Lens of Time (14 page)

“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“It could be your new position is due to them fearing you. You’d lose that if your ships happened to be on the front lines and were damaged or destroyed.”

The large creature stared at his aide and then said, “This is why you’re going with me. I’ll make sure my ships are not in the first attack.” The creature left for his transport and the aide continued packing his belongings. He didn’t mention that his cousin was building advanced ships out on the periphery of the nation. He really appreciated the copy of the construction diagrams of the new ships. His master might be agitated if he knew his nephew had four times as many ships in service. But the odds were good he wouldn’t learn that tidbit until it was too late.

The aide wasn’t really worried even if the ships were discovered. No one in the royal family had ever discovered the replacement of the egg in the hatchery. No one knew the new ruler was not a real member of that family. But his nephew knew who his real family was. That’s all that really counted. And he couldn’t be traced back to him.

The aide picked up a four hundred pound light fixture and moved it into a crate. He often wondered what happened to the egg that was replaced. The one who did it was not seen leaving with an egg in her possession. Eggs were sacred. What could have happened to it? He pushed the thought out of his mind. He didn’t want to even consider what the possibilities were. His mind refused to connect the female’s suicide to the replacement.

• • •

“The Majors are starting to gather ships to attack us.”

RV looked at the Hive Controller and said, “Do you have an idea of how many are coming?”

“It appears they have settled on sending twenty ships per planet. That means forty million will be used against us. I really expected only half that number.”

“What is your ship count?”

“We’re at three million and the Horde has another four million.”

“We have ten million. Have you decided on an attack plan?”

“You will make that plan. We agree that you know these ships better than us and you certainly know your ship’s capabilities and we don’t.”

“Then here’s what we’ll do. You will form the same three lines of a million ships each and wait for them to attack. Once they move on you, the remainder of your ships will hit their formations from the bottom and my ships will come in over the top. I’m not greatly concerned about that number. We have enough small craft to easily outnumber them. When you see us come in, launch your small craft and follow them in to the front ranks of the majors.”

“Will any of your ships be in the ranks of the three lines?”

“Yes; we will be in the middle and I would suggest you and the Horde have one line either above or below us.”

The Hive Controller paused and then said, “The beginning of the end.”

RV nodded, “We’ve been very fortunate they’ve given us this much time.”

“That’s changing.”

“I know but let’s worry about today. We’ll take care of tomorrow when it arrives.”

RV’s display went dark and he thought about his conversation with the White Civilization’s leader the week before.

“The Majors are going to combine and send twenty ships per planet against you. Our sector is discussing sending a fleet to take advantage of any Majors that are weakened by the conflict.”

“Are you taking part?”

“No.”

“Did that decision cause you problems?”

“Actually, they told us to stay out of it.”

“Why is that?”

“We told them that we are fighting a rather vicious disease on our planets and that it had a rather long incubation cycle. We have no way of knowing whose been exposed. I pointed out that our fleet leaders would have to meet with their personnel to plan this attack and we didn’t want to be held responsible if the plague was passed on to their worlds.”

“I guess they dropped the idea faster than a bad habit.”

“You are correct.”

“We’ll let you know what happens.”

“You know if you’re successful, they’ll come again with their entire inventory.”

“We know.”

The being stared at RV and said, “I’ll let you know if I find out anything more.”

“Thank you.”

• • •

Cyanna looked at RV, “Do you think they are going to help us in the end?”

RV shrugged.

“You have no idea?”

“Put yourself in their place. If they don’t agree to attack us when their sector combines, they will be the first stop of that combined fleet. What would you do?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“And neither do they. They will help delay the Majors from starting their search for us after the battle. I’m sure the other sector will fall on them afterwards. That’s enough for me. The best friend we have is time.”

“What’s our worst enemy?”

RV stared at her and then said, “The end of time.”

Cyanna turned back to her console and decided she was going to make sure whatever time remained she was going to make good use of it.

• • •

Mikal and Loree were pleading with RV, “You’ve got to let us take part in this fight. Our fleets are ready.”

RV sighed, “You are not being excluded from this because of your battle experience. You’re not taking part because we don’t want our enemy to see your ships in action and come up with a plan to counter them. This battle is not the one that counts.”

“There is no counter against our ships.”

RV said, “Your ships couldn’t get close to my fleet.” Mikal and Loree became silent. RV said, “You don’t believe me. Let me tell you what I would do if I had to face your fleets. I’d have every ship in the first ten ranks have their beams set to automatically fire all of their beams as soon as a flicker appeared on one of my ship’s scanners. If that happened and more than twenty million ships all fired their beams around the edge of their formations, what do you think would happen to the incoming attack craft?”

Mikal looked at Loree and sighed, “Our incoming ships would be vaporized before they arrived.”

RV nodded. “But that’s not the reason I’m holding you out. There are ways around that tactic.”

Mikal’s eyes narrowed and he said, “There are?”

“Yes, there are. My concern is that once they learn you can penetrate their force fields, they’ll just open fire on the ships you’ve penetrated and destroy you that way. There is no real way to stop that. Your ships have to have the element of surprise to survive and I’m not willing to give that up in this initial battle.”

Loree said, “How would you defeat that first tactic?”

“I would jump your fleets two light minutes from the enemy’s formations and launch half of the attack craft. Those craft would jump one minute forward, turn on their scanners, and accelerate to 99% light speed. I would use the scanner to determine when the ships are less than a light second out and then slow down to hit their fleets. The only thing they’ll see on their scanners is that they are being scanned and our ships facing them will certainly be scanning them as they approach. Your ship’s scanners will not be seen because our scans will overwhelm their sensors. However, they will see if anything physical shows up in their scans.”

Mikal thought about it, “What about the other half of our ships?”

