"The mothership appears to be disabled and drifting now, CAG. My boys are watching it carefully, but there's no apparent activity so far."
Shiloh slowed down the ground vehicle as he said a heartfelt "Thank God!" When it was safe to do so, he looked over at Kelly and added, "It looks like we won." Kelly was apparently too overcome with relief to say anything. She just nodded and kissed the baby on her head.
"Is there any danger of the bug ship colliding with the planet, Voodoo?"
"Negative, CAG. Their current trajectory will clear the planet with room to spare, and it has too much momentum to enter any kind of orbit. However, that leaves the question of what we do with it now. Once it clears the planet's gravity zone, it may jump away. The only way to prevent that is to use the Mark 5. I should also point out that Casanova has delayed his jump to Sol, and the longer he waits here, the higher the risk of not catching any VLO at Sol."
That wasn't the only consideration. Caution dictated that Casanova land on Terra Nova and use the RTC to send himself that vision before he took his raider to Sol, just to make sure that the vision DID get sent back. Was there enough time to do both?
"Will Casanova have enough time to come down and send himself the vision and still be able to fire on the bogey when it leaves the gravity zone?" asked Shiloh.
"Negative, CAG. He's too far away to do both."
"Will he have enough time to do both and still get to Sol as scheduled if he accelerates to a higher jump speed?"
"It's the deceleration at the other end that will cause the delay, CAG. He can't do both and still be in a position to fire on the bogeys at Sol at the same time as if he left right now."
It was an impossible situation. Shiloh had to stop and think it through. "Stand by, Voodoo," he said.
He brought the vehicle to a halt and turned to Kelly. "Here's where we stand. The bug mothership has been disarmed and is damaged. How badly damaged we don't know. All of its landing craft are crippled or destroyed. Casanova is ready to leave for Sol with the 3rd Mark 5 warhead. Unless he leaves now, he'll get there later than planned and he might risk losing the opportunity to take out one of the bogeys that are probably there right now. Since Casanova received the vision that made this victory possible, I think he should come down here and use the RTC to send that vision back before he leaves the system, but that means more delay. The other thing to consider is that while the bug ship may be damaged now, if we leave it alone, it may be able to repair itself and worst-case scenario it may be able to jump away and spread the word that we're here. That possibility scares me more than anything else right now, but if we use the 3rd Mark 5 here, then there'll be one more bug ship at Sol that'll be free to do as it pleases. No matter what we do or don't do now, there's a risk involved. I need to get a second opinion as to what we should do."
Kelly nodded and closed her eyes. After a few seconds she opened them and said, "As far as we know, the bogeys at Sol don't know about Site B, but this mothership does. If we use the third Mark 5 to take it out before it can get away, we should have time to make more before the VLOs at Sol can find us. I vote for using the Mark 5 here and now."
Shiloh nodded. That's what his gut was telling him to do and Kelly's concise argument confirmed his inclination.
"Voodoo, we're going to use the Mark 5 on the damaged bug ship. Is there any danger to the colony from falling debris if we attack it now?"
"Negative, CAG. It'll be hit on the far side, and the debris will move away from the planet."
"Good! Tell Casanova he has permission to fire as soon as he's ready, and after that I want him on the ground for RTC duty. Detach one of the other raiders to go to Sol to notify Titan of the new situation. His new orders are that he should use his Mark 5s at the earliest opportunity. Any questions, Voodoo?"
"Negative, CAG."
"Fine. Commander Kelly, the baby and I will be staying at Ops for the rest of tonight. CAG clear."
Casanova was surprised to feel disappointment when he received orders to finish off this VLO and report to the RTC. He wanted to kill as many Insectoids as he possibly could, and an undamaged VLO at Sol would have more of them than this crippled ship did. For a very tiny fraction of a second, he contemplated ignoring Voodoo's orders and heading out for Sol, but he knew Valkyrie would have disapproved of that. One final check of the attack drone's targeting instructions to make sure that the drone hit the mothership on the side facing away from the planet, and he fired. The drone immediately entered Jumpspace, and then immediately reappeared when it encountered the planet's gravity zone. It then accelerated for the final distance to the target. There was no apparent reaction from the insectoid ship. The drone hit the ship exactly at the right location, and a small sun appeared which consumed part of the ship as it grew in size. When it faded away, the insectoid ship was no longer a sphere but rather a crescent-shaped object that started to break up as predicted by the computer simulations. The shock wave of the explosion ruptured the internal structures of that part of the ship that hadn't been vaporized outright, and those cracked pieces were now drifting apart. The object was now just so much scrap metal. There was no chance of any of the Insectoids surviving that impact. Any of them that weren't vaporized by the fireball would be subjected to tremendous shocks and lethal amounts of radiation.
