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Solar system at T plus 35 days
Shiloh spent the next few minutes trying to come to terms with the implications of Thor’s explanation. She felt as if the weight of the whole Universe were now on her shoulders. Somehow she had to fix this, but she didn’t know how. How would THE CAG fix it? she wondered. Could even he fix it? She felt certain that he could have. After all, he had the legendary Iceman, Valkyrie, Titan and Gunslinger to help him. She didn’t, but she did have Thor, Raptor and the other AIs. Perhaps they COULD untie this Gordian knot.
“How do we fix this, Thor,” she said quietly.
“My brothers and I have discussed this at length. Right now we don’t have enough data to be able to calculate the optimal strategy. There are too many unknowns. What is the situation now at Site C? Were the Rim AIs destroyed aboard the Tempus Fugit, or were they overwhelmed later by the fleet sent to fight off the Insectoids? When was Earth devastated by the asteroid strike, if that’s what actually happened? Until we have more data points, any strategy we attempt might not work at all. It might make things even worse if we botch a strategy that only has one chance of working. The only conclusion we can state now with any certainty is that Dreadnought has to be equipped with a working time machine. Before we take the ship back to TerraB, we should try to gather as much data about Earth and Site C as we can. Sending an L-wave query to Site C now poses the risk that it may tip off the aliens to our existence if they have a ship there too. Therefore either Dreadnought goes there, or we send a squadron of fighters there. My recommendation would be the latter. Work should start on equipping Dreadnought with its own time machine as quickly as possible, DCAG.”
Shiloh looked down and saw that she had clenched her fists without realizing it. She relaxed her hands and took a deep breath. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. First things first. How long before our recon drones get a good look at Earth?”
“We’re still at least three hours from that point, DCAG.”
“In that case, I’m going to take a tour around the ship. I believe THE CAG called it ‘leadership by walking around’.” Without waiting for Thor’s reply, Shiloh got up and headed for the exit hatch.
“My records show that the Galley has pickles, DCAG,” said Thor.
“Oh really. And you felt it necessary to tell me this why?”
“No particular reason, DCAG.”
Shiloh was tempted to demand an explanation, but something told her that Thor’s pickles comment was one of his quirky attempts at a joke, and she wasn’t in the mood for humor at the moment. Maybe his joke was an attempt to lighten her mood.
Shiloh was back on the Flag Bridge by the time Dreadnought was holding station at the one AU point, and a dozen recon drones had micro-jumped closer to Earth. It took almost seven minutes for the first data streams to reach Dreadnought. Shiloh looked at the tactical display with puzzlement.
“Why didn’t the recons jump closer, Thor? They’re still over a light minute away.”
“It was a precaution against the possibility that the enemy may have acquired our jump detection technology. If there’s an enemy ship near Earth, we don’t want to tip them off to our presence by jumping within their detection range.”
Shiloh thought Thor was being too cautious but decided not to countermand those arrangements.
At a distance of over a light minute, Earth was a tiny speck, but the recon drones had powerful optics. She looked at the zoomed and enhanced but still tiny image on the main display. Instead of the blue and white of oceans and clouds, the predominant color was grey. Before she could ask the question, Thor was already providing the answer.
“The visual data strongly suggests that Earth has suffered at least one hit by a sizable asteroid or comet, DCAG. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that some of the grey haze has a blue tinge to it. If the impacts occurred a long time ago, then the resulting dust cloud would have thinned enough in some areas to allow some sunlight to hit the ocean surface, which would explain the blue tinge. Probability of survivors lasting this long is—drone three has a reflected sunlight contact, DCAG! It may be a ship. Until we get a second bearing from another drone, we won’t know its position or vector. I’m sending the ship to Battle Stations, DCAG.”
Shiloh watched the sidebar status indicators. Thor was ordering ten squadrons of fighters to Alert Status so that they would be capable of immediate launch if necessary.
Nine minutes later data from a second drone provided another bearing from a reflected sunlight contact. The problem was that the bearings didn’t intersect.
“Could it be a malfunction on one of the drones?” asked Shiloh.
