The Synchronicity War Part 3

by Wehr, Dietmar

  "Far be it from a mere admiral to tell the Chief of Space Operations what to do, CAG, but you're pacing will make everyone else nerv--. VLO has just arrived, CAG! I've advised Valkyrie. Her reply is garbled. I'm continuing to transmit the same message to her, but she may not be able to hear it, CAG. Tracking data is on the screen now."

  Shiloh spun around and looked at the tactical display. The icon representing the mammoth mothership was not that far away from where Iceman estimated she'd be. He'd have to congratulate Iceman later for that. The spherical ship was still outside the gravity zone, but the sidebar data showed that it would enter the zone in less than six minutes. Until then, Midway and its fighters would do nothing to spook the Bugs. It didn't take long for the VLO to launch attack craft. Detection was by passive sensors only, so Shiloh was sure that there were more than the three attack craft that they could detect. The big question now was whether Valkyrie knew where the VLO was. If she did, she would realize that the supersonic skimming would take too long and go for the faster but more risky subsonic flight plan. God speed Valkyrie. He sent the thought out and went to sit back down in his Command chair.

  Valkyrie had never been so busy during her existence. No human could possibly have piloted Dreadnought by herself and still monitor all the necessary sub-systems, the flight plan, the refueling process. She even doubted that some of the other A.I.s could have done it. At least she was in constant communications with Iceman, although the static was getting worse the deeper into Jupiter's atmosphere Dreadnought got. A new signal brought her attention away from Iceman. That damn Hangar Bay locking mechanism was again reading as unlocked. The intermittent locked/not locked signal was very frustrating for her because there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Her fighter was securely fastened to the Hangar Bay deck with explosive bolts that would free it when it was time to leave the ship. All she could do was keep an eye on the locking mechanism.

  The transmissions from Iceman suddenly changed tone. By now she was missing most of it but she knew that Iceman would repeat the data over and over again so that she could fill in the missing blanks. She got it now. The VLO was back and she knew what direction it was coming from. She quickly did the astrogational calculations and was dismayed by the result. If Dreadnought continued to refuel using supersonic skimming, the VLO would have plenty of time to send its attack craft to Europa, determine that there was nothing of value there and leave Jupiter's gravity zone before Dreadnought could get the minimum fuel she needed and accelerate to ramming speed. It only took a fraction of a second to reconfigure the flight plan for subsonic refueling and the result scared her. The lower aerodynamic lift would force Dreadnought deeper into the gas giant's atmosphere, and that was where the dangerous downdrafts were. But as soon as Dreadnought had processed enough heavy hydrogen to light up the fusion reactors, the ship would have plenty of power to pull out of any dive. The big unknown was whether Jupiter would pull her down too far to recover before she had full power. The CAG was counting on her and she wasn't going to let him down again. Never again! She throttled back the ZPG units and let the ship slow down to the maximum speed that would allow for continuous scooping of gases.

  As soon as Dreadnought dropped below the speed of sound, the Hangar Bay locking mechanism signal began switching between locked and unlocked much more frequently, and Valkyrie understood why. The turbulence of the atmosphere streaming past the hatch was causing alternating push and pull. If the hatch wasn't securely locked down, not only would the Bay's atmospheric integrity be compromised by gas leaking in, but the constant banging against the lock could damage the mechanism. No time to watch that now. The ship was dropping fast. The gas processing system was operating at capacity, but it took a lot of hydrogen to filter out the amount of heavy hydrogen the ship needed.

