Lens of Time: Book 06 - Star Rover-Running Out of Time (33 page)

Grest shook his head, “You saw what they did to the Masters. The ones they’re going to fight are the ones that need to fear them.”

Kylie took a breath and looked at the planet that was rapidly growing smaller beneath them. The shuttle jumped and Earth disappeared from their view. Gresha stared at the bright blue sky, “I feel like part of my soul has gone missing.”

Dat looked away from the sky and into Gresha’s eyes, “Let’s go get it back by kicking the crud out of some grasshoppers.”

Gresha started chuckling and then started laughing, “By all means; lead the way.”

Stein came roaring in and took them to their ships. Battle stations was just six hours away.

T
welve million Union Ships jumped out into open space beyond the Servant Galaxy and began attack preparation. Gibbs sat in his command chair and had mixed emotions about being the first one to attack. The pent up energy and adrenaline made him want to get up and physically do something, but there was nothing for him to do. He looked at his panel and pushed a button. A face appeared on his console and Gibbs said, “I just wanted to give you a quick call and tell you how much I appreciate your advice.”

Admiral Kune smiled, “So you’re about to go into combat?”

“Does it show?”

“It always shows; you always call to thank me every time.”

“Well, I’m still around to make the call.”

Kune tilted his head and smiled, “Yes, I suppose you are.”

“Kune, I’m sorry the Rovers had to be left out of the initial attacks.”

Kune slowly shook his head, “I understand why. My boys are still training and learning their responsibilities. Just get the first part done so we can join the party.”

“We’ll do our best. And once again, thank you for Lydia.”

“You did that on your own, Gibbs. I just got you to the right forest to find her.”

Gibbs nodded and ended the call. Now he was ready. He sat up in his chair and started going over the ready boards. Most of the board was green and he knew the ship was going to be ready in time. Truth be told, they were all ready to attack before they jumped away from the Milky Way. This was more of a formality to make sure everyone was focused on their responsibilities.

Dat appeared on his panel, “Get in and take care of the locals. Probe launch in thirty seconds.”

“Yes Sir. We’ll be leaving as soon as their organization is determined.”

“Good luck and good shooting, Admiral.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

• • •

The most advanced probe ever built by the Union ejected from Gibb’s flagship and immediately entered the jump barrier. It only flew for a moment in the barrier and would then skip into normal space to disrupt its approach track. It was forty feet long and only four feet thick. It would jump away from anything that approached it in green space. Its scans were sent in microburst squeals and it immediately jumped whenever it transmitted its data. Its transmissions were timed such that the view did not appear to be disrupted. An incoming squeal would be deciphered just as the next one arrived. A fleet of Rovers had chased one for a week and were not able to take it out. This new probe was critical to the Union’s success.

• • •

The probe arrived at the targeted planet and began transmitting. Gibbs looked at his panel, “Well?”

“There are eight formations around the planet with two hundred thousand ships in each. They appear to be just one large group, but the area they’re assigned to protect is clear if you look at the orientation of their ships.”

“Organize the fleet into eight boxes and send them their coordinates. Make sure the boxes are ready to reorganize into a major box. I expect reinforcements to arrive quickly after we start.”

“Do you want to hit the planet?”

“Do you have the locations of their major installations?’

“I’ve got the major installations. Give the probe another hour and we’ll have them all.”

Gibbs watched several Servant Warships move out of their formations and knew they had detected the probes transmissions, “No, I don’t want any outside forces to come to investigate the probe. Assign the facilities we’ve found to the appropriate ships.”

“The assignments are done.”

Gibbs smiled and lifted his communicator, “We are jumping in ten minutes. Good luck and make the Union proud.”

• • •

Dat and Shane watched the probe’s data coming in and saw Gibbs had chosen to use a box for each of the Servant formations. “That’s how I’d do it.”

Shane heard Dat and said, “I would have used four.”

“Why?”

