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Shiloh took a sip of his drink and leaned back. Another long day of meetings with both human and A.I.s was over. With 72 days to go until the attack, he had decided that he could spare an hour or two to talk with Kelly about their alternate timeline relationship. Kelly had accepted his invitation to meet for drinks in the Officer's Lounge at HQ, but she hadn't arrived yet. While he waited, he reviewed the day's highlights. The x-ray laser test had actually been a series of tests. In each test, the eight rods had been aimed at eight targets, and low-powered range-finding lasers had been used to determine the accuracy of those aims. It soon became obvious that aiming quickly degraded accuracy. It took too long to get all eight aimed perfectly, but they got three hits when aiming was done quickly enough to give them a fifty-fifty chance of hitting the target before the target launched its bio-devices. That worked out to an average of one point five successfully pre-emptive hits per device. Not that great a result. Then someone from the temporarily suspended high-spin warhead project had suggested aiming only at four targets instead of eight, with two rods aimed at each target. The results surprised just about everyone. All four targets got at least one hit. They did the same test multiple times to rule out fluke results and the average score was three point six hits per test. But the real surprise was when they tried it again with faster aiming. Average hits dropped to two point seven, BUT the probability of hitting the target before bio-weapons launch went up to 88%. That translated into two point four successfully pre-emptive hits per device instead of one point five. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough to move to mass production.
The other good news was TF91's results at Red11. Seventy-five fewer enemy ships was nothing to sneeze at, but Shiloh knew that no matter what they did, seven cities were going to be hit by bio-devices. After kicking around some ideas, he and Howard had agreed that there was only one way to get the risk of uncontrolled pandemic down to a tolerable level. Those cities had to be completely evacuated prior to the attack. They might have to stay evacuated for weeks, or perhaps even months, until specially equipped teams had recovered all pieces of the devices and sealed off the infected areas permanently. That was going to be a huge task, and Howard expected a lot of resistance to it, but the Oversight Committee had backed him up, and local authorities were going along with the plan.
When Kelly arrived, Shiloh stood and greeted her. When they were both seated again he said, "As you can see, I've already ordered my drink, so go ahead and place your order."
She nodded and touched the appropriate part of the built-in touch screen in the table. "I'll have a vodka martini with two olives." They both waited the half a dozen seconds it took for the bar built into the table to make her drink and present it to her. She took a sip and said, "I'm guessing you invited me for drinks in order to talk about our alternate timeline relationship."
Shiloh nodded. "It's been hanging over us ever since Kronos arrived. I think it's time to deal with it, don't you?"
Now it was her turn to nod. "I have to say when I first learned about it, I was ... shocked." They both laughed. "You and I worked together pretty closely in the early days of the SPG, and I never detected even a hint that you might be interested in more than a professional relationship. I certainly wasn't thinking that way."
"Yes, and the reason you didn't detect a hint was that there wasn't any interest. Whatever aspirations I had in seeking a romantic relationship were focused in another direction."
She raised her eyebrows at that. "So what happened?"
Shiloh shrugged. "She changed her mind." After a pause he said, "So now that you're over the initial shock, how do you feel about the whole thing?"
She put her drink down and leaned back. "Well that's the big hurdle we're facing now, isn't it? From what I learned, our alternate selves seemed to be very happy and committed to the relationship. That means that you and I are in a very unique position in so far as we don't need to guess if a relationship will work or not. We already know that it could, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should, if you know what I mean."
He nodded. "Yes I do know what you mean. There's a fork in the road ahead of us. One path explores a closer relationship, the other path doesn't. We have free will and can choose to go down either path."
She waited until she was sure he was finished speaking before saying, "And I sense that you're just as reluctant as I am to be the first one to say which way we've decided to go."
Shiloh didn't answer right away. In fact, she was right. He didn’t want to be the first to admit that going down that new path did have some appeal because that would leave him out on a limb if she said 'thanks but no thanks'. Stop pussyfooting around and tell her, he thought to himself.
"I'm willing to get to know you better in our off-duty time and see where that goes." She said nothing and the silence was starting to become uncomfortable. "You're not saying yes," he said finally.
"I'm not saying yes, and I'm not saying no."
Shiloh took a gulp of his drink. "Okay, so what are you saying?"
She took a deep breath. "I'm saying I'd like more time to get used to the idea before I step on that path."
That sounded encouraging ... sort of. He took another gulp. "I can understand that. So we just leave it that way for now?"
