Lens of Time (28 page)

The King said, “They were going to use those ships against us. I suppose that plague was also a fabrication?”

“It was.”

The Dark Creature said, “Well, I have more than a hundred thousand advanced ships I’ve been hiding as well. I’m sure all of us have been trying to hide any advances to have an edge over all the others. Don’t you get it, you’re thinking in old forms. We now have those ships to help defend us. They will be a huge asset; how can you be upset about this? We’ve got to start looking at each other as allies. This is great news.”

The First said, “We will fight for all of us in the coming confrontation.”

The New Emperor said, “So what would you have us do now?”

RV paused and said, “You have to find out how powerful those Red Sector ships are. You need to go and get their attention and provoke an attack.”

“It might speed them arriving here.”

“Did our attacking you in your territories speed you up going after us?”

“Uhhhh, no it didn’t. It actually slowed us down. Who would you send?”

RV waited and finally the First said, “We’ll make the trip.”

RV smiled, “That would be good.”

The Dark Creature said, “What else do we need to do?”

“I would recommend you made a determination of how many ships they might be sending against you.”

“How would I do that?”

RV looked at Chris and Jillian on his display and saw them nod. “Actually, I’ll send some of my ships to scout them. I’ll get back to you after it’s done. I might also suggest the White Civilization drop off a few sensor buoys when they go to pick a fight. Do any of you have any recordings of their last invasion to compare to what you’re up against now?”

RV paused as they discussed what they knew and then he said, “I think you should understand that we don’t really trust your word on what you’ve agreed to do. It’s easy to agree to anything when you’ve got a laser pointed at your head. Your aggressive behaviors have been instilled in you for far too long to just walk away from them.”

The Dark Creature said, “Then you will be the poorer for your lack of belief. Live forever; we have a new life to move into.” RV had to admit he was impressed by the response.

• • •

RV looked at the Command Team on his display and said, “Do you believe them?”

George shrugged, “It doesn’t matter if I do. They can handle their own problems now. We can go home and build against the day we’ll have to take them on.”

Dolly said, “So wash your hands and if they fail and all the Minors are killed, you can feel good because you offered some suggestions.”

“Darn it, Dolly. This is not our fight and the Minors that are our allies are now safe because of our efforts. This is not our problem.”

“That might be true, except for the fact that the Red Ships are coming because of our actions. Have you forgotten that?”

“No, I haven’t. We blew up those suns because of the Majors attacking us. It was done because of their behavior, not ours. The responsibility lays with them not us. We did it attempting to survive. But for their aggression, it wouldn’t have happened. They are getting what they deserve.”

Dolly wanted to scream at him but knew he was right. She sat back in her chair and tried to think of another argument. Nothing came to mind.

George saw her struggling and said, “Does anyone else have anything to add?”

“Yes.”

“What is it, RV?”

“I’ve had the fifty blasts we set off to destroy the Major’s Fleets that were chasing us examined and I’ve been given some interesting information.”

Everyone stared at RV on their displays and George said, “And?”

“More than sixty civilizations are going to die as a result of those blasts.”

“I thought we examined the blast radius of those stars?”

“We did, but we didn’t consider the effect it would have on other unstable stars. The solar flares and shock waves from the initial explosions are going to incinerate those civilizations and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Are those civilizations also the Major’s responsibility?” George stared at RV. “Or is it our fault because we didn’t take the time to really see what the end result was going to be.” RV paused, “If they are our responsibility, we can’t leave the blame of the coming Red Ships totally at the feet of the Majors. We did it because of them but we took no responsibility of seeing what would happen as a result of our decision. We didn’t even ask our allies if the explosions might have an adverse effect; then we would have found out about the Red Sector and we might not have taken that path. We are not totally innocent in this.”

George sighed, “So what are you suggesting?”

“We go and scout the Red Sector for them and see what they’re up against. We still don’t know enough to make a good decision.”

