by Dietmar Wehr
{How did you know that they’d be waiting for us at Z12D, Sir?} The vision immediately dissolved and was replaced by the same tactical display as before. So if this vision was to be believed, the battle would be here in Zebra12 at the smallest of the four gas planets, designated as Zebra12D or Z12D for short. Shiloh switched his helmet’s internal display from the immediate tactical environment to the computer-generated image of Z12D. It was the only one of the four gas planets that did not have any moons. That couldn’t just be a coincidence and after thinking about that for a while, Shiloh understood why. The enemy had used robotic surveillance stations on gas giant moons at Zebra9 and other systems to monitor the space around those planets for signs of human activity. If they had deployed the same surveillance stations on all the moons of the other gas planets in this system, and if 3rd Fleet tried to refuel at any of them, it would almost certainly be detected and the enemy would know which gas planet had been used and could then send that information back in time to deploy their ambush force there. While deploying robotic equipment in orbit around Z12D was certainly possible, it suddenly occurred to Shiloh that it wasn’t necessary. If none of the other stations reported sighting 3rd Fleet at any of the other three gas planets, then by process of elimination, Z12D had to be the refueling point and they could send THAT information back too.
Trying to think in temporal terms was starting to give Shiloh a headache. Retro-temporal Communication or RTC as Shiloh began to think of it, really did favor the defender. The question now was whether this vision was a friendly attempt to guide him or an enemy attempt to confuse him? Unlike the questionable vision at Green4, this one was visually clear and the audio was precisely in sync with Tanaka’s mouth but that didn’t prove it was sent by a friendly source. The aliens might have just gotten better at it although that didn’t really make much sense because if they could send a vision back to ANY point in the past, then why not use the improved version to send a better vision to him at Green4? The other thing, that suggested this was a friendly vision, was that it hadn’t offered a specific course of action, unlike the Green4 version which tried to get him to do nothing and wait. Knowledge of the alien presence near Z12D still left him with multiple options.
The least risky option was to send a wave of recon drones at high speed with active scanning past Z12D. If enemy ships were waiting nearby, the drones would see them. Ah, but you’re not thinking temporally, Shiloh, he thought to himself. Active radar scanning would definitely be detected by any detection station in orbit or maybe even hovering in the planet’s upper atmosphere. It would be simple to arrange for the station to send a contact report by narrow-beam laser to another device in deep space, which could then relay it to the aliens later so even if they could locate and destroy the station, it might already be too late to prevent the ambush. But hold on…if all the station detects is radar pulses from sources that are too small to be ships, and nothing else shows up later, then what’s the point of destroying those drones, which will detect the ambush force as well? Come on, Shiloh. Think it through! Okay so suppose he sent in the recon drones and they detected nothing. If that were the case, he’d then send in the carriers and frigates. If the aliens had at least one detection station in orbit, it would see the drones and then detect his ships afterwards. What could the enemy do with that information? If they sent it back in time so that their here-and-now counterparts could set an ambush near Z12D, then the recon drones would see them and 3rd Fleet would back off, which would then change the information to be sent back in time. In other words, you’d have a paradox.
That didn’t help him any. He only had two real choices. One was turn around and go home but if he did that without making contact…REAL contact, not just a vision, Howard would face a lot of pressure to sack him. The only other option was to send in some or all of 3rd fleet to Z12D. That would then force the ambush. Iceman’s vision implied that there had been some kind of firefight with losses among the fighters. What if he just sent in fighters? Would that be enough of a carrot to entice the enemy to set up an ambush? If his fighters were ambushed, that would certainly justify returning to Sol but he didn’t like the idea of sacrificing them that way. It would be no different if they were human pilots. You’d still have to send them. That was the nature of fighters versus ships. Better to lose a few fighters than a few ships. He had to figure out a way to entice the enemy to set and spring an ambush while at the same time work it so that most of his fighters made it back to the ship, but how? Suddenly the answer popped into his head. Of course! The decoys. Each carrier was carrying two of the big decoys. They were almost as big as fuel shuttles and designed to reflect as much radar energy as possible, thereby making them look much bigger to the enemy than they really were. If he sent in all six decoys in a formation that suggested they were ships, and if that formation was escorted and preceded by fighters AND if they approached Z12D from an angle that just happened to generate a lot of reflected sunlight, then the alien detection stations were bound to see the fighters first and decoys following in their wake and perhaps the ambush force commander would decide to concentrate his fire on the ‘ships’ first on the theory that if the ships were destroyed, then the fighters would be stranded here and would eventually run out of fuel. He’d have to make the fighter/decoy formation look like it was intending to skim Z12D and that meant that they’d be decelerating. And no active scanning either! That would give the game away. It had to look as though a group of ships had been caught by surprise and annihilated. The enemy had to believe that they’d won a tactical victory. If they believed that, then the information sent back in time wouldn’t change. Maybe that kind of tactical deception was the key to overcoming the advantage that RTC gave defenders although if humans managed to pull it off too often, the aliens would eventually get wise. But that was a question that could wait for another day. Right now he had a battle to plan.
