Chapter Ten

As The Morning Star returned, it picked up the commucations that had been beamed to it. Helplessly they watched the destruction of their comrades, as one by one their ships and cities were destroyed.
2 They came in fast, pushing their crush line. The single remaining Godden ship badly disabled, stood no chance against them, and was vaporized in the first pass.
3 Eden, however, sat snug under her double shields and withstood their fire, though The Goddens couldn't fire back.
4 North soon realized that efforts were futile. There was no way he could break through the city's defenses and in a couple of days they would repair their surface batteries and be able to fire back.
5 Slipping behind the planet, they made their way to its moon and sat down there. "I want to know," ordered North, "if there is a way of overpowering that city's defenses with the weapons that we have. Put everybody on it."
6 A few hours later the Firing Control Officer came to North. "I've got a plan," he announced, "but it's going to take everything we've got, and we'll have just one shot.
7 We have ten conversion bombs on board. By placing them in a pattern throughout the ship and detonating them at once, we should be able to punch a hole in the city's shields allowing enough plasma to get through to destroy the city. It will take the plasma of six bombs to destroy the city so we only have the energy of four to punch a hole through the shields."
8 "How do we direct the blast?" North asked.
9 ''Come right down on the city's shields," the Officer explained, "drop our bottom shields and detonate. Our shields should last just long enough to direct most of the energy of the explosion through the shields."

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