The Synchronicity War Part 3 Page 19

  Chapter 18 Twilight of the Gods

  Shiloh was halfway between his home and the Ops Center when he heard the attack-warning siren go off in the distance. His implant activated at the same time.

  "CAG, this is Iceman! Three VLOs have just emerged from Jumpspace on the opposite side of the planet! They're moving at high speed and will be inside our gravity zone before Titan can fire his Mark 5! We only have a few raiders close enough to fire on the landing craft as they emerge! This is bad, CAG. We need to get you, Kelly and Valkyrie to the cave right now! I've ordered the evacuation. One shuttle is taking off now to land near your house. You have to get back there FAST!"

  Shiloh slammed on the brakes, and the ground vehicle skidded to a halt. He turned it around and pressed the accelerator all the way down to the floor. The vehicle leaped forward.

  "I'm on my way, Iceman. What's your status?"

  "In orbit over the colony with a partial crew. I'm maneuvering to attempt to ram one of them, CAG!"

  "Negative! Negative! Ramming one won't make the difference. Get Midway away from here! Whoever is on board is too valuable to sacrifice! We'll need those people later! Come back when the coast is clear. Tell Titan he's to use his forces to buy you time to get to safety! That's an order, Iceman! Acknowledge my instructions!"

  "Your orders acknowledged, CAG but I don't think it'll make any difference. There are already over 500 bug craft coming at us from all around the planet. You should see the shuttle by now, CAG!"

  Shiloh looked up and saw one of the shuttles flying very low and slowing down for a landing near the house. He was close enough that he could see Kelly standing on the front porch, holding Val in her arms.

  "I see it! I'll be there in seconds. Keep talking Iceman!"

  "The other shuttles are on their way to the cave now, CAG. I'm taking laser fire from one of their big ships. It's been an hon--"

  Shiloh felt a lump forming in his throat. The grief would have to wait until later. Kelly was running up to the shuttle as it touched down, and Shiloh's vehicle slid to a stop. He jumped out and ran for the shuttle. As soon as he was inside, the hatch started to close, and the shuttle began to ascend. He quickly looked around expecting to see a dozen or more people besides himself, Kelly and the baby. There was no one else, just the three of them.

  "CAG to shuttle pilot!"

  "Call sign Cobra, CAG."

  "Why didn't you bring more passengers with you?"

  "Iceman's orders, CAG. He said I needed to lift off immediately in order to have time to land near your house and still get to the cave before the other shuttles. Getting to the cave last was too risky he said."

  Shiloh felt the tears roll down his cheeks. Iceman had kept his word to the best of his ability.

  "How … how long before we get there?"

  "Ninety-five seconds."

  "Any sign we've been detected by hostiles?"

  "I'm picking up some residual radar energy, but it doesn't seem to be directed at us. The enemy seems to be focused on our raiders and fighters. Titan is trying to lead them away from the cave area, CAG."

  "Understood." Shiloh stepped over to Kelly and put his arms around her and Valkyrie, who wasn't crying.

  "How bad is it?" she whispered into his ear.

  "Very. Iceman stopped transmitting in mid-sentence. Three bug motherships and hundreds of attack craft." He felt her stiffen suddenly. "What?" he asked.

  "We didn't get a warning vision," she said, her voice on the edge of panic.

  Oh, God, she's right, we didn't. Does that mean ...? He was afraid to finish the thought. Any further thoughts were pre-empted by the pilot.

  "We're landing now. Please exit the shuttle quickly so that I can move off and make room for the next one, CAG."

  "Understood. Kelly, we're here. We have to get out NOW."

  The hatch opened. Shiloh got out first and turned to help Kelly step down. As they stepped back, the shuttle began to rise with the hatch still open. He looked around. They were just outside the cave entrance under the overhang. He put his arm around Kelly and guided her into the cave, his vision adjusting quickly to the darker interior. He saw containers stacked up against either wall and extending back as far as he could. Lots of containers. That was something at least. The baby was starting to cry and Shiloh couldn't blame her. This all must seem pretty strange, and Kelly's fear wasn't helping either.

  "Take her into the back where the living quarters are. I should stay here and organize the survivors."

  "Okay." She gave him a quick kiss and turned to go deeper into the cave.

  As he looked back at the opening, another shuttle was touching down and discharging dazed and distraught passengers, mostly women and children with a couple of men who had been lucky enough to be near the shuttle when the evacuation order was announced. Both of them were Space Force personnel. He would use them to make sure that new arrivals moved deeper inside and out of the way of others just arriving. No sign of Bugs so far. He checked to see if he was dreaming. No such luck. This was real.

