Lens of Time: Book 06 - Star Rover-Running Out of Time (8 page)

“I did.”

“Well give it to me, there’s not much time to make the transfer.” Blacky extended one of his arms and it disappeared into Ringie’s skin. She immediately turned and ran out of the room.

Dat saw her leaving and yelled, “Hey, where are you going? We need you here.”

“I’ll be right back; nature calls.”

Dat furrowed his brow but he was quickly surrounded by the Madator Leadership and he turned to greet them. He saw Katherine entering the room with her support staff and he winced as he moved to the take his place at the front table. Darn that Blacky; he had hurt him. He sighed and after a few minutes the pain started to ease and by the end of the meeting it was gone.

• • •

Blacky came over and leaned in, “I’m sorry, my friend. I didn’t mean to hurt you; I’m just so glad I’m able to see you again.”

“You had me worried, Blacky.”

Blacky smiled, “I saw that; go on and admit it, you really do like me.”

Dat laughed, “What’s there not to like? Seven feet of carnage and mayhem just waiting to be released; I hope you can help us decide what to do next.”

“Well, let’s get this party started.”

“Do you think you’ve had enough time to get the other teams ready?”

“We’ve transferred all we learned from our drop. We’ve impressed on all of the warriors that they should eat a full meal before dropping.”

“Why?”

“Because the most important skills they’ll use are making sure they aren’t discovered. These drops are not the place for hunting prey. They require stealth in a major way.”

“I’m not so sure that’s true for the second wave.”

Blacky’s smile was instant, “Really!” Dat nodded and went to his chair.

Blacky looked at Ringie, who had just reentered the huge room, and saw her nod. His smile grew larger and he went to the front table and sat down beside Dat. He extended one of his arms around Dat’s chair and gave Gresha a small hug. She put her hand on his arm and squeezed it gently. She had come to love the huge, black, creature, who had almost killed her. She smiled and Blacky winked his middle eye at her.

Katherine stood and looked around the room, “We’re here to decide what our next action is going to be. We’ll start by playing all the recordings the Madator Team made during their mission and afterwards we’ll discuss what we’ve learned.” The huge monitor on the wall illuminated and the recordings started.

• • •

Six hours later, after all the questions were asked and answered, Katherine stood, “I want to congratulate the four members of the team that did such a magnificent job of taking out the Grillen presence on that planet.” The room erupted with cheers and hoots from the attendees and the four Madators stood and bowed. Finally, silence was restored and Katherine turned to Belwen, “We need to know what you’ve been able to determine about the Grey Ship they brought back.”

Belwen stayed seated and used a device to operate the monitor, “This ship is more powerful than any we currently possess.” The room all stared at the monitor and saw a pointer start indicating various places on its hull. “The beams used by this ship will penetrate our force fields easily and any of our ships hit by it will be destroyed. Notice that there are four beams mounted on the hull that are able to fire above, below, and to the two sides. There is also a beam mounted in the nose to fire directly ahead of it.”

Dat said, “What about to the rear?”

“The four on the hull can rotate to fire to the rear but there is a blind spot directly behind the thrusters. If you can get within a half mile of it, the four on the hull cannot depress enough to hit you. However, if the pilot sees you, he can raise the bow and bring the beams to bear.”

Gresha said, “Will our beams penetrate their force field?”

Belwen shook his head, “No, they will not.”

Katherine shook her head, “Are you saying they are impregnable?”

“They are to our beams and penetrators.”

Dat smirked, “What else is there to use against them?”

Belwen changed the view on the monitor, “This is a piece of the rear stabilizer fin from the Grey Ship.” The attendees saw a ten foot tall section of the fin being held off the floor in Belwen’s lab. “I want to watch what happens when one of my assistants throws a ball at it.” They watched the assistant wind up and throw a white colored ball at the fin. It hit the fin dead center and a long crack shot up through it. The assistant walked forward and gave the fin a push with his hand; the fin fell apart into two pieces. Silence dominated the gathering. Belwen waited a moment and said, “It appears the material used to build the hull is quite brittle. It can’t withstand any kind of forceful hit on it.”