It was almost six hours later when everything was ready and everyone was in their right position. 3rd Fleet had made a series of microjumps that brought them to within 100 million kilometers of Z12D and on a vector that would allow them to microjump past Z12D’s gravity zone to the other side. VF002 under Tumbleweed had launched hours ago and was now closing in on the rendezvous point that was 36.5 million kilometers away from the gas planet and just outside its gravity zone. TG 3.2’s frigates, each one carrying a decoy drone, had separated from 3rd Fleet and was now lined up for a carefully calculated microjump, that would place them just in front of Tumbleweed’s fighters, at the same velocity as the fighters.
Shiloh was strapped into the spare acceleration chair with his Command Helmet on. The Fleet was at Battle Stations. The Bridge seemed to be unnaturally quiet. Everyone knew what was about to happen and were waiting for him to give the green light. He checked the countdown timer projected on the inside of his helmet. 45 seconds to go. TG 3.2’s microjump had to be executed at the precise split second and would be controlled by computer. All he had to do was withdraw the ‘hold’ command that was now in effect. As the time hit 30 seconds, he reached up with his right hand and deactivated the virtual Hold button. The Mission Status indicator shifted from red to green. TG 3.2 was already over 55,000 kilometers away from the rest of 3rd Fleet but was still in communication via tight beam com lasers. When the return beam disappeared, that would be confirmation that TG 3.2 had jumped. A fraction of a second after the timer hit zero, the communications status with TG 3.2 changed from CON indicating contact to LOS indicating Loss of Signal. The frigates had jumped and would emerge from jumpspace almost instantaneously 53.5 million kilometers closer to Z12D. From this point on, Shiloh would be out of communication with VF002 and TG 3.2 until they rendezvoused on the opposite side of the gas planet. That rendezvous would be tricky. His carriers would have to be at the exact point where the fighters and frigates expected them to be but that was quite a few hours away yet.
In his mind, Shiloh went over the plan as to what had to happen now. As soon as TG 3.2’s frigates em
erged from jumpspace, any alien detection stations would learn that six ships had emerged from jump. The frigates would immediately launch their decoy drones which the fighters would take up formation ahead of. Once the decoys were launched, the frigates would swing around as quickly as possible to a heading that would miss the gas planet’s gravity zone, at which point TG 3.2 would microjump far enough away to be sure of avoiding detection. It would then have to change course again, microjump again and then change course once more, to get to where the carriers would arrive after their microjump. When the fighters and decoys got close enough to be detected by reflected sunlight, the aliens would see exactly what they would expect to see. Six (apparently) large ships escorted by a number of very small craft that were decelerating towards the gas planet. Tumbleweed was in command of the fighters and decoys. Shiloh had carefully briefed him before launch. His orders were to veer off as soon as the aliens opened fire. The fighters would not engage in active scanning and they would only use their modular lasers if the enemy decided to fire on them. As long as the enemy left them alone, they would not fire back. It was a long shot to expect the enemy not to fire on them but Shiloh could make the case for not doing so. If he was the enemy commander, and he saw six big targets, he would concentrate on those first. Once they were taken out, he would evaluate the situation. Since the fighters had already demonstrated at Green4, that they could make themselves difficult targets to see and hit, the enemy commander would be faced with a tradeoff. Firing at fast, elusive targets using reflected sunlight only wasn’t likely to get a lot of results. If the aliens started using active radar scanning, they’d be making themselves into highly visible targets as well. If neither side used active scanning, then exchanging laser fire was pretty much a waste of energy, and in the case of the fighters, a waste of precious fuel too. So went the theory but Shiloh was astute enough to realize that these aliens might have a completely different way of thinking about strategy and tactics.
He turned his attention to the second countdown timer that was seconds away from 3rd Fleet’s own microjump. Unlike the other one, this one would automatically go ahead unless Shiloh aborted it and he had no intention of doing so. There was no longer any point to his carriers staying where they were. If they were going to be where they were expected to be at the right time, they had to jump now. The microjump went off without a hitch. All three carriers deployed a total of 24 recon drones that spread out to form a detection perimeter using passive sensors only. When he was satisfied that no enemy ships were anywhere near them, he ordered the carriers to stand down from Battle Stations but remain on heightened alert status. If there was no enemy presence near the gas planet, Tumbleweed would send a message as soon as that was confirmed, which would be in roughly 55 minutes but if there was an ambush, Tumbleweed would not transmit any message, because that might be intercepted and tracked, which meant they had a 2 hour wait before they could expect to hear anything from Bettencourt and a 5 1/2 hour wait before hearing anything from Tumbleweed. Such was the nature of space battles fought over millions of kilometers. Shiloh took his Command helmet off and sighed. He was tired after being awake for almost 20 hours now. Before returning to his quarters to get a few hours rest, he spent some time chatting with Tanaka, Falkenberg and the rest of the Bridge personnel. Fleet Admirals weren’t required to stand watches so the least he could do would be to spend a few minutes boosting morale before catching some sleep. No thoughts of a pickle now.
