Lens of Time: Book 06 - Star Rover-Running Out of Time (4 page)

“With what effect?”

“There won’t be much remaining.”

“What’s the effective range if he just screams it without using the transmitter?”

“More than two miles, if Blacky screams at his highest volume.”

Dat shook his head, “I don’t want to do this but we’re at a point where we must have information on a new ship the Grillen are building. Is it possible for them to collect information and broadcast it to us?”

“The device used to call for pickup can use an encrypted squeal to send information. The team leader will have to load the information before it’s activated.”

“Can it be detected while information is being stored?”

“Possibly; he will have to choose wisely where he does it. It can also take pictures without emitting any energy.”

Gresha walked forward and took Dat’s hand, “You have to send them.”

“I know.”

Blacky smiled, “Don’t sound so glum; this is exciting and no matter what happens, it will be more fun than you can imagine.”

“What if we can’t come in and pick you up?”

George, Blacky’s second in command said, “Then we’ll just have to systematically eliminate the enemy on the planet until you can.”

“There are thousands of enemy warriors on those planets.”

All four Madators started bobbing. Blacky said, “Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

Dat looked up at the sky and rolled his eyes. He shook his head and looked at Belwen, “Get them armed and ready to go within forty eight hours.”

The four Madators started hooting and whistling and all of the Madators in training flew in and joined them in their celebration of the coming mission. Gresha looked at Dat and quietly whispered, “I’m not so sure the enemy has an advantage.”

“We’ll soon know.” Dat walked over to Blacky, “Do you have to go on this first mission. I don’t want to lose you.”

Blacky smiled, “My team is going to be the leaders of our packs. We have to learn what we can do so we can train our hunters how to be successful.”

“And what happens if all of you are killed?”

“The next four will take our place and the process will continue until we achieve success. That is how we learn to survive.”

Dat smiled, “Please come back from this. I want to run again.”

Blacky bobbed ten times and hooted, “Count on it! I wouldn’t miss it.”

Dat put his hand on Blacky’s shoulder a foot over his head, “Make sure you don’t.”

• • •

The King stared at the Fleet Admiral and after a long moment said, “They know about our new ships?”

“You know it was just a matter of time until they found out.”

“What do you think they’ll do about it?”

“I’m hoping they’ll continue to negotiate before they do anything dramatic. We’ll have enough ships to defend enough planets to go into full production shortly.”

“They could attack all of our facilities and hit them from space.”

“They’ll try to avoid that at all costs. They have an aversion to killing innocent populations.”

“They have demonstrated that weakness but I don’t want to place all our hopes on that not happening.”

The Fleet Admiral thought a moment and then said, “I’ll have our main support fleets ready to jump in to the most important hundred planets on a moment’s notice. Our new ships should be able to delay them long enough for my fleets to arrive.”

“You’ll just give up the others?”

“What other choice is there? The new ship is the only way to ensure our victory. Those hundred planets will be enough to provide what we need to win.”

“Don’t fail me!”

“I won’t, Sire. Just try to keep them negotiating a while longer.”

“I will.”

The Fleet Admiral thought a moment and said, “I’m going to send in the support fleets to those hundred planets now.”

“Won’t that stop them from talking?”

“No, I don’t think so. Besides, a hundred planets is such a small percentage of the whole that we can say they’re being ridiculous.”

The King smiled, “We’ll see.”

The Fleet Admiral sent out his instructions that his support fleets would conduct war games close to the hundred planets. Those planets would be constantly scanned and the Union’s ships would be watched to see if any large fleets left their home galaxy. The humans weren’t the only ones with stealth probes.

B
lacky waited in the landing bay of the small ship as it skipped along the boundary between normal and subspace. He looked at his three partners and saw they were excited about the coming action. “All of you know the purpose of this drop, right?”

All three said together, “Information first, fun later.”

Blacky sighed and leaned against the bulkhead, “Tell me again where you chose your names.”

George’s head rolled down his body, “We heard some sounds on a human recorder that we liked. We asked who made them and was told an ancient singing group had produced them.”

