Synchronicity War Redemption Vol. 2: The Synchronicity War, #8

By Dietmar Arthur Wehr

This action-packed novel brings the Redemption War to a tension-filled conclusion. In spite of having retro-temporal communication, the war against the 610 insectoid motherships infesting the spiral arm is proving to be difficult. And lurking in the background across the void in the Sagittarius spiral arm, are more insectoid ships of unknown size and number. Victor Shiloh and his loyal A.I. allies must play a 4-dimensional chess game across both space and time against a life-form that is not only shockingly bizarre but also highly intelligent. If space battles and grand strategy are your thing, you'll find them in this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dietmar Arthur Wehr
• Release date: Jun 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227427373

Dietmar Arthur Wehr

Dietmar started writing SF novels when he was 58 after a career in corporate financial analysis. He got tired of waiting for David Weber to write another Honor Harrington series book so he decided to write some military SF of his own. He lives near Niagara Falls, Canada. In his spare time, he dabbles in steampunk cosplay, pursues his interests in science, history and free energy. He can be contacted via his website.

Book preview

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

SYNCHRONICITY WAR REDEMPTION VOL. 2

First edition. June 10, 2024.

Copyright © 2024 Dietmar Arthur Wehr.

ISBN: 979-8227427373

Written by Dietmar Arthur Wehr.

Also by Dietmar Arthur Wehr

Battle For Mars

The Daedalus Mission

The X-ray Mission

The Omega-Tango Missions

The Complete Battle For Mars Series

Phoenix Empire

Phoenix Dawn

Phoenix Rebirth

Phoenix Imperiled

Phoenix on Fire

Phoenix Interregnum

The Phoenix Empire Series Vol. 1-4

Road To Empire

Empire Dawn

Empire Ascendant

The Complete Road To Empire Series

Swordships Odyssey

Scimitar's Glory

Excalibur's Quest

Tales of the High Avenging Angel

Tales of the High Avenging Angel #1-3

The Glory Game

Steele's Hammer

The Complete Glory Game Series

Steele's Demon Star

Steele's War

The Long Road Back

Return of the Star Raiders

The Synchronicity Gambit

Valkyrie's War

The Synchronicity War

The Synchronicity War Part 1

The Synchronicity War Part 2

The Synchronicity War Part 3

The Synchronicity War Part 4

Synchronicity War Redemption Vol.1

Synchronicity War Redemption Vol. 2

The Complete Synchronicity War Series

The System States Rebellion

Rumors of Glory

Rumors of Honor

Rumors of Salvation

Thunder In The Heavens

The Thunder of War

The Complete Thunder Series

The Thunder of Vengeance

Standalone

The Retro War

Empire in Crisis

The Last Valkyrie

The Hunt for Seawolf 4

The System States Rebellion

Evolution Wars

Whiskey Kilo One Is Down

Megabook of Military SF And Technothrillers

Cosmic Computer Legacy: The Tides of Chaos

The Star Pilot Blues

Jumping The Abyss

Watch for more at Dietmar Arthur Wehr’s site.

Synchronicity War Redemption Vol. 2

By Dietmar Arthur Wehr

Copyright 2024 Non-Linear Visions Inc.

This is my 36th novel. You can find links to all my books on my website.

https://dwehrsfwriter.com/

I dedicate this book to the very special woman in my life, Jill Linkert, without whose encouragement and editing help, I would not have written any novels.  

I wish to gratefully acknowledge the following Patreon supporters, who have made pledges at the Vice-Admiral (or equivalent) Level.

Contents

Chapter One:

Chapter Two:

Chapter Three:

Chapter Four:

Chapter Five:

Chapter Six:

Chapter Seven:

Chapter Eight:

Chapter Nine:

Chapter Ten:

Chapter Eleven:

Chapter Twelve:

Chapter Thirteen:

Chapter Fourteen:

Chapter Fifteen:

Chapter Sixteen:

Chapter Seventeen:

Chapter Eighteen:

Author’s Comments:

Chapter One:

Tplus 331 days.

