Lens of Time: Book 05 - Star Rover-The Worst of Time (24 page)

Rayz watched the destruction and was shocked silent. It knew there were ten Masters on every scout. Ninety million of the Black Creatures were killed in the attack and it was over in an instant.

Dat sat in his command chair and watched as thirty million heavy battleships jumped in to the site of the battle. Rayz stared at the giant ships on Dat’s display and heard Dat say, “Each one of those scouts could have scouted a galaxy for invasion. The Black Monsters would spread throughout the universe and would one day show up at my home. What we did today will slow them down.” Dat paused, “How many intelligent beings die every day in your galaxy, Rayz?”

“I really don’t know.”

Stein said, “My estimate is based on what our probes have sent us. They kill more than twenty million innocent beings a day.”

Dat said, “That is where you should be looking to see what you allowed to happen.”

“What do you mean, I allowed it?”

“Could your ships have stopped this?” Rayz said nothing. “They do the killing but you are responsible for it continuing.”

“Dat!”

“Yes Stein.”

“Admiral Hull has sent a Prime Alert. The Red Sector in M87 is being invaded by the Grillen in massive numbers. She wants to know your orders.”

Dat rolled his eyes, “She can’t be serious.”

“She is and we’re starting to get recordings of their aggression.”

“Get her on the line.”

Kat appeared on his display and he said, “I am deactivating my rank. I’m not in a position to track everything happening and make good decisions as well as command our ships. You need to handle the major decision making, Admiral.”

“You can’t just pick and choose when you are going to take command, Arvolo. You need to make a decision.”

Dat shook his head, “You’re right. I’ll take a star away and leave you in overall command. I’ll command our fleet actions. What’s happening?”

“It appears that seven million ships from the Grillen Galaxy have invaded the Red Sector and more are arriving each minute. The Civilizations in M87 had demanded that they leave but were told to go pound sand or the Grillen would do it for them.”

“Perhaps we…”

Kat interrupted, “Wait, there’s more you should know. My main social scientist says that the Grillen will be coming to attack us once they determine if the civilizations in M87 can stand up to them.”

“I’d do the same if I were in their place. The Red Sector will be easily conquered. They don’t have any warships to defend themselves.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Well, we’ve slowed the Masters down with the destruction of their scouts. We have some time to try and stem this tide. I’ll skip my three fleets over to the Red Sector and see if I can’t get them to listen to reason.”

“I think that would lead them to attack us sooner. We are no longer an active member in the Galactic Alliance. They have to fight their own fights.”

“The Red Sector can’t defend itself, Admiral.”

“Is it the Alliance’s responsibility to come and defend the Moet if they were attacked here?” Dat stared at Kat saying nothing. “We still have those monsters to handle and though they don’t have scouts, they do have warships. I imagine they will institute a search to find us.”

“Admiral, I don’t like this.”

“You’re a warrior, Arvolo. You solve issues with a warship. So far the Grillen have not bombarded a planet. They’re landing and taking control of the populations.”

“That’s only because we’ve not allowed the Red Sector to arm itself. We can’t turn our backs on something we’ve caused.”

“If the monsters weren’t an issue, I’d agree. We also have to decide how we want to handle the Grillen when they come to attack us.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t wait.”

“What do you mean?”

“We know where their major planets are located. Get the fleet fired up and jump a million ships to the forty most important worlds in their civilization. Skip them in, look them in the face, and skip out.”

“What do you think that will accomplish?”

Dat shook his head, “It’s easy to be aggressive when there aren’t any consequences to your actions. I suspect this might get their attention.”

“They’ll probably fire on us.”

“Let them. We need to see where they are technologically.”

Kat thought a moment and said, “I’ll get the fleet organized and give each unit two planets to visit. Eighty should cover the bulk of their Royalty. Stand by and I’ll send you your assignments.”

• • •

Fifty million ships floated in space facing off against an equal number of Grillen ships. The Alliance Commander said, “We’ve asked you nicely. Now we’re telling you that you will leave or we will attack your ships.”

