Star Rover-Chosen to Die (Lens of Time) (24 page)

• • •

The inhabitants arrived in the forest and went to all fours and began smelling around the forest’s edge. They gathered at the place he had been standing but Leon’s residue had faded when he ran away.

“What was that?”

A large male shook his head as he smelled the ground, “I don’t know. I’ve never smelled anything like that.” The male stood, “Have any of you ever smelled this before?” Everyone moved their noses up and down. The male said, “Contact the temple and report this. They should bring a team in to see if they can find the animal that smells like this.”

A female said, “Don’t you think you’re overreacting? Whatever is was, it’s gone now.”

“Unless one of you can tell me what it was, I will not jeopardize the safety of my family.” The male waited and his statement was greeted with silence. The male said, “Contact the Temple.”

The young priest pulled a small item out of his pack and began speaking.

• • •

Leon saw the large crowd around the place he had been standing and then he heard a series of noises coming from the direction of the giant temple. He looked up and saw numerous small aircraft flying over the forest. Damnation, they were coming in to search for him.

He had walked through the forest all along the edge and moved through the soil the first night he arrived. They were going to determine that a strange creature had been present. That might lead to a real danger. He activated his belt and manipulated the gravity unit. He rose high into the trees and saw the aircraft had landed and hundreds of armed warriors were pouring out and forming up. He remembered that the original scan of the temple only revealed a thousand beings inside it and there were more than that starting the search. The scan had not been effective. He remained floating in the tops of the trees and held on to the top of one of the trees to avoid being pushed by the freshening breeze.

He watched the searchers move through the forest holding a device in one hand and a blaster in the other. Oh Crap! The searchers began calling out to each other as they scanned the decaying carcasses of the eight legged animals. They determined that he had taken a bite from hundreds of them. He looked out and saw thousands of small specks were moving toward the forest from the horizon. He looked around and saw they were moving in at high speed from all directions. He saw the first blasters being fired to burn the trees and he pressed the emergency recall button as he changed the gravity unit to a full push. He shot off the planet at an incredible speed.

• • •

Mitch receive the recall signal and moved quickly away from the ship building planet. He went to full speed and arrived outside the ranks of warships in less than an hour. He hit the jump button and skipped away.

• • •

Leon slowed his pace as he moved out into space. He was traveling at close to four hundred thousand miles an hour and there was nothing near for him to use to slow him down. He sighed and hoped Mitch was still alive. Despite initial appearances, this civilization was highly advanced. He continued to fly away from the planet and wondered if he was going to die.

“Where are you, Leon?”

Thank the Gods of Prey, “I’m moving directly away from the planet on a line from the forest where you dropped me.”

“I can’t see you inside your field.”

“It’s too dangerous to lower it; that fortress on the planet will see me if I do.”

“Fortress?”

“I’ll explain later. However, according to my sensor, I’m moving at four hundred thousand miles an hour and I’m a little over five hundred thousand miles from the planet.”

“I’m moving the ship to that line and accelerating to match your speed. The computer has an approximation of your location and we should be close to you.”

Mitch, can you open a small portion of the field?”

“Yes.”

“I believe all the scanners in this system are on the planet. If you can get between me and the planet and open a small section away from their scanners, I should be able to use my gravity unit to pull me inside your field.”

“Leon, we would have to be close for you to see us; you know how small this ship is.”

“Depend on the computer to put you in a good place.”

Leon waited a few minutes and heard, “I have the field open away from the planet; do you see me?”

Leon looked around, “No, I don’t.”

“Alright, I’m going to move side to side and see if we’re possibly not in your line of sight. Starting movement now.”

Leon stared back at the planet and saw nothing, “I still don’t see you.”

Mitch thought for a moment and said, “Leon, can you widen the gravity beam.”

“Yes, there is a control to widen it.”

“Well make it as wide as possible and see if you move in a different direction.”