  The rate of descent suddenly spiked. A downdraft was pulling Dreadnought down fast now. Fuel levels were rising towards the minimum needed to light up the power plants. They were almost there … NOW! Dreadnought's carefully scrutinized but never tested fusion power reactors came to life. Within half a second Valkyrie had plenty of power. She used it to pull the nose of the ship up until it was pointed at the correct angle and then fed more power to the engines. Dreadnought pulled out of its descent. At this shallow angle of ascent, the ship should have the necessary minimum fuel levels for its ramming attempt by the time it left Jupiter's atmosphere. She checked the com channels. She wasn't getting anything from Iceman now, and there was no way that Dreadnought could send a focused beam of microwaves to Midway that would penetrate this static. Low power laser bursts were out of the question, too. She was on her own until she got out of this damn soup, but at least she had power now. She checked the docking mechanism and was surprised to see that it was now indicating a steady 'locked' status.

  "Are we in position yet, Iceman," demanded Shiloh somewhat testily.

  "Affirmative, CAG. If Valkyrie managed to refuel Dreadnought subsonically, she should be breaking out of Jupiter's atmosphere any second now, and we're in the best position to support her while still staying outside the gravity zone."

  Shiloh wanted to hit something. It went against the grain to keep Midway way out here where she was safe while a Space Force comrade would shortly be in danger, but Midway was strategically too important to risk now. Her fighters on the other hand, were not. They were already on their way in deeper. If Dreadnought appeared where Iceman expected, she would very quickly get 75 fighters as an escort. By carefully orienting themselves in a way that would eliminate any chance of being detected by reflected sunlight, the fighters had not yet been detected and would try to keep it that way as long as possible. Dreadnought, on the other hand, could not be so easily hidden. Its sheer size worked to undermine any attempt to manage reflections.

  Shiloh checked the tactical display for what must have been the hundredth time. The VLO was now slowly curving around in an obvious move to get beyond the gravity zone. Its attack craft had done the expected and swarmed over Europa long enough to make sure that there was nothing living there and then returned to the mothership. Shiloh had hoped they might want to salvage the metal in the refueling station, but Iceman had correctly estimated that there wasn't enough metal there to entice them to stay.

  Shiloh was pacing the room again, and Iceman knew enough to keep quiet about it. Shiloh heard the display ping and Iceman's voice at the same time.

  "Dreadnought has broken through the atmosphere and is transmitting by tight beam again, CAG. She's in just the right position. Voodoo's fighters will form up on Dreadnought in two point seven seven minutes. No indication that Dreadnought's been detected yet."

  Shiloh heard shouts from the others in the room and realized that he had shouted too. He smacked his right fist into his left palm for good measure then said, "Can I talk with Valkyrie without tipping off the Bugs, Iceman?"

  "Possible but not recommended. She's pretty busy now, CAG. Some of the ship's systems didn't like the pounding the ship took from the subsonic refueling. You may not be aware of this, but translating from human speech to digital impulses that we can understand and back again is not a trivial task for us, CAG. Tell me what you want to say and I'll send her the A.I. equivalent message."

  "Tell her … tell her that I'm proud of her. Damn proud of her." Shiloh wanted to say more but knew his voice would betray his emotions if he tried.

  "Message has been sent. At this range, we won't get her reply, if any, for another four minutes. Shiloh turned his face away so that none of the other members of the crew could see him. He needed time to get his expression under control. He cared about all the A.I.s, but Valkyrie was special in a way that maybe only Kelly could understand. He had a feeling that Valkyrie was special to Kelly too.

  When his composure was restored, he turned to look at the tactical display again. They had pulled off the strategy perfectly. The VLO was accelerating outward and Dreadnought, with her soon to be fighter escort, were behind the Bugs. Midway was circling around t
he edge of the gravity zone and was at the nine o'clock position, relative to the VLO's twelve o'clock exit point. If the VLO continued to ignore the space behind them, then Valkyrie could set the auto-pilot to ram it from behind while she took her leave of the ship. Without her monitoring, some of the ship's systems would malfunction, but by then the ship would have enough momentum to continue on even if the engines stopped or the power failed.

  The distance between Dreadnought and the VLO was over 14.4 million kilometers, but Dreadnought would be accelerating at over 101Gs while the bug ship would be accelerating at less than 2Gs. There was no way that the VLO could break out beyond the gravity zone before Dreadnought caught up to her.

