Lens of Time: Book 06 - Star Rover-Running Out of Time (28 page)

“Then we will abide by your decision and pray you are never defeated by an adversary.”

Dat knew if this was brought to the Union’s leadership, it wouldn’t be allowed to happen. He thought about his children and the gift they were to him and Gresha. He smiled and looked up, “We’ll just keep this to ourselves until the next two waves have launched, shall we.”

Ringie smiled and put her arm on Dat’s shoulder as well, “You are a gift to us from the universe. You have sealed our promise with your heart.”

• • •

Shane sat in his room rubbing his arms while he listened to the conversation between the Madators and Arvolo on his personal monitor. He had fought against the Masters in a Rover and had watched many of his friends die around him. He didn’t like what the Admiral had just agreed to do. The Madators were incredibly adaptive and more dangerous than any species he had ever encountered. He started to contact Admiral Hull and tell her what was going on…but he hesitated. He had seen the recording of the Servant that had killed the Grillen King. Yet these Madators had dropped on their worlds with nothing more than their natural ability to fight them. They had bought time for the Union to build up their defenses and now they were going to send more than half their population out to face the danger as well.

He thought about Arvolo. Shane felt he could match him in piloting skills…but what about tactical? It was Arvolo that had really led the Union’s defense in both of the wars it fought. Admiral Hull was the overall commander but she was lost without Arvolo. So the question boiled down to whether or not he trusted Arvolo with this huge decision. He knew he really didn’t know much about the Madators and he certainly didn’t have a personal relationship with one. The corner of his mouth went up as he remembered telling the Admiral to ‘Shut up!’ The Admiral had said nothing about it after the exercise was over. That told him the Admiral did not have an overinflated ego. He wondered if he would have ignored it if one of his junior officers had told him to be quiet. He decided he would have said something. That little thing made the difference. Arvolo was doing this without an ego. He was making a decision based on the circumstances alone. He turned off the display and continued to rub his hands. He would support Arvolo in this. At the very least, more than half of the Madators would be in other distant galaxies. That should count for something.

• • •

The Saturn arrived at the Madator’s planet and Dat took Blacky and Ringie down to the surface in his Rover. “Take us to the southern continent on the east coast about halfway down.”

Stein said, “Do you want to arrive at the large white structure on the coast?”

Blacky’s head rolled completely around his body, “That’s exactly where we want to go.”

Dat stared at the building in the scanner display, “When did you build that?”

“It was the first thing we did.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a place we worship.”

Dat stared at the building and the Rover spiraled down to the planet’s surface and landed four hundred yards away. Blacky turned to Dat, “It’s going to get rather crowded here shortly. You may want to watch this from overhead.”

Dat nodded and Stein lifted to a thousand feet and hovered above the white building. Blacky and Ringie walked to the large building and looked out from the entrance at the huge plain in front of it. Blacky looked up and screamed a series of hoots and screams. The hoots were picked up by Madators flying overhead and their screams were incredibly loud. Stein said, “They’re screaming that one has returned with the Ultimate Prey.”

The Madators began screaming in at high speed, flying high above the structure. Loree said, “The Elder Leaders are arriving.”

Dat saw twenty black shapes flapping their wings and coming in fast from over the mountains. The twenty shot down to the white building and sat down in a semicircle directly in front of Blacky and Ringie. They bowed their heads. Dat stared at them as Stein said, “There are six gaps in their line. They appear to be waiting on others to arrive. Over the next two hours, four Madators came flying in from over the ocean next to the building and an hour after that one came in from the south and another from the north. The semicircle was complete. At that point, Blacky and Ringie sat down in front of the elders and lowered their heads to their lower body touching the floor of the entrance. The sky was now black with more than a million Madators flying overhead. Thousands flew by the Rover every second.

