Defending Earth-Discovery Means Death Read Online Free PDF

again.”
    “But they are still out there somewhere and represent a real danger to us. We will find them and remove them as a threat.”
    The Senior Fleet Leader knew that the Prime’s thoughts were a product of all the Death Feeder Leaders on the two Capital Planets that were linked. The majority of them still feared the species that attacked more than three centuries earlier. “I will start the voyage back in six days, Prime Leader.”
    • • •
    Rocky listened to the powerful thoughts of the two Keeper Leaders and looked out of his viewport toward the bow where Jill was working on her panel. “How’s it going?”
    “I think I’ve got a basic understanding of how everything works. I do have a concern.”
    “What is that?”
    “If you choose to attack a Feeder Fleet, we are going to run out of missiles pretty quickly.”
    “I understand that we have more than ten thousand stored in the armory.”
    “Have you taken a good look at the size of the Feeder’s smallest fleets? They’re larger than a hundred thousand warships and if we go in with our weapons blazing, we’ll exhaust the missiles in less than twenty minutes.”
    Rocky sighed, “We’ll just have to use the disruptors.”
    “That’s what I’m planning to do and only use the missiles to target ships that are moving in on us. Our disruptor beams will give away our position when they’re fired putting us in harm’s way even if we move the ship immediately after firing. Once we start using the disruptors, the Feeder’s Warships will start jumping in on us. We need those missiles to keep them at bay.”
    Rocky saw Jill looking at him through her cockpit window. “What do you recommend?”
    “Why are you asking me?”
    “Because you are the weapons expert. I would think you know more about them than I do.”
    Jill shook her head and looked up, “Amber.”
    “Yes, Jill.”
    “Do you know how far along Fleet was in producing the Missile Magazines when we left?”
    “I believe I received an update that said the first transport had passed trials.”
    Jill looked at Rocky through her viewport, “We need to go back to Earth.”
    “For God’s sake why?”
    “If they’ve managed to complete the construction of the Missile Magazine Transport, we need to pick one up and bring it out here.”
    Rocky’s eyes narrowed, “I don’t remember hearing anything about this transport you’re talking about.”
    “I heard about it by accident. Two engineers were discussing it when the Commodore had me tied to the couch.”
    “What is it?”
    “It’s a large flat vessel that has more than two hundred portable armories installed on it. A ship like ours lands on the hull and is locked in place. The missile magazine in our ship will drop into an empty slot and another full magazine will slide forward and be inserted into our armory. The entire process takes less than ten seconds.”
    “This ship isn’t designed to do that.”
    “That’s why we have to go back or would you prefer to go back over and over to rearm our ship?”
    Rocky stared at Jill and said, “Are you doing this to confirm the High Leader kept her word about your brother?”
    “That’s certainly part of it. This does give me a good reason to go and see. However, if you don’t see the benefit, I’m fine with it. We’ll be going back a lot and I’ll see about him when that happens anyway.”
    Rocky stared at her across the space between their cockpits and shrugged, “Amber, skip us out of here and contact Fleet Construction. Find out if they have this transport and how long it will take to modify our ship to use it.”
    The galaxy they were in disappeared and the Light Ship reappeared in intergalactic space. Rocky waited and after a few minutes, he said, “Amber?”
    “They have a transport ready but it’s not loaded. It will take five days to get it ready and about the same amount of time to modify our ship to use it.”
    “Willow, where is the Fleet of that Keeper that was