Adelaide rolled her eyes. The young teenage soldiers crammed into the cabin around her had begun to clap and cheer when the announcement was made that they had arrived safely at Fleet Headquarters. Barely more than children with a weapon shoved in their hands they were the naive idiots who still revered the safety of home. They also wrongly thought she was something special. Though occasionally entertained by their earnest admiration Adelaide knew it was misplaced. A handful of veteran soldiers sitting with her in the brightly lit cabin had managed to serve much longer than her. Like her they didn’t seem very impressed by the announcement. They felt that returning home wasn’t something to celebrate when the comfort it provided was so fleeting. They would rather be useful elsewhere. Besides, the Syncline had made sure that most didn’t have anybody to come back to anyway. Deeply cynical they fought on to show the Syn that there was one thing they couldn’t snatch away. Most would gladly embrace death when it inevitably came for them on some battlefield. Adelaide respected them. They thought her fame was just as much a joke as she did. Why young untested soldiers had clung to her story was beyond her. Adelaide twiddled her thumbs and silently studied her boots as the cabin continued to cheer. She was nothing like the real veterans, not yet at least. A part of her was glad to be home.

  The SMCAF fleet was a mismatched collection of forlorn starships orphaned in the swirling gases of a nebula at the edge of the galaxy. Pushed from their colonial territories humanity had coalesced around the immense flattened sphere of the Eurasian Mining Guild asteroid processing vessel EMG-1 which now served as the central hub of the Supreme Military Combined Allied Force. Compelled to set aside their differences humanity had united for what might be their species last desperate struggle. Western Sphere dreadnaughts cruised together with Czarist Frigates in the defensive sphere while civilian cargo and passenger ships of all creeds clumped together in the mesh of reassembled space station modules protruding from the EMG-1. A feat of engineering had managed to pull an entire orbital grow garden, a cylinder 30 kilometers long, through folded space to feed the last fighting remnant. The remaining civilians too young or old to fight had been put into cryo aboard an arc hidden in deep space.

  Flashing navigation lights outside the defensive sphere directed the dwindling fleet traffic into Mankind’s Redoubt. The number of ships got smaller with every passing year. Adelaide’s transport was one of the few not pockmarked with fresh wounds etched in their soot smeared hulls. The recent combined fleet offensive had not gone well. The disaster was quickly being overshadowed by the sudden inexplicable disappearance of the Syncline. Humanities most dogged enemy had simply vanished and nobody knew why. Adelaide had not dwelled long on the problem which had gripped the entirety of SMCAF with an optimistic terror. It would do no good to dwell on questions without answers. The disappearance of the Syncline had saved her ass on Krillian and that was all that mattered.

  Adelaide’s ship docked and the slow disembarkation process began. When her section was called Adelaide gathered her small mostly empty duffle bag and shuffled into the terminal with everyone else. She rubbed her bandaged arm, felt the stinging pain of her bruised leg. Krillian felt like a distant memory now that she was home. As she descended the ramp, she heard a familiar voice.

  “Mom?” Adelaide cried over the bustling mob pouring from the starship terminal. An older woman waved at her from the crowd. She wore an all-white medical tunic, a red cross emblazoned on her shoulders. They embraced on the fringes of the crowd choked corridor. Her mother refused to let go as tears streamed down her face.

  “Adelaide it’s a miracle. I thought I lost you,” Her mother cried. The name Patricia Anson was emblazoned beneath the barcode on her breast pocket. A gold Asklepian sigil imprinted beside her barcode denoted her position as one of the few remaining medical doctors.

  “Mom what are you doing here?” Adelaide said as she comforted her mother.

  “I knew where I needed to be assigned as soon as I saw your name on a list of wounded evacuated from Krillian. I needed to make sure you were alright.

  “I’m fine Mom, really,” Adelaide said as she pushed the woman back to arms lenght, “I just got a few scratches.”

  Her Mother frowned wiping her thumb over an old scar on Adelaide’s neck. Her mother quickly noticed the battlefield dressing crisscrossing her arm.

  “Just a close call Mom,” Adelaide said finally pushing herself away. “I’m alright.”

  “You’re not alright,” Her Mother scolded. Her relief had turned to frustration.

  “You once again refused leave and volunteered for prolonged service without telling me. Krillian would have been overrun if the Syn had not vanished when they did. You would have died. You would have left me all alone. Is that what you want?”

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  “No,” Adelaide replied coldly. Her Mother wasn’t finished.

  “I’ve spoken with Crozier. He’s worried about you too. He tells me that you discard your armor in battle, refuse to use ranged weapons, and fight by yourself. Are you really that eager to end up like your father? This isn’t normal. I can’t stand it anymore.”