When he woke up 4 1/2 hours later, he knew that Bettencourt’s TG 3.2 had arrived as planned without any problems. If that hadn’t been the case, Tanaka would have notified him as per his orders to her. There was also no point in asking the Bridge if they had detected any signs of laser fire. At this range, laser hits wouldn’t be bright enough to be seen. The fact that no fission blasts from Mark 1 attack drones had been detected either meant that nobody had used active scanning, which would have been necessary to pinpoint targets for the drones to aim at. In order to preserve the impression that there were no human ships left in Zebra12, the fighters were under orders to hold off on trying to contact 3rd Fleet until they were within 10 million km of the rendezvous point and even then, communication would be one way. The fighters would send out a highly focused burst of microwaves towards where 3rd Fleet should be and away from the Z12D gas planet. Any alien ships still near Z12D would not detect the outgoing transmission and 3rd Fleet would wait until their recon drones had direct and secure contact with the fighters using rangefinder lasers and only then would 3rd Fleet respond back.
With almost an hour still to go before they could reasonably expect to hear anything from VF002, Shiloh took a hot shower, put on a clean, crisp uniform and grabbed some food and coffee in the Officers’ Mess before heading up to the Bridge. To his surprise he saw that Tanaka and Falkenberg were back even though they would normally have been off duty now. Falkenberg saw him first and before Shiloh could stop him, he said in a loud voice that made some people jump with surprise.
“Admiral is on the Bridge!” Tanaka turned to confirm the fact and then got up from her Command Station chair to greet him.
“How did you know that they’d be waiting for us at Z12D, Sir?” She understood that the lack of any communication from VF002 meant that there had to be some kind of alien presence there. Shiloh put on his most enigmatic smile and said,
“Just lucky.” Tanaka’s expression said that she clearly didn’t believe him. Shiloh decided to change the subject.
“Aren’t you supposed to be off duty now, Sumi?” asked Shiloh. She shrugged.
“I did get a couple of hours sleep but I wanted to be here when we get the word, Admiral.” He nodded and looked around. “Any message from TG 3.2?”
“Yes, Sir. Bettencourt sent a message wondering when his frigates are going to get refueled. I think he knows darn well when but just wanted to vent his frustration, Sir.”
“Yes I think you’re right, Sumi. And now that we know there’s some kind of alien presence at Z12D, it’s looking more and more as though we’ll have to head back and refuel at Zebra10.” Tanaka nodded slowly, her expression now one of worry.
“Unless they’ve moved to cover that one too after we passed through, Sir.” Under other circumstances, Shiloh would be worried too but not this time. If the aliens were convinced that they had caught and destroyed the six ship fleet at Z12D, then there was no reason to guard the back door. He patted her on the shoulder.
“When we get there, we’ll be careful approaching the GG. How long now before we can expect a message from Tumbleweed?” Tanaka looked over Shiloh’s shoulder and said,
“Less than five minutes now, Sir, if they’re on schedule.”
“Good. Well, I’ll just stand back here in the background. Just pretend I’m not here, Sumi.” Tanaka smiled and rolled her eyes as if to say ‘Oh sure, like THAT’s going to happen!’
“As you wish, Admiral.” As she resumed her seat, Shiloh stepped back until he could lean against the wall. The five minutes seemed to take forever and Shiloh started to wonder what had happened when the five minutes passed along with another minute as well and still no contact. He was just about to ask the Comm. Technician to set up a conference call with all of the Fleet’s COs when the tactical display pinged for attention. Tumbleweed’s text message scrolled across the bottom.
[All decoys destroyed by laser fire from multiple enemy ships. Number unknown. VF002 did not receive any hostile fire. Recon drones deployed during escape did not detect any signs of pursuit. The mission appears to have been accomplished. End of message.]
Shiloh heard the Bridge personnel erupt into cheering and clapping but he wasn’t celebrating. Something was off here. Iceman’s vision implied that they would lose some of their fighters otherwise why would his future self say that it was a good thing that Iceman wasn’t part of the Zebra19 mission? It wasn’t that he was hoping to lose some fighters but rather that he was puzzled that he didn’t. When the background noise died down, he walked ba
ck up to Tanaka’s Command Station and said to her,
“Pass the word to Resolute to recover VF002 as planned. By then I want a jump plotted back to Zebra10 and distributed to all ships. We’ll jump as soon as all fighters are recovered.”
“Yes, Sir.” Shiloh walked over to the Communications Station.
“I want to record a message for Tumbleweed to be transmitted as soon as we have two-way communications.” The technician nodded and said.
“I’m recording, Sir.”
“Admiral to Tumbleweed. You and your boys have done an outstanding job. I’m proud of all of you. End of message.”