  Shiloh and the rest of the Flag Bridge crew watched the display as the minutes ticked by. Everything they were seeing on the display, based upon data received from Dreadnought and the fighters, was now taking over a minute to reach them. Valkyrie hadn't sent a reply to Shiloh's message. If she was that busy, then maybe he should start worrying again. The Bugs put a stop to that thought.

  "They've spotted Dreadnought. Multiple attack craft launching from the mothership now, CAG. It's hard to pin down the exact number with passive sensors, but it's at least 81."

  "Notify Valkyrie and Voodoo just in case they can't see them. Does Voodoo know what to do, Iceman?"

  "He knows. We gamed out this exact scenario. He'll do the right thing," said Iceman.

  Seconds later, the fighter escort went to maximum acceleration to get ahead of Dreadnought and run interference for her. They each had one Mark 1b fusion and four Mark 2 Kinetic Energy Penetrator drones. The plan called for them to launch the Mark 2s en masse to overwhelm the incoming bogeys. With a minimum of electronics, the Mark 2s were simple to build and tough to disable. If a Mark 2's depleted uranium rod hit an attack craft, the kinetic energy would instantly turn it into a jet of superhot plasma that would eviscerate the inside of the attack craft before shooting out the back end. The Mark 1bs were to be used against any stragglers that survived the Mark 2 barrage. The fighter pilots had orders to be stingy with them in case some of them were needed against the VLO itself if the ramming attempt didn't damage it enough.

  The actual battle between the fighters and the attack craft turned out to be an anti-climax. All but three attack craft were hit and crippled by Mark 2s, and Mark 1s soon vaporized those three. None of the fighters suffered laser hits from the attack craft, but they were soon under fire from the VLO itself, and its lasers were much more powerful. Shiloh watched as several fighters literally vaporized from hits by the massive laser blasts.

  "The insectoid ship has switched its fire to Dreadnought now. Valkyrie is reporting multiple hits to the bow of the ship, but so far she still has engines and power," reported Iceman.

  Shiloh nodded grimly. If Dreadnought had a full human crew, the damage suffered by those laser hits would be serious, but Valkyrie's fighter was in the Hangar Bay near the back end, and that ship had a LOT of armor. It could take a lot of punishment, could even become a crippled hulk, and it would STILL hit the bug ship with brutal force.

  Valkyrie noticed that Dreadnought's velocity had now reached the minimum level that Iceman had calculated would cripple the VLO. She sent the signal to unlock the Hangar Bay Hatch. The hatch mechanism status continued to show as locked. She sent the unlock signal again. And again. And again. No change. With the thought that the mechanism must have been damaged by the turbulence, came the realization that she was trapped in this ship. Her first thought was to ask for instructions, but then she realized that the CAG might order her to abort the ramming attempt, even though it could put all of the humans at Site B at risk. She couldn't allow that. No matter how low that risk might be, Amanda Kelly and the other human females must not be taken as hosts by the insectoid race. Not if Valkyrie could do anything to prevent it. She would show the CAG that she would not let him down again, no matter what. She would ride Dreadnought all the way to impact, regardless of what he might order her to do. She transmitted her decision to Iceman. He would inform the CAG and tell her brothers about the ride of the Valkyrie. With the message sent, she shut down the com system and focused on her target.

  "Shouldn't Valkyrie be abandoning Dreadnought by now, Iceman?" asked Shiloh two minutes later.

  "Yes, CAG. She should, and she hasn't because she can't."

  Shiloh felt a chill run up his spine. "Why the hell not?"

  "The locking mechanism on the hangar bay hatch was damaged by the turbulence during the subsonic refueling. Valkyrie reports that it's jammed and won't unlock."

  Shiloh spoke before he even realized what he was saying. "Order her to veer off and abort the ramming!"

  "No, CAG. Valkyrie has already told me she would ignore any such order. She understands that we have to stop this mothership here and now. She's stopped transmitting now, CAG."

