Lens of Time

by Saxon Andrew

  “You have seven planets with millions of your species on each. Just how do you see this possibly happening?”

  “We have more than three hundred colony and weapons ships. More than a hundred thousand of our citizens can board each of those. If we get the Hive and Horde ships involved in picking up our citizens, that’s another six million ships. Our largest population is eighty million on Sierra-Garcia. It would take seven jumps to move all of them. If you allow us to use your large commercial vessels, we can make this happen.”

  “But you can’t just jump to another planet and expect to survive. How are you going to feed and shelter your colonists?”

  “That’s where you and the two hundred thousand planets come in. You know most of our buildings are modular. They were constructed to go up quickly and they can also be taken down quickly. Once we move a planet’s population, send all of your engineers and builders to remove them and take them to the planet where the population moved. If the planets we leave are bare, it will reinforce that the Majors were deceived about our location.”

  “They will still be able to see you were there.”

  “How?”

  “You’ve buried your dead on those planets. That DNA will still be detectible.”

  RV paused and said, “Not if the graveyards are scorched by an ultrabeam.”

  Boden looked uncertain but then RV said, “We’re moving to a galaxy more than a billion light years away. We have the planets waiting on us. We just need to move and do it now.”

  “What if those civilizations decide to attack anyway?”

  “We’re going to continue our war against them. I suspect they’ll be unable to take a major action until we are resolved along with the Hive and Horde. We have a window of opportunity. That will also allow you to continue your plan to protect your planets.”

  “There’s something you’re not saying.”

  “You’re right. You need to move the ship building facilities from your worlds to ours and remove any trace of them from your planets.”

  Boden said, “I’ll get back to you.”

  “Boden, please don’t take a long time.”

  “I won’t.”

  • • •

  The Communication Board called for order. It took another hour before the enraged leaders could be silenced. It was finally done by turning off all communication channels and then coming on and saying, “If anyone says a word this meeting will be terminated for a week until you can come to order.”

  The Chairman waited and after a long period of silence it said, “Only one of you can speak at a time. We will recognize who will speak and the others will listen without interruption. If you don’t follow these instructions, you will be terminated from this conference. Please sign in acknowledging your understanding.”

  The Chairman waited and then said, “More than a third of our civilizations are not in this meeting due to them not having selected a leader to represent them. You can look at your boards and see those that are not present. The Lanje were the first to log in so they will be the first to speak.”

  “Our Capital was attacked but we were able to fight the invaders off. Most of our fleets and worlds are currently under attack. We must unite and destroy those attacking our planets.”

  The Chairman said, “Do you have a plan that would allow that to happen?”

  “We must combine our fleets and jump in on those ships when they enter our territories and overwhelm them with our superior numbers.”

  The Chairman asked, “Are you willing to use your ships away from your territory?”

  The Lanje Ruler said, “I don’t see how I can remove all my ships and leave my people defenseless. I will assign a large number of them to be used against our enemies.”

  The Chairman said, “The Amec will be allowed to speak now.”

  “That plan won’t work unless we work together. We outnumber them by the millions. We’ve got to form a combined fleet to destroy them. We also need someone to command that fleet and make a plan on how to confront these ships.”

  “The Martem will now speak.”

  “Before you do anything, you need to move enough of your leadership to another planet so that in the event your capital is destroyed, you won’t be in the same situation as the third that have no leaders.”

  The Chairman said, “I do hope that precaution has been taken by now. Please send a pulse to the board if you have taken that step.”

  The Chairman watched his board and only saw a hundred lights illuminate. He stood and yelled, “This meeting is adjourned for ten days until all of you have taken that precaution. This is suicide to not have taken steps to prevent your civilizations from being without direction. Do this now!”

  • • •

  George listened to the meeting and said over the intercom in the rooms tracking the sensor buoys, “I need all of you to determine where they send their leaders. Find out and get the new location sent out to fleet.” George sent a recording of the meeting to RV and then saw a call coming in from Boden. He went to his office and said, “Hello, my friend. What can I do for you?”

  “Are you aware of the request your Admiral has made?”

  “I am.”

  “We will help you make the move. Please notify us when you’re ready to start the process.”

  “Thank you, Boden. I’ll let you know in less than a day.” Boden nodded and George began making calls to the leaders of the seven planets.

  • • •

  Phil watched the recording from the first planet the Jukebox found. The light had left the planet a twenty thousand years earlier and the images were very disturbing. Ann said, “One of the first things we need to do is eradicate that species.”

  Phil just shook his head at what he was seeing, “This is beyond belief. Not only did they eat the population but destroyed every structure on the planet. Even individual homes were lasered.”

  Anne nodded, “That explains why there’s no evidence of intelligent life. That species didn’t want anyone coming back and using the planet.”

  Phil nodded, “Twenty thousand years removed the rest of the evidence.”