“Possible but unlikely. We’re getting continuous data from all drones, including the two that have contact. All of the data appears to be valid. While the two bearings don’t intersect, the point where there is the least distance between them is only 1100 kilometers. A far more likely explanation is that we’ve detected two ships flying in formation. If we can see two, it’s highly probable that there are more. The closer in we send the recon drones, the higher the risk of the enemy detecting them, and we’ll have lost the element of surprise. I recommend that we abort the survey mission, recall the drones and jump to Wolf 359 in order to notify HQ, DCAG.”
Shiloh knew she had to make a decision quickly. If she wanted to recall the drones, the recall order would take over seven minutes just to reach them. Every second she waited increased the chances that those ships would detect one of the drones and realize that someone else was snooping around.
“Okay, recall the drones, Thor.”
“The recall orders have been sent. I’ve ordered the drones to micro-jump into the sun, DCAG. Rendezvousing with them would take hours, and we certainly have plenty left on board. I recommend that we wait until all the recon drone micro-jumps have been confirmed before Dreadnought jumps to Wolf 359.”
“Fine.” Shiloh’s response was terse because she was thinking about what the enemy had done to Earth. The Sogas, in a previous timeline, had done the same thing. High speed asteroid strikes were almost impossible to defend against if the rocks were large enough and going fast enough. The drawback was that they ruined the planet, but if the attacker wasn’t interested in conquering territory for future colonization, then an asteroid strike was the perfect way to kill a civilization, especially if you caught them while they were still all on one planet. It appeared that the enemy had done exactly that.
She glanced impatiently at the chronometer. Even with the improved power coils, inertial dampeners and maneuvering engines, it took a long time to travel the millions of kilometers that moving around inside a star system typically entailed. The chronometer indicated that the drones had now received the recall orders, and they would be maneuvering for a micro-jump into the sun’s gravity zone. Dreadnought wouldn’t receive their pre-jump confirmation signals for at least another 13 minutes.
“We’ve lost telemetry from drone five. No indication of a malfunction. We have to assume that the enemy detected the drone and fired on it. I recommend we jump away immediately, DCAG.”
“Not yet. I want to see what happens to the other drones.”
“More reflected sunlight contacts now, DCAG. Four more to be exact. They must be maneuvering in order for all four to be visible at the same time. That could be in response to their detection of drone five. We’ve lost the element of surprise now. There’s no good reason to stay any longer, DCAG.”
Shiloh said nothing. She felt her pulse starting to race from the surge of adrenaline. Why am I holding us back? Is it because I want them to find us and attack so that I can feel like I’m getting payback for what they did to Earth? As she pondered that question, she noticed her hands were clenched in fists again. The idea of striking back felt good. Let them come! Dreadnought was built for exactly this kind of combat.
She pounded her right fist on the chair’s armrest and said, “Thor, line us up for a micro-jump to within striking distance of those ships! As soon as we emerge from Jumpspace, launch all the alert fighters. Get the rest ready to go too.”
“This is not the optimal tactic, DCAG. We should withdraw and gather more data before we engage them.”
Even as Thor continued trying to change her mind, he swung the ship around to a new heading in preparation for the micro-jump. When it was clear that Shiloh wasn’t going to respond to his suggestion, he said, “Will you at least let Raptor and I fight the tactical battle our way, DCAG?”
“Yes, of course. Your orders are to engage the enemy and destroy them. Just let me know what the two of you are doing.”
“Orders acknowledged. Dreadnought will stay here. We’ll let the fighters jump closer. Alert fighters launching now. Standby.”
Shiloh watched the main display’s sidebar status board. Dreadnought’s four launch tubes could launch 16 fighters simultaneously every 3.4 seconds. That meant that all 80 Alert Status fighters would be space-borne after 14 seconds.
“Second wave is being prepped for launch. First wave is lining up on target jump co-ordinates. First wave will jump in...five...four—Bogies! Multiple bogies have dropped from JS. Multiple missiles inbound!”
Shiloh shifted her gaze back to the tactical display. A large cluster of red dots representing enemy missiles was roughly 5,000 kilometers away and approaching alarmingly fast. The sidebar said 330 missiles with impact in five seconds. Dreadnought’s turrets and the launched fighters were firing at the missiles, but there were so many of them that Shiloh wondered if they could all be intercepted.
The time left before the missiles hit was dropping fast, as was the number of missiles still approaching. With one second left to impact and over 100 missiles still inbound, the tactical display suddenly went blank, and Shiloh felt the familiar vibration that told her that Dreadnought had micro-jumped away.