Dat was shaking his head as he said, “But how do we get through the force field to administer a hit?”

“We’ll have to use a material that the force field can’t stop.”

“But I thought you said our beams and penetrators won’t get through.”

“They won’t because they are primarily made of energy and metal. The force field will stop either of those two forces.”

Katherine’s eye brows lowered, “What else is there?”

Belwen shrugged, “Well, there’s wood, plastic, ice shards, rocks, potatoes, bricks…need I go on?”

Blacky’s head rolled to the middle of his body, “And just how does one get close enough to throw a rock at it?”

“Actually, Admiral Gibbons gave us a mechanism that should do the job nicely.”

Everyone turned and looked at Gibbs and he tilted his head to the left, “I’ve always been fascinated by our ancient history and especially the weapons developed to use during the old conflicts that happened on Earth. One of the aircraft that was used to take out heavily armored vehicles in those old wars was called a Warthog. It was an airplane built around a gun.” Gibbs nodded to Belwen and the monitor showed a strange looking gun mounted on a huge brace. Everyone saw the belt that fed the gun and the shells in the belt were huge. Suddenly the gun started firing and the belt moved faster than the eye could see. “That gun could fire four thousand projectiles a second at a speed of a mile every second and half.”

Gresha stared at the video and said, “But isn’t it firing metal shells?”

“Yes, but it could be modified to fire hardened plastic projectiles. They didn’t have the capability of producing plastics to the hardness of our current technology back then.”

Dat smiled, “Tell me how you see this being used against the Grey Ships.”

Belwen interrupted Gibbs and said, “These guns can be placed in the nose and tail of a Rover, where they would fire a wall of hardened plastic projectiles at the Grey Ships. Since there is no atmosphere in open space, they will not lose speed and will not fall off their line of flight. The scanners used by the Grey Ships will not see them until they are right on top of them and I don’t believe they have the reflexes to jump away before being hit.”

“Why the front and rear, Belwen?”

“The Rovers may find themselves being pursued by these ships and the closing speed of the pursuer will reduce the time they have to react even more.”

Dat smiled, “Four thousand rounds a minute.”

“Actually, since cooling the barrels in space is much easier, these guns can be set up to fire seven times that number.” Dat’s eye brows went up. “We won’t have to rotate the seven barrels to keep them cool. We’ll just fire all seven at once with a continuous feed to each of them. Their speed will also increase to more than a mile in a third of a second in the vacuum of space; there won’t be any air resistance to slow them down.”

Dat smiled, “We’ll just send a massive wave of plastic projectiles and they’ll never see them coming until just before they hit.”

“If there is a huge battle taking place, won’t our own ships be in danger?”

Dat smiled, “Our normal force fields will stop plastic projectiles, Katherine. Only ships using the grey force field will be in danger.”

Belwen nodded, “He’s right, Admiral.”

“Will this gun work against their standard ships?”

Belwen shook his head, “No, their force fields will also stop the projectiles; however, our beams and penetrators do work against their standard ships. Our dark matter force fields will work against their standard ships as well.”

“What is the range of the Grey Ship’s beams?”

Gibbs said, “Five miles; if they fire from further than that it won’t harm our ships unless they can keep it locked on.”

Dat thought a moment, “So if a Grey Ship emerges into normal space, we’ll have about two seconds before it does. If we fire this gun the moment we detect their emergence, the projectiles will arrive…”

Gibbs said, “Two thirds of a second after they enter, if they are fired from five miles away or closer to the emergence.”

“Gibbs, why are you so excited about this development?”

“I’ve been wondering how we were going to use the Jukebox Class Battleships.”

Dat and Katherine saw it immediately as Gresha said, “I’m not sure I understand.”

Katherine smiled, “The Battleships can house more than twenty of these guns.”

Gibbs said, “Cha-ching. And they can lay down a covering fire that would be more than fifty miles across and keep it filled for hours.”

Blacky looked confused, “Then why would you put this gun on a Rover?”