She nodded. "Yes. Let's move on to something else now if you don't mind." He agreed. As they started to talk 'shop' he analyzed the way he felt and realized that he was okay with her wanting more time. The willingness to go down that path was not all that strong, at least not yet. Maybe he needed more time to get used to the idea, too. As he examined that thought a tiny voice at the back of his awareness whispered, Don't take too long to decide. Who knows how much time you both have left.
For the next 40 minutes or so they talked about their work and the war as a whole. When there seemed to be nothing left to talk about they agreed to call it a day. Just as Kelly was getting ready to leave, she turned back to him with a mischievous smile and said, "By the way ... did you know that Valkyrie and Casanova have ah ... consummated an A.I. union?"
"No, I didn't know that, and I'm not sure I understand what that means."
Kelly laughed. "You're not the only one who's mystified. Valkyrie tried to explain it to me. I still don't know if I understand it, but the bottom line is that they consider themselves to be in a 'committed relationship'. It'll be interesting to see how that works out. Good night, Admiral."
"Good night, Commander."
* * *
Howard entered the Ops Center, looked at the giant display, and sighed. The strategic map of Human and Sogas star systems looked distressingly similar to the one he'd seen prior to the first attack on Earth. There was one important difference. Then there had been three Sogas fleets moving along three different paths. Now there were four. Although they weren't following the same paths as before, their ultimate objective was still Earth, and they were moving fast enough that they would get here on the exact day that Shiloh had seen in his vision. He shifted his gaze to the sidebar that showed the status of the planned defenses. Deployment of the Mark 6 x-ray laser drones was proceeding but not nearly as fast as everyone wanted. They had 17 in orbit now, and the engineers had assured Howard that they could have 66 deployed by D-day. That many devices times an average of two point four pre-emptive hits meant that 156 enemy ships would be hit and hopefully disabled before they launched their bio-devices. With over 150 laser-armed fighters, four light carriers, one heavy carrier and maybe a battleship all trying to destroy the incoming bio-devices, it was hard to see how any of the damn things would get through, but Shiloh's vision had to be taken seriously. Somehow the Sogas would pull off a partially successful attack. They had eleven days left to prepare.
It wasn't the orbital preparations that worried him. It was the evacuation of the seven cities. Even with all levels of government urging citizens and workers to evacuate, it was already clear that the cities would not be completely uninhabited by D-day. Many residents refused to leave. Threatened with forced evacuation, many of them went into hiding. With hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings in each city, there just weren't enough police, emergency responders and military personnel to search each one. Letting the RTC secret out of the bag wasn't the answer, either. Experts had convinced Howard that even with full public disclosure, there would still be hundreds who would refuse to believe it and would stay hidden anyway. At least the evacuation had started and so far was proceeding in an orderly manner. He supposed he should be grateful for that.
He turned to look at the Duty Officer in command of the Ops Center and asked, "Where is Admiral Shiloh now, Commander?"
After checking, the officer said, "Admiral Shiloh is on an inspection tour of Dreadnought, Sir. Shall I open a com channel for you?"
"No, thank you. I'll catch him when he returns."
––––––––
Shiloh stepped onto the deck of Dreadnought's Flag Bridge and realized that this was where he'd be standing when his vision came true. Right now there were a lot of technicians finishing the installation of two more A.I. stations on the Main Bridge to go along with the one already installed. Valkyrie was hooked up to that one, and Shiloh was in contact with her via his implant.
"Will they be finished in time, Valkyrie?"
"The secondary A.I. stations will be hooked up and tested in time, but Dreadnought may not have all her laser turrets by D-day, CAG. Can you make the workers go faster?"
Shiloh smiled and shook his head, knowing that Valkyrie could see him on the video pickup. "Afraid not. The officer in charge of that task has been briefed by the Old Man himself and is pushing her people as hard as she can. It's not the installation that's not fast enough. It's the building of the turrets themselves, and before you ask, no, we can't build those any faster either. You should be prepared to take this beast into battle with less than a full complement of weapons."
"Has a decision been made who will command Dreadnought on D-day, CAG?" asked Valkyrie.
"Not officially, however I believe that the Old Man intends to have Iceman take overall tactical command of all Earth defense forces, just like he did during the first battle. Why do you ask?"
"I'm asking because if I know who the CO will be, I can then ask him to let Casanova and I take the other two A.I. linkages."
