Lens of Time: Book 06 - Star Rover-Running Out of Time by Saxon Andrew

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    • • •
    “One hour to attack.”
    “Be ready to run, Admiral.”
    “I don’t know how this is going to help the Madators, Sir.”
    Dat shook his head, “I don’t either, Gibbs. Just make sure you keep your ships out of trouble.”
    • • •
    The Grillen Fleet Admiral’s Executive Officer ran into his office, “Our probes had detected more than a hundred thousand human ships jumping out of their galaxy.”
    “Did it get the coordinates of their jump?”
    “Yes, but it was out into deep space.”
    The Fleet Admiral thought a moment and decided to not take any chances, “Get the planetary fleets ready to go to their assigned positions immediately. If anything is detected at one of the Prime Planets, have them jump in.”
    “Yes, Sire.”
    “What do you think they’re doing?” The Fleet Admiral watched his panel for a report of an enemy appearance. He had his ship pick him up and immediately went to his command chair. He activated the panel and wondered what the humans were going to do. “Did you get a probe to the location they jumped?”
    “We did but it was detected and destroyed.”
    “I was hoping they wouldn’t see the probe.”
    “Sire, they detected the probe’s jump drive. If it was already in place, I don’t believe it would have been detected.”
    “Send another.”
    “Yes, Sire.”
    • • •
    “Dat, we’ve just destroyed a probe that jumped to our location.”
    Dat stared at Gibbs on his display, “That means they have probes in our galaxy monitoring our movements. Have we detected any near our planets?”
    “No, Sir. The probe that arrived here was only detected by its jump drive signature. We fired a wide pattern of beams and hit it. Once it arrived, we couldn’t see it on our scanners.”
    “Look for them to send others.”
    “Fifth Squadron has just destroyed another probe, Sir.”
    Dat saw they had another hour before the attack, “Jump the fleet to another location. They shouldn’t be able to see us without a probe here.”
    The hundred thousand Rovers disappeared and the third probe arrived and found nothing. The Fleet Admiral was furious but knew he would have done the same thing if he was in the humans’ place. He went back to staring at his display waiting to see what the humans were going to do.
    • • •
    Blacky saw the bright lights of the city ahead and felt the intermittent vibration start to increase in speed. He was flying at his fastest speed and as the vibration became one long beep, he saw George and John circling just above a cloud ahead of him. He flared his body and came circling in on the other two Madators. “I was starting to worry you weren’t going to make it.”
    Blacky fought to catch his breath, “It was a close thing to get away in time. How much longer do we have?”
    “Two minutes.”
    Blacky continued to pull air into his body and watched the city off to the right. He hoped his plan worked. It was all up to Ringie now.
    • • •
    Dat watched the countdown and heard Gibbs say over the main frequency, “We will be jumping in four hundred thousand miles from the planet in ten seconds. Hold your positions and keep your hands on the jump drives. Three, two, one…”
    • • •
    The alarms went off on the planet and the pilots of the Grey Ships rushed out of their quarters and ran to their ships. Ringie waited just inside the bridge of her ship and as the two crewmen ran in she wrapped them up with two arms each and pulled their heads away from their bodies. She heard two pops and ran off the bridge and threw them into the landing bay with a long piece of flexible cable. She ran back to the bridge and started operating the two panels with six of her arms as she strapped her body in the main command chair. The Grey Ship lifted as the force field was dropped for the four hundred Grey Ships to move into orbit. She modulated the energy panel and her ship lifted erratically and moved to the east from the city. She raised the