Belwen shrugged, “No ship should be completely defenseless against another ship.”

Gibbs nodded, “I also suspect, once they see a battleship in action, those Grey Ships will give the Jukeboxes a wide berth. They’ll be forced to go after the Rovers fighting way from them.”

“Belwen, how long will it take to modify enough ships to use against their fleets?”

“We’ll start bringing some of them online in about four weeks. However, it’s going to take a year to really produce a large number.”

“Will you be able to produce enough to go after those ninety nine production planets?”

“We should be able to produce enough for that in about three months. Don’t look for any to be available before that.”

“Why not?”

“We’re working on about ten thousand ships but none of them will be ready before that time. We have to construct a system to control them and the guns will have to be calibrated to that system before they can be used. That is going to take at least three months.”

Dat looked at Katherine and said, “That is when our Madator Teams will have to complete their missions.”

“Do we need to drop them now that we have this weapon to use against them?”

“Don’t forget that our goal is to also remove them from the planets they invaded. Just killing their ships won’t change what’s happening on the surface of those invaded planets.”

“You intend to use the Madators to take out their ground forces?”

“We have to do that or they’ll take the local populations hostage and we’ll be doing this all over again.”

Katherine looked at Blacky, “Do you think you could remove the Grillen from those planets?”

Blacky’s smile was huge, “Some of them might survive…but I doubt it.” Katherine saw every Madator in the room was bobbing uncontrollably. Blacky saw her expression and said, “This time we get to hunt our prey. That makes it even more exciting…and fun.”

Dat turned to Belwen, “What about armored warriors?”

“The new swords they’ve been given should be effective against their armor.” Belwen looked at the Madators and sighed, “If we can force them to use them. I suspect they don’t want to use technology for their kills.”

Dat looked at Blacky, “Do you swear on your honor that you will use your swords against armored warriors?”

The Madators stopped bobbing immediately and Blacky’s frown was obvious, “We can take them out without using your swords.”

“Blacky, if you can promise me that you can do that without placing any of your warriors in danger, I might agree. Can you make that guarantee?”

Blacky looked at the Madators in the room and saw what they wanted; he rolled his head to the top of his body and they all deflated. “We will not be dishonest with our friends. Is that clear to all of you!?!” The Madators slowly rolled their heads to the tops of their bodies. Blacky turned back to Dat, “No, I can’t promise that.”

Dat saw their sorrow and he looked at Katherine as he said, “Then you will use your swords against armored enemy warriors.” He paused and said, “But…if you’ve removed most of them, and the survivors are reduced to a number that won’t endanger the local populations, you may try your hand at doing it the old fashioned way.” Katherine smiled and nodded.

Blacky and the Madators started bobbing again; now they had a goal to shoot for. Gresha looked at Dat, “I need to get back to our bed; my back has been killing me since I started sleeping here.”

Dat rubbed his stomach, “I look forward to having you back home, my love.” Blacky heard them and looked at Ringie. She smiled and looked quickly away.

T
he Grillen King looked at the Creature standing in front of his throne and tried not to show his disgust. The being had a triangular shaped head with two large black bulbous eyes on the sides of its head. Its jaw had two serrated sabre-shaped teeth that looked like pincers in its mouth. He couldn’t see the creature’s body because it had a long, flowing emerald colored robe that covered it from its sloped shoulders to the floor. He could only imagine what horror was under it. The creature spoke and the round device that kept the robe fastened in the middle flashed multi-colors as it translated what it said, “We are disturbed that you allowed one of the construction facilities to be destroyed.”

The King’s frown was obvious but he really believed the creature had no clue what his expressions indicated, “Perhaps you would like to go and investigate how it happened. We’ve not come up with a good answer.”

“It had to be something done by that Union you’re fighting.”

“Our investigators say that it was done by the local inhabitants. We’ve proven the ships were sabotaged while they were on the planet being serviced.”

“Then the locals had assistance from them.”

“We’ve not made that determination…yet. Would you like to go and see if you can find something we’ve missed?”