The Synchronicity War Part 3 Read Online Free PDF

would make one hell
of a big hole in that huge sphere. The shock of the impact alone might be
enough to kill every living thing on board. That, however, assumed that the
ship could be moved and jumped, and their data suggested that it might not be
that far along in the construction process. One more thing to do in this system
which they simply didn't have the time to do. With the preliminary survey of
the Sol system now out of the way, the Task Force lined itself up with the next
jump destination and resumed its journey to Omega89.
     
                                                      * * *
     
    Resolute emerged from Jumpspace at the outer edge of
Omega89. The display was showing the tactical situation in nearby space using
passive sensors. Having just emerged from a jump, Resolute had to coast while
it attempted to find the rest of TF92 using flashing position lights that could
only be seen from further out in the system. The main drawback to really long
jumps occurred when two or more ships were jumping together. Transiting Jumpspace
involved a vector that depended upon the direction the ship was moving towards
in normal space. Two or more ships flying in formation had to be moving in
precisely the same direction, down to ten decimal places, in order to be in any
kind of proximity to each other after traveling dozens of light years in Jumpspace.
The need to re-assemble the formation periodically was why TF92's trip time
from Site B to Omega89 was longer than Gunslinger's transit the other way using
a single jump. The temporary stops at the enemy home world system and the other
colony system, while necessary, did not provide any useful information about
those systems that the A.I.s didn't already know. Both systems had planets that
were the source of radio and other EM transmissions, the sheer volume of which
was the tipoff on whether that planet was the home world or not. Even after all
this time, the A.I.s still hadn't been able to make any kind of sense of the
alien transmissions.
     
    Now here they were on the outer edge of Omega89. Gunslinger
had been closer to the center when he detected the Very Large Object or VLO as
it was now being called. The plan was for TF92 also to micro-jump closer when
they were back together again and traveling at a moderate speed. As he watched
the display, a green triangle appeared with the designation of 007. According
to the sidebar information, Raider 007 was piloted by Rainman. As more and more
raiders re-established contact via low-power, tight beam com lasers, more icons
appeared on the display around the flagship. Based on past experience, they
should be back in formation in less than 20 minutes. Decelerating enough to
maneuver for a micro-jump would take a while longer. Shiloh had been hoping
that they could detect the VLO even from this far out, but Valkyrie had
analyzed the faint light from the alien colony planet carefully. No sign of a
VLO or anything else for that matter.
     
    "We're not picking up any transmissions from the enemy
colony, CAG. Gunslinger was able to pick up some transmissions this far out.
That's how he knew to jump closer for a better look."
     
    Shiloh didn't like the sound of that. Had the enemy received
a warning from their future selves about TF92's mission and decided to shut
down their transmitters? Or was the explanation simply that they had lost the
battle with the VLO, and there was no one left to transmit anything?
     
    "Scan the rest of the system for any sign of the
VLO," ordered Shiloh. 
     
    After a longer than normal interval, Valkyrie said,
"I've detected an object that appears to be moving away from the enemy
colony planet. Since I can't determine the distance from this single light
source, I'm not able to say with certainty if this is the VLO that Gunslinger
observed, but it could be the same object."
     
    Shiloh nodded. With only one bearing, there was no way to
tell distance. They would