Lens of Time: Book 05 - Star Rover-The Worst of Time (2 page)

“I’m working on it.”

“Let me know what you find.”

• • •

Dat sat back in his chair and sighed. He also recognized the last name on the list. Lt. Thomas Tranor. Dat knew his current standing with fleet was in part due to his ancestry. Having a famous Admiral as an ancestor could be a blessing but also a curse. He remembered his senior year at the Academy when a group of six cadets decided to take out their frustrations on him. Thomas Tranor led the group.

• • •

He sat at the bar and slowly drank his beer. The competition had ended three days earlier and he had won it for the fourth straight year. His roommate told him many of the cadets thought the completion was rigged for him to win. He sighed and shook his head. No one wanted to believe he won due to his skills. Suddenly, he heard, “Well look who’s here; the great Arvolo. Did the bartender slip you that beer for free?” Dat looked up in the mirror behind the bar and saw Thomas Tranor standing behind him with five other cadets. “We have to pay for ours but I’m sure it’s just handed to you.” Dat put his beer down and turned around. He looked Thomas in the eyes and determined he had been drinking. Thomas scowled, “What are you looking at?”

Dat’s expression didn’t change but he said in a neutral tone, “Nothing of importance.”

Thomas saw something in Dat’s expression that gave him pause. He couldn’t explain it but Thomas felt something wash through his consciousness. Arvolo wasn’t afraid. Dat was leaning back with both arms resting on the bar; Thomas sensed that Arvolo was more of a threat than he thought. He would have backed off but one of the cadets with him pushed him forward. They moved with him until they were three feet from Dat.

The majority of the patrons in the bar were either employed by or studying at the academy. They began standing up and moving away from the group at the bar.

• • •

“Are you going to do anything about this?”

The Captain looked at her date and said, “No. I’m curious about what’s going to happen.”

“For God’s sake why?”

“That cadet at the bar is Dat Arvolo. Fleet needs to see how he handles himself. Sit back; this should be interesting.”

• • •

Thomas was half a head taller than Dat and outweighed him by twenty five pounds. However, he saw that didn’t appear to bother the smaller cadet. Arvolo was about five feet ten inches tall and appeared to weigh about a hundred and ninety pounds. He was lean and strong. His brown hair was cut short and his brown eyes were steady. Thomas sneered, “There’s no one here to hand you a victory.”

Dat slowly shook his head and smiled, “You must not be allowed to get out and play very often. I’ll give you an opportunity to walk away and forget this but I’ll only offer it once.” Dat glanced at the six and took their measure. He had a thought that this was what his original ancestor must have done in his bar fights. The three in front were the troublemakers and they would make the first move. Two of the others would jump in at an opportune moment. The last one just shook his head. Dat determined he wasn’t going to participate. Dat watched the front three; which one was going to come in with Thomas? He saw the cadet on the left starting to shake just a tiny bit as adrenaline began entering his system. It would be him. He would have to be taken out first. Dat saw Thomas start twitching and knew it was about to start.

Thomas drew back an arm and Dat slipped off the left side of his bar stool and crouched as Thomas’ roundhouse passed over his head. Dat spun and delivered a kick to the stomach to the cadet to the left and stepped back and watched another haymaker from Thomas pass in front of his face. He slipped to the left and stepped over the cadet on the floor trying to get his breath and delivered a short punch to the head of the cadet that had been on the right of Thomas. He was charging in and Dat watched him hit the floor hard. He then moved right as a frustrated Thomas expected him to move left as he swung another blow that missed. Dat elbowed one of the opportunists in the side of his head as he came up behind and tried to pin Dat’s arms. He fell on top of the first cadet. He then stepped inside another vicious swing from Thomas and punched him under the jaw. Thomas went up on his toes and then dropped faster than a bad transmission. Suddenly Dat was hit on the side of his head by the second opportunist and he fell to the left and rolled away.

He shook his head and saw the two cadets still standing. The opportunist that had landed the blow said to the other, “Let’s take him.”