“The ships in those eight Servant Fleets are accustomed to working together. By forcing two of them into a box, you double the number of ships to hit them and they’ll be forced to try and work together. I don’t think they could pull it off fast enough.”

“That’s a good rationale.”

“What would you have done?”

“I would have used four boxes so that they overlapped around the planet. I would start the weave and then start them rotating around the planet as they continued.”

“That’s a difficult formation to get out of while you’re under attack.”

“Gibbs is not going to hang around for the follow up.”

Shane did a double take, “What!?!”

Dat continued to watch the probe’s data come in and said, “This first attack is a learning experience. We’re doing it to collect information about what we’re going to have to face. We know nothing about how the Servants will respond, how many ships will be sent, what formations they’ll arrive in, and how long it will take them to get here. We’ll attack the Servant Warships here and jump away. We’ll observe what happens next and determine our tactics on what we learn.”

“Have you told Gibbs we’re not going in and you’re pulling him out?”

“No, I’m just going to press the escape button as soon as he finishes with the locals.”

Shane shook his head, “I’m glad he went first. This would probably make me angry at being pulled out before the main dance.”

“I suspect you would be; however, you might feel differently once you see the follow up.”

Shane stared at Dat, “You think it’s going to surprise us?”

“I have no idea; that’s the nature of a surprise.”

Shane nodded, “They just jumped, Sir.”

“Well sit back and enjoy the view. This should prove to be interesting.”

• • •

The Servant Detection Specialist sent another scan out into the planet’s solar system for what seemed like the millionth time and stared at the return. The Weapon’s leader saw his expression, “Maybe we’ll be sent on the next crop collection.”

The Specialist leaned back on his back legs, “Everyone told me, ‘Join the Fleets; you’ll see the galaxy, explore new places, eat interesting foods’…they were so wrong! This job is mind numbingly boring.”

The Leader nodded, “When I first arrived on board, I thought the planet below us was beautiful. The ship was amazing and all the others on board were the most interesting beings I’ve ever met. Now I hate looking at that planet and I can tell you the names of all the children of everyone on this bucket of bolts. No one has ever attacked one of our Nobility Planets; I would think they could find a better use of our time.”

“You know why we’re really here.”

The Leader swiveled his head, “We’re nothing more than a status symbol.” The Specialist was surprised the Weapon’s Leader saw it. “The Nobility seems to gain status by the number of Warships used to defend their planets. It’s stupidity at its finest.”

“What’s really dumb is that new ships are constantly being built to increase the numbers around the planet but keeping the others serviced, repaired, and up to date is ignored.”

The Leader nodded, “Tell me about it; I’ve ordered a replacement generator for the portside fire control computer six months ago and haven’t received it yet. And I’m not the only one; my counterparts on most of the other ships say they have major problems that have been ignored.”

“Well, fortunately, scanners are repaired instantly; no one wants a surprise visit from the higher ranking Lords.”

“Much less an enemy ship.”

The Specialist swiveled his head, “I’d almost welcome a fight to relieve this mind killing boredom.”

“Me, too.”

The Specialist heard his panel beep and he sat up straight, “I have a transmission taking place.”

“Where!?!”

“It was directly above the planet…but…now it’s below the planet.”

The Specialist looked at the Weapon’s Leader and the Leader hit the Attack Warning button. The crew of the huge warship started moving to their duty stations thinking another drill was taking place. They began moving at full speed when the Weapon’s Leader announced, “We’ve detected a foreign transmission next to the planet. This is not a drill.”

The giant warship barely had time to power its force field as the Scanner Specialist yelled over the communication’s circuit, “THOUSANDS OF JUMP SIGNATURES…WE’RE BEING ATTACKED!!!”

• • •

Unfortunately, on many of the Servant Warships, their Scanning Specialists were not at their posts. They had worked out a rotation between their ships to scan for anything coming into the system and the first warning they had was a general fleet communication to go to Attack Status. For those ships, it was too late and fatal.