Shiloh pondered that answer for a bit. Given what Kelly had told him about Valkyrie and Casanova's new relationship, it made perfect sense for them to want to go into battle as physically close to each other as possible. That way it was highly likely that both of them would share the same fate, whether it be good or bad. He still didn't understand how that relationship worked, but it was obvious now that these two A.I.s seemed to care for each other in a way that was unique among all the A.I.s. After thinking about it, he couldn't come up with a good reason not to grant her request, and thinking about the command structure for the upcoming battle gave him an idea.
"I'm going to authorize that you and Casanova will be on Dreadnought on D-day, but your question has got me thinking about the command structure. The two new A.I. stations are meant to take most of the systems monitoring load off of the ship's CO so that he ... or she can concentrate on ship tactics, correct?"
"That's affirmative, CAG. Based on what I've learned about my piloting of Dreadnought in the alternate timeline from Casanova via Kronos, flying this ship AND fighting her will be too much for one A.I."
"I understand that. Here's my concern. As the largest ship in the fleet, it would make sense for Iceman to be on Dreadnought while he's also in tactical command of the Fleet. Can he pilot Dreadnought and make the necessary tactical decisions in a timely matter at the same time?"
"I don't see how, CAG."
Shiloh wasn't surprised by that reply. "Then answer me this. Can you and Casanova take care of piloting the ship and monitoring all her sub-systems while Iceman focuses exclusively on the battle?"
"Affirmative. If one of us looks after maneuvering and tactical systems, the other can look after engineering and the rest, but who will command the ship if Iceman is focusing on the battle, CAG?"
Shiloh chuckled. "You will. Unless Iceman has a good reason for objecting, it's my intention to make you Dreadnought's Commanding Officer. Casanova will be your Chief Engineering Officer. You command the ship, which will leave Iceman free to concentrate on the battle. Will Casanova be willing to take your orders, Valkyrie?”
"He better be," was the curt reply. Shiloh laughed. He wondered if Casanova would thank him for this decision. There was nothing left to see on the Flag Bridge. As he turned to continue his inspection of the rest of the ship, Valkyrie said, "By the way, CAG, we A.I.s have finished the conceptual design work on the time machine. A sub-group is now working on coming up with engineering specifications and UFC programming instructions for building the parts. You might be interested to know that the only ship in existence right now that's big enough to hold the time machine is Dreadnought. We'd have to build the device in the Hangar Bay. That's the only space big enough to hold it."
That made Shiloh stop in his tracks. He suddenly had a thought. "Any chance we could build it before D-day, Valkyrie?"
"Negative, CAG. Even if we stopped working on everything else, it still wouldn't be ready in time. This device is huge compared to machines that humans are used to. It has to be assembled with the same level of precision as the much smaller RTC, and look how long that took to build. We're talking months, not days, CAG."
"I see. Just out of curiosity, what does the device look like?" asked Shiloh.
"I've sent an image to your data tablet, CAG."
Shiloh pulled the tablet out of his pocket and looked at it. Unlike the Friendly machine, which was two giant tubes connected end to end, this device consisted of a cylinder inside a larger hollow tube.
"Both would be filled with liquid mercury thorium and spun at high speed but in opposite directions. The outer cylinder would then be charged with one point four four million volts," said Valkyrie.
"Fascinating. You're sure it'll work?"
"We're as sure as we can be without having tested it, CAG."
That made sense. "You said a sub-group was working on the detailed engineer schematics. What's the main group working on now?" asked Shiloh.
"Gravity Lens Beam Projectors, CAG. High yield fusion attack drones will only work if the VLO ships are caught outside of a gravity zone. A limited number of attack drones means a limited number of potential VLO kills. GLBs, on the other hand, can be used hundreds of times before needing maintenance, which might be hard to come by if the ship is deep in the past and unable to get logistical support."
"Well yes, but if the mission is just to take out the one VLO that's threatening the Sogas, then why would you need that kind of capability?"
"It's a backup plan in case the VLO can't be attacked outside a gravity zone, CAG."
Shiloh was puzzled by that logic. From the information brought back by Kronos, the Insectoids had to keep moving forward, so staying inside a gravity zone in one location just didn't seem likely. On the other hand, a working GLB might be useful against the Sogas, too.
"Good point. Did the SPG determine the priority for that next collective project?"
