Lens of Time: Book 05 - Star Rover-The Worst of Time (29 page)

“We don’t have a beam strong enough to penetrate their force fields from a distance, Dat.”

“I told him the same thing but he smiled and said three words.”

“And they are?”

“Dark Matter Needle.”

Kat smiled. Now that would prove to be interesting.

G
resha sat in her command chair and looked around the bridge of her new ship. It was huge and her panel was an exact duplicate of the one next to her. Either of the two pilots could command the ship and all of its functions from their panels. The section of the panel in front of her at the moment was weapons and scanner controls but the panel could move the flight controls to the center with the push of a button. Learning how to operate the new controls had taken a month. Dat had picked up how to operate the ship within a week but he had an affinity for technology that few possessed. The Weapons panel had red and green controls where the pilot’s board was blue and white. She leaned back in the wide chair and wondered why the ship needed pilots at all. It was computerized to a level that was unheard of before. She looked up and saw Dat walk in, “Hello, Love. Where have you been?”

“I’ve been meeting with Belwen and he still hasn’t ironed out the beam he’s hoping to install on our ship.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Yes it is. How are you doing getting up to speed on the panel?”

“I’m making progress.”

“Belwen sent you this.” Dat handed her a helmet with a long chord coming out of it.

“What is that?”

“It’s the link to the computers. They’ll feed everything to you directly and you can issue commands without having to manipulate the controls on your panel.”

“Then why have the flippin’ panel!?”

“If a computer is hit or damaged, the panel will operate the systems manually. It’s a safety protocol.” Dat looked up and said, “Stein, have you and the others ironed out your areas of responsibility?”

“We have.”

“Tell me what you’ve decided.”

“I have the flight controls, Loree has the scanners, Cyanna has weapons, and Newton has power manipulation for the force fields.”

“Is there a reason you and Loree kept your former responsibilities?”

Cyanna said, “They have seniority but I also enjoy firing weapons. Newton is the best at manipulation of force fields. This just seemed the best use of our talents.”

Gresha smiled. “Thanks, Cyanna. And she is incredible at targeting the penetrators, Dat.”

“Stein, how about the links to you; is there a delay?”

“None that we can see, Gresha; having our two Rovers kept in the landing bay in the event we need to escape, is a good arrangement. The links to us are quite remarkable. All of us actually feel like we’re part of the Juke Box Battleship even though we’re still in the Rovers.”

Dat shook his head, “We are trialing the use of four computers on this ship; all the others have the normal two. If this works out, we can assign two Rovers to each Juke Box.”

“Have you named the ship, Dat?”

“Yes, fleet has commissioned her the Havana.”

Gresha smiled, “Now that’s a big name for us to live up to.”

Dat smiled, “I know but it just seemed right. This particular ship carried that name before it was decommissioned. This was Arvolo’s Flagship in the First Galactic War. It holds a special place in my heart.” There was a moment of silence and Dat placed his hand on his panel and gently ran his fingers along it, “This ship is the one Admiral Arvolo and Cyanna fought in the final battle against the Red Sector. Fleet felt that I should be the one to fly it.”

Gresha stood and went and hugged Dat, “I know you’re proud. I can tell you I am.” Dat nodded. “Well, how are we going to break her in?”

“We’re going to see if we can slow down the Monster’s pursuit of our ships.”

“Do tell.”

“We need to find a way to escape, Stein.”

“And just how are we going to escape?”

“We are going to attempt to make it too costly to chase us.” Dat paused and said, “We are going to jump out to a coordinate and wait for six of our Rovers to skip to us after they fire on a Master’s Wing. They will run to our location, enter normal space, and escape at light speed for ten minutes before they skip away. We have to slow the pursuers so that the six can’t be followed. Once they escape, we’ll skip away.”

“You still haven’t told me how we’re going to escape.”

“Stein, you’ve noticed all the penetrators in the back bays, haven’t you?”

“I have.”

“Well, we’re going to skip away and as we enter normal space we’re going to drop an appropriate number of penetrators just before we skip again. They’ll immediately go active and target anything that enters normal space.”