• • •

Captain Lee Jennings was lying prone on the couch he had built next to his panel. He found it much easier to lie down to put hands on the steering paddles where he could keep the three displays, as well as the paddles, directly in front of him at eye level. The center display showed his tactical position; the left display showed the distance to the closest object in his ship’s path; the right displayed an overall view of the area around the ship. Lee arrived with the other ships assigned to his box and immediately ordered weapons free. He saw a Servant Major Battleship directly to the port side and accelerated past it. He did not concern himself with the firing on the enemy vessel, that was up to his crew manning the beams and missile controls. A huge explosion appeared in the corner of his eye on the right display; he knew it had to be the Servant Battleship. It didn’t even have its force field energized. He stared at the closest object in his attack vector and pushed the jump paddle and briefly skipped into the barrier. He came out between two Huge Servant Warships and swerved between them. He saw the next object and immediately skipped into the barrier again. He wasn’t going to linger and allow the two ships time to fire on him. If his weapons didn’t kill the ship, another Jukebox could do the job as they passed.

He concentrated on finding a path through his assigned vector and forgot about everything else. His path had numerous objects ahead of him and he skipped ahead and emerged long enough for his crew to fire. He forgot about everything else except getting through to the other side of the box.

He looked and saw a larger blip on the left display and knew there had to be numerous enemy ships ahead of him. He spoke and the communication system transmitted his voice to the ship, “We’re approaching a large group of Servant Warships. I’m going under them and will only be in normal space for a moment; fire all the top side penetrators the instant we emerge into normal space. You won’t have time to target the beams. Emergence in three, two, one…”

• • •

Fifty Servant Warships assigned to defend the Fleet Commander were being hit from all sides. The number of jump signatures around them had overwhelmed their systems and the weapons had to be fired manually. The Servants manning the beams decided to only fire at jump signatures close to their group and saw one immediately appear under them. The Beam Operators moved their beams as quickly as possible at the target but it disappeared before they could fire. They did see twenty huge missiles erupt out of the jump signature and immediately disappear as they accelerated into their formation. Ten of the giant Bronze Warships exploded as three more ships entered normal space and launched more missiles at them. The last Union Ship to fire on the formation made the mistake of staying in normal space longer than a second and it was hit by more than two hundred main beams from the surviving Servant ships. The Jukebox’s force fields held for a moment and then the huge ship exploded in the center causing it to beak in half. The Servant Fleet Commander saw the explosion, “Move us closer to that ship and start scanning it. We need to find out who they are.”

The Weave had passed the Commander’s location and he had his beam platforms on the giant ship’s hull start hitting at any beams still being fired by the damaged Union Ship. Soon, no beams were being fired and the fires were starting to spread on board the stricken vessel.

“Get some armored shuttles over and collect information. All ships stand close by and give the shuttles fire support.”

Ten Shuttles carrying ten armored Servant Warriors each began moving toward the drifting Union Warship. They moved toward a huge hole blown into the White Ship’s hull and prepared to enter.

Fifty decks down next to the black matter reactors, the computer used the optical cameras on the hull to see the Servant Shuttles approaching. It looked at the area around the ship and saw there were no Union Ships close by. It determined there was no escape and it activated the self-destruct module. The ensuing blast rocked space around the Union Ship and blew it into gas. The blast roared out and the shock wave blasted through the force fields of fifteen Servant Battleships surrounding the White Ship. Twelve others were blow away by the blast like leaves in a tornado. There were numerous injuries on the surviving Servant Warships, but it really didn’t make a difference. The radiation particles created with the destruction of a black matter reactor paled in comparison to an atomic explosion. The wave of radiation blew through the force fields of any ship within forty miles of the blast site giving the Servant Ships a lethal dose of radiation. It was so severe that the ships’ hulls were radioactive. The crews died instantly instead of lingering for days with normal radiation poisoning and the Servants discovered that it was impossible to approach the ships without endangering the rescuers. The radiated ships were towed and dropped on a trajectory toward the systems’ star. They glowed from the level of radioactivity in them.