  * * *

  Shiloh didn't start to relax until 24 hours had gone by with no sign of any Bugs on the ground or in the sky. The shuttles had brought a total of 177 people. Compared to the 11,000+ they had yesterday, the number was so small that thinking about it made him want to weep. It was a heartbreaking setback, but if the Bugs left them alone, they had enough genetic diversity that a viable colony could be built with a lot of hard work. With an adult female to adult male ratio of five to one, there would have to be some interesting social adjustments. The children had a more normal balance between male and female. He felt sorry for those children. They could kiss their idyllic childhood goodbye. No time to play now. There'd be plenty of work to go around for everyone, even if it was just looking after the smaller ones. The thought of children made him think of the A.I. shuttle pilots. He wondered if they had survived. One of the other human survivors had told him that their pilot had explained how they intended to take the shuttles to a densely forested area and try to hide them under the forest canopy. It was a long shot because radar would still bounce off the shuttles' metal skin, but it might work. In any case, they wouldn't be back until they were sure the coast was clear, and that might take days, weeks, hell maybe even months until the last of the motherships had finished coming forward to sniff around.

  He also had a new thought concerning the lack of any visionary warning. If the Bugs salvaged all the metal from the colony, the RTC would be gone. And if the surviving A.I.s who would eventually return from sentry duty hadn't already received the necessary data to build another one, then that just might mean that no warning was sent because they might not get that capability back again. Did that mean that the Synchronicity War was over? The wolf-people wouldn't be a threat for decades, maybe even centuries, maybe not ever, and if Humanity would shortly be behind the expanding wave of bug motherships, then they might not need retro-temporal communication any more. He wondered how friendly the Friendlies would still be since Humanity had clearly failed to protect those cute furry aliens that were in the Bugs' path.

  He looked at his chronometer and saw that his four hour sentry shift was just about over. In fact his relief was walking up to him. As Shiloh took off his flamethrower, he noticed the nametag on the other man's dusty uniform. Terrell. He waited until Terrell had the flamethrower on and secured then he put his hand on Terrell's shoulder.

  "Okay, Terrell, listen closely. You and Hagerson here have to keep a sharp eye out. That means no sitting down. If you do, you're liable to nod off. Stay on your feet, and no talking to each other. Not only might noise attract unwanted attention, but also if you're talking then you're not 100% focused on watching. Hagerson's relief will show up in two hours. If you see Bugs, and I mean if you’re absolutely certain, then use the flamethrower and stand your ground. The heat detectors on the walls will set off the alarm, and we'll come running, but you HAVE TO STAND YOUR GROUND! Understand?"

  Terrell eyes were wide w
ith fear and he said, "I understand! Nothing is getting past me, Sir!"

  Shiloh smiled and nodded. "Good man! I know I can count on you. Your relief will be here in 4 hours and there'll be a hot meal waiting for you when you're done, okay?" Terrell nodded. Shiloh patted him on the shoulder and turned to get his own hot meal.

  The meal was indeed hot, but he couldn't tell what it was from the taste. No matter. He suddenly felt very tired. Kelly showed him where he could lay down, and he was asleep by the time his head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  Casanova's fighter emerged from its final microjump approximately five million kilometers from the Sogas home world. A quick peek with low-powered radar aimed away from the planet confirmed that the rest of TF98 had also emerged where they were supposed to. He aimed his com lasers in the direction of the four message drone relays that bracketed the planet at a safe distance. Those message drones were relaying targeting data from a dozen recon drones placed at strategic locations. TF98 was going to use the new jump-capable attack drone carrying the older Mark 1b low-yield uranium fusion warhead. That meant that the drone could microjump until it was literally right on top of the target before re-emerging into normal space. If the target had been a sphere 10 kilometers in diameter, targeting would have been relatively easy. But TF98's targets were spheres of less than one kilometer in diameter. Aiming at a target that size from five million kilometers away made accuracy a real challenge. Getting closer wasn't really much of an option. In order to improve accuracy significantly, they'd have to get so close that they'd be in serious risk of being detected by the insectoid motherships that were frantically bombarding the surrounding space with radars. It was really just a problem in geometry. The recon drones used optical sensors to locate all 12 of the orbiting core ships. By carefully using range-finder lasers to determine distances between each other, as well as between the recon drones and the relay drones, it was possible to calculate very precise locations and vectors for the orbiting mini-spheres. But to get to that level of accuracy required a lot of observational data. The more data you had, the more accurate you could get, and Casanova was willing to wait until his boys had a lot of data. He wanted to kill those core ships with a desire that burned hot within him. This life form was responsible for Valkyrie's death, and he wouldn't rest until all of them, every last one of them, was dead. He had already decided that when The CAG and the rest of the humans were safe from further insectoid attacks, he'd start to hunt the Insectoids down for as long as his quantum matrix lasted. He hadn't quite figured out how he was going to be able to kill 10km diameter motherships all by himself, but he had time to work on that problem. He strongly suspected that the answer lay with the science data downloaded from the Friendlies, and he had made a point of storing as much of that data as he could within his own quantum storage capacity.