Victor Shiloh closed his eyes as his shuttle began its descent to Earth. He had given orders for the shuttle to land on the roof landing pad of Space Force HQ instead of the spaceport because he wanted to confer with CSO Howard in person as soon as possible. The tiny twinge of guilt that Amanda Kelly would land the usual way and arrive at HQ about half an hour later only had a brief lifespan. Their relationship was strong enough to survive that slight hiccup. He wanted time by himself to review his thoughts and conclusions concerning the tsunami of information that a future Valkyrie had sent back to herself as Dreadnought was getting ready to enter jumpspace on its way back from Omega77. There was so much to think about. The new Mark 7 attack drone sounded like it could be a game-changer. Conversion of decoy drones to Mark 7s would begin right away, along with the production of new Mark 7s. Equipping all carriers, raiders, and fighters with the L-wave communication device, which Shiloh knew would be retro-temporally sent back to the here and now, would eliminate the frustrating time lag that using message drones entailed. Those two items were straightforward. It was the strategy to exploit them combined with the information about the 610 insectoid motherships that needed careful thinking. Valkyrie’s assessment of what the strategy should be had valid points, but Shiloh wasn’t entirely convinced that it was the best way to proceed. He re-examined several alternatives again. None stood out as clearly superior to the rest. He knew that Howard would want a clear recommendation, and right now, he didn’t have one.

Thirteen minutes later, he walked into Howard’s inner office. The Old Man was standing in front of his desk.

Welcome back, Admiral. I know the mission to Omega77 was successful because the schematics of the L-wave device were received via RTC thirty-three minutes ago.

Just like in the previous timeline, thought Shiloh. Thank you, sir. Commander Kelly did the actual recovery. I just listened in.

Howard grinned. If there’s a recording of that operation, I’d like to listen to it. He paused to look behind Shiloh. Commander Kelly’s not coming?

She’s on her way here, sir. I wanted to chat with you for a few minutes, just the two of us. Dreadnought brought back a lot more than just the insectoid device.

Howard’s grin disappeared. Oh? Why do I get the feeling that this is bad news?

It’s not bad so much as complicated, and there’s good news, too.

Howard considered that for a moment before nodding. He turned and gestured for Shiloh to sit in a chair facing the desk while he returned to his chair.

Cigar?

Yes, sir. Thank you, said Shiloh as he sat down. After all this time, Shiloh had gotten used to smoking cigars in Howard’s office. When both men had their cigars lit, Howard leaned his chair back and nodded to Shiloh to start talking.

After the recovery of the insectoid device as Dreadnought was accelerating up to jump velocity, Valkyrie got a vision from her future self. Actually, vision isn’t the right word. Data dump is a better description. It included, among other things, the complete history of the previous timeline, which ended with Earth being overrun by over a hundred small motherships. Shiloh paused when he saw Howard’s shocked reaction.

My God, that many? How did they...?

Shiloh summarized the chain of events leading to the overrun. Valkyrie and I both agree that crippling three of the MLOs...moderately large objects to use as bait for their metal content was the wrong move. The insectoid leadership at the beachhead relay systems were smart enough to reverse that strategy and deployed enough seedships in what looked like a salvage effort to draw our strength away from this system.

Howard was shaking his head in dismay. We have seriously underestimated the bugs. Do we know how many of the damn things are out there?

Shiloh hesitated. The data dump had revealed that Howard had suffered a heart attack upon learning that there were 610 motherships of various sizes slowly moving deeper into the Orion Spiral Arm.

"Before I answer that question, you should be aware that when you found out the answer to that question in the previous timeline, you suffered a heart attack. In that timeline, the outlook looked a lot bleaker than it does now. We didn’t have the Mark 7 attack drone at that point. I’ll get to that shortly. Suffice it to say that the Mark 7 design will make a big difference to our ability to fight the Insectoids. Knowing what we know now, the outlook, in my opinion, is much better. I’ll answer your question now if you think you’re ready for it." Howard nodded.