  “Before we go back to report, I want to thank you for allowing me to come with you. This has helped me understand how these systems actually work. I’ve really looked forward to using them.”

  Phil smiled, “You impressed me when we confronted the grey ships. I intend to have you work with me from now on if you don’t mind being transferred from the attack craft.”

  Anne smiled, “Does my having an interest in you have anything to do with that decision?”

  Phil smiled, “Perhaps.”

  Anne brought in the scanner fields and said, “Good.”

  Phil pressed his board and said, “Jillian, the Admiral’s statements have been verified. The planet you’re now orbiting did once have an intelligent civilization that was destroyed by the carnivores. I’ll send you a copy of the recording for you to examine but I suspect most of the habitable planets in the outer edge of the galaxy are currently uninhabited.”

  “Why is there no evidence of their existence?”

  “The Carnivores blasted every structure on the planet before they left twenty thousand years ago. Time has erased any evidence left behind.”

  “Thanks, Phil. I really appreciate it.”

  “One more thing if you don’t mind.”

  “What is that?”

  “I would like you to transfer Anne Hardy to my command. She has proven to be a great help on this mission.”

  Phil waited for three minutes and wondered if he was making a mistake. “The transfer has been confirmed. Welcome to the Time Crew, Lt. Hardy.”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  Anne jumped up and hugged Phil. His smile was actually larger than when Dolly kissed him.

  • • •

  “RV, we have a green light. The Ninja has confirmed what we were told. I request a sub-fleet to deal with the Carnivores.”

  “They’ll arrive wit
hin twelve hours. Use them wisely and get them back as soon as you can. We need them here.”

  Chris listened in and hit his board, “Admiral.”

  “One moment please.”

  Chris waited and heard, “This is Admiral Zelas.”

  “I’m bringing in a fleet of ships to remove the Carnivores from this galaxy. Will you check with your leadership to see if they approve of us taking this action?”

  Zelas stared at his display and then said, “We’ve been fighting them for thousands of years. Do you think you can actually remove them?”

  “I’ll need someone to assign some of your officers to lead our attacks. I’ll have fifty thousand battleships here and we will not do this without your approval and direction. Once the job is done, our fleet will leave this galaxy. I want you to understand that we will support your efforts, but only if you assume the leadership of this project. I’m concerned that you may worry that we are an aggressive civilization by doing this but we think this is worth doing. We will not enter your territory without permission.”

  Zeleg said, “I’ll contact you momentarily.” Zeleg slammed his hand down on his panel and said, “Our visitors have volunteered to remove the Gruek if we will assume the leadership of the attack.”

  The Leader stared at Zeleg and said, “If they can do that, they could conquer us.”

  “They choose not to do that. I’m convinced they can be trusted. Besides, they could conquer us now if they chose to do it. The fact they will only enter our territory if we are directing their activities speaks volumes about them. This is worth the risk. They don’t eat their enemies.”

  “I’ll discuss this with the others.”

  “There’s no time for that. Decide or we’ll lose this opportunity.”

  “Zeleg, are you sure?”

  “Father, I’ve never been more certain.”

  “Do what needs to be done, Son.”

  Zeleg turned to his second-in-command and said, “Greb, what do you think?”

  “I want to lead the ships going to Mavella.”

  Zeleg smiled, “And so you shall.”

  • • •

  Greb stood on board the Buenos Aires and watched the main display as a thousand white ships emerged into normal space. Thirty thousand Gruek ships were being held at bay by the planets orbiting forts but three of the structures were burning. Greb said, “We are coming in to assist you. By order of the Admiralty, these ships have been sent to relieve you from the Gruek attack.”

  “You’ll need more ships, Sir.”

  “Continue to hold out. We’ll be launching against them momentarily.”

  The thousand white ships launched their small ships and the speed of the destruction of the Gruek fleet was staggering. The fighters on the forts watched as twenty thousand of the ships surrounding the planet were blown into vapor in less than thirty minutes. The survivors jumped away but were followed by needles and attack craft. None escaped. Greb remained at the planet and said, “We’ll be bringing in food and medical supplies shortly.”

  “Thank you, Sir. Who are those ships?”

  Greb looked at Captain Matinez and said to the soldiers on the forts, “Friends.”

  • • •

  Melodie watched as two hundred of her fleet arrived and joined the ranks of the waiting ships. Five thousand of the new attack craft were scattered in the zone between the ships waiting for the pursuit. Greg said, “Here they come.”

  Two thousand ships began emerging into normal space and attack craft were charging in on the closest emergence to their location. They penetrated the Majors ships and launched a fusion missile at the ship. The explosions taking place in the center of the fleet were massive and the attack ships immediately jumped away after they launched their missiles. Melodie said, “Jump to the next coordinate.” The massive fleet disappeared and the process started all over again. Melodie said after the last jump, “Three thousand ships didn’t make it back.”

  Greg slowly nodded, “You know how many we’d lose if we faced their combined fleets. This is the best way to handle this.”

