Star Rover-Chosen to Die (Lens of Time) (4 page)

Grest’s eyes narrowed, “How does that make a difference?”

“My crew has learned to keep something close to hold on to while they’re on board. The main problem was losing their footing; the shoes solved that issue. Notice the last skirmish.” Arve and Grest turned through the pages and shook their heads at the maneuver. Angel watched them and said, “Guess how long it took for my crew to report all stations ready?” They stared at her and she said, “Twenty seconds. Eighty percent of the blasters were manned in less than ten seconds.” Angel paused and said, “Once the crew is buckled into their combat chairs, they can tolerate much higher G loads.”

Arve looked at Grest, “We need to start using this on our ships.”

“I agree; Angel, may we take some of these shoes back with us?”

“I’ve actually had my quarter master produce enough for your ships. We’ll load them on your shuttles before you leave. One thing you should understand before you start this.”

Arve frowned, “What is that?”

“The two of you are going to have to learn to push your ships hard enough to get your crews ready. Have either of you flown your ship in this manner?”

Grest shook his head, “No, you’re the best pilot; however, now that I know it can be done, I’ll catch up.”

Arve smiled, “I look forward to it.”

Angel smiled, “Have either of you discovered anything of interest?”

Grest smiled, “I’ve learned how to manipulate the force fields so that they form a cone in front of the ship that is four times stronger than when it covers the entire ship.”

“Doesn’t that leave you open to fire from the sides?”

Grest shook his head, “No Angel, the sharp pointed cone extends to the end of the ship. The cone is open at the rear of the ship and that is the only way to attack the ship. I won’t use this force field unless I’m flying at full speed. I don’t think an enemy vessel could move in on my ship from the rear when it’s moving at top speed.”

Arve looked at Grest’s diagram, “Why did you make the nose of the cone a sharp point?”

“Remember that the dark energy field is a repulsive force. Anything that hits it is pushed away. It would require a beam about four times more powerful to penetrate that configuration than the standard force field covering the ship.”

Angel looked at the diagram, “Have you tested it?”

“I used a standard beam and took readings on the level of penetration using both configurations. The readings were consistent at every power used to hit it. I’ve copied the protocols into these memory chips. All you have to do is download them into the central computer and have a spare button on your panel assigned to the configuration.”

Angel nodded and turned to Arve, “What about you, Arve?”

“I’ve sorta violated Fleet protocols.”

Angel shook her head, “What did you do?”

Arve shrugged, “I’ve modified the blaster arrays. You know my expertise is weapons.” Angel and Grest nodded. “Well, it just seemed to me that even though the new blasters are incredibly strong, I felt like they could be improved.”

“I do hope you didn’t damage your ship.”

“No Angel, but you know how a beam is fired and the power has to be continuous to hit a target.”

Grest nodded, “But if you cut the power to the beam, it would dissipate; it has to be fired until it hits a target.”

“Do you remember that potato gun I built as a child?”

Grest was startled for a moment and then he and Angel started laughing, “You knocked out a hardened glass window six hundred yards from our house. Mom was not happy when the neighbor confronted her about her dangerous children.” Angel smiled at the memory.

Arve shrugged, “Anyway, I wondered if you could accumulate the beam and launch it like a potato.”

Angel’s eyebrows went up, “What do you mean?”

“I built an expansion chamber on the back of the new blaster’s barrel and inserted a resistance coil for the charge to flow through.”

Angel thought about the idea and said, “The beam collects in the chamber and bursts out in one condensed blast once the coil reaches maximum.”

“That’s exactly what happens. It looks like a giant potato leaving the blaster toward a target. It’s like firing those old things called bullets at targets. This allows the blaster to fire a series of blasts.”

Grest said, “How strong is the potato?”

“It’s the same power as the standard beam but you can lay down a spread of them with just one modified blaster. You know how hard it is to hit a ship that is using evasive maneuvers; this thing can surround it with a wave of blasts leaving it nowhere to go.”

