Defending Earth-Discovery Means Death by Saxon Andrew

forced to admit that when she did it was to make a good point. She watched Rocky stare at her and felt hope. She didn’t have him, yet. He probably thought she was too young for him.
    • • •
    Nelson looked at his designers, “Is what she’s saying possible?”
    Andrea looked at the designer sitting next to her and he said, “Each of the twenty missile launchers have their own belts that run into the magazines. They require space to make the circular trip back and forth to the magazine. I wish I had thought about this before and we could connect the missiles with links that connect them together in the middle. When the missile leaves the ship, the links will slide apart and the link will go with the missile. There would be no need to use a belt.”
    Andrea nodded, “And since there’s no belt, using compressed air to push them out of the launcher can be done at a much faster rate than the current motor that is used to push the missile out.”
    Rocky stared at them, “How much faster?”
    Nelson smiled, “What they’re describing, Admiral is how our fastest weapons operate. Some of our heavy rifles can fire at a rate of two hundred rounds a second. However, if you locked the trigger down you would exhaust the magazine in less than three seconds.”
    “Those missiles would also need to have a light signature programed which would also take some time.”
    “Amber tells me that she can collect a thousand signatures a second.”
    “Then that would be the limiting factor, Admiral.”
    Jill shook her head, “Not really. My tactical system can track more than four thousand ships and feed them directly to the missiles.”
    Rocky looked at Jill, “Why is your system so much faster than Amber?”
    “She’s designed to do more things than just collect light signatures. My targeting computer is designed to only collect light signatures. It is faster because it has a specialized purpose.” Jack shook his head. His sister was something more than he remembered. What had happened to her? “If the belts are removed, would it make room for another magazine?”
    Nelson looked at Andrea. She started punching data into her tablet and after a few moments looked up, “We’d have to remove a foot off the living quarters and two feet off the kitchen.”
    Nelson looked at Rocky and he tilted his head, “We won’t miss the lost space. I’d rather have the additional magazine.”
    “Alright, let’s get busy and make the modifications.”
    “Whoa, Commodore. How long is this going to take?”
    “We have to build the systems but we should have them done in ten days. The installations should take another five days.”
    “How long will it take to repair the jammed belts?”
    “About five hours.”
    “Then make the repair and we’ll return the ship for the modifications in ten days.”
    “But we need your ship to take the measurements.”
    Jill shook her head, “Are you telling me you don’t have another ship like ours to use?”
    Nelson looked at her and then turned to Rocky, “Admiral, we do have another ship but I prefer to match the changes to the ship they’re going in.”
    “I know the close tolerances used to build our ships, Commodore. You make the changes on another ship and I’m sure they’ll fit my vessel.”
    “Yes Sir. We’ll start the repairs immediately.”
    Rocky nodded and turned to Jack and Olivia, “Who is the idiot that allowed the two of you to go to a Feeder Planet! Neither one of you is qualified to fly one of these new ships or possesses enough experience to survive?”
    Olivia looked at Rocky and leaned back in her chair, “The High Leader sanctioned this mission. Perhaps you’d like to contact her and tell her what an idiot she is.”

Chapter Seven
    R ocky’s eyes narrowed and Jill looked at Jack, “What did you tell her that convinced her to approve it?”
    “My device depends on operating on the thought frequency of a Feeder. I initially developed it to hide a human’s mind so I