  Melodie nodded and said, “Set up the attacks for tomorrow. Make sure ten of them are at secondary capitals.”

  Greg nodded and called his staff in to begin preparations.

  Chapter Seventeen

  George, RV, Boden, the Hive Controller, and the Horde Master looked at each other on their displays. The Hive Controller said, “Can you afford to take this time to move your populations? Our fleets need to be used to support your efforts.”

  George shook his head, “We need you to help with this first. We know the Majors or the civilizations in the other sector will be coming to find us and one of the Majors knows our location. The only way to insure the survival of the thousands of worlds in our galaxy is to make this move now. We need your ships to make it happen.”

  The Horde Master said, “We can take over the attacks on the Majors and you can use your ships.”

  RV quickly responded, “If we do that it will take a significant amount of time to get all the current information on the Majors into your systems and even longer for you to plan an organized attack. We’ll continue to hold them off.”

  “We could get the other Minors involved in moving your populations.”

  George said, “No! We will only trust our new location to your two species. We also request you erase the coordinates of that location once the move is completed.”

  The Hive Controller nodded and said to the Horde Master, “You know the Majors have agents in the other Minor Civilizations.”

  “They probably have some in ours as well.”

  “That is probably true but only the ship’s commander and the drive officer will have access to the coordinates. The commanders will manually enter the coordinates and erase them on arrival.” The Hive Master paused, “How far are you moving?”

  “More than a billion light years.”

  “Is that far enough?”

  RV smiled, “They won’t know which direction or how far we’ve moved. There are more than eighty billion galaxies they would have to search to find us. Even if they only took a minute to search each galaxy, it would take them more than a hundred and fifty thousand years to search them all. Since we know that search will take at least a week for each galaxy using ten thousand ships, the star in this system will die before they find us.”

  “I’m just surprised you didn’t go further out.”

  “We’ve discovered that the jump drives start having problems when you jump further. We certainly considered it.”

  The Horde Master said, “If you can delay the combined attack, we have more than ten thousand colony ships we’re planning to use to move when the attack begins.”

  “We have twenty five thousand ships as well.”

  Boden, George, and RV just stared at the two allies. George said, “If we could use them, we could move everyone in less than a week.”

  “Then I’ll have them emptied and brought here starting tomorrow. Can you be ready by that time?”

  George said, “Boden?”

  “Our engineers will arrive tomorrow to start taking down your structures on whatever planet you choose to move first. We have enough commercial ships to move the bulk of them. You need to tell your colonists to take at least four day’s supply of food. Once everyone is moved we’ll start bringing in food.”

  RV said, “George, you need to let them know.”

  George said, “We’ll start with Europe.” He stood and left the conference.

  • • •

  Every monitor and display on the seven planets inhabited by humans began announcing an emergency broadcast in two hours. The humans were asked to contact anyone they thought of that might have the possibility of missing it. The stress levels of the worlds increased by the minute. Finally, two hours passed and every world saw President George Sierra on their screens.

  “I was elected by you to make sure you’re safe and defended. All the other things I do are seconda
ry to that responsibility. One of the civilizations in the galaxy that caused the attack that destroyed Earth knows our location. So far, they say they will not reveal our location but I cannot trust your survival to the whims of another civilization. Our experts are of the opinion that even if they don’t reveal what they know, our new home will be found in less than a year. If our enemies find us, all of our worlds will look like Earth.”

  George paused and continued, “With that in mind, I am ordering all of our planets to move their populations to another galaxy that we feel will never be found by our enemies. This move will begin in twenty four hours from now and Europe will be the first planet moved due to it having the smallest population. South America will be the second. We are planning to move as many of the structures on your planets and we need you to assist us in making that happen. You should take a week’s supply of food and clothes and you’re going to have to leave the bulk of your belongings behind. You may take a pet but it must not be a large animal. Our livestock will be moved later. There is no option on this. Every human must be gone from this galaxy or all the other planets will be destroyed. Your local announcers will begin issuing instructions and you need to begin your preparation immediately. I do this with a heavy heart but I know I can count on you to help make this happen. Your courage and resilience has been what has allowed us to survive and I know we’ll work together to make this happen. Thank you.”

  • • •

  When the ships arrived on Europe the next day, there were large numbers who refused to go. Once it was pointed out that if they stayed more than a trillion beings were going to die, most changed their minds. Those that didn’t found there was nothing being left behind to live in. They also boarded to leave. George did not have to tell them that if they had stayed, they would have been burned with the graveyards.

  • • •

  The Jukebox and her small ships waited for the colonists to arrive and gave the ships the coordinates on the planet of the best sites to rebuild. The thousands of ships began landing and the colonists walked out to the surface of a new planet. The planets they found waiting for them were beautiful and reminded most of them of Earth. Their remorse at being forced to leave began to disappear. Europe was moved in less than a day.