Leon widened the beam and felt a small pull to the left, “You’re left of my current location.” Leon felt the pull move from the left to directly in front of him, “Hold that position; you’re directly between me and the planet.” Leon shrunk the beam’s width and felt his speed pick up. He backed off on the pull and watched space in front of him. In ten minutes he saw the Stealth Rover in the distance. “I see you. I’m moving toward you.” Thirty minutes later Leon entered the field and went through the small port. “Get us out of here, Mitch.”

The SR skipped into the barrier and Leon began telling Mitch what he had uncovered. Mitch turned on the display and showed Leon what he had recorded. Leon’s head almost fell off his body in shock.

• • •

“What do you mean you didn’t find anything?”

“Exalted, we burned the forest to the ground and went over every inch of it. Whatever caused the odor was not present.”

“Then where did it go?”

“I have no idea.”

“But you confirmed it was a carnivore?”

“Yes, it had taken small bites from the dead cirabow.”

“How small?”

“The creature couldn’t have been very large; the bites were small.”

“Tell me how a carnivore was able to live on the Holy Planet?”

“There is no possible way for one to exist on the planet’s Holy Ground, Exalted.”

“But one was there.”

The Warrior was frustrated and the Exalted saw it, “It defies all odds that a carnivore could survive on the planet. There are only two possibilities.”

“What are they?”

“This may be a creature that has an extremely long growth cycle and has just recently hatched.”

“What’s the other?”

“It came from off the planet.”

The Exalted stared at the Warrior Leader and said, “I want the entire planet scanned for another one of that creature. If the first possibility is what happened, others should be hatching now. However, we know of no creature like the one you’re describing.”

“Then it came from somewhere else?”

The Exalted stared at the Warrior, “Were the bites the size those Yellow Carnivores would make?”

“No, their jaws couldn’t make a bite that small. It also begs the question of how one of them could get here without being detected. They don’t possess the means of avoiding our scanners.”

“We’re missing something.”

“The only way this could happen if the creature came from off the planet is for it to have a way to avoid being seen by our scanners.”

“Have we encountered any civilization that possesses that technology?”

“No, Exalted, we have not.”

“That doesn’t help answering this.”

“Is it possible that we are being watched just as we are watching the Yellow Carnivores? A civilization that we have no knowledge of?”

“If that were the case, don’t you think we would have smelled them before now?”

“I was just throwing out possibilities; I just don’t have an answer for what happened here.”

The Exalted’s nose moved up and down and he finally said, “Perhaps the first possibility is the most likely. We’re all reluctant to accept a carnivore could still be on the planet but nature has a way of pulling tricks. Make the scans and see if another creature shows up.”

The Warrior raised his nose and lowered his head. He turned and went to organize the search. Something just didn’t feel right; he couldn’t put his nose on what it was.

• • •

The small SR hung in space waiting to see if it was followed. Leon looked at Mitch, “You need to contact Admiral Arvolo now.”

“Why?”

“The Matador Scouts are in danger if they’re sent out to the planets of that species. You know he’s been receiving the transmissions from the trackers.”

Mitch pulled up a frequency and pressed the communicator. Dat appeared on the monitor and said, “Lt. Mitchell, it’s good to see you.”

Leon leaned in and said, “Admiral, it’s imperative that you not send any Scouts to the civilization we’ve just visited.”

Dat’s face turned serious, “Why not?”

“They can detect the Matadors. They’ll be in danger of discovery as soon as they arrive on the planet.”

“I’ve dispatched more than a hundred Stealth Rovers.”

“You have to recall them!”

Dat looked away and said, “I’ll get back to you.”

Mitch looked at Leon, “I hope we’re not too late.”

Ten minutes later Dat reappeared, “We’ve stopped all but three of them.”

“Send a message to the Scouts that they have to remain inside their personal fields. If they come out, the locals will smell them and launch an attack.”

“Standby.” They waited and Dat reappeared on the display, “The three have been notified and they’re changing their locations. One of them has barely escaped and managed to be picked up by his ship.”