Dat stared at the display and saw the twenty six elders extend one of their arms to the two sitting in front of them. Thirteen touched Blacky and thirteen touched Ringie. “Bring the view in closer, Loree,”

Dat watched one of the Elder’s arms touch Blacky’s upper body and disappear into it. It remained for a minute and then the arm was withdrawn. The twenty six then rolled their heads to their lower bodies and remained still.

“Dat, their bodies are undergoing some kind of change.”

“What?”

“I don’t know what it is but my scanners detect changes in their body’s structure.”

Dat continued to watch and thirty minutes later, Blacky’s head rolled up to the top of his body and he hooted. He immediately rolled his head back to the floor as a hundred Madators came zooming out of the sky and formed a semicircle around the twenty six Elders. The process repeated itself and the next semicircle had four hundred Madators land and start it again. Within six hours, the huge plain was covered with Madator semicircles. Finally, Blacky rose and looked out at the million plus Madators sitting in front of the building. He raised six of his arms and hooted. The huge gathering of Madators answered him. Blacky turned and offered one of his arms to Ringie who allowed him to pull her to her feet. Blacky wrapped two of his arms around her and looked out at the gathering again. He hooted and screamed and the entire plain erupted into screams and hoots as all of the Madators took flight.

“What just happened, Stein?”

“Blacky instructed the ones here at the gathering to go and share the Ultimate Prey with their people. He then told them that he and Ringie were now bound to each other. It appears the gathering approves of Blacky’s choice. If they were on the ground, I suspect they would pound the earth flat with their bobbing.”

“Have you seen any difference in them, Loree?”

“The one that is clearly noticeable is that they are now flying at three times their normal top speed.”

Dat stared at the cloud of Madators circling the huge field and saw Loree was right. If these creatures had somehow assimilated the strength and speed of the Servants into their bodies….he shook his head. Sometimes…trust was the most difficult task one could do. Belief without evidence…that’s what made it so hard. He looked at Blacky and Ringie accepting the cheers of their people and shook his head. When you lose the ability to trust, you’ll never have peace in your heart. “Take me home, Stein. I need to see my family.”

The small Rover rose into the sky as thousands of Madators flew by. In a few moments it disappeared and jumped away. Blacky watched it disappear and smiled. Dat didn’t know what changes he had brought to his species. Dat didn’t know it but Blacky had no intention of keeping his promises when he first offered to assist the Union against the Servants. He was looking for an escape. Now he knew his promise was going to be kept. Dat had taught him how to love a different creature. It was a lesson none of the Madators would ever forget. Dat had proven his species could be trusted. For the first time in their long history, the Madators were not alone in the universe against everything else. They had a friend they could count on. Blacky almost laughed. Dat’s run with Blacky had already become part of Madator Legend. With every telling of the story, Dat’s speed would increase. Blacky figured in a hundred years, Dat would be running close to light speed. Blacky was thankful he had lost the race. His people were alive because Dat won. This was one legend where he had no problem being the loser.

“We need to get the waves ready to go.”

Blacky looked at his new mate and pulled her close, “That can wait until tomorrow. There is only you at this moment.”

Ringie smiled, as they turned and walked into the white building to the cheers of more than a million Madators.

• • •

Dat arrived home to Gresha and the three babies. He walked over and wrapped Gresha up in his arms and pulled her tight, “Hey, have you missed me or something?”

Dat smiled and pulled her out of the nursery where the babies were sleeping. Gresha wondered what was going on…for just a short time…then she knew. Sometimes love just had to be expressed. This was one of them.

• • •

Gem stared at Shane, “Is something bothering you?”

Shane gave a start and smiled, “I was wondering if you would marry me tomorrow?”

Gem was stunned by the question as Shane pulled a small box out of his front pocket and opened it for her to see. Gem’s eyes were full of tears and she glanced at the beautiful ring. She looked back at Shane, “Is it possible to do it today?”

Shane’s smile was huge, “I’ll contact Admiral Hull.”

Gem wrapped her arms around Shane’s neck, “Do that in an hour.” She stood on her toes and kissed him.

When they broke the kiss Shane said, “An hour it is.”

