Lens of Time: Book 06 - Star Rover-Running Out of Time (34 page)

Fifteen Union Ships were killed or damaged beyond repair during the attack; all of them exploded, causing further damage to the Servant Warships that survived the attack. After the first ten exploded, Servant Warships flew away from the five remaining Union ships and blasted them from long distance. The five took the fire for an hour before they detonated in self-destructive blasts.

• • •

Gibbs saw his twelve boxes complete their runs and started to order another attack when his ship suddenly jumped away from the planet. He looked at his panel and saw that the escape circuit had been activated. “What the…”

“Admiral, have your ships complete their escape trajectories?”

“Why did you pull us out, Sir!?!”

“I want you to answer that question when we reassemble.”

Gibbs was angry; the attack was going according to plan. He had a few words for Arvolo, but first his ship had to go through the fifty escape jumps. He continued to watch the data being sent by the probe and, by the time he arrived at the assembly coordinates, he was able to answer Arvolo’s question.

• • •

Only twenty thousand Servant Warships survived the Union attack. One of them was the ship that had detected the transmission and went to Attack Stations just before the attack began. The jump officer on board saw the jump signatures appearing around the ship and he immediately jumped the ship away from the planet. He was later executed for his cowardice but the ship survived because of it. They arrived close to the planet’s largest moon and had a perfect seat to watch the destruction of the Servant Defense Fleet and the facilities on the planet. Bad luck plagued the Servants during the first attack; the device that controlled the recording capability of the ship’s scanners failed and there has been no record of the attack. The only information on what happened was what the crew on the ship was able to see. Watching the battle without a means of slowing it down, where it could be analyzed, was no help to the reinforcements that arrived ten minutes after the attacking ships disappeared. They all agreed that hundreds of thousands of ships appeared and began jumping in an unorganized fashion, attacking any ship they could find. The boxes and weave were lost in the massive movements of that many ships occupying the space above the planet.

• • •

The Lord commanding the twenty million reinforcing Servant Ships that jumped in slammed his rear leg on the floor of his ship and dented the metal. The only ship that had a clear view of the attack had equipment failure. When he discovered that most of the ships in the Minor Lord’s defense fleet had various problems, he ordered a shuttle to the planet to arrest the Minor Lord ruling it. It was wasted effort; the Minor Lord’s residence was one of the targets the Union had chosen for a mini-penetrator. Even finding a small piece of the Lord in the five mile wide crater was going to be next to impossible.

“I want all the data collected by the survivors and sent to my ship.”

“Yes Lord.”

Twenty minutes later the other three support fleets arrived and the Servant Fleet Leader sneered at them. Big help they would have been if the enemy was still around.

He looked at his panel and saw the Senior Advisor on it. He didn’t like seeing his father after the catastrophe but straightened up and began answering his questions. Most of his answers were, “I don’t know.”

• • •

Dat saw Gibbs’ Fleet arrive and he activated his communicator and linked with the computers that issued assignments to Gibbs’ ships, “How many ships were lost?”

“Fifteen were damaged beyond the ability to escape.”

Dat looked over at the Scanning Officer, “I want all the recordings from the probe on those fifteen ships.” The officer nodded and Dat heard, “One of the ships destroyed was Rear Admiral Thebault’s Flagship.”

Dat thought for a moment, “What ship in the Rear Admiral’s fleet made the most kills?”

“Captain Jennings.”

“Patch me through to his ship.”

Dat watched his display and saw Jennings still lying on his couch, staring at his three displays. Dat moved his head back and said, “Captain, what sort of device are you using?”

Lee saw Admiral Arvolo on his panel and said, “I’ve modified my command chair so I can better track what’s going on around my ship, Sir.”

Arvolo saw the three displays and how Lee had his hands on the ship’s flight paddles. He shook his head and said, “You are promoted to Rear Admiral to replace Admiral Thebault. I commend you and your crew for your outstanding efficiency and I want you to send a description of your new chair to Admiral Gibbs immediately.”

