Free Lens of Time: Book 06 - Star Rover-Running Out of Time by Saxon Andrew Page B

reflexes to jump away before being hit.”
    “Why the front and rear, Belwen?”
    “The Rovers may find themselves being pursued by these ships and the closing speed of the pursuer will reduce the time they have to react even more.”
    Dat smiled, “Four thousand rounds a minute.”
    “Actually, since cooling the barrels in space is much easier, these guns can be set up to fire seven times that number.” Dat’s eye brows went up. “We won’t have to rotate the seven barrels to keep them cool. We’ll just fire all seven at once with a continuous feed to each of them. Their speed will also increase to more than a mile in a third of a second in the vacuum of space; there won’t be any air resistance to slow them down.”
    Dat smiled, “We’ll just send a massive wave of plastic projectiles and they’ll never see them coming until just before they hit.”
    “If there is a huge battle taking place, won’t our own ships be in danger?”
    Dat smiled, “Our normal force fields will stop plastic projectiles, Katherine. Only ships using the grey force field will be in danger.”
    Belwen nodded, “He’s right, Admiral.”
    “Will this gun work against their standard ships?”
    Belwen shook his head, “No, their force fields will also stop the projectiles; however, our beams and penetrators do work against their standard ships. Our dark matter force fields will work against their standard ships as well.”
    “What is the range of the Grey Ship’s beams?”
    Gibbs said, “Five miles; if they fire from further than that it won’t harm our ships unless they can keep it locked on.”
    Dat thought a moment, “So if a Grey Ship emerges into normal space, we’ll have about two seconds before it does. If we fire this gun the moment we detect their emergence, the projectiles will arrive…”
    Gibbs said, “Two thirds of a second after they enter, if they are fired from five miles away or closer to the emergence.”
    “Gibbs, why are you so excited about this development?”
    “I’ve been wondering how we were going to use the Jukebox Class Battleships.”
    Dat and Katherine saw it immediately as Gresha said, “I’m not sure I understand.”
    Katherine smiled, “The Battleships can house more than twenty of these guns.”
    Gibbs said, “Cha-ching. And they can lay down a covering fire that would be more than fifty miles across and keep it filled for hours.”
    Blacky looked confused, “Then why would you put this gun on a Rover?”
    Belwen shrugged, “No ship should be completely defenseless against another ship.”
    Gibbs nodded, “I also suspect, once they see a battleship in action, those Grey Ships will give the Jukeboxes a wide berth. They’ll be forced to go after the Rovers fighting way from them.”
    “Belwen, how long will it take to modify enough ships to use against their fleets?”
    “We’ll start bringing some of them online in about four weeks. However, it’s going to take a year to really produce a large number.”
    “Will you be able to produce enough to go after those ninety nine production planets?”
    “We should be able to produce enough for that in about three months. Don’t look for any to be available before that.”
    “Why not?”
    “We’re working on about ten thousand ships but none of them will be ready before that time. We have to construct a system to control them and the guns will have to be calibrated to that system before they can be used. That is going to take at least three months.”
    Dat looked at Katherine and said, “That is when our Madator Teams will have to complete their missions.”
    “Do we need to drop them now that we have this weapon to use against them?”
    “Don’t forget that our goal is to also remove them from the planets they invaded. Just killing their ships won’t change what’s happening on the surface of those invaded planets.”
    “You intend to use the Madators to take out their ground forces?”
    “We have to do that or they’ll