The second cadet looked at the opportunist and punched him between the eyes. He fell to the floor and the cadet rubbed his fist and looked at Dat, “He had to be stopped from hurting himself.”

Dat nodded and looked at the five moaning cadets on the floor. He rubbed the side of his head; there was going to be a bruise, “Tell them someone handed me another victory.”

The cadet smiled, “I watched the recordings; no one handed you anything. Now you need to get out of here; these guys are poor losers.”

Dat nodded and stumbled out of the Bar. Senior Captain Hull watched the fight and smiled. It appeared Arvolo was good at handling superior odds. She waited until the six cadets were standing at the bar with bags of ice on their injuries. She heard Thomas say, “That was pretty dumb.”

“We had numbers on our side.”

“Read your history; that’s when the Arvolos are at their best.”

Kat smiled and admitted she had to agree with the cadet.

• • •

“There has been a violation.”

The fifty beings surrounding a large round table in a dark room stirred. “Give us what you’ve seen.” The fifty had the recording sent directly to their minds. “How did the intruder escape?”

“We initially thought the intruder was little more than a piece of an asteroid. However, it extended some kind of energy field that extended more than ten light minutes from its location. The readings of that field indicate that it is like nothing in our knowledge stores. It must have a way to see us approaching. It disappeared immediately before we arrived.”

“I notice the ship was quite small.”

It is; it’s actually smaller than most of our heavy transports used on our planets. Even our escape pods are larger.”

“Where did it go?”

“That is information we find troubling; it did not leave a trace for us to follow.” The Fifty were surprised at that bit of information. “Our scientists did an examination of the fields that it extended and, though they didn’t know what they were, determined that the power necessary to power those fields that distance without losing energy is greater than what our medium warship uses.”

“Are you saying that tiny ship is more powerful than our warships?”

“Unless it used all of its available power on that screen, it is.” The Fifty were silent again as they thought about the small ship. “There’s another thing.”

“What is that?”

“When the ship disappeared, the ships that arrived were scanned by a powerful field. Twenty ships jumped to the location of that scan and found nothing. Immediately after our ships left, the galactic probes heard a transmission that seemed to fill all of known space. The probability is high that whatever scanned our ships sent that transmission.”

“And you couldn’t find it?”

“No, we could not. However, we raised the sensitivity of our scanners and found millions of transmissions embedded inside the background noise being made on that frequency. The power of the initial transmission was higher because it was made closer to us. Evidently, that ship is from an advanced civilization located a great distance from us.”

“Are you able to determine what direction those transmissions are coming from?”

“No.”

“Put all ships on Condition Blue. If one of those ships is seen again, I want it destroyed or captured. Do not allow it to escape again.”

“What about the Scout Ships?”

“They will remain where they are until we determine the magnitude of this threat. I’m leaning toward the belief that one of our scouts caused this ship to come here.”

“No ships like this one were seen in the star groups we’ve scouted.”

“Are we able to see everything in a star group?”

“No, not everything.”

“Then hold the scout fleet until we learn more.”

“They will hold their position.”

• • •

Gresha looked up at the rapidly disappearing sun and walked faster toward her family’s quarters. The ground was muddy and she found it slow going up the hill. She was still a mile from her building. She glanced across the field next to the community toward the setting sun and saw a Master’s Shuttle. Her fear almost froze her. She looked at the sun and knew it was going to be close. The shuttle must have just landed and she knew that many in the community had not seen it arrive. She only saw it because she was close to the peak of the hill and could see over the buildings at the front edge of the community. The Masters were here and once the sun went down, no one would be safe from their attention.

