Rose giggled and jumped into her mother’s arms and said, “Yes, pleeeese. I love it when Mommy does that.”
Danielle gave Tag a look that said she would discuss this later and then hugged her little girl as she ran away toward the stairs with Rose laughing all the way.
Tag hit his com and said, “Mikado and Dorg, I need you on Ross immediately and bring your staffs with you.” Dorg and Mikado looked at Tag on his display with questioning expressions. “The Plants are attacking another planet as we speak and are going after another one when they finish the first.” Both Admirals said nothing but nodded and the display went blank. Tag smiled and thought, “Leila had a good idea about direct links to his commanders bypassing normal channels.” Then he sat down and started thinking about his daughter and what he had witnessed. “She’s four and she sees other galaxies.” Tag wasn’t sure just what he felt but he knew the surprises were not over yet. “She’s only four,” he thought again.
Chapter 16
Tag along with Dorg, Mikado, Chen, and Kelly sat at a table with Cade McAllister and his chief engineer. Tag explained that the Plants were attacking another planet and had a second lined up after they finished the first one. He told the group that he wanted ships that could attack and survive against the new Plant ships. “I want to go to this planet they are attacking and make things difficult for them. The longer we can tie them down at that planet gives us more time to prepare our ships to fight them.”
Cade began explaining the modifications they had made to one of the megaships. “We have changed the beams on the ship to focused beams only three feet wide.”
Dorg interrupted and said, “Why would you do that,” but Tag said, “Give him a minute and I’m sure he’ll explain.”
Dorg sat back and waited for an answer but showed he was skeptical of the change. Cade continued and said, “We have also taken the hornets out of the penetrators and have modified each Coronado Power Cell on the hull to have a wide range of independent action.” Even Tag raised his eyebrows at that statement.
Cade shrugged and said, “The Mega Ships are the wrong ships to fight the new Algean fleet but they are all we currently possess. The Algeans built an entirely new ship to take away our advantages and then produced half a million of them. Our problem is that they still have millions of the old models and it’s difficult for us to built two different ships in the quantities necessary to fight both types. We need the Megas to fight the old models but we are going to attempt to modify some of them to handle the new Algean ships.”
Then Chief engineer Anita Lea said, “I know you think that three foot beams and penetrators with no hornets make no sense and in the old fights hornets were needed but this new Plant Ship calls for a different approach. The Plants have shrunk their heavy ships anywhere from 20 miles long or seven miles long into a ship only two miles long. The new ship is faster than their old heavies yet it carries almost as many missile and beam ports as the old vessel it replaces. That is their weakness.”
Dorg said, “How can that be a weakness? They’re faster, have just as many weapons, and with five screens each as strong as the one it had before.”
A picture appeared on the rooms display and it had an image of one of the new Plant Ships. “Notice along the hull of this ship that it is covered with missile and beam ports. We measured and found that there was only fifty feet of separation between those ports.” Cade said. “The reason we had hornets in the penetrators in the first place was so that they could attack the ship’s hull in the hopes it would cause enough damage to the ship and force it out of action or hit a missile magazine and destroy the ship entirely. We no longer have to do that. All we have to do is get a beam thru their screens and move it 70 feet along the hull and it should hit a weapons magazine.”
Suddenly it seemed that lights went on in the officer’s minds. “You’re right,” Mikado said, “and a beam is easier to penetrate a screen than a penetrator.”
“Exactly,” Anita said. “But keep in mind that without the load of hornets that a pulse penetrator has had to carry before, it becomes twice as fast. We can also make them three stages instead of two with each stage having three times the penetrating energy of the old two stage penetrator without being any longer. Once it designates a target, it accelerates and separates into three sections that will impact 25 feet apart insuring a weapon port should be hit by one of them.
Tag looked at them and said, “Then why should we get close enough to use those three foot beams when we can just stand off and hit them with penetrators.”
‘Because the Plant ships are fast enough now to out run them if launched further out than 300 miles. That means that their ships may get close enough to launch a missile attack at you and the beams can save you if their ships get close or their missiles come at you.”
“How can they save us?” Chen asked.
The new modifications we’re going to use against the plants have had their Coronado Power Cells reprogrammed to work with their sensor. Each cell on the surface of the Megaship will target any object coming at it that does not have a Coronado screen and it can hit an object up to 200 miles away. Let’s say 500 anti-matter missiles are coming at you, the 750 power cells on the surface of the Mega will each target one of those 500 and begin firing 500 beams sequentially every tenth of a second. The three foot beam is actually five times hotter on the surface it hits than the full primary beam and it moves 70 feet across whatever it hits. It would cut a missile in half and we feel certain that the Plants new five screens won’t slow it down.”
“What if they launch twenty thousand missiles at each ship,” Dorg asked.
“That’s where the new hornet comes in,” Cade said.
Tag said, “This sounds interesting.”
Remember that the Plant missiles do not have a screen to protect them. To add additional reactors or screens would make them so big that they would not be fast enough to catch our ships. To stop one, all you have to do is hit it hard enough to rupture its hull; thus, the new hornet. It is only three feet long and is basically a power cell with holes in it to direct its energy to accelerate and change direction. A magazine on a mega can hold 200 of them which allow a Mega to launch 200,000 of them if it used all its ports. We have rotating magazines that can switch between penetrators and hornets.”
“What happens if they use their old ships in combination with the new ones?” Chen asked.
Cade looked at the group of naval officers and asked, “Don’t we have more than 100,000 old ultra and empire ships that match up well with their old design. We can use the new hornets with them to offer some protection against the anti-matter missiles and make sure that they fight the Plants in an area where they can jump to safety if necessary. Using the new weapon mix, you can arm your Mega ships anyway you choose. If some of their old ships are being used, then arm your fleet accordingly.”
Tag said, “Have you tried any of these new designs in the field yet?”
“As a matter of fact, we have, sir. We had developed the new hornet a year ago but did not see how it would be effective in the close ship to ship combat that we were doing at that time especially since our screens were strong enough to handle missile impacts and the hornets could not penetrate an enemy’s screen unless it was inside a penetrator. The new penetrator is just a modification of the two-stage and the change in the screen is basically a software change. We modified a mega last night and took it out to see if the modifications would work. The ship is in orbit overhead if you would like a demonstration.”
Dorg said, “Lead the way, I want to see.”
Tag watched as a mega ship launched 600 penetrators targeted at the modified Mega. “Launch hornets,” McAllister ordered. He watched his display and did not see the hornets as they left the missile ports because they were very small and moving so fast. Suddenly all of the incoming penetrators began exploding until none were left.”