Read The Synchronicity War Part 2 for Free Online Page A
Authors: Dietmar Wehr
jump
back to Omaha Base at the earliest possible time. When he called up
the route on the display, he nodded in approval. The Nimitz
Base/Avalon Colony star system was in what Shiloh thought of as
Path A but a direct line from Green4 back to the Omaha Base star
system led thru the other ‘river’ of stars that was thought of as
Path B. Even with the new extended range message drones, a single
jump to Sol from here would require Defiant to boost to a very high
speed before launching the drone, and thereby use up quite a bit of
its fuel supply but the Astrogator had come up with a good plan.
After picking up the sentry fighters at Green4B, Defiant would set
course for the Omaha Base system and boost to 55% of light speed.
After launching the message drone, she would then make a relatively
minor course change and jump to Yellow12, which just happened to
have a gas giant. After refueling there, the ship would then make a
very long jump across the empty void that separated Paths A and B
and arrive at Orange21, refuel again and then one more jump to the
Nimitz Base/Avalon Colony system. Along the way the ship would set
two records, one for the quickest jump between two star systems and
one for the longest jump in terms of distance travelled between two
star systems. It would also alert the Quick Reaction Task Force at
Omaha Base to the alien incursion along with Shiloh’s conviction
that the Avalon Colony was the aliens’ target. The warning sent
back to Bradley Base, would be relayed directly to Sol by Base
Commander Korolev but notifying Omaha Base and the QRTF directly
would save time. The sentry fighters deployed by tanker in the red
and orange layers of the Early Warning Network, would warn Nimitz
Base in time. Total time before Defiant’s arrival at Nimitz Base
star system would be 45 hours. If the enemy fleet continued with
their series of short hops, they wouldn’t get to their target
system for at least 100 hours. Even if they switched over to
longer, less frequent jumps, they still couldn’t get there in less
than 60 hours. He approved the plan.
The slingshot/fighter recovery maneuver went off
without a hitch. Shiloh was so pleased with it that he commended
DCAG Falkenberg in his log. When his duty shift was over, he went
down to the Hangar Bay to talk with Iceman. The more room than
usual reminded him of the fighters that had been lost in battle. He
made a point of stopping in front of one of the empty fighter bays,
which just happened to have been used by Undertaker and stared at
it for about 10 seconds. He knew the other A.I.s were watching him
on their external cameras. It was his way of letting them know that
their losses meant something to him. When he reached Iceman’s bay,
he borrowed a headset from one of the support team techs and
plugged it in to the external com socket. Iceman spoke first.
“It’s always gratifying to see the CAG come down
to visit with us fighter jocks.” Shiloh smiled. Iceman had clearly
adopted another human expression.
“I admit I don’t visit as often as I should.
I’ll try to do better in the future. I do have something specific
to ask you this time, Iceman. How did you and your…fighter jocks
manage to make it thru the enemy laser fire with so few
casualties?”
“Well we can’t really take most of the credit
for that, CAG. Whoever designed these fighters, had enough smarts
to realize that if our wings tapper off to a sharp edge, then any
radar beams hitting from the side will be deflected away from the
source of those beams, thereby making it very difficult to get an
accurate fix on us. So we kept our orientation parallel to the
enemy as much as we could in order not to present any flat or
curved surfaces to them. The difficulty for us was the fact that
there were so many radar sources coming at us from different
angles. I suspect that some of our losses were from laser fire that
missed its intended target and hit another fighter by chance.”
Shiloh chided
back to Omaha Base at the earliest possible time. When he called up
the route on the display, he nodded in approval. The Nimitz
Base/Avalon Colony star system was in what Shiloh thought of as
Path A but a direct line from Green4 back to the Omaha Base star
system led thru the other ‘river’ of stars that was thought of as
Path B. Even with the new extended range message drones, a single
jump to Sol from here would require Defiant to boost to a very high
speed before launching the drone, and thereby use up quite a bit of
its fuel supply but the Astrogator had come up with a good plan.
After picking up the sentry fighters at Green4B, Defiant would set
course for the Omaha Base system and boost to 55% of light speed.
After launching the message drone, she would then make a relatively
minor course change and jump to Yellow12, which just happened to
have a gas giant. After refueling there, the ship would then make a
very long jump across the empty void that separated Paths A and B
and arrive at Orange21, refuel again and then one more jump to the
Nimitz Base/Avalon Colony system. Along the way the ship would set
two records, one for the quickest jump between two star systems and
one for the longest jump in terms of distance travelled between two
star systems. It would also alert the Quick Reaction Task Force at
Omaha Base to the alien incursion along with Shiloh’s conviction
that the Avalon Colony was the aliens’ target. The warning sent
back to Bradley Base, would be relayed directly to Sol by Base
Commander Korolev but notifying Omaha Base and the QRTF directly
would save time. The sentry fighters deployed by tanker in the red
and orange layers of the Early Warning Network, would warn Nimitz
Base in time. Total time before Defiant’s arrival at Nimitz Base
star system would be 45 hours. If the enemy fleet continued with
their series of short hops, they wouldn’t get to their target
system for at least 100 hours. Even if they switched over to
longer, less frequent jumps, they still couldn’t get there in less
than 60 hours. He approved the plan.
The slingshot/fighter recovery maneuver went off
without a hitch. Shiloh was so pleased with it that he commended
DCAG Falkenberg in his log. When his duty shift was over, he went
down to the Hangar Bay to talk with Iceman. The more room than
usual reminded him of the fighters that had been lost in battle. He
made a point of stopping in front of one of the empty fighter bays,
which just happened to have been used by Undertaker and stared at
it for about 10 seconds. He knew the other A.I.s were watching him
on their external cameras. It was his way of letting them know that
their losses meant something to him. When he reached Iceman’s bay,
he borrowed a headset from one of the support team techs and
plugged it in to the external com socket. Iceman spoke first.
“It’s always gratifying to see the CAG come down
to visit with us fighter jocks.” Shiloh smiled. Iceman had clearly
adopted another human expression.
“I admit I don’t visit as often as I should.
I’ll try to do better in the future. I do have something specific
to ask you this time, Iceman. How did you and your…fighter jocks
manage to make it thru the enemy laser fire with so few
casualties?”
“Well we can’t really take most of the credit
for that, CAG. Whoever designed these fighters, had enough smarts
to realize that if our wings tapper off to a sharp edge, then any
radar beams hitting from the side will be deflected away from the
source of those beams, thereby making it very difficult to get an
accurate fix on us. So we kept our orientation parallel to the
enemy as much as we could in order not to present any flat or
curved surfaces to them. The difficulty for us was the fact that
there were so many radar sources coming at us from different
angles. I suspect that some of our losses were from laser fire that
missed its intended target and hit another fighter by chance.”
Shiloh chided