“Yes Sir. And thank you, Sir.”

Dat ended the connection and linked with the combat computers, “I want an analysis of the enemy fleet that arrived after our ships left.”

“We’re working on it now.”

“Get it to me as quickly as possible.”

Dat contacted Gibbs, “Admiral, I want you to send your ships to their home port and have the armaments they used replaced.”

“We won’t be going back in, Sir?”

“Would you?”

“No Sir; and thank you for pulling the plug.”

Dat smiled, “Send your ship with your fleet, but I want you take a shuttle and come here for a meeting with my Senior Staff.”

“I’ll issue the orders and leave immediately.”

“Make sure you have the ships you lost replaced. I’ve promoted a Captain Jennings to replace Admiral Thebault; he’s sending you a diagram of a chair he designed to replace the standard command chair. Please bring it with you to the meeting along with your new Admiral.”

“My communication’s officer tells me he has the diagram. I’ll go by and pick up Jennings on the way to your ship, Sir.”

“Gibbs, his ship was the most efficient in the attack.”

“Sir, he’s been on my shortlist to promote. You have made a great choice.”

“Thanks Gibbs. I would ordinarily allow you to make your own promotions but we need to find leaders that flourish in our new structure.”

“There is no need to apologize, Sir.”

Dat ended the connection and stared at the probe’s data stream. Twenty million Servant warships had jumped in ten minutes after the attack started; that response was going to change how they operated. Sixty million more appeared twenty minutes later and he shook his head as he waited for his Admirals to arrive.

T
he Supreme Lord looked at his Advisor and almost killed him. If he had another child anywhere near as smart as the Advisor, he would have done it to make an example of him; he could not abide with incompetence. “You will have all the other defense fleets investigated and take action on any nobility that has not kept their ships operational!”

“I’ve already issued the orders and forty six Minor Lords have been executed. Their replacements understand their task to prepare their ships.”

“Where did those ships come from?”

The Advisor knew his life was hanging by a thread but he also knew he had to tell his father the truth, “We have no record of those ships in any of our databases.” The Supreme Lord scowled, but the Advisor continued without pausing, “What we do know is that they have extremely powerful force fields and missiles that are beyond any we have ever recorded. I have to believe that they are from the same species that has attacked our planets with the Violet and Yellow colored ships.”

“And just why would you make that guess?”

The Advisor heard the sarcasm in his father’s voice and said, “They used the same missiles the Violet and Yellow ships used to destroy the defense satellites.” The Lord was surprised by the Advisor’s statement. “My specialists believe that the ships used to invade the slave planets were an older model they no longer use. They were simply throw-away ships. The ships used in this last attack are their most advanced vessel.” The Lord looked down at his most competent child and felt his anger subside. The Advisor saw his father’s anger start to dissipate and said, “There is another issue in that we were only able to launch one of our support fleets to the attacked planet. It has been so long since your domain has faced an outside force that our fleets have lost their edge. I have executed the officers and their direct subordinates commanding the fleets that were unable to immediately go and have replaced them with commanders that will whip their fleets into shape.”

The Lord saw his son had anticipated what needed to be done, “Go and make sure these things are accomplished quickly.”

The Advisor lowered his head and left the room. The Lord knew that he had almost made a mistake killing his best resource. He needed patience. He also needed to know who was attacking his domain. He looked at his panel and saw a reminder note to check in on the newest ally but quickly dismissed it. This new ship was not in their galaxy. He made a connection, “I want all of our scouts sent out to investigate the galaxies close to our location. I want you to focus on those where we’ve sent ships in the past. One of them may have been detected and has caused these recent attacks.”

“Yes Lord.”

He hoped they would find the location of this new enemy. Unfortunately for him, all of the past encounters had happened in galaxies located in the opposite direction from the Milky Way. It was going to be a long time before he found out where the attacks originated.

• • •

The Union Admirals gathered on board the Havana and watched the feed sent from the probe until it was recalled. Gibbs stared at the display and shook his head. Within an hour after the first Servant reinforcements arrived, four more fleets of equal size jumped in. If he had waited, his fleet and the other two would have possibly been overwhelmed.

