’t horses. They were zebras, and they were galloping parallel to him.
Something made him look to his left, and he saw six more zebras running
parallel as well. Shifting his gaze ahead, he saw the cliff edge coming closer
fast. Out of the corners of his vision he could tell that the two groups of
zebras were coming closer to him. In fact, he was quickly hemmed in by them.
With the edge now only a few meters in front of him, he had nowhere else to go.
The zebras prevented him from veering off to the side, and the intensifying
feeling of being chased precluded stopping. When he and the zebras reached the
cliff edge he jumped and saw that he was falling into a wide black hole that
seemed to go on into infinity…and then he woke up.

He sat up in bed and tried to recall the
memory of the dream images.
Twelve zebras…was there something important
about twelve zebras? Was it the number that was important or the fact that they
were zebras and not horses that was significant? Twelve…zebras…twelve…zebras.
After repeating both words several times he realized that the reverse order of
‘zebras…twelve’ sounded familiar. Then the answer hit him. Zebra12! That was the
star system where he had fooled the Sogas into believing that they’d won a
victory using decoy drones!

Quickly activating his implant, he said,
“CAG to Iceman.” The response was immediate.

“Iceman here. Can’t sleep, CAG?”

“I just woke up. How many Mark 3 decoy
drones do we have available now, Iceman?”

“Twelve, CAG.”

Shiloh briefly wondered if that was just a
coincidence or a moment of synchronicity. Time to ponder that later.

“Were the decoys included in any tactical
scenario you evaluated?”

“Affirmative, CAG. Several, in fact. The
results were only marginally better than without the decoys.”

“Damn!” Shiloh had been certain that adding
decoys to the tactical mix would give them the edge they needed, and the
reality hit him hard. “Alright, I should have known that you would have
included them. I’ll try to go back to sleep. CAG clear.”

The team spent the next day looking at all
the scenarios simulated by Iceman and the AIs for clues as to what factors were
common to the relatively better ones. They also examined specific simulations
that generated unusually good outcomes. Iceman explained that all the
simulations relied on probabilities for a variety of factors. How likely was
each cannon volley to hit a power unit for each target? How likely was it that
each Mark 6 would work perfectly and accurately? How likely was it that the
Insectoids would react in specific ways? Those probabilities themselves were
based on limited and in some cases no data at all, and therefore prudence
dictated that the AIs guesstimate conservative probabilities to avoid being
overly optimistic. But even with the probabilities assumed, some simulations
gave good results just from shear good luck.

By the end of the second day, Howard showed
up to check on their progress. Shiloh had to admit that they were no closer to
a solution now than they had been when they started. Howard said nothing but
gestured for Shiloh to follow him out into the corridor where they could speak
without the rest of the team overhearing them.

Looking around to make sure no one else was
within earshot, Howard said in a low voice, “What I’m hearing is that unless we
get very lucky, we’re basically screwed. Is that correct, Shiloh?”

“I regret that the answer to your question
is yes, Admiral.”

Howard closed his eyes and seemed to sag a
bit. After a few seconds of silence, he opened his eyes again, gave Shiloh a
pat on the arm and said, “I know you and the team are doing your best. Keep at
it. Maybe someone will get an epiphany.”  Without waiting for a reply, he
turned and walked away.

Two more days of scenario analysis and
critiquing accomplished nothing new. Frustration was making people
short-tempered and defensive. It was during the break for dinner that Shiloh
experienced what perhaps could be called an epiphany. He thought about it for a
long time.

When the others returned to the conference
room he waited until everyone was seated and was finished chatting with each
other. Eventually they all noticed that he was sitting quietly and saying
nothing.

When he had the attention of all of them he
said, “We’ve been going about this all wrong. We’ve been racking our brains
asking the wrong question.” He stopped and looked around the table. Everyone
was looking at him with a puzzled expression. He turned to Commander Johansen
and said, “Angela, what objective are we trying to achieve?”

After a couple of seconds hesitation she
said, “Win the next battle?”

Shiloh shook his head. “No. Let me rephrase
the question, and then you’ll see what I’m driving at. What is the ultimate
objective that we’re trying to achieve?”

Kelly was the first one to get it. “Buy
enough time to finish the timeship repairs so that Valkyrie and the A.I.s can
go back in time and squash the Bugs while they’re still squashable.”

Shiloh smiled and pointed his hand in her
direction. “Exactly!”

“But don’t we have to win the battle in
order to do that?” asked Johansen.

“Winning the battle would be the least
risky way of achieving that objective. I’ll grant you that, but we can’t win
the battle. Not with any degree of certainty. So if we can’t win the battle,
then we have to consider other alternatives to buy Valkyrie those extra five or
six days. The asteroid where the timeship’s shipyard is located, is almost one
A.U. away from Earth. If we can keep their attention focused closer to Earth
for a few days, then the repairs can be finished, and the timeship can be on
its way.”

He saw skeptical looks coming back at him.
He was sure that they were thinking he was stating the obvious, but the
important question was how. It was time to drop the bombshell that had taken
him most of the dinner break to wrap his head around.

“We let the Bugs have Earth,” he said
quietly. The skeptical expressions turned to horror. All except Kelly’s. Her
expression turned thoughtful. The others quickly began expressing their
outrage. Shiloh stayed calm and kept his expression relaxed.

When the wave of angry noise began to die
down, Kelly said in a loud voice, “He’s right!” When some of the others began
to berate her, she slapped her hand on the conference table hard enough to make
a loud noise. The room suddenly became deathly quiet.

“Think it through, people,” she said. “If
the Bugs win a decisive victory AND suffer some damage” —she looked at Shiloh.
She’s
figured it out,
he thought to himself. He nodded back to her—“they’ll be
operating on the assumption that they’re in control of this system and that
they can pick it over at their leisure. With a planet containing billions of
potential hosts, aren’t they likely to concentrate on that first? It’s going to
take them days, hell maybe even weeks to completely subdue Earth’s population.
While their attack craft are busy shuttling soldier Bugs down and potential
hosts up, they’ll also have repairs to worry about. Given all of that, I don’t
really see them committing a lot of attack craft to exploring the rest of the
system for a while. If we make sure that all the activity at the shipyard is
carefully hidden, no EM transmissions, no lights, then there’s no reason for
the Bugs to go there quickly.”

When it was clear that Kelly was finished
talking, Johansen said, “But we’d be condemning millions to a horrible death—“

“Which will all be erased as if it had
never happened if the timeship is repaired and jumps back in time literally and
figuratively,” interjected Shiloh. The expressions around the table quickly
changed.
Ah, now they get it.

“But we’re going to have to figure out a
way to inflict some damage on them, without crippling any of the VLOs,” said
Kelly. When someone asked why, she replied, “Because if all nine motherships
are still operational after the battle, they’re not likely to call for further
reinforcements. Not only would more motherships not be needed, but I suspect
that these creatures might be just possessive enough not to want to share
Earth’s females with more motherships than is absolutely necessary. If, on the
other hand, we destroyed or crippled four or five of them, they might ask for
reinforcements, or more motherships might be sent here regardless. If more
undamaged VLOs show up, they might start snooping around the system before
we’re done repairing the timeship.”