“As soon as the first half are launched, the fleets will jump to a light minute above the enemy’s formations and launch the other half. If you time this right, the electronic signature of the first launch is still a minute from the enemy. Your ships should arrive at the same time and hit them before they see your first or second launch.”

Loree said, “Then what do we do with the main battleships in our fleets?”

“I would have a full complement of Needles and standard attack craft following my ships into the jump. Once the new attack craft are launched, I would come in right behind them with both my fleets and all of the small ships.”

Mikal said, “Why didn’t you suggest this before now. We’ll have to retrain all of our ships.” RV just smiled.

Loree laughed. Mikal looked at her and she said, “This keeps us out of the fight and keeps us busy so we won’t be sulking about not taking part.”

RV chuckled, “Boy, you are good!”

Mikal sighed, “I like this more. This way our main battleships will do their part in the fight. They’ll be more than just ship carriers.”

RV nodded, “And we’re going to need every one of them.”

• • •

Mikal took the shuttle away from the Havana and said, “That man is brilliant.”

“He’s certainly one of a kind. I’m glad he’s in charge.”

“Can we get our ships up to speed fast enough?”

“We have plenty of time. After this battle, the Majors will have a tough time organizing the next attack.” Loree paused, “I wonder where we’re going to get the standard attack craft and Needles?”

Mikal snorted, “Watch this.” Mikal pressed his communicator, “Boden, we’ve determined that we need a standard compliment of Needles and attack craft for the ships is our fleets.”

“They’re waiting for you to take delivery as soon as you’re ready.”

Mikal looked at Loree and said, “Did I tell you he was brilliant?”

“Yes, you did. But we’re not going to wait for him to tell us the obvious again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Standard Needles and attack craft launch ten times faster than our new ships. Why would we launch half and have the standard ships follow us? We’ll carry the standard ships on board and have all of the new ships follow us and launch from two minutes out. Then your fleet will follow them into the front ranks and my fleet will hit them from above. We’ll launch our standard small craft once we’re in their ranks.”

“It’s obvious now but he’ll also change where we hit them if we plan it that way.”

“How so?”

“Why would we hit them from the front? You’ll hit them from above and I’ll hit them from below. Our main battle lines will hit them as they advance. We’ll only be in their line of fire if we attempt to come at them from the front.”

Loree smiled, “Let Riebbe and Beth know they are now in command of their wings and have them write up a report of how they’re going to synchronize their arrival. I’ll write up our plans and see if the old man has any suggestions.

• • •

A week later Loree read to the other three Admirals, He says, ‘I couldn’t have planned it better.”

Everyone smiled and high fived each other; Riebbe said, “We’ll make a doorway into their fleets. You two give em hell.”

• • •

RV looked at George and said, “I’ve been thinking about relativity.”

“What about it?”

“According to Einstein, as a physical object approaches the absolute speed of light, it expands. Once it hits light speed it becomes the size of the universe. Is there any truth in that?”

“That would only happen after fifty point nines from the speed of light.”

“So an object traveling at ninety nine point five percent of light speed would be larger?”

“Yes, but nowhere near the size of the universe.”

“How much larger would it be?”

“That’s a difficult question. If I had to guess, I’d say it would be three times larger. However, if it lost speed it would return to its normal size quickly. What are you thinking about?”

“I was wondering what would happen if one of our big penetrators was fired at that speed and returned its full mass less than a mile from its target.”

“The mass of the penetrator wouldn’t change.”

“I know that; but would the resulting explosion cover a larger area?”

“What’s normally the fastest we fire a penetrator?”

“Ninety percent light speed.” George began entering data into his console and he fell back from the display. RV said, “What?”

“This is highly speculative, but if you can return the mass to the penetrator before impact, it should have more than ten times the energy of the slower one.”

“What does that mean in terms of hitting a force field?”

“I don’t know if a force field could be created that would handle that amount of energy. However, why would you need this? Your ultrabeams can penetrate any force field we’ve encountered so far.”

“But you have to be relatively close to an enemy ship to use them. The range on the penetrator would be significantly longer.”

“That’s true.”

“And one other thing, George.”

“What is that?”

“Our small ships can carry those penetrators.”

George stared at RV and then smiled.

• • •

RV looked at the small point of light in the view port of the small white attack craft. He glanced down at the scanner display and saw the brightly shining mile long main battleship. Cyanna said, “How is the penetrator going to hit from this far out?”

“It’s only fifty thousand miles.”

“Yes, but it’s a moving target.”

“The penetrators have a scanner beam that’s emitted from its nose. Once it locks on that sensor return, it will hit it.”

“I don’t know if it will do much damage. Boden gutted that ship and put fifteen reactors inside that are only powering the force field.”

“Designate the target.”

Cyanna touched the display and the ship had a green circle around it.”

“Verify the penetrator has it.”

“The tracking light is green.”

RV pressed the red button and the penetrator looked like a white line leading directly toward the distant target. The explosion happened in less than a second and space was illuminated in a brilliant flash. RV powered the thrusters and moved toward the site of the explosion.

Cyanna looked at the remains of the former giant ship and fell back in her chair. The only thing remaining was the tip of the ship’s nose and the thrusters at the rear. Everything between was gone. “It looks like the main body of the ship was just cut cleanly away.” The nose and tail section were still moving through space as if there were an invisible ship between them.

“Now that’s interesting. It must have hit and taken everything away faster than the two ends could be affected.”

Cyanna slowly shook her head, “I hope you’re not going to share this technology. No one would ever be safe again.”

RV nodded and continued to stare at the weird pieces of the ship moving through space as if nothing had happened. He looked at Cyanna and said, “Fifteen reactors?” She nodded and he looked back at the two pieces of the ship as it moved away. “I wonder where the rest of the ship went.”