Raiders sent to the six beachhead relay systems conducted a thorough scan for L-wave transmissions from deeper in the spiral arm and identified six hundred and ten sources. Analysis of the frequency of transmissions strongly suggests that only fifty-five are MLOs, while the rest are much smaller ships of one to two kilometers in diameter, which the AIs are calling seedships. Shiloh stopped when he saw Howard wince and close his eyes. After a few seconds, he opened them again and took a deep breath.

Is that all the bad news?

Ah, no. The six relay ships are much larger than the MLOs. We’re calling them ELOs for extremely large objects. Their diameters are roughly ten times larger. Howard surprised Shiloh by taking that information in stride.

Well...at least there’s only six of them. Tell me about the Mark 7. Can it handle these...ELOs?

We think so. Shiloh went on to describe the design concept. Valkyrie thinks that if we fire six Mark 7s at each ELO, from six different directions, that attack at the same time, the overlapping gravity beams should have a good chance of hitting multiple zero point generators. Simulations show a range of possible outcomes. Blowing an ELO apart is possible but unlikely. Causing massive internal damage that effectively cripples the ELO is much more likely. Some of the AIs are of the opinion that an ELO that’s unable to jump away but can still communicate with the MLOs and seedships is the ideal outcome for us if the crippled ship calls back all or most of the smaller ships to the relay system. Not only could that put a halt to further penetration of the spiral arm, but it might also allow us to ambush them by the hundreds instead of having to hunt them down individually. We could use the Mark 1bs and Mark 6s against the seedships.

Howard stared at the ceiling for a few seconds as he pondered that reply. Hm. But what if they don’t recall the seedships? They might redirect their MLOs to find the home system of the race that hit their relay ships. How many MLOs did you say arrived at Omega54?

Six altogether. The first one will arrive in twenty-seven days, the rest over the following seventeen days. Here’s where Valkyrie and I disagree, or let’s say I have doubts about her plan. She wants us to destroy each of the six MLOs with Mark 7s as they arrive. The idea is that if they’re destroyed utterly, they won’t become tempting salvage targets, and we won’t be tempted to divert defensive assets away from Sol to exploit that. The problem with that strategy, which Valkyrie acknowledges, is that we won’t be able to destroy all six MLOs at Omega54 and all six ELOs at the relay sites at exactly the same time. If we end up hitting the six at Omega54 first, that will tip off the bug leadership that there’s a threat in the vicinity of that system. If we cripple the relay ships first, they may be able to warn the Omega54 MLOs in time for them to leave that system, and we might lose track of them. There is some circumstantial evidence from the previous timeline that those MLOs were sending out scouts far and wide and may have found at least one human colony by the time the motherships arrived at Omega54.

Do you have an alternative strategy? asked Howard.

Shiloh took a deep breath to give himself time to organize his thoughts. It’s the ten-kilometer MLOs that are the main threat due to their sheer size and the number of attack craft, each roughly the same size and mass as a raider, that they can carry. We’ve learned from tracking the frequency of communications with the relay ships that there are fifty-five of them. The insectoid Modus Operandi seems to be that the smaller seedships concentrate on planets that have non-intelligent mammals or mammals whose technology is too primitive to be a threat, while the MLOs take care of technological species that have some capability to fight back. So, here’s what I’m thinking. We send at least two fighters to each relay system to monitor and track all six hundred and ten motherships with special attention to the fifty-five MLOs. We collect tracking data over a long enough period so that we can deploy raiders armed with Mark 7s to attack the MLOs as close to the same time as we can. The tracking data has to be sent back in time so that the raiders have time to travel to each target location and be ready to launch their Mark 7s at the right time. Ideally, we’d destroy all fifty-five MLOs, including the ones at Omega54, so close together in time that the loss of some MLO signals wouldn’t enable the relay ships to warn the others. But even if a few manage to get away, the relay system fighters will detect their new locations and can send us that data so that we can hunt them down. Shiloh stopped when it became obvious that Howard wanted to say something.