She considered dropping the bag of food but knew her family needed it desperately. Her fear drove her forward and she finally made it to the top of the hill, just as the sun disappeared below the horizon. She started running and glanced over her shoulder and saw the port on the Master’s shuttle was now open. Terror gripped her heart and she ran out of control down the slope toward the door a hundred yards in front of her. She began to think she would make it to safety when she bumped into a large body and screamed; she knew her life was over, “Where are you going so fast, pretty girl? Slow down, I’ll take you into my quarters…for a small favor.” Gresha struggled in the large male’s arms but couldn’t break free. “Come on, you’ll enjoy it. No one has ever complain…”

The large male stopped mid word and the expression on his face underwent a sudden transformation. It changed from a wicked smile to a look of shock and then paralysis. Gresha managed to push away from the male and saw the black six inch thick cord of a Master’s arm wrapped around the male’s throat and a long, sharp, pointed tongue of a Master sticking through his chest where his heart had been eaten. Gresha struggled out of the dead male’s arms and sprinted twenty yards beyond the two still locked in death’s embrace and pounded on the door. It opened, she was dragged forcibly inside, and the door slammed just before the Master’s black arm gripped her. She remained on the floor with her eyes closed and heard the Master’s squeal of laughter outside. Her father looked at her in anger shaking his head, “Don’t do this again! You know about darkness!”

“The farmer refused to accept payment until the very last moment. He wanted to see me killed.”

Her mother just shook in terror, “If he can’t have you, he won’t allow anyone else to possess you.”

Gresha looked at her mother with a disgusted expression, “I’d rather have the Master’s embrace.”

Her father heard screams further up the street and said, “Do this again and you may get your wish.”

• • •

Dat looked at the faces of the Rovers on his display and said, “I’ve sent you what information I was able to collect before I was forced to run. Have all of you examined it?”

“Why did you run?”

“Have you examined the power of the beams used by those ships in the past?”

“The current beams aren’t as strong.”

Dat stared at Benjamin Durok and said, “They aren’t as strong because they’re much wider.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you know if they’re able to focus those beams into a smaller diameter?”

Ben stared at Dat on the display and after a long pause shook his head, “No, I don’t.”

Dat stared at the Rovers and said, “One thing you are all going to have to get out of your minds is that we are invincible. If we are, no harm done; but if those beams can be tightened, they will overwhelm our force fields; we cannot allow this species to make that discovery. It would embolden them to start a search for us and that is the last thing we want. We are here to find out how many warships they have, what capabilities they possess and how they operate politically. You will avoid direct combat unless it’s absolutely required for self-defense. If you fire on one of those ships I will dismiss you from this mission! Is that clear?” All of them nodded.

Jill watched Dat and saw he was different. He was more…mature. He was also making sense.

Dat looked at Captain Anders, “Captain, I’m assigning six Rovers to you and I’ll take the other four. We are going to spread out above this galaxy and run through it, dropping microprobes wherever we see a large energy source or intelligent civilization. We will divide the galaxy into eleven equal quadrants and go through them at high speed behind our dark matter force fields. I wasn’t followed when I skipped out so I’m of the belief that those ships are unable to track us in the barrier. Captain, do not stop for any reason. Take your group through and drop the scanners.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Once we emerge on the other side, skip back to this location. The Microprobes will start sending their data to fleet and the main computers will start analyzing what we uncover and feed it back to us. Are there any questions?” No one spoke and Dat said, “I also want your ship’s scanners set to find any species that are similar physically to our own. You have your assignments. We’ll start our run in twenty minutes. I would suggest you find a path through the galaxy with the most type G stars on it.” Dat ended the connections and looked at his panel, “Loree, have you located a good route?”

“I’ve plotted all the G stars and I’ll drop a scanner programmed to jump to those not on our route. If they don’t find intelligent life they’ll jump to another star. Should I suggest this to the others?”

“No, they are going to have to learn to operate alone. I need to see how good they are. Fleet tells me they are holding off taking any action until we complete our investigation. I must see which Rovers in our group can think on their feet. This will tell me something about that issue.” Dat paused, “Loree, can you scan without being seen?”

“I’m going to extend a half inch antenna out of our field and record passively. I’ll go through what we collect and remove everything of no value.”