“What’s to prevent them from just staying out of normal space?”

“We won’t skip away until they emerge.”

“Dat, have you really thought this through?”

“Why do you ask, Loree?”

“What’s to prevent them from calling reinforcements to where we are before they emerge?”

“Nothing; but we can detect the incoming waves and skip away before they arrive and tie up huge numbers of their ships playing tag. If things get too dicey, we’ll make a huge skip out into the void between galaxies and then skip back to a new location.” Dat paused, “Hey, we have to find out if we can be effective against them.”

“When are we going to do this?”

Dat looked at Gresha and tilted his head, “We’re skipping in twenty minutes.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“We have to take the initiative; all we’re doing now is running. We’ve been chosen to try these new tactics.”

“Isn’t this a huge risk?”

“Yes, Newton, but I need to know what these ships can do in order to make decisions on how to use them. We need to be the ones that do it first.”

Gresha smiled, “I need a few moments to use this helmet. I’ll be ready.”

Dat smiled and plugged his helmet into his panel, “Loree you have the coordinates; pick a spot where we can hit whatever emerges after the Rovers appear.”

“Stein has it. I’ll also select a route out of there.”

“That would be good.”

• • •

Shane looked at the five Rovers on his display, “We’re skipping in to hit them in eighteen minutes. You all have the escape route preprogrammed into your boards so fire and get out. If you miss, get out. If you hit it, get out. If you get killed, get out. Your main task is to get away. Hitting them is secondary on this mission and I don’t want to lose any of you.”

“Sir, they’ll be on us like white on rice as soon as we appear.”

“I know. Let’s hope the Juke Box can play them some music that might distract them long enough for us to get away.”

“Does Fleet seriously think that old ship can take them on?”

“If they didn’t, we wouldn’t be doing this. Just stick to the plan Kelli and stay on my tail.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Alright, I’ve started the countdown; set your panels to automatically skip in. Now what’s the word?”

“Fire and get out!”

“Good; I thought you might have forgotten.”

Shane watched the countdown and saw it hit zero and the next moment he was firing on a Monster Main Battleship. The next he was in the barrier with four ships skipping away with him; Kelli didn’t make it. Those creature’s computer controlled beams were really getting deadly. She took too long to run. His wing emerged into normal space and he saw the mile long Juke Box Battleship filling his scanner. He punched his communicator as he hit full thrusters, “We’ve got eighteen on our trail.”

“Thanks, Ajax. Now get out of here and skip away.”

Shane hit full thrusters and ejected a microprobe as he disappeared at one quarter light speed. He had to know what was going to happen. He watched the feed from the probe as eighteen giant ships emerged into normal space less than eight miles from the Juke Box.

“Get ready to run. Cyanna, lock on and fire.”

The eighteen giant ships appeared and Cyanna fired eighteen medium penetrators at them. The penetrators hit maximum velocity in less than a tenth of a second and returned their full mass a hundred yards from the giant ships. Ten of the ships managed to fire on the large white ship but the beams were stopped by the second force field before they could defeat the third. All eighteen enemy ships were hit by a penetrator and sixteen of them had their force fields penetrated and were blasted into rubble. The two that managed to deflect the penetrators fired at them were blown wildly to the side from the giant explosion on the surface of their force fields. Cyanna had two more on the way before the two battleships could stabilize to bring their weapons to bear on the Juke Box. The second penetrators went through their weakened force fields as if they didn’t exist. “We’ve got a large group coming this way.”

“How many?”

“At least a hundred.”

“Get us out of here!”

The Havana skipped out at a ninety degree angle from the site of the battle and emerged ten light years away and skipped in another direction. The hundred Master Battleships emerged and found space littered with the blasted hulks of the ships leading the chase. “Find where they went.” The hundred ships fanned out, searching for the skip track and one finally found it and the chase continued but by the time they arrived at the second skip, it had dissipated. The Commander of the Attack Group knew that the enemy had developed a new means of attacking his ships. He went back to the site of the battle and began sending the details of his scans to the Fifty to determine how to handle this new tactic and weapon being used by the enemy.