George looked at Chris and Jillian, “Will you go out and take a look at what’s going on?”

“We’ll take the Jukebox and the Ninja. We’ll collect what information we can and get it back to you.”

George looked at Dolly who was nodding and said, “Then get on the way and keep me posted. We’ll meet again when you return.”

Kenny and Gibbs said, “What do you want us to do?”

“Go to our new galaxy and give your sailors some time to settle into their new homes. Just make sure you keep your fleets at a ready level. We just don’t know how we’ll be operating.”

The two admirals nodded and disappeared from the display. George said, “What are you going to do, RV?”

“We’re going home as well to see Leigh Ann. We’ll stay in touch with the activities taking place in M-87 as well as the Jukebox and Ninja.”

“Keep Dolly and I informed as well.”

“You know I will.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

T
he first Captain sat in his chair and looked at the display with twenty ships formed around his vessel. “We will be jumping into the Red Sector momentarily. We will not be taking any small craft with us. That is a weapon we want to hold back until their invasion begins. What I want you to do is jump away as soon as their ships arrive and drop as many sensor buoys as possible as you run. You have a reading on their civilized planets, so make your jumps through them so we can get as much information as possible from the buoys. If a ship gets close, fire on it and see how our beams match up to theirs. When they get too close, jump toward the core and attempt to escape. Any questions?”

The Captain was greeted with silence and said, “Jump in one minute from now!”

The Captain thought about how these twenty ships were chosen by lot. He guessed that luck was just not on their side. Oh well, now was as good as any time to fight his new ship. He watched the countdown and then saw his pilot push the jump button. The twenty ships appeared in normal space near a civilized planet and the immediate frequencies being activated around them let them know they had been spotted. The Captain waited and said, “Steady. Wait until they arrive.” The Captain was surprised by how long it was taking the Red Ships to arrive.

Suddenly thousands of Red Ships broke into normal space and the chase was on. The twenty white ships jumped in twenty different directions and the thousands of Red Ships gave chase. “Did you drop a buoy?”

“I did, Captain.”

The white ship broke into another civilized system and dropped another buoy just as it jumped away. The Red Ships were right behind the fleeing ship but were not getting any closer. The Captain watched his scanner and said, “Make six fast jumps and release buoys as quickly as possible.” The white ship continued to run and the Red Ships were not gaining. The Captain looked at his sensor officer, “What do you make of this?”

“I’m of the impression that they are not accustomed to chasing another ship. They don’t appear to be able to read the jumps and give chase fast enough.”

The Captain thought about it and said, “I guess that makes sense. When no one has ever trespassed in your space, it might be a new experience to chase a ship. How many are still behind us giving chase?”

“I show ten ships.”

“Ummmm, this time wait for their arrival and fire our beams on the first ship to appear. Make sure we stay weightless on our arrival.”

The white ship broke into normal space and waited. Ten seconds later the ships began emerging into normal space and twenty beams were fired at the first Red Ship to appear in normal space. The ship blew up in a massive explosion. The Captain hit the thrusters just before one of the Red Ships fired a massive beam at his ship. The beam was more than a mile wide and pegged the power meter on the scanner. “Get us out of here!”

The white ship jumped away an instant before eight more beams ripped through the space it had just occupied. “Did you get a recording of that?”

“I did, Captain.”

“Get out of this sector and see if you can get us back safely. We need to get this information back.”

The white ship did a hundred more jumps before it managed to escape the chasing ships. Only three ships of the twenty that went in escaped. All of them managed to launch hundreds of sensor buoys.

• • •

“Chris, it looks like the Red Sector has a war going on along its border away from the two sectors.”

“I wonder how long this has been going on.”

“Let’s jump away and start seeing where all this started. That war may be what’s kept the Red Sector at bay for so long.”

“Any word from the Ninja?”

“Phil is making a wide scan of one quarter of the sector targeting the largest ship frequencies for examination. I suspect he’ll have a sample of what we can expect in the way of numbers shortly.”

