Peace World Read Online Free PDF

immediately, and, depending on the urgency, nearby fighter aircraft could be brought to bear.  But as for ground troops?  It would take at least half a day—and more likely, two to three days—to put them in play.
    "Can you slow the ship and land within an hour of dropping out of interstellar speed?"
    Gee's mouth dropped.  Grant knew the engineer thought he was nuts.  To Gee's credit, though, he merely turned to his control panel. 
    "The scenario gives us a ten-percent chance of hitting the planet and a fifty-percent chance of breaking apart when we decelerate.  The repairs the Telgorans made to the hull are the problem.  They do good work, but I don't how they will hold up under the added stress," Gee offered after running the numbers.  He gnawed on a thumbnail while Grant mulled over the response.
    It only took a few seconds.  Grant could not live with those odds.
    "How about two hours, Gee?  Can we do it in two?"
    Gee went back to the computer. 
    "Three-percent chance of impact with Waa.  Twenty-percent chance that we destroy the ship in the process."
    Grant could live with the three percent, but the twenty-percent chance of killing them all was still too high.  
    He weighed the need for surprise against the chance that they would destroy the ship—and themselves—before ever reaching Waa.  They were a small force of a thousand fighters.  According to the ship's data systems, the Minith population on Waa numbered close to one million.  Almost a hundred thousand of those were trained soldiers.  While only a portion of those soldiers were stationed near the capital city, it was more than enough to wipe out the human attackers.
    Regardless of how Grant played it out, their plan to go after the head of the Minith race was likely a suicide mission.  But without the element of surprise, death was a certainty.   If they were to have any chance of success against the enemy, they had to catch them off guard.  Grant thought back to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  Although that happened a hundred years before he was a soldier, it was the classic example of how to strike a foe unexpectedly.  He and his forces would need to be just as successful as the Japanese had been on that December morning. 
    "How much time will it take if we reduce the twenty percent to ten?"
    Gee made some revisions to his calculations.
    "Two hours and thirteen minutes."
    "Do it."
     
    *     *     *
     
    Grant entered the mess hall and strode to the middle of the room.
    "Okay, listen up."
    The twenty-two leaders of Grant's forces were scattered around the largest room in the mothership.  As usual, they were on time for the daily briefing, and all of them gave Grant their attention.  Titan and Patahbay stood along a side wall.  Both were new additions to the routine, agreeing to join the briefing at Grant's request.
    "In two days, we are going to be landing on the planet Waa," he started.  Most of them already knew the basics of the plan, but he covered them anyway.  "As you know, the planet is home to the largest remaining population of Minith.  According to the ship's records, nearly a million of the aliens live there.  A tenth of them—about a hundred thousand—are soldiers.  For those of you who may not be so great at math, that means we are outnumbered a hundred to one."
    Grant waited for the statement to register with the team leaders before continuing.
    "The good news is that we probably won't have to face all those soldiers when we land.  As we've discussed before, Waa is made up of four separate land masses—large islands.  Each island is separated from the others by thousands of kilometers.  The Minith are spread out among the islands, which is good for us.  Only a fourth of their fighters are stationed on the land mass where we will be landing.  Of those forces, only twenty percent are staged in or near the city where we will be.  So, we are looking at five-to-one odds at the initial point of