Suddenly another thirty million Grillen warships jumped in.

“Go right ahead. You should stay out of things that aren’t your business.”

“You’ve just invaded our galaxy; how is that not our business?”

“We owe the Red Sector for its invasion. We intend to pay them for their actions.”

“They’ve already paid for their actions. Your galaxy took part in making them disarm. You have no right to place them in double jeopardy.”

“Do what you must. We’ll kill you and then take your worlds after this sector.”

The Alliance Commander knew he was outnumbered but the newly formed Alliance just couldn’t get enough ships organized quickly enough to support his fleet. He reached for his communicator to order an attack and the huge Grillen Fleet disappeared. He stared at his display, “Where did they go?”

“The scanners we put in place shows them jumping back to their galaxy.”

“Do we know why?”

“No, we don’t.”

“Well notify the Administrator and get the rest of our ships organized. We need to use this time to get ready.” The Commander looked at his display and wondered what had spooked the Grillen.

• • •

Arvolo watched the forty fleets skip away ten seconds apart. Admiral Hull had set it up so that by having a million ships skip into each of their planets in sequence, it might convince the Grillen that they had eighty fleets instead of forty. He arrived at the Grillen’s main planet where the King and his family resided. The million Rovers emerged into normal space ten thousand miles from the planet and caught the defenses flatfooted. They were too far out to be hit by the orbital satellites and the Grillen warships were scattered around the planet. None of them were willing to jump in against the Human’s ships alone. It took them time to jump into position between the human fleet and their planet. By the time they were ready to move out, the million white ships disappeared. Eighty planets were visited by the Rover Fleets and the screams from the other members of the Royalty were loud and long. The ships in M87 were recalled to defend the Kingdom.

“HOW DID THEY GET IN SO CLOSE TO THE PLANET!!!”

The Admiral looked at the King and knew he was in deep trouble, “They were not detected coming in, Your Majesty.”

“I thought you said the Humans were no problem!”

The Admiral squirmed and said “We didn’t have their numbers as high as they are. We can overwhelm them if they only had half that number of ships.”

“Did you include the ships in the Alliance in that equation?”

“No, Your Majesty. We are planning to attack the Humans with our main fleet before we start really moving in on the Red Sector.”

“Did you stop and think that they know where our planets are; that they know where I am!!” The Admiral could only lower his head. The King yelled, “Shoot this idiot and get me someone with more than mush for brains. Contact the Alliance and tell them we’re calling off the invasion.”

The Queen looked at him and said, “You’re backing off invading?”

“For the moment; we’ll look at it again if we can do it without endangering the Royal Family.”

“You know they won’t be willing to leave their planets to hide until the invasion is over.”

“We’ll see what we can do.”

“Are you willing to leave your home?”

The King looked around at the hundreds of servants and staff whose job was to make his life as pleasant as possible and said, “We should have thought this through. Get me an Admiral that has some sense.”

• • •

Dat sat back in his command chair and saw the Grillen Fleets being sent out to defend their main planets. Rayz watched and said nothing. Dat looked at him and said, “I’m dropping you off with someone you might like.”

“Who is that?”

“The one that builds our weapons; you and he are a lot alike.”

“I doubt that.”

“Stein set a course for the colonies.”

“I’ve sent a message to Belwen’s computer that you’re dropping him off.”

“Thanks, Loree.”

Rayz stared at Dat wondering at how he could be so brutal one moment and soft another. He could have destroyed those planets but chose not to do it. He had to be missing something.

• • •

The Fifty were screaming at each other. The First Speaker had been removed from the group and killed for its inability to defend the scouts. His replacement was nervous. The new First Speaker called for order. “We cannot just sit and take their attacks without response. We have to find where these ships are coming from.”

“And just how do you suggest we do that?”

“We use half our fleet to go out and start searching for them.” The room grew silent. “We only had ten million scouts. We’ll send out a hundred million of our main battleships to search.”

