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the fleet’s last recorded vector was on a direct course for a
jump into the path leading to the Avalon Colony. He wouldn’t be so
obvious about it if he were in charge of that fleet and he doubted
that the aliens would be that obvious either.

    The ship would stay at Battle Stations a little
while longer as a precaution and then it would get back to a normal
routine. He’d then head for his quarters for a badly needed 7 hours
of sleep. By then the ship would be in orbit and refueled. They’d
pick up Iceman and his survivors as well as Valkyrie and Skywalker,
then microjump over to Green4B to pick up the two sentries there
too. Now that he knew where the enemy fleet was headed, there was
plenty of time to do all that and still get there first and he
suspected the Space Force would need all the fighters he could
bring with him when that enemy fleet finally did arrive.

Chapter 3 - You Can Count On Us

    When he woke up 8 hours later, he was pleased to
find that Defiant was fully fuelled, had recovered the fighters at
Green4A and was now approaching Green4B for a time-saving slingshot
maneuver around that gas giant that would put them on a course for
their first jump and also rendezvous with the two sentry fighters
at the same time. As he ate his breakfast in the Officers’ Mess,
one of his junior lieutenants walked over to his table and
said.

    “Excuse me, Sir. Could I ask you a question?”
Shiloh nodded.

    “Are we going to try to outguess where they’re
headed next, Sir?” Shiloh shook his head.

    “No, and the reasons why are these. First, they
have too much of a head start. Even if we picked the right system
by chance, they might very well have refueled and jumped again by
the time we got there. Second, our chances of picking the right
system are small. They could have picked one of a dozen possible
destinations. Third, we’ve used up almost all our recon and attack
drones so even if we did regain contact, we’d have to get
dangerously close to track them and finally, I don’t want Defiant
to follow them to Avalon Colony… or some other inhabited system
only to arrive low on weapons and fuel, when getting there early
and resupplying might make the difference between a victory and a
defeat.” The Lieutenant nodded and said.

    “Thank you, Sir. I guess the scuttlebutt is
right.”

    “What scuttlebutt would that be, Lieutenant?”
The officer, having now realized he said too much, got red in the
face.

    “Well ah…the rumors are that Admiral Howard and
the Senior Brass consider you to be a ah….tactical genius…Sir.” Now what do you say to that? Thought Shiloh. Do I declare
myself to be a mere mortal and damage their confidence in me or do
I let them think I’m better than I really am? He laughed and
said.

    “Well, I don’t think I’m THAT good. There was
SOME luck involved you know.” The Lieutenant laughed too, thanked
him again and walked away. As he took another sip of his coffee,
Shiloh pursued that line of thought. So how good am I really? I
didn’t come up with the battle plan. The vision gave that to me and
Iceman saved our asses with his message drone relay idea. On the
other hand, I didn’t screw it up. Quite a few brilliant strategists
have screwed up at one time or another. All things considered,
he decided he hadn’t done a bad job. He still didn’t relish the
idea of maybe having to play a key role in a battle that would
determine Humanity’s fate, when he had no control over his visions.
And speaking of which, he wondered how his next encounter with
Howard would turn out when the Old Man learned about his
visions.

    When he got to the Bridge, he relieved the
officer in command and settled down for what he expected to be a
routine duty shift. Neither the XO or the Astrogator were on duty
and the latter had left his response to Shiloh’s request for a
planned route to Nimitz Base, that would also allow Defiant to send
one of the new extended range message drones using a single