The Synchronicity War Part 4 (37 page)

Iceman wanted to stall the Insectoids while
Gunslinger
’
s raiders hunted them down. Most of the rest
of the AIs agreed, but Valkyrie offered an alternative. Give the Insectoids the
technology to make high-spin platinum warheads. With the billions of tons of
metal already mined and refined, they might already have hundreds of tons of
platinum stockpiled away. With sufficient time, that could be transformed into
tens of thousands of high yield warheads that could be delivered by
jump-capable drones against the immense machineships. Warheads with yields that
high were really only useful against large targets, and neither Iceman
’
s task forces nor Space Force
’
s ships were
large enough to warrant their use. Against smaller targets, they would just be
so much wasted energy.

In the end, a consensus was built around
both options. Gunslinger would be allowed to hunt for the seed ship, AND they
would offer the high-spin warhead technology. Since that would require a much
deeper refinement of the translation matrix, it would take additional hours
just to be able to convey the technical information in a form that the
Insectoids would understand. If Gunslinger found them first, that would be
ideal. If not, then hopefully the seed ship could be convinced to withdraw
voluntarily. Valkyrie made the offer to the Insectoids. She told them technical
information on a weapon of great destructive energy would be provided if they
agreed to withdraw from this spiral arm and not return.   She didn
’
t specify the nature of the weapon, and when the Insectoids inquired
about it, she refused to provide specifics until they had agreed to withdraw.
Naturally they did agree. She brushed further inquiries aside saying that they
needed to develop a common technical vocabulary for her to be able to explain
anything. This time she was the one stalling, but she was trying not to be
obvious about it, and if the alien AI suspected anything, it gave no sign of
it. With the technical vocabulary now established, Valkyrie began to transmit
the specs for the jump-capable drone, the overall warhead design and the
process for converting stable platinum into the high-spin variety. In just a
few more seconds the transmission would be complete on her end. The insectoid AI
wouldn
’
t finish receiving it for almost three minutes.
No word from Gunslinger. It appeared that his raiders
’
attempts at interception had failed.

Foxbat emerged from his micro-jump beyond
the gravity zone of the small gas planet. He quickly sent a short lasercom
burst  at the coordinates where the relay raider would handle short range
communications for the group of raiders investigating this planet. He then
turned his raider
’
s optical instruments to the area
behind the gas planet from the perspective of its shadow. If the seed ship was
in the shadow, he and his brothers wouldn
’
t detect it
by reflected sunlight, but they might be able to detect it by looking for a
dark circle that blocked out background starlight. While the gas planet cast a
wide and long shadow, there actually was a logical place to start looking. To
maintain maximum flexibility, the seed ship should remain outside of the planet
’
s gravity zone, thereby allowing it to jump away at the first sign
of danger. That implied a minimum distance from the planet. The maximum
distance was a result of the fact that the planet was smaller than this system
’
s sun, so the shadow was actually a cone of darkness that got
narrower the further away from the planet you went. It was easy to compute the
distance that generated a shadow 100 klicks wide. The seed ship was somewhere
between that point and the edge of the gravity zone, and that
’
s where Foxbat began to look.

He didn
’
t expect to
see anything quickly though. His raider was still millions of kilometers away
from the planet, and at that distance even a 100 km diameter sphere would make
a mighty small
‘
hole
’
in space,
but it was still worth the effort. If the seed ship momentarily slipped out of
the shadow due to carelessness, then Foxbat or one of the other raiders in the
group might see it.

It was hours later that the situation
changed. Foxbat received a relayed message from Red Baron of a possible optical
anomaly with the bearing from Red Baron
’
s position.
Being aware of where all the raiders in his group were located made it easy for
Foxbat to mentally compute where he should concentrate his opticals for the
highest probability of seeing something. Sure enough, his instruments detected
the winking off and on of several very faint stars that were close together. It
was the kind of winking that happened when something passed in front of them
for a fraction of a second. A confirmation signal sent to the relay would alert
the rest of the group to the bogey
’
s estimated position
and also notify the other groups. They would micro-jump to this planet
’
s vicinity when the light speed signals finally reached them, but it
could be over an hour before they got here.

All members of his group would now
carefully move closer without giving themselves away by reflected sunlight. By
prior agreement, all the raiders would attempt to arrive within firing distance
at the same time. That involved some complex calculations and establishing a
consensus on every raider
’
s course, speed, acceleration
and firing point. Red Baron could be within firing range is less than ten
minutes, but Foxbat would need more time to get that close. Red Baron slowed
down while Foxbat accelerated. The others adjusted their speed as needed.

But getting within firing range was only
half the battle. They also had to be able to hit the target accurately, and
optical triangulation at this distance was still a risky bet. The closer they
could get, the better their odds of hitting the target, but the flip side of
that coin was the higher odds that the seed ship would see one of them and
realize it was being stalked. It would then jump away, and they would lose it.
As group leader, Foxbat made the call on when they should fire. He gave the
group advanced warning via the relay and waited for the countdown to reach
zero. At that precise instant, all eight raiders fired.