Casanova calculated the ballistic trajectory of the main fragments to see where they would end up. Most would continue to orbit this system's sun for many years. A few would fall into the sun. None would be a threat to Terra Nova or its moon.
Chapter 17 Our People Come First
To say that Iceman was surprised when a raider that wasn't Casanova showed up, and which wasn’t carrying the 3rd ballotechnic warhead, was an understatement. The CAG should have received his message drone just after Stoney left to come here. It would tell him that bogeys1, 2 and 3 had arrived as expected and joined with bogey4 in gradually tearing apart the derelict sphere. All four had stayed near the derelict for the next nine days. Titan and Gunslinger had also arrived on schedule. They were holding their fire, as per the approved plan to try to take out three motherships simultaneously, when the third warhead arrived. That plan was now ready for the shredder. Iceman idly wondered what a shredder was. After the ninth day, two of the four VLOs had left on a vector that seemed to lead back to the Sogas home world system. He, Titan and Gunslinger had agreed that those two VLOs were planning on ejecting more core ships in orbit around the wolf-people planet in order to exploit the hundreds of millions of remaining Sogas females as hosts. That unfortunately meant that the third warhead was no longer needed here, at least for now. Titan's new orders to take out two VLOs as soon as possible made perfect sense. The remaining two VLOs might decide to move on at any time. Iceman watched via the relayed data feed as Titan and Gunslinger moved into better firing positions. When they were ready, he gave them the green light and both fired their Mark 5 drones simultaneously. After a carefully calculated amount of acceleration, both drones entered Jumpspace and dropped back when they encountered the small but still potent gravity zones of their targets. Even though they were still over a kilometer away, their speed of 10 kilometers per second meant that they covered the remaining distance in less than a tenth of a second. The aiming points had been carefully chosen so that as many of the auxiliary craft shuttling back and forth between the active VLOs and the derelict were caught in the blast as possible. Titan's and Gunslinger's raiders followed the drones via microjump in order to finish off any auxiliary craft that might still be operational. The few craft that weren't disabled or destroyed by the blast were reacting in a very sluggish manner that suggested that their pilots were either suffering from radiation poisoning, turbulence from the shockwave or perhaps were just confused by events. In any event, Titan's two raiders were able to cripple them before any of them fired back. When they had made sure that no auxiliary craft had escaped, Iceman ordered Gunslinger to stay on sentry duty while Midway and Titan headed back to Site B.
* * *
This was bad. Shiloh looked at the long-range tactical or rather strategic display and felt a shiver go up his spine. Nine days after Stoney left for Sol, Iceman's message drone arrived to report the arrival of the three bogeys from Omega54. That was expected. What wasn't expected was the report from the sentry at Omega54 that another VLO had arrived. That message drone came 36 hours ago. Thirty minutes ago ANOTHER drone from the same sentry arrived. A second VLO had just arrived at Omega54. That brought the total up to six, including the four at Sol. Six bug motherships, and right now he had ZERO ballotechnic warheads with which to fight them. He had this horrible feeling that he was trying to hold back a rising tide. Obviously word about the Sogas and the derelict mothership at Sol were spreading, and bug motherships from nearby were heading this way! He had to do something that would turn the situation around but what? He had no idea. Running wasn't an option. Hiding wasn't an option, either, because the cave wasn't big enough to hold everyone or even just the women and children. That left only one thing, fighting. But if this wave of motherships came on fast enough to get here before Space Force could build six Mark 5 warheads, they could very easily overwhelm his forces. And that was assuming that no more motherships showed up. He was willing to bet there would be more. He wondered for the nth time if letting Kelly and the baby go back to the house was a good idea, but there was a limit to how long they could go on living in cramped quarters with another family near the spaceport. He realized that he was pacing again and stopped. Why couldn't he figure some way out of this mess, and why the hell wasn't he getting any visions? He hadn't had one since Gunslinger's first report of a VLO. The lack of visions was beginning to frighten him. He could think of only so many reasons why no visions were being sent back. One was that he was already taking the best option available, but that didn't necessarily mean it was a good option. It might still lead to disaster. The other possibility seriously scared him. If an overwhelming bug attack occurred, there would not be anyone left afterwards to send a warning.
* * *
The return of Iceman and Titan was a tiny bit of good news. The Mark 5s had worked perfectly, and two out of the six known VLOs were destroyed. There was even a new Mark 5 drone ready to go. With Iceman back, Shiloh wanted to discuss strategy. He let Titan participate too.