“Standby, I’m jumping out a couple of million light years.”

“I have the fields on.”

“Jump is initiated.”

The Jukebox disappeared from normal space.

• • •

“Phil, this is a perfect mechanism to spy on someone.”

“I know. All we do is capture the light that left their galaxy and focus it into an image. There are no beams or scans done where they could be detected; this is pretty much undetectable.”

“How close can we go before we’re detected?”

“We really don’t know but anything outside a light year would be safe for the Ninja.”

“How about the Jukebox?”

Phil shrugged, “Now that’s a different story. The Ninja is mainly built with hull materials that absorb any type of scan. We won’t energize our force field unless the computer detects another ship. We’re less than a quarter the size of the Jukebox and we only have one reactor that is laid horizontally in the ship. The shielding around it prevents its detection. Why do you ask?”

“The probes around M-87 just detected their activity. We may not see anything of interest unless we’re willing to move to within a light week.”

Phil slowly shook his head, “I’m not willing to do that. I know we could detect the Ninja if it came that close to our galaxy. I have to assume they could do it as well.”

“Yes, but if their scanners work at light speed, we’ll be gone before the scans arrive in their territory.”

Phil said, “Anne, we use faster than light scanners. You know that.”

“Well, yes.”

“All it takes is a scanner in normal space and the communication device in Sierra Space sending the information it receives at faster than light speeds to the receiver. The Red sector has those kinds of scanners.”

“How do you know that?”

“We’re assuming that our causing those fifty stars to go nova is what caused the Red Sector to start mobilizing against the two sectors. Are you with me?”

“I am.”

“We if that is the case, the light from the closest nova to the Red Sector won’t arrive there for another three hundred years at light speed.”

Anne took a quick breath and blew it out, “So they have sensors that can respond instantly to them if anything approaches their territory.”

“Yes; at least that’s how we see it.”

“What if you approach the receiver that’s in normal space at close to light speed? Would it see you coming in time to send a warning?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Well the sensor must be at the edge of the galaxy with a free view of open space, right?”

“Yeah, ok.”

“So what if we pop into normal space four light weeks out and accelerate close to light speed and collect the light in front of us and jump away when we’re a week from the galaxy’s edge. We would arrive directly behind our first image.”

“And we have to assume there is some delay while that image is sent to whoever is manning their sensor facilities.”

“We should have time to escape if there is a delay of any kind.”

Phil thought about the idea and then he said, “OH MY GOD!”

Anne looked at him sharply, “What?”

Phil hit his communication panel and RV appeared on his display, “Hello, Captain Phillips.”

“Sir, I was just talking with Lt. Hardy about how to do a quick scan of the Red Sector and we started talking about how they must have sensor buoys that transmit through Sierra Space.”

RV thought a moment and Phil continued, “If the stars going nova is what caused them to mobilize, they must have a way of scanning the Major’s sector to see those explosions in real time.”

RV nodded, “That makes sense. The light won’t arrive at their sector for hundreds of years.”

“Well if they could see the explosion, could they not also see our ships?”

RV’s expression immediately changed, “When did they first start mobilizing?”

“The probes detected it a week after the explosions. We need to know how far into the sector those probes can see.”

RV thought a moment and said, “I want you to try this first. Track the light from one of the main civilizations in the galaxy a month earlier.”

“I hope I’m wrong, Sir.”

“So do I; get on this as quickly as possible.”

• • •

Anne said, “What’s going on?”

“What if those explosions aren’t what started the Red Sector mobilizing?”

Anne thought a moment and said, “You think it was our ships that caused it.”

“If they can see the novae, they can see our ships.”

“What are you going to do?”

“We are going to jump to the point in time a month before the stars were exploded and make four jumps toward M-87 looking at the light from one of their central systems. We are going to make a high speed run collecting that light up to three weeks ago and then jump away.”