  Overwhelmed by a surge in frustration and sadness, Shiloh looked around for something that he could throw at the bulkhead. He found a data tablet and whipped it as hard as he could at the wall where it shattered into a hundred pieces. Those crewmembers who looked at his face quickly turned away again.

  Shiloh took a deep breath and forced himself to look at the display. The light speed lag was now down to 32 seconds. Voodoo's fighters were acting in an aggressive manner, but as per his orders, they were holding their Mark 1s back until the target was rammed. He knew that they were trying to entice the mothership to fire at them instead of Dreadnought, but that apparently wasn't working. Dreadnought's icon crept closer and closer to the angry red enemy triangle representing the VLO. The Flag Bridge was dead quiet. He looked around just long enough to see that everyone was watching Valkyrie's death-ride in somber silence.

  When both icons merged, the display pinged to indicate a status change. The VLO's acceleration had dropped to zero. The sidebar data indicated that it was venting atmosphere. Shiloh jumped in surprise when Iceman said, "I have video of the collision taken by one of the fighters if you'd like to see it, CAG."

  Shiloh hesitated for a few seconds before saying, "Show me."

  The image which now appeared on the display was computer enhanced. Shiloh saw what at first looked like a crescent moon with a speckled surface. Suddenly there was a bright light in the center of the circular shape. The light expanded then faded to a dull glow with an expanding ring of debris flying away from the point of impact. With the overall dimensions of the mothership in mind, Shiloh estimated the size of the glowing impact zone to be roughly four kilometers wide, far wider than the width of Dreadnought's hull. He wondered how deep the mass of the ship had penetrated. The direct physical damage was impressive enough, but the indirect effects of the shock wave would be even more impressive. In terms of mass, Dreadnought was a tiny fraction of the billions of tons that the mothership had to be, but Dreadnought's velocity would make up a lot of the difference. Every time Dreadnought's velocity doubled, the kinetic energy on impact increased by a factor of four, and with 101G acceleration, the ship had gained a very high velocity. By Iceman's calculation, if humans had been aboard the VLO at the moment of impact, the sudden jerk on impact would have had the same effect as a ground vehicle hitting a concrete wall at 188 kilometers an hour. Unfortunately bug physiology was sufficiently different that they couldn't assume that all the Bugs were dead. If enough survived, they might eventually be able to repair the giant ship sufficiently to jump it back to Omega54 or some other system where they could complete the repairs. That was why they needed to utterly destroy it now.

  "Order Voodoo's fighters to proceed with Phase two, Iceman."

  "Roger that, CAG."

  The display shifted back to tactical mode, and the icons representing the fighter squadrons now moved directly towards the coasting behemoth. They had planned for just this situation. The fighters came together in a long column, four fighters wide. As each cohort of four fighters came within optimum firing range, they launched their Mark 1 fusion attack drones at the gaping wound in the VLO. As eac
h barrage hit, the multi-megaton explosions burrowed deeper into the bowels of the machine, thereby making way for the next wave to go even deeper. The last five waves of attack drones had different programming. They flew into the VLO as far as they could and then angled away from the center in order to vent their explosive energy outward from the inside. If Iceman's calculations were correct, the VLO should now be a hollowed out sphere with only a relatively thin layer of metal, no more than one kilometer thick, saturated with radiation from the fusion blasts and lined on the inside with molten steel hundreds of meters thick. The VLO had been gutted.

  "Phase 2 complete, CAG. What are your orders now?" asked Iceman.

  Shiloh stepped back over to his Command chair and sat down, aware that he would soon be feeling the effects of adrenaline fatigue. He considered his options for a few seconds and then replied, "Tell Voodoo to detach ... two fighters to follow the bug ship and check out the interior when it's safe to do so. They can catch up to us later. Midway and the rest of the fighters will jump to Earth. I want to take a close look at Valiant and Resolute."