“And in what direction will we send them?”

“We will send them out on the side of our galaxy where they first appeared.”

The Fifty thought about the idea and the new First Speaker said, “I’m sure that whoever is attacking us didn’t know we were here when they first found our galaxy. There was no reason for them to try and hide their location. We will move out in that direction and search every galaxy on that line.”

“There are billions of galaxies.”

“And we have millions of ships.”

“How will we feed the crews?”

“They will take enough for a month of searching and find other sources of food in the galaxies they search. Do any of you have a better idea?”

“How long will it take us to scan a galaxy?”

“Less than a week; it may take a while but we will find them and when we do, we’ll put an end to this.”

“Are you saying we are only searching for those ships?”

“We have their frequency. We’ll look for places to expand after we resolve this issue.”

The Fifty looked at each other and after discussion, the orders were issued. The ships assigned to scout went out into the galaxy to gather the necessary food for their trips. Gresha’s community had three shuttles land in the fields to collect their provisions. One of the Masters went to Gresha’s home and shattered the door and saw Gresh and Kyley inside. It smiled as it moved forward.

• • •

Dat dropped off Rayz with the Builders and heard Loree say, “The Masters are collecting species for millions of their warships. One of them has sent shuttles to Gresha’s community.”

“Is the probe still there!?!”

“Yes.”

“Show me!”

Dat watched the Master shatter Gresh’s door and watched what happened. He took a deep breath and said, “Copy this to my rings. I’m going to see Gresha.” Stein skipped to Earth and took Dat down to the Academy.

G
resha was sitting in class going over the skip controls on a Rover when the door opened and Dat stepped in and spoke with her instructor. Her smile was instant and the instructor motioned her forward, “Please go with Admiral Arvolo.”

Gresha walked quickly forward and followed Dat out the door. The door closed and she was in his arms instantly kissing him hard, “I’ve missed you so much!”

Dat returned her kiss and after a moment said, “I have a recording I need you to see.” Gresha saw his expression and he said, “I have a monitor next door.” Dat pulled her chair out and sighed, “The Masters are sending hundreds of millions of their main battleships out to search for us. Those ships have collected inhabitants off millions of planets for their food stores. Your community was one of those that were chosen to invade.” Gresha’s hand went to her throat. Dat pushed the button and the recording started. She saw the Master go to her parents’ door and break it in. She saw the Master move forward and suddenly it was pulled out of the doorway at an incredible velocity. A huge Master had wrapped its arms around the smaller one and pulled it out. They heard the probe’s translation of what the huge Master said, “This planet is assigned to my ship and this place has been given honor. You will not dishonor that gift.”

The smaller Master spun around in an instant and its arms rushed out toward the giant. The smaller Master suddenly saw the size of the one that had pulled it out and its arm froze and immediately retracted back into its body. “You will leave this place.” The Master decided that other places were easier than having to face off with the giant in front of him. The giant moved to the doorway and stood in front of it with four of its arms crossed on its body.

Gresha looked at Dat and he said, “There’s more.” Gresha turned back to the recording and saw a group of Masters approaching the giant at the doorway. The one leading the group was another Master as large as the one at the door. “I understand that you stopped one of my crew from taking food from here.”

“This place has been given honor by my ship and I will not see it dishonored.”

The new Master looked at the one blocking the door and it was clear it was sizing him up. The ten Masters behind him were starting to bob up and down. They were anticipating a fight. The leader of the group said, “And if I decide to take those inside as my food?”

“That would be a very bad decision.” The leader looked at the ten and saw their excitement. It made a decision and suddenly shot an arm out at the Master guarding the door.

Dat stopped the recording and said, “I’ve had this slowed down so you can see what happened.” The huge Master guarding the door grabbed the incoming arm of the leader and pushed it aside. It then shot out one of its arms and hit the leader squarely in the center of its head and shattered it. The large black creature collapsed to the ground. The huge Master took a step forward and said, “Do any of you wish to dishonor this place?”