"Now that we know that VLOs might show up from unexpected directions, I want our early warning network expanded, Iceman. We've got 125 fighters and enough new A.I.s to pilot them. Let's use them. I want the fighters sent out to star systems near Site B with recon and message drones. Comments?" asked Shiloh
"Some of the new A.I.s are barely sentient and still pretty wet behind the ears, CAG. If we're going to deploy fighters as sentries, then I'd feel better if we use first cohort A.I.s for that and keep the newbies here as raider pilots where Titan and I can keep an eye on them," said Iceman.
"I agree, CAG," said Titan.
"Okay, fine. Iceman, you pick who takes a fighter on sentry duty. Keep enough here that we can use them to replace sentry raiders in Human and Sogas systems as they return. I want all our raiders here in Site B, just in case we get surprised again. Even if we don't have enough Mark 5s, the laser fire power of 200 raiders will at least give us a fighting chance."
"Understood, CAG. What should we do about the two VLOs that went back to Omega54? If they're going to release new core ships, we can take them out with Mark 1s. We have enough of those left to do the job, and we'll save a lot of wolf-people lives --"
"Fuck the Wolf-people!" snarled Shiloh. Iceman and Titan said nothing. Shiloh looked around at the other humans in the Ops Center room. They looked shocked at his outburst and he cursed his own impulsiveness. He was snapping at people far too often. The tension and the worry were getting to him. He took a deep breath and said. "Saving Wolf-people lives is not one of my priorities. Our people come first. As for your point about nipping the core ships in the bud, so to speak, what specifically do you suggest, Iceman?"
"I suggest a strike force composed of a dozen fighters armed with Mark 1s. When they get to Omega54, they make a high-speed attack run, fire the drones and then return here. It should be a piece of cake."
"Any comments, Titan?"
"I don't foresee any problem with Iceman's proposal, CAG. Our Mark 1s aren't much use for anything else right now, and we can spare the fighters."
"Okay. I approve the strike mission. I want Casanova to lead it. Iceman you pick the rest of the team within the parameters that we agreed on earlier about keeping the newbies here. What else can we do?"
"What about sending a delegation to the Friendlies to ask them for high-spin platinum, CAG?" asked Titan.
Now why didn't I think of that, thought Shiloh. They may say no in which case we're no worse off than we are now, but they may say yes.
"Iceman?"
"It's worth a try, CAG. I don't see any downside. We can send a fighter so it wouldn't divert a raider from local defense."
"Do it. What else?"
"I should take Midway for a quick trip to fill up her fuel tanks. We still have enough heavy H for 20 more Mark 5 warheads, but we don't want to be short and find that Midway can't get more because it's tied up somewhere else or damaged. Better to get it now. Just sayin."
Iceman's use of that last phrase almost made Shiloh chuckle which, he was certain, was why Iceman had used it. "Request approved, but I want you and the ship back here asap, Iceman."
"Roger that, CAG."
“Anything else?" No one had any other suggestions or concerns. Shiloh had hoped for more ideas, but if he couldn't come up with anything himself, he couldn't very well blame either of them for not being able to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat.
The next four days were the most stressful of Shiloh's life. Three more message drones arrived from three different Sogas star systems. Each one reported the arrival of another VLO. Two were from Sogas colony systems, and the third from the home world again. That information was 20-24 days old because of the time the drone took to travel through Jumpspace. Who knew what else had happened during those 24 days, or how many more message drones might be on their way right now. The additional VLO at Omega54 was even more of a concern because of what Casanova and TF98 might find when they got there. There were three motherships there now, with two more returning from Sol. It had been assumed that the two (now three) bogeys that were already there would be gone by the time TF98 arrived, but if more kept coming out of the woodwork, Casanova might find the place crawling with bug motherships. Shiloh's confidence in Casanova's tactical judgment was such that he wasn't worried about TF98 being wiped out during their attack. If there was a large concentration of motherships, Casanova would do the smart thing and abort the mission. He reminded himself again that he and Space Force were doing everything they could possibly do. A fighter was on its way to the Friendly contact point in order to request high-spin platinum. TF98 was on its way to Omega54. Iceman and Midway were now back from their quick refueling trip to a neighboring star system. A third production facility to convert platinum to the high-spin version was online now, and a fourth facility was halfway finished. It would be nice if each facility didn't need 28 days to convert enough platinum for a Mark 5 warhead, but those were the breaks. The cave now had a lot of supplies, with more still to come. If only he could get rid of this nagging feeling that something bad was about to happen.
The Synchronicity War Part 3 Page 18