Angel thought about it and said, “You’ve left out that the blaster can be used as a potent antimissile weapon.”

Arve smiled, “I thought that would be obvious.”

“How many have you converted?”

“I have twenty on the four sides of the ship. They can fire a wide barrage that would cover the entire ship against incoming enemy ships.”

Angel nodded, “You could also put three of them on the rear of the ship firing barrages and prevent a ship from attacking when you use Grest’s cone shaped force field. It would lay down a barrage a following ship couldn’t fire through or avoid without exposing itself to our normal blasters.”

Grest’s and Arve’s eyes went wide. Arve smiled, “Hey, you’re right.”

Angel shook her head, “Modifying a Union Warship without prior approval can get us thrown in the brig and stripped of our commands.” Angel slowly shook her head and sighed, “I guess it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission. We need to get to work and make these changes. I’ll have the shoes put in your shuttles.”

Arve nodded, “I brought enough expansion chambers and coils for each of you to use. I’ll send three more over for the rear of your ships when I get back to my ship.”

The three stood up and hugged each other. Angel smiled, “I’ve missed you. I hope we can see Mom and Dad before we get caught up with our assigned units.”

Arve smiled, “I miss the time when we were at home. I really miss Mom’s cooking.” Arve smiled, “I suspect Grest misses it the most; he looks like he’s losing weight.”

Angel laughed and Grest said, “Let’s get moving; we have a lot to do. And for your information, I’ve gained five pounds.”

Arve’s eyes went wide and he said, “Where, in your wrists?” Grest actually smiled, which he very seldom did.

B
rad entered Katherine’s office and she looked up from her console, “Dat knows.”

“He wasn’t supposed to find out until the new ships arrived!”

“His ship send a message to another Rover that he was going to come and visit you but changed his mind. I suspect his ship had to tell him to prevent him from coming here.”

Katherine shook her head, “I imagine he’s quite put out with me.” Brad tilted his head and nodded. “Is that probe still following him?”

“It is.”

Katherine nodded and stood up. She walked over to the window looking out at Fleet Academy and watched cadets marching on the parade ground. “Have you been able to determine if all the planetary force fields have been upgraded?”

“All of the main planets are; there are about a hundred in the periphery of the galaxy that haven’t come on line.”

Katherine stared out of her office window at the marching cadets moving around the Academy’s parade grounds and shook her head, “That company has one cadet that must have two left feet.”

Brad smiled, “What are you thinking about?”

“Do we have all their probes spotted?”

“We do.”

Katherine looked at Brad, “Recall all our probes from their galaxy immediately.”

“Why would you do that?”

“What do you think would happen if we simultaneously destroy all their probes?”

Brad thought for a moment and said, “They would know that we are able to see them.”

“Go on.”

“They would guess that their probes were being tracked by our probes.”

“Very good; what would they do?”

Brad looked at Kat, “They would flood their territory with ships looking for our probes.”

“Yes they would. I suspect they wouldn’t find them; but they could get lucky. I don’t want them to know we’ve been spying on them in their galaxy.”

“So you’re going to take out their probes?”

“Yes, I am.”

“When?”

“As soon as you give the all clear on our probes being withdrawn from their galaxy. I’ll have the new Jukeboxes jump in immediately after they’re removed.”

“How do we go about removing them?”

“How many of the second generation probes do we have?”

“More than they have here.”

“Send them out and replace the first generation probes currently tracking them. Program all of them to fire at the same moment.”

“We’ll have to select a time where all of their probes are in normal space; which means we’ll have to have every Union Ship remain in place.”

Katherine thought for a moment and smiled, “Send a message to all our ships that they will remain where they are and synchronize their chronometers to the clock here in my office. Tell them that is going to be done and no ship will be exempt.”

“That sounds hokey.”

“Yes it does; but hokey enough to prevent those probes from seeing what’s going on.” Kat sighed, “Get our probes out of their territories; we’ve mapped their space sufficiently. Get back to me when we’re ready to take them out.”

“Yes Sir.”

“I love it when you say that.”