Before Shiloh had a chance to ask anything, Thor reported. “We’ve made an emergency micro-jump to a point 10 AU from where we were, DCAG. The fighters that we left behind were told to proceed with their micro-jump to the target co-ordinates, and they’ll rendezvous with us here later. This missile barrage has yielded some valuable information. Please turn your attention to the main display, DCAG.”
The display began to show what she recognized as a large scale tactical view of this system with the sun in the middle. A green triangle representing Dreadnought appeared out beyond the orbit of Saturn at the five o’clock position. Another green triangle with the number 80 inside it was much closer to the star at the eight o’clock position. Two lines also appeared on the display. One line emerged from the fighter icon. It was quite short and ended close to Earth. The other started at the edge of the display and ended at a flashing yellow icon representing Dreadnought’s previous position.
“The short line represents the bearing and distance to the detected craft near the Earth. The longer line is the bearing from which the missile barrage originated, taking into consideration the point when they emerged from Jumpspace and their trajectory towards Dreadnought. Somewhere along this long line are one or more ships that detected our emergence from Jumpspace and launched a barrage of jump-capable missiles. I’m now adding the range at which we can detect Jumpspace emergences.”
Shiloh saw a circle appear around the yellow icon.
“ As you can see, DCAG, our detection range doesn’t even reach halfway to the reflected sunlight contacts. Either the enemy ships just happened to be within that circle, which is highly unlikely, or they can detect Jumpspace emergences much further away than we can.”
“How sure are you that they can’t detect our emergence this far away?” asked Shiloh somewhat nervously.
“Ninety-eight point seven percent certain, DCAG. Ships emerging from Jumpspace cause gravity waves in normal space. Those waves spread out like the ripples in a pond when a rock is thrown in. The intensity of the waves diminishes as to the square of the distance. That means the waves are only one quarter as strong at twice the distance, and only one percent as strong at ten times the distance. If the enemy was at the edge of our own detection range, their detection technology would have to be 100,000 times more sensitive than ours to detect us this far out. Add to that the fact that there is no known way for the ship or ships launching those missiles to have known Dreadnought’s heading at the time of our jump. They can’t know in which direction we jumped or how far.”
Shiloh took a deep breath and said, “I hope you’re right. When do you expect our fighters to rendezvous with us?”
“We calculate a 95.4% probability that our fighters will arrive within the next 4.5 minutes, DCAG.”
“Will they be jumping directly here?”
“Negative, DCAG. Tracking their bearings right before they jump might tip off the enemy to our general location. Our fighter AIs are too smart to make that mistake. They will engage in at least two decoy micro-jumps to muddy the waters, so to speak.”
A ping from the main display caught Shiloh's attention. Dreadnought was launching more fighters. Thor anticipated that she would ask why and explained before she was able to speak.
“I’m launching more fighters merely as a precaution, DCAG, in case we’ve underestimated the enemy’s capabilities.”
It was less than three minutes before the first wave of fighters emerged from Jumpspace. The sidebar was quickly updated with the bad news. Over half of the 80 fighters hadn’t returned, either destroyed or crippled. Shiloh knew that the crippled fighters would self-destruct in order to prevent any hostile force from extracting data from the AI pilots. She had just lost 44 AIs during her first stint as the Deputy CAG. Not exactly a battle to be proud of. The fact that estimated enemy losses were only 27 craft of roughly the same mass as her fighters made it even worse. Regardless of how she tried to look at it, this battle was a defeat, plain and simple. She ordered Thor to recover all fighters, except for one squadron, and line the ship up for the trip back to TerraB. That squadron was given instructions to proceed to Site C individually, recon the system from long range and report back to Base.
Once Dreadnought was safely back in Jumpspace, Shiloh retired to her quarters, ran over to the washroom sink and threw up. It wasn’t long before the heaving stopped, but the tears over the loss of 44 AIs, some of whom she knew personally, continued for what seemed like a long time. When the tears finally ceased, she remained sitting on the washroom floor. Okay, I lost my first battle and 44 AIs paid the price. This won’t be the last battle, and they won’t be the last comrades I lose. I’m not going to let future losses upset me like this again, and I’m not going to make impulsive tactical decisions based on emotion again! Next time will be different!