Shane watched the recording and shook his head. The Juke Box had killed the enemy ships at an incredible rate. It had also withstood their beams. He knew it used the ancient penetrators and he wished the Rovers were large enough to carry them; but that was a hopeless wish. The penetrator was as big as the Rover. He waited at the last skip point for the others to arrive and then they skipped away.

• • •

Kat looked at her board and shook her head. The Grillen had finally made their move and it was a massive one. Millions of ships and transports were jumping into the Red Sector and dropping troops on hundreds of thousands of planets. The probes saw that the once the troops landed on the planets, they would gather up huge numbers of the populations to use as hostages against retaliation. The civilizations in M87 were still working to get organized after the civil war and were no match for the warships being used by the Grillen in the invasion. “Gabriel, what do you have on their defenses?”

“They have really ramped up the defenses of the Royal Planets. It also appears that their ships have a beam that will give our Rovers a problem.”

Kat shook her head, “Are you serious?”

“I am; we’ve measured it to be on the same order of magnitude as the Masters’ beams.”

“We need to pull in our Rovers for defense. I suspect they will be coming here momentarily.”

“I’ll send the messages, Sir. How many do you want brought back?”

“We don’t have a choice; bring back seventy five percent of them.”

“That will only leave ten million to take on the Masters’ two hundred and fifty million.”

“The Rovers have been taking a pounding from them. We’re going to have to step up production of the Juke Box Battleships and leave that galaxy to them.” Her display went dark and she pressed another button, “Admiral Kay, start disruption around the planets in our galaxy. I anticipate an invasion of our territory soon.”

“The order has been sent. Disruption will commence in ten minutes.”

Kat stared at her display and watched millions of drop troops being released on the peaceful planets in the Red Sector.

• • •

“Jon, we’ve been ordered back.”

“I see that. It looks like Dat is going to have to handle the Masters with his fleet. Are you being sent to the Allies in M87?”

“No, they have enough ships to defend themselves. They’ll contact us if things get out of hand. It appears the Grillen are not attacking any of the civilizations that are in the Galactic Alliance. The implicit message is stay out of what we’re doing or we’ll kick your butts out.”

Jon thought a moment, “There’s nothing we can do to stop them. Their building program has really gone into high gear and they now outnumber us by a large margin. If they take the planets in the Red Sector and start building ships on them…I don’t know if anyone can stand up to them.”

“We have to protect our planet’s first. We’ll look at handling the Grillen later.”

“Jill, I’ve ordered a Juke Box for my Flag ship. Admiral Hull has agreed that perhaps we should command our forces from it. Will you join me?”

“Jon, you outrank me; just order it.”

“I don’t want you to be forced to do it. If you think you need to be elsewhere, I’d understand.”

“Forget it. I haven’t had my dancing quota for months. Let me know when it arrives.”

“What name do you want for her?”

Jill smiled, “Juke Box.”

Jon smiled, “I thought that would be your choice. She’ll arrive in a week and I’ll see you then. I need to get my ships assigned so I’ll contact you later.”

“See you, Jon.”

• • •

“Hey, we want our own ship.”

“Oh shut up, Bucket. Why would you want another ship?”

“You should always have a wingman.”

Jill thought a moment and hit her communicator; Jon appeared and she said, “What about getting another ship. We can spend time on one or the other but I was thinking…”

“It’s always good to have a wingman.”

Jill smiled, “Yeah, something like that.”

“My computers also want their own ship. I’ll get another one send along with the first.”

“Thanks, Jon.”

• • •

Gresha looked at Dat, “What are all these small ports on the hull?”

Dat looked at her, “I’m sure the Federation put them there for a reason.”

“You don’t know what they are?”

Dat shrugged, “No, I don’t.” Gresha looked up, “Cyanna, what are those ports?”

“I don’t know but they have ten reactors connected to them.”

“What!”

“The first Juke Boxes had thirty Dark Matter Reactors; we have forty eight. Ten of them have connections running to those ports. Those reactors are currently shut down.”