Synchronicity War Part 1, The by Dietmar Wehr Read Free Book Online Page B

opportunity to ambush more
ships. It seems that one of the two ships that stayed behind was destroyed
outright. Otherwise, we’d have seen three drifting ships. Once the alien ships
were clearly detected, they destroyed the recon drones. Omar then earned
himself a commendation by ordering another spread of recon drones to ram the
two drifting ships, thereby destroying them. His reasoning was very simple.
Even if there were survivors on those ships, and there’s no evidence to suggest
that there were, there was no way to rescue them without putting even more
lives in serious jeopardy. And without rescue, those survivors would either be
captured or die eventually from lack of life support and food. By destroying
those derelicts, he denied them to the aliens, thereby protecting sensitive
information about our location, technology and capabilities. Once the derelicts
were confirmed destroyed, Omar ordered his ships to jump back to the staging
system where they collected the Support Group and started on their way here. If
this preliminary information checks out, then I’m prepared to approve Commander
Omar’s actions. That pretty much brings you up to date.
     
    “What we’d like to do now is get some ideas from both of you
since you two have a unique insight into this alien threat. You are encouraged
to speak freely and nothing you say will come back to haunt you. I guarantee
it.”
     
    As he said that he looked at his two fellow Flag Officers,
and they nodded. Howard continued.
     
    “Okay, we’ve read your reports, of course. I was
particularly impressed with the gamut of your recommendations. You’ve covered
everything from short-range weapons, to new ship types, to thoughts on grand
strategy. You can both rest assured that our planning staffs will be taking a
hard look at all of your recommendations. But what I want to hear from you now
is your thoughts on priorities. If you were the Chief of Space Operations, what
would you recommend to the Oversight Committee? Commander Shiloh, why don’t you
start off?”
     
    Shiloh nodded. “Yes, Sir.” He paused to collect his
thoughts.
     
    “I look at what the initial situation was when 319
encountered the aliens. I see on the one side a single vessel designed for
exploration with minimal armor and modest weapons. On the other side I see multiple
vessels that seem to be designed for combat. What I can’t see is any rationale
for the aliens to feel at all threatened by 319’s presence. They had numerical
superiority. If anyone had a right to feel threatened, it was the 319, and we
know that our standing orders specifically require our exploration frigates to
attempt peaceful contact regardless of the relative balance of force. And yet
the aliens attacked 319, and then used her as bait. That tells me that they
didn’t just react out of fear. It suggests strongly that they knew exactly what
they were doing and had planned for that eventuality in advance. That kind of
aggressive attitude is what you would expect from a barbarian horde like the
old Mongol invaders. They weren’t interested in peaceful exploration, only
conquest. If that’s the kind of model that they’re following, and I think we
have to assume that it is, then they’ll keep on coming at us no matter what.
With that as the scenario in mind, I think we need to do the following right
away.”
     
    He started counting on the fingers of his left hand.
     
    “First. There should be a crash program to design and deploy
drones that pack a bigger punch. I was able to use our existing recon drones
because they had built up enough velocity to be destructive, even though they
weren’t designed with that purpose in mind. Our ships may not have the time to
build up velocities like that in future confrontations. We should develop
drones that have explosive warheads, kinetic energy warheads, as well as decoy
drones and electronic countermeasure drones. They should be simple to make and
therefore easy to