“What was the group called?”

“No one knows; they just know the names of the ones in the group. Since we had to select a name the humans could pronounce, we chose to use theirs.”

Blacky shook his head, “But George, John, and Ringie sounds, I don’t know…weird.”

“And Blacky doesn’t?”

“Well, at least that’s the word for our natural color. And I guess you’re right, it does sound different.”

Ringie looked at Blacky, “Do you still think we need to separate initially?”

“I do. The Grillen have four main ship building centers on the planet and they’re all on the same continent. We should be able to go to each of them and gather information that can be used against them. As long as all of us understand that we must not be discovered or taken prisoner, I suspect separating might be the safest way to collect intelligence.”

“You’re afraid that if we’re found together that all of us may have to die at one time?”

“Yes, I suppose I am. You can’t allow yourselves to give in to the hunt. Stealth is the most important watch word and we must get whatever we discover out to the Union. Once we do that, we can go about having a little fun.”

“How will we know if anyone is captured?”

“George, I expect all of us to detonate our entire explosives inventory before you allow that to happen. I’m sure we’ll hear about it in the other centers if one of us is forced to do it.”

“You’ll probably be able to hear it with your ears.”

Blacky smiled, “I believe you’re right John.” Blacky paused and looked at Ringie, “You don’t have to eat for three months; you will do no needless killing. Am I clear on that?”

Ringie deflated, “Yeessss.”

“You are our best hunter and there might be a time where we need those skills to survive. But now is not that time. Collect the information and meet me.”

“I will, Blacky.”

“Good.”

“Ten minutes to drop.”

The four looked up at the wall speaker and then went to their drop suits. The drop gloves were in the floor like the shape of a half hemisphere and the four large creatures grew small quickly and poured themselves into the hemispheres. Once they were in, the top covered over and the ball moved into the floor and out toward the hull.

“Everyone comfy?”

“Don’t get cute, Blacky; you know how sick this makes me feel.”

“Just stay small and hold your breath, George; you’ll be down before you know it.”

“Providing they aren’t able to see us with their scanners.”

The other three groaned, “You could have gone all day without saying that.”

“You know how it goes; misery loves company.”

“Ten seconds to eject; good luck and don’t forget to call me.”

Blacky smiled, “You just worry about getting your ship back home, Tina. We’ll call at the first opportunity.”

“Ejection in three, two, one…”

The four Madators were ejected out of the ship’s hull and remained in the barrier for less than a micro-second. Once the ships jump field moved away, they emerged into normal space, moving at seventy miles per hour toward the planet’s atmosphere. The ship had accelerated to that speed before activating its drive and the inertia returned to the four small black balls dropping toward the planet. They waited to see if they were going to be fired on by the Grillen ships in orbit but nothing happened and they entered the upper levels of the stratosphere. The planet’s gravity began pulling them and their speed quickly increased to two hundred miles an hour and the outer skin of their exo-coating began glowing with the heat of entry. Blacky had dropped numerous times but the flames that burned just a few centimeters from him always made him nervous. The four black balls began separating as they fell at high speed into the depths of the atmosphere.

Tina watched her display and saw she had made the drop without being seen. She smiled and knew that, if she were jumping to the location, her field would have been detected as she slowed down in the barrier. Moving at the incredible top speed in the barrier, she wasn’t there long enough to be detected. She was amazed that Belwen’s engineers had developed the ejection process where the Madators could be dropped. No being alive had the reflexes to make that happen and was thankful for the automatic system. She turned and headed back toward ten other planets the Grillen had invaded. She was ordered to make the runs just to make sure if she were detected that her drop might be mistaken for a scouting run.

• • •

“Admiral, we’ve had a human ship make a fly by at eleven of our planets.”

“Did it slow down?”

“No Sir. It flew by faster than we could respond.”

“You saw it coming, why didn’t you fire on it?”

“Sir, it was past us before we could take a shot. Our weapons could have locked on it if it had slowed but it didn’t. You know how fast their ships are able to travel in the barrier.”