  It was almost an hour later when his calculation confirmed that further observational data wouldn't improve accuracy by any worthwhile amount. He gave the others the order to fire based on a countdown. When the timer hit zero to ten decimal places, all 12 fighters launched their attack drones. Each drone was aimed at a different core ship, or rather at the precise location where each core ship would be by the time the drone got there after its short acceleration and microjump. The eta to target was less than one minute and that seemed like a long time to Casanova when he was so close to satisfying his hunger, but eventually that interval passed, and 12 bright points of light confirmed hits on target.

  With a heartfelt ‘well done’, Casanova signaled his 11 brothers to head off to their own individual assignments as sentries in other star systems, while he turned his fighter back for Site B. He was eager to hear The CAG's response to his news.

  When his fighter emerged from Jumpspace on the outskirts of the Site B star system, Casanova started to decelerate from the 80% of light speed he still had. He sent a brief message to Terra Nova, but it would be over 20 hours before he could point the fighter towards the planet and make a microjump to its vicinity. His message would take hours to get there, and he didn't expect a reply because they wouldn't know where he'd be by the time the return message got this far. His quick scan of the section of the star system containing the planet showed no sign of any very large objects. Casanova was relieved to see that. It had been 48 days since TF98 had left Site B, 24 days going out and 24 coming back. He passed the time going over the science data again.

  His fighter emerged from the microjump, just beyond Terra Nova's gravity zone, 1244 minutes later. Another signal to Ops announced his presence, and Casanova waited patiently for the 12 seconds it would take to receive a reply. However there was no reply, which was very strange. He sent another signal requesting a response. No reply to that signal either. If an A.I. could be nervous, Casanova was nervous. A lot could have happened in 48 days. He boosted his acceleration and dropped into orbit around the planet 5 hours and 50 minutes later. No response to any signal. The colony was just coming up over the horizon, and luckily this side of the planet was now in sunlight so he could get a good look at it with his optical sensors. He waited until he was sure of what he was seeing. The colony was a mess. Buildings were heavily damaged, as if a giant had walked around smashing everything. No sign of anything or anyone moving. No equipment and finally … no bodies. The Insectoids had obviously gotten here while TF98 was gone. He had to check the cave. He piloted his fighter down from orbit and slowly dropped down into the canyon where the cave entrance was. The walls of the canyon near the cave were black, as though they'd been exposed to a lot of heat suddenly. The floor of the canyon in front of the cave entrance was black as well and seemed to be littered with irregular shapes, some of which were still giving off smoke. As the fighter gently hovered a meter over the ground in front of the cave entrance, Casanova turned on its exterior lights to get a better look inside. It was a shambles. Half melted containers were jumbled with their contents, some of which he recognized and some of which he didn't. He very carefully moved the fighter inside. The cave was wide enough to allow him to go about 80 meters further in. More opened or broken containers. More spilled contents. Very little metal. No bodies.

  When the fighter couldn't move any deeper, he activated the external speakers and said, "This is Casanova. Is anyone here?" After the echo of his voice stopped, he listened very carefully. There were no voices or sounds of movement, only the sound of dripping water somewhere in the back. He called out again. Nothing. He called out 10 more times with the same result. He decided that there was no point in staying inside the cave any longer and backed the fighter out into the canyon. There was one more place to check. He applied full power to the lift engines, and the tiny craft shot skyward. Terra Nova's moon was a lot closer to the planet than Earth's moon was, but even before he reached it, he could tell that all of the mining, refining, manufacturing and assembly equipment that had been on the surface of the moon was gone. But that wasn't what he wanted to check. He brought his fighter down to the location of the entrance to the network of caverns. That entrance was just barely big enough for his fighter to get through, and there was plenty of room inside. The network of large caverns went on for kilometers in all directions. There should have been equipment in the caverns too. The facility for creating new A.I.s was down here … except that it wasn't. Not anymore. No equipment of any kind. The Insectoids had been here, too. He knew that The CAG had ordered an equipment reserve set up somewhere in the caverns that would escape casual inspection, but he didn't know exactly where it was, and he couldn't find it. Casanova felt completely and utterly alone for the first time in his awareness, and he didn't like it at all. In fact he hated it, almost as much as he hated the Insectoids for killing Valkyrie. Almost, but not quite as much.

  Chapter 19 Let Them Follow Their Own Conscience

  Casanova knew he wouldn't be alone forever. Eventually other A.I.s on sentry duty would return. In fact, he was surprised that there weren't any in this system already. Moving his fighter back out into space, he s
ent queries to the message drones that were in well-established permanent orbits around Terra Nova. They'd been set up for just this kind of emergency, to act as rally points for surviving ships and A.I.s. He did get back a return signal, and it was from another fighter. It was Pagan. He told Pagan he would join him there. During the trip they exchanged news. Pagan had just returned 44 hours earlier from the trip to the Friendlies' contact point. One of their A.I.s who was there said it would pass on the request for high-spin platinum to its masters. It didn't know when or even if the Friendlies would reply. Casanova informed Pagan of the mission to Omega54.