A
dmiral Hull looked at the Horde and Hive leaders and shook her head, “I appreciate your wanting to provide the pilots for this mission but the ones we’re dropping on the planets are right. They will all be killed before they can escape.”

“We only lost ten ships in the last drop.”

“That’s because only ten of the planets had a warship in orbit. None of your ships were able to escape them. They are planning to activate the ship’s self-destruct circuits on arrival. The ensuing nuclear pulse will blind the Servant scanners long enough for the drop warriors to get into the planet’s atmosphere.”

“What about the satellites?”

“Missiles will be launched as soon as the ship emerges into normal space targeted at the four satellites. The drop warriors will actually jump out of the ship just before it emerges and start their drops on the opposite side of the planet from the ship’s destruction. The ship will be operated automatically by its computer system after they drop. I guess the real question is whether or not you can afford to lose that many ships?”

The Horde master waved an arm, “They’re doing nothing but taking up space. They’re so ancient; we’ll never use them again. You’re welcome to all we have stored.”

“How many do you have?”

“I have about three hundred thousand that can fly.”

The Hive Controller looked up from his display, “I have a few more than that. Given time we could get some of the others repaired for you to use.”

“No, that won’t be necessary; we’re only going to need about four hundred thousand.”

“Well, if you’ll get the pilots here, we can train them how to fly it in less than a few hours. Since they will only be jumping in, that process is pretty much automatic.”

“I’ll send ten of our Sailors to take the training and they’ll come back to train the others. If you could start ferrying the ships to the coordinates I just sent you, I would greatly appreciate it.”

“We’ll start immediately, Admiral.”

“I thank both of you for your help in making this happen.”

Kat’s display went dark and she wondered about dropping that many Madators on that many planets. How would they ever manage to get them all back? She shrugged and decided to worry about that issue after the war was over. If they lost, it really wouldn’t matter.

• • •

Dat stood with Blacky and it felt like Déjà vu. The shuttles were lined up on the vast central plain of the northern continent and they extended over the horizon. The sky was full of Madators hooting and screaming as they waited their turn to land and board. Shuttles were lifting and shuttles were landing. The magnitude of the operation was staggering. Dat turned to Blacky, “Are you going with them?”

Blacky continued to stare at the sky and said, “No, this is where all of our new legends begin. I have been chosen to lead my people and my place is here.”

Dat thought about it for a moment, “Are you happy about that?”

Blacky looked down at Dat, “Not really. I’m going to miss the hunt.” Blacky looked back up at the sky.

“You could always round up some Servants and bring them here.”

Blacky’s head rolled halfway down his chest faster than Dat could follow. “I didn’t think about that.”

“You could put them on the huge island in the southern ocean. They’ll be unable to leave and endanger you from there without ships.”

Blacky hooted and heard those flying overhead answer. He looked back at Dat as his head moved up his body, “You understand us better than we understand ourselves. That is an excellent proposal.”

Dat smiled, “Have you tried to take on one of the Cape Buffalo alone?”

Blacky smiled, “I’m not that stupid. That is still a challenge we’re working on. The herd is on you in an instant if you attack one their members. We only have eight arms and that’s not enough against twenty of those beasts.”

They stood and watched the operation continue. After a while Blacky said, “This is larger than anything we’ve ever done.”

“I don’t see any of them carrying what they’ll need at their new homes.”

“The leader of each group has a communicator. They don’t need much more.”

Dat hesitated, “I saw that a thousand of the ships are going to drop on some of the Servant’s major planets.”

“We’re sending our best to those. The participants know the risk and want to do it anyway.”

“They want the challenge.”

Blacky shrugged, “I’d be going with them if I could. It should be glorious.”

“Not if the ship is blasted before you could get out.”

“The drop globes on those ships have their own means of propulsion. They can be dropped further away from the planet and work their way in. They’re extremely difficult for a scanner to see. I’d take the risk.”

Dat tilted his head and shrugged, “That doesn’t really surprise me.”