The Synchronicity War Part 2
(By Dietmar Arthur Wehr)
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| Author | Dietmar Arthur Wehr |
Naturally the attack took place during his sleep cycle. He woke up to the blaring of the ship’s Battle Stations siren with Tanaka’s excited voice calling him via his implant.
“Bridge to Commander! They’re here, Sir! Repeat…they’re here…” Shiloh shook himself awake and started to get up.
“I’m awake, Sumi. What’s happening?” He was glad he decided to sleep in his uniform for just this kind of emergency.
“Jump detection contacts! Lots of them!” When he was sure that she wasn’t going to say more, he said.
“From what bearing?”
“ALL of them! They’re coming at us from 360 degrees and all three axes!” The near panic in her voice shocked him. By this time, he was running down the corridor to the Bridge. She was already vacating the Command Station chair when he entered the Bridge. Before she could relinquish command, he said in a loud voice.
“The XO still has the Con. XO, take the Helm station; I’ll look after the fighters!” She looked at him with wide eyes but nodded and stepped over to the Helm Station. As he got himself strapped into his chair, he quickly switched com channels to the open channel with the Nimitz Base.
“Nimitz, this is Shiloh! Order your recons to active scanning!” Without waiting for a reply, he switched to the fighter com channel. By prior arrangement, DeChastelaine had agreed to let Shiloh take tactical command of her fighters too. “CAG to fighters! Launch your recons and go active! Light’em up! We need to see their vectors and speeds! If you have a viable intercept solution, take the shot!” By now he was strapped in and had time to actually look at the tactical display. Tanaka was right. Red triangles indicating jump emergence points were all around the planet as well as above and below it. There was something about this strategy that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Concentration of force was a key tactical concept that should theoretically be valid to any species. There was strength in numbers and it minimized communication lags. So why was this alien fleet…this alien, A.I.-controlled fleet behaving this way? They must know that they risked being picked off one at a time. He didn’t have an answer to his question and…no vision either.
“Task Force Leader on Tac 4, Sir!” yelled the com tech. Shiloh switched over to that com channel and said.
“Shiloh here. Go ahead Task Force Leader!” As he spoke he searched the display to find the four combat frigates. They were following standard doctrine and were in close formation orbiting the Nimitz Base moon.
“Victor! Get your fighters into action!” Shiloh suppressed his surge of anger. Task Force Leader Sobrist and he were both Senior Commanders. The deployment order from HQ on Sol had placed all ships in the Avalon system under the authority of Sobrist BUT it also made it clear that when Shiloh was wearing his Commander Autonomous Group hat, he had sole discretion on how to use those fighters. Not only was Sobrist’s urging that Shiloh get the fighters into action a completely unnecessary stating of the obvious but it was also a distraction that Shiloh as the CAG didn’t need right now.
“I’ve already issued orders to them to…” he stopped talking as the tactical display was updated with the first results of the recon drones’ active scans. They had all the incoming enemy ships on radar now and he was stunned by their speeds. 27,552 kilometers per second!”