“The other two should be picked up and all the Stealth Rovers recalled. I think we have enough information for you to decide what to do next.”

Dat nodded and disappeared from the monitor. Leon looked at Mitch, “How much longer do we need to wait?”

“I think we’re safe; if they had tracked us they would have shown up with several thousand ships. I’m make ten random skips away from the Yellow Galaxy and then skip back to the SR’s holding station.” The small ship disappeared.

• • •

Dat looked at the downloads Mitch sent to his computer and shook his head. Loree said, “Dat, these creatures make the Servant’s forces look like a small squadron.”

Dat sighed and nodded, “Send this information to Admiral Hull and ask for a meeting of all the Senior Officers.”

There was a slight pause and Loree said, “Done.”

Gresha looked at Dat from his display, “Are you going to send this information to the Blue Ship Leaders.”

“They call themselves Pumgas. I really don’t see how I can avoid doing that; do you think I shouldn’t?”

“I have no idea on whether or not that would be the right thing to do. What do you think they’ll do once they receive it?”

“My best guess is to either launch an immediate attack against the planets we’ve found or enlist our aid in taking them on.” Gresha shook her head and Dat said, “What?”

“Dat, we’ve not seen anywhere near the scope of that civilization and what little we’ve seen is horrifying. Do you think they know the location of the Milky Way?”

Dat paused and slowly shook his head, “We did detect one of their probes that followed one of the Blue Ship Squadrons to our galaxy. However, our probes did not detect a transmission from it before we destroyed it.”

“What about the other incursions they made to our galaxy?”

“Our probes did not detect one of those probes before. They might not know about us.”

“I would suggest you send the information and remove all traces of our presence from the Pumgas’ Galaxy. We can decide later if we want to return.”

Dat nodded and activated the frequency of the Pumgas Master, “I have collected some information on the civilization that is sending the probes.”

The Third looked at the monitor on his section of the large table and said, “Send what you have to me.”

Dat hesitated but pressed the send button on his console. “I’ve included the location of all the planets we were able to uncover but suspect we are nowhere close to their total planets.”

“You’ve been helpful and we thank you. You may now remove your probes and ships from our galaxy.”

Dat was surprised at the statement, “Are you sure you want us to leave before you look at the data?”

“We are; we do not accept foreign forces in our domain. This was a rare exception.”

“I will order my ships and probes out.” Dat’s display went dark.

• • •

The Third looked at the data and saw the fear of the Masters absorbing the information. The numbers of warships were in the millions and that was just at one planet. The Second looked at the Lead Master and said, “This is unsettling.”

“They are very much like the Servants. However, they appear to know they are no match for our Battleships.”

The Third leaned back, “But they still plan to attack?”

“We will not wait for them to come to our galaxy. I want the locations of those planets with the fleets of warships sent to our Fleet Commanders and we will launch a preemptive strike against them. Those ships do not have crews on them at the moment and we should be able to reduce their numbers considerably if we act immediately. We’ll jump our fleets from their current location; we should have complete surprise. Once the ships are destroyed, we’ll send out our scouts and find the other planets of this intruder. Our fleets will jump back here to await their reports.” The Third looked at an image of one planet with two million warships parked in ranks around it. What if this was only a small number of their total planets? He wanted to say something but knew the Leader would not welcome his view. The Master’s color showed he was determined. He did say, “We should bombard the planets to eliminate them from building more ships. Do we send a fleet to that planet that doesn’t have any warships around it?”

“No, manufacturing blasters without ships to put them on does not represent a danger to us like those others. We’ll visit it later.”

The Third leaned back showing his agreement and for the first time began to doubt the Leader’s wisdom. They should know what they were up against before launching an attack. He was right to feel that way.

• • •

The massive gathering of Blue Warships began organizing into a hundred units. Their targets were sent to them and the Fleet Leaders began assigning vectors for the individual squadrons to attack. The Admiral looked at the Third on his monitor and shook his head, “I don’t like the feel of this.”