Read Synchronicity War Part 1, The for Free Online

of
the similar experience as a teenager, long before he joined the Space Force. It
seemed unlikely that aliens would intervene at that stage in his life to help
him save a friend who, this far at least, had no obvious connection to the
Space Force or any human colony. And intervention from humans, whether from the
future or from within the squadron, was unlikely for the same reason. That left
intervention by God, or a hallucination. In both those cases he would have
expected to experience an auditory sensation, such as a voice instructing him
to deploy recon drones. Instead he’d had what appeared to have been an out of
body experience. He had actually watched himself standing in front of Admiral
Howard’s desk. The key was to see if the Admiral actually did compliment him on
coming up with the recon drone deployment idea. If he did, then hallucinations
or divine intervention would also appear less likely than a spontaneous
instance of precognition.
     
    Satisfied that he wasn’t crazy – for the time being at least
– he decided to turn his thoughts to other matters. HQ would obviously want a
detailed report on the whole mission. He had plenty of travel time in which to
write it, and he was probably going to need every spare moment for that task.
Having served for a year on the staff at HQ, he knew they would be expecting
more than just a dry, factual, minute-by-minute account of what happened. They
would also want some analysis, even if only guesswork, about the nature and
capabilities of the unknown enemy and, even more importantly, recommendations
on what should be done next. Shiloh already could think of quite a few
recommendations, but he wanted to get some input from his XO too.
     
    Shortly before Johansen’s duty shift ended, Shiloh called her
and asked her to stop by his cabin for a short chat as soon as she was free.
     
    When she arrived he said, “The Powers That Be will want a
detailed report from both of us, XO. You can bet your last credit they’ll be
asking us for analysis and recommendations. I suggest you start giving that some
serious thought, and have something ready for them by the time we arrive.”
     
    Johansen nodded and said, “I’ve already thought about that.
Can I bounce some thoughts off you?”
     
    Shiloh nodded in return, and she began to speak.
     
    “I’ve been trying to figure out WHY those aliens attacked us
without attempting to make contact. I can see them being angry or trigger-happy
if we had stumbled into an inhabited system, but from the brief time we were in
that system, there was no data to indicate any kind of colony, station or resource
extraction facility. If that was an uninhabited system, why the big panic? The
fact that they had multiple ships in that system suggests to me they were
military vessels, and the nature of their response to us tells me they were
either defending a border against incursion, or they were engaged in, for lack
of a better phrase, reconnaissance in force. If Space Force had stationed ships
at our borders to guard against alien incursion, wouldn’t it be reasonable to
expect that we would at least try to make peaceful contact with any ‘visitors’.
Why piss off somebody if you don’t have to? So the only thing I can figure out
that would explain their actions is that their psychological makeup as a race
has made them either extremely aggressive or extremely paranoid. Both of those
alternatives give me the shivers. They may come after us, even if we don’t move
any further in their direction, assuming that we find out what that direction
is.” She paused, waiting for a response.
     
    Shiloh nodded again as he began to reply. “Your analysis
makes a lot of sense. I hadn’t gotten that far in my thinking, but now I have
to believe that we’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest, and we better get ready to
deal with them fast. Any other thoughts you want my reaction to?”
     
    Johansen shook her head. “Not now.”
     
    “Okay. We can talk