Nowhere to Hide by Saxon Andrew Page B

launched two missiles. She jumped again as three massive beams swept toward her new location. “Jack, this doesn’t look good.”
    Her computer immediately said, “I’ve notified the others to jump before they’re hit. My readings indicate the enemy’s force field is weakened considerably after two hits but it recovers faster than anything I’ve ever seen.”
    ***
    The Ship’s Father felt his vessel rock with the arrival of the first two boson missiles. Every time one hit, he had to hold on to his command chair to remain steady. “Weapons, eliminate those ships!”
    “They’re incredibly fast, Father. We’ve managed to kill half of them. I’m launching missiles.” The Father nodded as four huge missiles erupted from his ship and lanced out at the remaining four small ships. One missile and three beams hit one of the small ships and it exploded.
    ***
    “Lilly, I have four missiles leaving the enemy’s force field and one of them is locked on us. I’m going to three quarters speed to evade the one tracking us.”
    Lilly turned her ship away from the Invader battleship and ran around it with a large missile locked in on her thrusters. It came roaring in and Lilly quickly locked the three missiles in her launch tubes on the huge ship, launched all three simultaneously, and jumped just before two more beams hit her ship. Suddenly, the giant ship exploded with a massive blast that sent huge pieces of debris flying out from the center of the explosion. Jack sensed the blast’s shock wave rushing out at them and jumped away with the other two survivors.
    “Lilly! What did you do!?!”
    Lily stared at her display in shock, “I have no idea.” She replayed the destruction on her display, “I was running from the missile chasing me and saw two beams sweeping in on my ship. I launched all three of the missiles in my tubes and got out.” Lilly watched the expanding blast of the giant enemy ship and looked at her display, “Jack, what happened?”
    “You won’t believe it.”
    “Try me!”
    “You were running parallel to the ship and you launched a boson missile from the two side launchers and bow missile launcher. I only had time to lock in one location on that ship and all three hit that location.”
    “We’ve been doing that for the last twenty minutes.”
    “Yes, but we were firing as we came at them head on.”
    “What difference does that make?”
    “The bow missile would hit first and their screen would recover before the two from the sides arrived. When you fired running parallel, the side closest to the invader hit first but the bow missile hit less than a tenth of a second behind it. The missile fired by the launcher on the side away from the invader hit immediately behind the first two hits and made it through the force field. That last missile had to come around us to hit that ship, which caused its slight delay. That delay is what made it work. The first two blew a hole that the third went through.”
    “Get this information out to Fleet. We have to exploit this.”
    ***
    Ryan jumped in on his target and saw the giant ship fighting off the local civilization’s warships. The FTL missiles were hitting the Invader at an incredible rate and it was being rocked by the hits; but none were getting through.
    “Ryan, I’ve just received a message from fleet that one of the Invader battleships was destroyed when it was hit by three missiles on the same spot on its force field. The third missile should arrive just behind the first two.”
    Ryan looked at the message, “Thanks, Jess. Program the tubes accordingly and let’s see if that information is accurate.”
    “I’m jumping in ten miles away to launch, Admiral. I’ll fire the two side tubes and follow them up with the bow tube.”
    “Line it up and get out quick.”
    “You don’t have to worry about that.”
    ***
    The local ships attacking the giant invader had lost fifty ships to its beams. Fifteen more had been killed by missiles. They