Brad laughed and left the room. Katherine picked up her communicator and placed a call to Admiral Kuhn, “Kuhnny, I was wondering if you want to come and join Brad and I at the Academy Dance.”

“I’d love to, Admiral; when is it?”

I’m going to have all our ships synchronize their clocks in a few days and I want you to make sure your ships get that done. The dance is scheduled immediately after that task is done.”

“So they’re making their schedule fit yours?”

“Rank does have its privileges.”

“I’ll get my dress uniform cleaned up.”

“That would be a good idea.”

Katherine ended the call and wondered what the being intercepting her communications thought about the one she just made.

• • •

“What do you mean you don’t know what a dance is?”

“I’ve pulled recordings of everything we’ve seen and the only thing that appears is large groups of them moving around together to random sounds.”

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“I’ve cross checked everything we’ve recorded against that word and it appears it is some kind of weird ceremony or something.”

“And what’s this about synchronizing their clocks?”

The Seeker lifted his head, “They must have different times on their ships. You know how wake and sleep time can get skewed on a ship in space.”

“Maybe we should consider doing that.”

“It would certainly make it easier to know when to contact others.”

“Let me know if you see anything unusual.”

“You should come and watch what they call a dance. You don’t get more unusual than that.”

“Call me when it starts.” The Seeker leaned back.

• • •

Dizzie and six other Rovers moved out of formation and moved their ships away from the fleet. Fleet Control came on their speakers, “Enjoy your time at home, you deserve it.”

Dizzie smiled, “Thanks Control; I’m really looking forward to seeing my family.”

The probe recorded their ship-to-ship communications and sent them to the Seeker keeping watch on the Fleet of Rovers. It listened to the translation and watched the six Rovers all move slowly away from the Fleet’s main base of operations. All six jumped away in different directions. The Seeker decided they weren’t worth sending a probe to follow them. This species seemed to want to go and see their relatives. He’s seen it happen time and time again and try as he might, he didn’t understand why they did it. He leaned back and continued to listen to the feeds from twenty probes; nothing of interest was happening and it was mind numbing work to stay attentive. He looked at the other Seekers and saw they were just a bored as he was. Well, things would change shortly.

• • •

Dizzy appeared above a planet on the edge of the Milky Way and waited. Two hours later, a green light illuminated on her panel. The probe near her ship had not detected an Alien Probe following her. Dizzy said, “Stumbles, get us out of here.” The Rover skipped out on the barrier and once it was a thousand light years away, the new reactor and skip drive energized and the small vessel leaped across the universe. The new Fleets were coming home in a few days. She was charged with delivering the message. They were ordered to jump to the Union upon the receipt of the order on the new communication frequency. Kelli was ordered to have her ships ready to go. Dizzy smiled and hoped she would be able to use her attack group soon. They had worked hard getting ready.

Her ship arrived in the Colonies and she said, “Stumbles, get Admiral McCagg on the channel.”

Kelli appeared on Dizzy’s display, “You’re invited to a dance in two days. We’ll contact you with a new invitation when you’re supposed to arrive.”

Kelli smiled, “I’ll get my dancing shoes shined.” Dizzy smiled and jumped away. The Union’s communications couldn’t be tracked to a location but they could be heard all over the universe. Kelli called in her staff and sent instructions via code using the ship’s hull lights. At last, the sitting back and doing nothing was about to end. She looked forward to seeing Matt again.

• • •

Captain Stone looked at Captain Arvolo and felt uneasy. She saw his expression and said, “You could report me, Captain.”

“Sir, the crew would draw and quarter me if I did. What does this modification to the blasters actually do?”

“I’ll show you in a few more moments.” Angela picked up her communicator, “Are the drones ready?”

“Yes Sir, we launched them an hour ago and they’re holding station a hundred miles out.”

Angel activated the ship’s general frequency, “Alright, all of the new blasters will be fired continuously. I want the blasters on the side of the ship the drones are attacking to try and paint our ship inside a barrage. Lt. Dugan, does your team understand.”