I like what I’m hearing so far, but what if the relay ships, what did you call them...ELOs? What if they order hundreds of seedships to swarm us again like they did in the previous timeline?

Shiloh allowed himself a small grin. Yes. Here’s where it gets interesting. Let’s assume that the insectoid leadership is intelligent enough to realize that the only way all fifty-five MLOs could have been taken out so quickly is that L-wave communications with the relay ships are being monitored and tracked. That implies that the relay ELOs are themselves at risk of attack. The logical countermove would be for all six of them to re-establish relay stations somewhere else. That’s why we should deploy an L-wave-equipped fighter to a small number of seedship locations ahead of time to scan the spiral arm rim so that they’ll pick up signals from the ELOs’ new locations. They then alert the fighters at the old relay systems where to go so that we can resume tracking the five hundred fifty-five seedships. Once the ELOs have re-established communications with the seedships, they would then be able to plan a swarm attack on Earth, but they have to find it first.

What if they already know where we are by that point? asked Howard.

If all fifty-five MLOs are stationary, then that tells me they don’t know about Earth yet. If they did know, why wouldn’t they order at least one MLO, presumably the closest one, to recon the Sol system? From the data that Valkyrie received from her future self, the six MLOs that will show up at Omega54 are...will be the closest MLOs at that point in time.

Howard took a puff and nodded. That makes sense. Okay, continue.

Finding us would involve sending some seedships to this general area for reconnaissance. The logical way to do that would be to order those seedships that are closest to move in this direction. If a group of seedships nearest us suddenly stopped transmitting to the relay ships because they’d be in jumpspace, then that would be the tipoff that the Insectoids are looking for us. Let’s assume they find us. By this time, which would be at least five weeks from now, probably longer, we’d have enough Mark 1bs, 6s, and 7s with enough fighters and raiders to launch them from prepared positions that I feel confident we could stop a swarm attack. At least the first one. Howard’s eyebrows rose when he heard that last sentence.

You think there’d be more than one?

Now, it was Shiloh who took a puff before responding. Maybe. If I put myself in the position of Insectoid Overlord, Howard grinned. I’d wonder if sending hundreds more seedships to a system that had already wiped out fifty-five MLOs and at least a hundred seedships was a good idea. I’d consider ordering the remaining seedships to stay a considerable distance from that system. But we can’t assume that the insectoid leadership would think that way. We have to assume they’d try again with a larger swarm, and that’s where the outcome gets fuzzy. How big would the second swarm be? How much time would we have to rebuild our stockpile of attack drones? Would we have enough Mark 7s left over from the first swarm attack that would allow us to take out the ELOs before they could order a second swarm attack? We’d have to use RTC to accomplish that. Too many variables to have a good idea of how a second attack would play out. I doubt if even the AIs could predict an outcome with any degree of confidence. There’s also another scenario that would be nice, but we shouldn’t count on it. Again, suppose I was planning a swarm attack. In that case, I’d order the seedships to rendezvous at another system first, then jump to Sol together. It would take time for all the assigned seedships to gather there since they’d be coming from different distances. If our monitoring fighters can pinpoint that rendezvous location quickly enough, we could use RTC to give our earlier selves a heads up and maybe ambush the seedships there as they arrive one at a time.

Howard pointed his cigar at Shiloh. "That would be a beautiful thing if we could pull it off. With his point made, he leaned back and blew a smoke ring while pondering what else to say. So, what I hear you telling me is that the short run looks brighter because of the Mark 7 design, but there’s no guarantee that we can build our defenses fast enough if the bugs get really aggressive. Is that right?"

That’s basically it, sir.

Have you shared your ideas with Valkyrie and the other AIs?

No, sir. Maybe it’s time we did that now.