Dat watched the Admirals sitting at the conference table and saw their concern. Silence dominated the room until Dat said, “Comments?”

Shane shook his head, “I really thought you were acting somewhat paranoid by recalling Admiral Gibbs’ fleet. I can see now that you saw what I couldn’t fathom.”

Kelli said, “What was that?”

“Just what having more than a billion warships actually meant in real life.” Shane turned to Dat, “They could have sent more.”

Dat nodded, “You’re absolutely right. I thought they had a defense system organized to overwhelm an attacker but I must confess that this exceeded my wildest expectations. We were really lucky they were out of practice or Gibb’s fleet could have been attacked before he could escape.”

Gresha leaned forward, “What do you mean?”

“Those four groups of ships the Servants sent were all about the same size. That means they are in formation waiting for a call to come in for them to immediately launch. I suspect it’s been so long since they received a call, they were slow getting in motion. I don’t expect that to happen again.”

Shane slowly shook his head and looked away from the display at Dat, “They’ll probably be waiting for us to arrive.”

Dat smiled as the others stared at Shane, “Yes, you’re probably right.”

Matt’s brow was furrowed, “I’m slow on the uptake here; why would they be waiting for us?”

Kelli sighed, “They’ll launch as soon as they detect our probe start transmitting.”

Shane looked at her, “Boy, you are one smart cookie, Kelli.”

“Thank you, Sir; I’ve learned from the best.”

Gibbs leaned forward, “So they can detect our probe?”

Dat tilted his head, “Yes and no.” Gibbs looked confused until Dat said, “They didn’t detect its arrival…but they did detect its transmissions.”

“How do you know that, Sir?”

“None of their ships activated a force field when the probe arrived but the moment it started streaming data, our computers saw more than a hundred ships start powering their force fields and armaments.”

The room was silent for a minute and Gem said, “Do we call this off?”

“No, we change our plan of attack.”

Shane sighed, “I really thought the weave would work.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Admiral. We will use it when the numbers allow us. However, this changes everything.” Dat walked over to the display and activated it. The Admirals watched as Lee Jennings took his ship thorough the Servant formations, artfully dodging large concentrations of their ships and timing his attacks so that large numbers of their ships couldn’t get a shot off at him. Shane watched the recording and shook his head, “That is one heck of a pilot.”

Dat pulled up a picture of Lee’s new attack chair and the group stared at it. Shane said, “The center display is tactical.”

Dat nodded, “The left is the scan of the vector he was assigned from green space. He used it to skip to his next target. The right display shows him all the activity taking place around his ship.”

Shane took his chair and leaned the back against the conference table, “Gem, hold this in place.” Gem went behind the chair and grabbed two of its legs. Shane leaned over and lay down on the chair. He put his hands in front of him on the table and looked straight ahead. He stood up and shook his head, “This is pure genius.”

Dat smiled, “I agree.”

“What are we going to do about it, Sir?”

“Jennings tells me that he forgets everything happening around him and focuses on the three display and ship paddles. He allows his crew to fire the weapons and keep things running; his entire focus in on finding a safe path through his vector.” The Admirals watched the flight of Lee’s ship through the enemy formations and were amazed at his ability to emerge into normal space at the optimum place and time to get off a shot. Even large concentrations of Servant Warships weren’t able to fire at him in time to hit the fast moving ship. Dat said, “We’re going to make the modifications to our ships and practice using them in a new formation.”

Lydia said, “What kind of formation?”

Dat pointed to the left display and said, “The problem with using the weave in a space with that many enemy ships around is that the box remains in one place until the four sides move across it.” The Admirals thought about the observation and saw the issue. “All the enemy has to do is just jump enough ships in on the box and overwhelm it. The vectors will be so crowded with enemy warships that there won’t be a safe place to emerge into normal space.” Dat paused, “However, if our fleets broke up into smaller units and formed just one side…”