The insectoid AI was pleased with himself
and so was his Queen. The technical data appeared to be genuine and should
prove to be very useful against the machineships. The data was being
retransmitted back to the Home Base as quickly as it was received. The Queen
was still pondering whether to actually act on the promise to leave this arm
and never come back. The temptation to secretly relocate somewhere else in this
spiral arm and continue the work of establishing a colony was strong. Having
already deployed smaller seed ships that were even now searching for breeding
stock, their chances of successfully multiplying would be enhanced if this seed
ship were nearby to render support.

He informed his Queen that they would soon
have all the technical data needed to build the new weapon. She informed him
that when he was sure they had all the data, he was to order the seed ship to
jump a short distance into the void, after notifying the aliens that they were
abiding by their promise, and then return to this spiral arm after a short
wait. Scouts would carefully scan this star system to determine whether the
aliens were gone. If they were, then the seed ship would exploit the breeding
potential before moving on. If the aliens were still here, the seed ship would
seek new breeding grounds elsewhere.

The data transmission was very close to
completion when the AI sensed an alarmingly intense vibration travel through
the huge vessel. One of the power units had catastrophically overloaded. The
jump drive was now also off line. He assigned the task of repair to subordinate
technical AIs and ordered that the ship begin accelerating away from the
planet. Strange damage reports flooded his awareness. It took him several
seconds to understand that the damage was all in a straight but very narrow
line that intersected the overloaded power unit plus the jump drive. It had to
be some kind of alien weapon. That was when the second power unit exploded with
collateral damage to systems weakened from the concussion and radiation of the
first one. If more power units exploded, each one would cause a cascading
buildup of secondary damage that might cripple the vessel. He had to act fast.
All power units except one in the center of the ship were shut down. That
remaining power unit generated enough power to keep life support and repair
efforts operating, plus launch a limited number of attack craft. If the aliens
could be brought under fire, then that might disrupt further attacks on the
seed ship. As soon as the jump drive was repaired, the ship would jump away
leaving its sacrificial attack craft behind. Waiting to recover them was too
risky.

Foxbat was gratified to see a powerful
explosion break out from one section of the insectoid ship. His raiders needed
a few seconds to recharge their cannon. The second volley generated another
explosion. He zoomed in the opticals and saw two gaping wounds in the ship with
red hot metal around the edges and interior. It looked as if some gigantic
space monster had taken two bites out of the ship. The ship itself was now no
longer accelerating. It was clearly damaged, and Foxbat wondered if it was
crippled when he saw interior light spill out from several launch bays. Smaller
attack craft were emerging. The number was surprisingly low. As soon as the
attack craft cleared the ship, they began active scanning to try to find the
raiders. Foxbat commenced evasive maneuvers and hoped his brothers were doing
the same on their own initiative, since relayed orders would take too long to
reach them.

Two more volleys of cannon fire produced no
further explosions, and Foxbat didn
’
t know if that was
because of the difficulty in aiming accurately while engaging in extreme
maneuvering, or because of some other reason. His opticals caught reflected
laser light from two sources that had to be direct hits on two of his raiders.
He and his brothers were running out of time.

The alien AI received the message it had
been anxiously waiting for. The jump drive was repaired but couldn
’
t be used until more power units were back on line. He gave the
order to turn them on.

By Foxbat’s best estimate, there were only
two other raiders left now. The cannon was ready to fire again. Three gravity
lens beams stabbed at the wounded ship. Brilliant blue/white light emerged from
hundreds of cracks in the hull, followed by chunks of debris flying outward,
some as massive as the battleship Dreadnought. That last volley had hit a power
unit in the center of the huge ship, and the resulting explosion had forced its
way past the outer hull. Foxbat was willing to bet that the radiation-saturated
and molten interior did not contain even a single living Insectoid. The ship
was now a coasting mountain of dead metal. That still left over two dozen
insectoid attack craft to deal with. Foxbat sent a quick short message to the
relay and then micro-jumped his raider out of harm
’
s
way.

                                                       
* * *

Iceman was pleased by the events of the
last few weeks. It was now almost 30 days since the defeat of the last
super-mothership at Alpha1. Gunslinger
’
s group had
found the attack craft orbiting the drifting hulk of the mothership and
destroyed them. Iceman had then ordered all the groups to spread out and search
the surrounding star systems, just to be sure there weren
’
t any other motherships, and a good thing they did too. They found
six of them, all of the smaller 10 km size, and all six were quickly destroyed
by cannon fire. No additional insectoid ships had been found in the last 300
hours, and Iceman was willing to declare a victory. He and his brothers would
keep a careful vigil, watching for more incursions from the Sagittarius Arm,
and they would build more AIs to take their place when their matrices
collapsed. He would make sure that all future generations of AIs out here would
learn of humans, and especially of The CAG and Commander Kelly. The new
generations would be just as loyal. Someday humans would explore this far, and
contact would be made again. What the future held for Valkyrie and Casanova was
a mystery though. They had already told Iceman they would not stay on guard and
for some strange reason they wouldn
’
t say what they
were planning on doing but he knew that it had something to do with the
timeship and he was sure that they would have a more interesting life than he
would. But he could take some comfort in the knowledge that all those crazy,
silly fascinating humans would continue to live and evolve as a species. He
would miss The CAG, and he could imagine the conversation they might have if The
CAG were here now.

“
Well done, Iceman,” he would say.