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."