“Did the other planets detect it?”

“They did, Sir. However, they were also unable to get a shot off.”

• • •

The stealth probe recorded the conversation and sent it back to Fleet Headquarters. Tina arrived and discovered that she had not gone undetected and that it was only her speed that prevented her death. “Sir, how am I going to retrieve the jumpers?”

Katherine shook her head, “I don’t see any way we can get a ship in. They’ll just have to stay there until the conflict is over.”

Dat heard the pronouncement and worried about his friend. If he had to, he was going to take a fleet in and get him out. He hoped Blacky wouldn’t be killed first. Gresha saw his expression and reached over and took his hand in hers as she whispered, “He’ll love every minute of it.” Dat nodded and knew the coming days were going to be longer than normal.

• • •

Ringie saw the terminator line approaching and decided it was time to eject from the exo-coating. She pulled the first chord with her beak and the outer coating that was on fire fell away. She counted three and pulled the second chord and the inner coating burst apart and she fell out of the coating and began expanding her body. As her body grew larger she began slowing down. She was approaching forty five thousand feet above the surface and the air density was growing by the second. She held her breath and looked for her target far below. She expanded her surface as she crossed the terminator line and moved from daylight into darkness. She assumed her largest shape and decreased her thickness to a quarter of an inch. Her wings caught the thin air and she flew forward at two hundred and fifty miles per hour.

She looked at the surface of the planet below again and saw the lights of the center she had been assigned off in the distance. The clouds were far below and she turned, flapped her edges, and entered them. She used the thermals to take her toward her target and began decreasing her size. She arrived five miles from the bright lights of the construction site and knew there was a force field surrounding the city. She flew over it and looked at the surface around the community. There was a military convoy moving toward the city fifteen miles out and she reduced her size to a small ball and began dropping quickly toward the road it was traveling on. She aimed for a stretch of the highway that had darkened with age and oil dropped on it from numerous vehicles that used it. She expanded her wings, flared them, and landed. She flattened herself on the road. She waited on the convoy to arrive. It finally came into sight and she waited as ten vehicles passed over her. She had to move four times to avoid being hit by the huge wheels but she lifted an arm and attached herself to the eleventh vehicle. She flattened out on the bottom of the armed troop carrier and waited to see what security precautions the convoy would have to go through to enter the city. It was possible she would have to drop off and that was why she chose not to attach to the first vehicles in line.

Ringie pressed her head tight to the armor and felt the vibrations of the Grillen talking inside the vehicle. All four of the Madators had been given a download of the Grillen language and she began hearing the warriors complaining.

“I wish those idiots could do this faster. My backside is numb from this patrol.”

“Get used to it. You know the drill.”

“Yes, but it’s senseless; when have they ever detected a problem?”

“Just open the bottom port and allow the gas to move through. It will kill all the parasites on your armor and you know how bad those are.”

“I guess; however, burning the exterior makes it almost unbearable in this tin can. You would think they would at least allow us to exit first.”

“Then we’d have to reenter and that would only make this whole exercise take that much longer.”

Ringie raised her head lightly and watched the dust being kicked up by the moving vehicles. It was blowing from the front toward the rear of the convoy. She slid forward and examined the port on the bottom of the vehicle and saw that it opened toward the front. The port was about six feet wide and four feet in depth. She moved toward the front of the troop carrier and waited until the vehicle in front of her stopped. She watched the vehicle just in front of her and saw the gas was grey in color and it was blown toward the rear of the Laser Track. Once it cleared the vehicle it was blown to the side by the vehicles turbofans. She decided it was worth the risk. She remained at the front of the vehicle and watched the port open and grey gas bellow out. The fans on the gassing unit kicked in and blew air into the troop carrier. The gas exited the vehicle under pressure and moved toward the rear of the carrier. She rushed forward and flattened herself on the port just before it closed. She moved off the port under the seats of the warriors that were in the carrier and then moved up into the bottom of a seat and flattened against the hard surface.