Lens of Time by Saxon Andrew Read Free Book Online Page A

Captains Roman and Barber will report to the Havana upon our arrival.”
    Cyanna turned around, “How did you know they were coming?”
    “Think about it, Cyanna; what would you be doing if you were in pursuit of a ship? You’d be broadcasting the coordinates of your chase every time you jumped.” Cyanna nodded. “And if you were cut off in mid-broadcast; what do you think would happen?”
    “Do you think we can stand up to those ships?”
    “All of our ultrabeams penetrated their force fields but didn’t kill them fast enough to prevent one of them getting off some shots. We can kill them but we will also die if they hit us with their beams. Our force fields are not up to the power of their beams, so we’re vulnerable to them.”
    “But the attack craft made it through their beams.”
    “We would too if we used every reactor for the force field and shrunk it to just a few feet from the hull. We’d take some of their shots before our force field failed but not have anything to fire back at them. Their force fields are stronger than ours and a single penetrator wouldn’t penetrate. We have to use the ultrabeams to kill them. If we use power for the beams our force field will fail.”
    Cyanna stared at RV and finally said, “If we face them in battle it will be a war of attrition and the winner will probably be the one with the most ships.”
    “That depends on what Roman and Barber found out. If our attack craft can take them out, we stand a better chance of winning. Our task will be getting the attack craft close enough to do their magic.”
    “Do you think the new attack craft will work?”
    “Roman and Barber made it back. That tells me something.” RV looked at his board, “Where are they?”
    “They’re on the way.”
    “Send them to the conference room when they arrive.”
    Cyanna nodded and turned back to her console.
    • • •
    “Are you telling me you allowed the ship to escape?”
    The Operator said, “I allowed nothing. We think of ourselves as being impervious to any outside attack. This incident proves that mystique false. You’ve seen the data. What would you have done differently? If you doubt my competence, replace me.”
    There was a long pause and then the Operator heard, “I don’t see anything else you could have done other than sending all of our ships into the stream to give chase.”
    “And we lost ten major battleships chasing a ship less than a fifth their size. Thirteen lost if you include the three that managed to make it out of the stream. Do you think it’s worth losing seventy percent of our ships to attack a single small ship?”
    There was a long silence and then the Leader said, “You’re right. However, our territory has not been violated in millions of cycles. I’m angry at it happening.”
    “Anger won’t kill that ship. However, it does open a new problem for us.”
    “What is that?”
    “What would happen if several million of those small ships invade our borders? Our tactics must undergo a change to deal with this threat.”
    “You think they’ll be coming back?”
    “This was just a probe to see if the ship would be effective against us. I think you can count on a return visit in force.”
    “Did you collect any information we can use to handle this threat?”
    “At the current level of our technology, we cannot penetrate the force field of that small ship without hitting it at least eight times in less than a second. The scientists need to get to work and find a way to defeat this technology.” The Operator paused and said, “I am bothered by one thing.”
    “What is that?”
    “The ship had more of those missiles under its wings but didn’t fire on the second ship after it very well could have destroyed it. That just doesn’t fit with what happened. Why did it not destroy it? I’ve run every simulation through my system and they all come out with our ship being killed. Yet it didn’t do it. It also waited for the escape pods from the