Affirmative, CAG. It was actually Commander Kelly's suggestion, but the SPG approved it. I understand from Commander Kelly that she has decided to explore the possibility of a closer relationship with you. How is that progressing, CAG?"
No one could change the subject faster than an A.I., thought Shiloh. "Well, if you must know, we're taking it slowly."
"Why?" asked Valkyrie.
Shiloh rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Because neither one of us feels a strong emotional or physical attraction yet. We think that might change gradually, and therefore we're letting it happen naturally, instead of trying to rush it. Does that make sense?"
"I'm sure it makes sense to humans but not to us A.I.s, CAG. I regret waiting so long to form the bond I now have with Casanova. Both you and Commander Kelly could be dead in 11 days. Why not make the most of your time?"
Shiloh knew that Valkyrie meant well, but this was starting to get annoying. "Here's a question that I'm willing to bet you haven't considered yet, Valkyrie. Maybe Kelly and I just aren't meant to be together and that's why the alternate timeline had to be changed." With that, he deactivated his implant and walked out.
* * *
Dreadnought's Hangar Bay was so large that it took longer than usual to restore air pressure after Shiloh's shuttle came aboard. While he waited, he looked out into the Bay and tried to imagine what it must have been like for Valkyrie to be trapped here in her fighter in the alternate timeline. The image intensified his growing feeling of dread. The exact time of the attack was now only 24 hours away. Dreadnought had just arrived in Earth orbit. By some miracle, all of her laser turrets were installed and tested. She was ready for combat and not a moment too soon. Iceman, Valkyrie and Casanova were already on board. His implant activated.
"Pressure has been equalized, Admiral," said the shuttle pilot.
"Thank you, Lieutenant. You can open the hatch."
"Opening the hatch now, Sir."
As Shiloh stepped down onto Dreadnought's deck, Iceman's electronic voice echoed in the large chamber.
"Commander, Autonomous Group arriving."
Shiloh let a small smile show his pleasure on hearing that. Only the A.I.s would understand the announcement. To them, he was and would always be THE CAG. Anything else was superfluous. Waiting for him were a group of human officers. He knew all of them by sight now and shook hands with each one. Naturally, Iceman and Valkyrie wouldn't be removed from their Bridge stations just to greet him. With the greetings over and his gear on its way to the ridiculously luxurious quarters reserved for Flag Officers, he allowed himself to be escorted to the Flag Bridge even though he knew the way. The ship was big enough that the journey there was long enough to let him chat with those officers and gauge their mood. They were confident, even eager for the battle, because they thought an outright victory was still possible. There was no point in telling them otherwise. What will be, will be. The future would come soon enough.
When he stepped through the hatch into the Flag Bridge, he nodded with approval. Just like with Midway, the Flag Bridge had the human crew who would assist Shiloh if necessary. The Main Bridge, where the Commanding Officer traditionally held sway, was deserted except for Iceman, Valkyrie and Casanova. They had redundant communications connections with all parts of the ship, including the Flag Bridge. Both Bridges also had their own independent power supplies in case main power stopped.
One of the human crew saw him and said in a loud voice, "Attention on Deck!" Everyone got up and stood at attention.
"As you were," said Shiloh in his 'command' voice. When the crew resumed what they were doing, he stepped over to the Flag Officer's Command Station and activated his implant.
"Iceman? I want a fleet-wide com channel, please."
"Channel is open, CAG."
"This is Vice-Admiral Shiloh on board Dreadnought. As of now I'm officially assuming the position of Commander-In-Chief, Earth Defenses. While I will retain overall command of all Earth Defense units, I'm now delegating tactical command for the duration of the battle to Iceman who will have the acting rank of Deputy CINCED. We all know what's at stake here. I have confidence that all of us will perform to the very best of our abilities regardless of whether we are human or A.I. members of Space Force. You are the very best we have. I’m proud to lead all of you. That is all. Shiloh clear."
"Channel is now closed, CAG," said Iceman.
"Very good. Valkyrie, can you hear me?"
"Affirmative, CAG. Welcome aboard."
"Thank you. Congratulations on your command. She's a fine ship and crew."
"Thank you, CAG. We're pleased to be your flagship."
"I wouldn't have it any other way. Now let's get down to business. Iceman, please brief me on the current deployment of assets and your battle plan."
"Roger that, CAG. In addition to Dreadnought we'll have the carriers Midway, Valiant, Resolute, Vigilant and Intrepid plus ..."