  “If the General is so worried then he should stop sending me commendations,” Adelaide said defiantly. “I’m old enough to know what I’m doing.”

  “Are you?” Her Mother demanded softly. She glanced at the series of medical pods being pushed through the entryway. A nurse ran ahead and found Patricia.

  “Thank goodness you’re here Doctor Anson. We’ve got fifteen patients in critical condition, major lacerations and dismemberment.”

  “The other ten didn’t make it?” Dr. Anson frowned as she doubled checked the readout on small glass data pane strapped to her wrist. She followed the nurse without another word to her daughter. Adelaide shook her head and walked away with the briefest hint of a smile on her face.

  General Marko Crozier stood in the strategic intelligence command center rubbing his chin in contemplation. The Spherical room buzzed with frantic activity as strategists, analysts, and scientists poured over the data constantly being fed into the rooms various displays and holographic projections. Computer terminals lined the smooth white windowless walls on multiple ring like levels. General Crozier leaned against the railing on the central level staring at a swirling scale projection of the galactic battlefront. Green dots flashed as patrols checked in one by one from the arc of the former colonial frontier and beyond. None had reported any Syncline ships.

  “Where the hell can they be?” a sleep deprived analyst said shaking his head. The men and woman gathered at the tabletop computer behind the General debated the problem with fearful whispers and baggy eyes. Marko returned to the discussion with an attempt at humor.

  “I never thought I’d see the day when we actually wanted to find the bastards,” he said. This elicited a few discomforted chuckles as Marko studied the display with a sigh. He sensed their uneasiness and understood it. A man in his position didn’t usually show up here, much less make jokes. The General wanted answers though, not reports, and he didn’t see any other way to get them besides coming to the source.

  “Let’s start from the beginning again,” Marko said. “Maybe there is something we are missing.”

  An analyst swiped back through a presentation and began to speak as a holographic projection of the galactic quadrant flickered back into few. Angry red clusters of the Syncline advance slowly began to shrink and fade as the man carried on.

  “If we roll back the clock, we begin receiving near simultaneous reports of Syncline withdrawal starting about 48 hours ago. At this point all Syncline ships drop what they are doing and vanish into folded space. There has been no sign of them since.”

  “Near simultaneous?” Marko repeated with added emphasis and a raised eyebrow. This specific wording had piqued his interest.

  “The reports represent a window of half an hour sir,” an analyst chimed in.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that about the same amount of delay we have with the deep space network due to galactic time shift?” Marko asked.

  “Are you suggesting that all Syncline were responding to some kind of signal?” an analyst asked as she tapped her stylus against the table.

  “There have been no unknown signals in any of our broad-spectrum scans. To date we have never detected Syncline signals of any kind. We don’t know how or if they talk to each other. You should know that General, sir.”

  “Of course,” Marko said as he considered the man’s words, “This is still too much of a coincidence and ignorance is never an excuse to leave options off the table. Let’s say the Syncline have a means of communication comparable to our DSN that is undetectable. It’s been theorized before.”

  “Well then obviously someone at the top of the Syncline heap issued some kind of order that was followed by every Syn as soon as they possibly could,” an analyst said as she scribbled something down. The others seemed baffled by the implications. Besides the hordes of mindless soldiers encountered daily by SMCAF forces no other caste of intelligent Syncline had ever been observed. They had to exist; the otherwise savage races mastery of space travel attested to that. The Syncline leadership remained an enigma. Were there factions or a single dictatorial figure? Nobody knew. Whatever intelligence the Syncline had was brutally efficient regardless. They never lost, never had to back down. What had changed so suddenly? Where had they all gone and why? General Crozier had a sick feeling at the pit of his stomach as a disconcerting thought popped into his mind.

  “The Syncline are consolidating their forces. It’s a tactic used by the weak and the scared. It’s been our tactic for years,” General Crozier said shaking his head. “They are worried that they are unprepared for a fight.”

  “Do you think our offensive finally put a dent in them?” an analyst offered optimistically.

  “No,” Marko told the young man bluntly. He thought of all the lost or missing ships SMCAF had futilely prepared for years. The General could list the names of the recent casualties endlessly in his mind: the soldiers of the Eldrige, the Marinette, the Orion-. He had to stop himself. The admiralty had sent them crashing into a wall of Syncline might as feebly as all previous planned offensives executed by an increasingly desperate humanity. He looked at the table of analysts with worried eyes.

  “Something else has them running scared. I almost don’t want to know what would scare a Syn.”

  As the analysts soaked in the Generals’ words with blank faces Marko’s wrist communicator began to flash and chime. The General stepped away to receive the message. Lines of text manifested above his forearm in large text for his aging eyes. He dismissed them with relief. Adelaide’s ship had arrived safely. He made up his mind to speak with her as soon as he had time.