The Synchronicity War Part 3 by Dietmar Wehr Read Free Book Online

tonnage of those craft yet?" he asked.
     
    "I can give you a range, but it's quite wide. Minimum of
8400 metric tons. Maximum of 25,500 metric tons. As I gather more observational
data, I'll be able to refine that range estimate."
     
    "At least they're not battleship size. How soon did we
estimate that we could safely transmit the contact signal?"
     
    "Not for another twelve minutes," said Valkyrie.
     
    Shiloh realized he was drumming his fingers on the armrest
of his chair, an obvious sign of impatience. Why not transmit now? So what
if they know the bearing the signal originated from. They won't know the precise
distance, only the maximum distance it could be, given the reaction times. The
volume of space that we could be in would be in the trillions of cubic km. I
want to know what their reaction will be, dammit!
     
    "Order the contact drone to transmit now,
Commander."
     
    After the barest hint of hesitation, Valkyrie responded.
"I've sent the order, CAG. I'm ordering Resolute to go on High
Alert."
     
    "Do you really think they'll--"
     
    "Parasite craft have micro-jumped, CAG!"
interrupted Valkyrie.
     
    Her sudden announcement was so unexpected that Shiloh jumped
with surprise. As he looked at the display, the swarm of smaller craft was now
much closer to the planet. Just outside its gravity zone to be exact. So he was
right about the secondary micro-jump. Those craft would now reach the planet
within a few minutes. With two recon drones now drifting in low orbit around
the planet, he expected to get a bird's eye view of what was about to happen.
He heard the display ping for attention and saw that the defending ships were
accelerating out of orbit towards the incoming swarm. The space combat lasted
only seconds. It was obvious which defending ships were badly damaged when
their acceleration suddenly dropped to zero. None of the visible attacking
ships lost acceleration. So either their damaged ships weren't reflecting
sunlight in the right directions to be seen, or none of the attacking ships
suffered enough damage to affect their acceleration. Within a few seconds, all
the defending ships were coasting, and from the shifting intensity of their
reflected light, were also tumbling. When all the reflections from the
attacking craft disappeared, it became obvious that they were landing. Shiloh
was impressed. Even at the minimum tonnage, an 8400 metric ton ship was big enough
to make landing on a planet tricky but not for this race apparently. With the
recon drones preprogrammed to direct their video cameras at any ascending or
descending craft, it was only seconds before Shiloh saw the zoomed in video
feed on the main display. One of the craft was about to touch down near the
edge of the alien colony. Its configuration was a streamlined shape with stubby
wings and a thick hull. As soon as it touched down, mammoth doors swung open at
the front end and black dots emerged. That put the size of the craft in
perspective. After a few seconds, the drone adjusted the zoom and Shiloh was
suddenly a lot closer.
     
    "My God, they're ants!" exclaimed Shiloh.
     
    "Not exactly, CAG. While there are similarities in
overall body structure such as their segmented bodies and multiple appendages,
the resemblance is superficial. The main difference is size. These aliens are
approximately four meters long and over one meter in height. The other obvious
difference is that ants have six legs while these creatures have six legs plus
two arms. If you look carefully, you can see that all of them are carrying what
appear to be weapons."
     
    Shiloh's stomach was threatening to heave. He could easily
image the horror of seeing hundreds of these ant-like things, which were waist
high and long as a car, coming towards him. They might not be ants, but they
still looked like Bugs, and they scared the hell out of him! He heard a sound
from the Com Tech behind him and looked around. The man had his hand over his
mouth and was doubled over while he