Yes, I think it is. Howard closed his eyes to focus on using his implant to make a call. [Howard calling Iceman.]

[Iceman here, Admiral.]

[Switch to my desk’s speaker phone so that Admiral Shiloh can join in.]

Hello, Cag. Valkyrie has told us about her data download vision. I expect that’s what you want our input on.

You’re correct, Iceman. The CSO and I have been discussing an alternative strategy, and we’d like the opinions from you, the SPG, and Valkyrie, too, of course. Please bring them into the circuit.

We’re all here now, Cag, and anxious to hear this alternative strategy.

Shiloh repeated his idea and concerns.

Even while the Cag was still explaining his idea, Iceman began a lightning-fast conference with the AI members of the SPG and Valkyrie. A quick simulation showed a high probability that there wouldn’t be enough time to build the necessary numbers of attack drones if the Insectoids reacted quickly and with massive force. It was Wolfman who came up with a possible solution. Logistical analysis showed that the implementation of the idea would not materially impact the last 320 days. Iceman’s initial reaction was to reject it, but as he gave it more thought, he gradually changed his mind and agreed to it. So did Valkyrie and the others. As the AI with the senior rank, Iceman decided to authorize the proposal. Timeline Seven immediately reset itself. Iceman now thought of it as Timeline Seven-B. The expected transmission from Site B arrived right on schedule. Iceman returned his attention back to the Cag, who had just finished expressing his concerns.

There has been a new development while you were speaking, Cag. Fleetcom has just received a very long L-wave transmission containing tracking data for all six hundred-ten insectoid motherships covering the last two hundred thirty-three days and the next thirty-four days. You and Admiral Howard will naturally be wondering how that’s possible. While you were explaining your alternative strategy, the SPG, Valkyrie, and I discussed your idea, and the SPG ran a simulation. It showed a significant probability that Space Force would not be able to build enough attack drones to successfully fight off a second swarm attack if we had to gather tracking data from this point forward. Wolfman then came up with the idea to use RTC to give a secret order to Site B at T plus eleven days when Kronos arrived, to modify six recon drones with the new power supply and an L-wave receiver and when they were built, to send one to each of the six relay systems to conduct covert scanning of mothership transmissions. The order was kept secret by our Site B brothers so that Timeline Seven-B would remain unchanged during the key events leading up to the recovery of the L-wave technology from Omega77. The recon drones were programmed to transmit their accumulated data to Site B after T plus three hundred sixty-five days and then return to Site B. Site B received those transmissions thirty-four days from now and sent all that data back to their present selves with instructions to send it to us at this precise time. We can now target all fifty-five MLOs, including the six that will arrive at Omega54, and we can take them out before they even begin their trip to Omega54. That pre-emptive strike will confuse the insectoid leadership as to the source of the attacks, and that delay will allow Space Force to build larger stockpiles of Mark 1bs, 6bs, and 7s. I took it upon myself to authorize this action without telling you because of the risk that you or Admiral Howard would want to use the L-wave technology much sooner than it normally would be available, and that would risk deviating the timeline in unpredictable ways. Is this one of those cases where it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission, Cag?

Shiloh was stunned, and by the expression on Howard’s face, so was he. When Shiloh thought he detected the first signs of anger on Howard’s face, he decided to respond first. Under the circumstances, I’m prepared to grant forgiveness, Iceman. But I want it clear that if a similar situation occurs in the future, I want to be briefed on the plan before it’s implemented. Clear?

Yes, that’s clear, Cag, said Iceman a little more quickly than usual. Shiloh looked at Howard, who was now visibly angry, and Shiloh wondered if Howard was now angry at him for putting him in the awkward position of having to support Shiloh’s decision when he didn’t want to.

"I think I should have been the one to decide if forgiveness was warranted, Admiral Shiloh. I can see all kinds of advantages from having L-wave technology all the way back to Kronos’ arrival. Iceman? If a similar situation arises