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through the force field and Mikal began orbiting the giant ship using his sensors to move away from any weapon that was charging. “Were we hit with any of those beams before we broke through?”
    “Three of them.”
    “I’m surprised our force field was still strong enough to break through.”
    “It wouldn’t have been if we were hit by six. That’s something we need to make sure fleet knows.” Loree glanced up from her weapons panel and said, “How long are we going to fly around in here?”
    “I want to see what they do about us. We need to know if they can do anything about our presence inside their field.”
    “They could always fire at us with their lasers.”
    “That’s going to be hard to do with us flying so close to their hulls. Their lasers are spread out evenly on the ships surface and they can’t be depressed enough to bring more than one or two to bear on us. I think they’re starting to get frustrated.”
    • • •
    The second ship saw the small white ship flying around inside the first ships force field and said, “Lower your screens so I can take a shot at it.”
    “Are you crazy? Even if you hit it, the beam will also hit the unprotected hull below it. You’ll destroy my ship.”
    The second ship’s commander was getting frustrated as the small white ship flew to the side away from his ship. He flew around the ship as quickly as possible but the small ship managed to keep the first ship between it and his ship. There was no way to fire on it without destroying the other ship.
    The Operator at Sensor Control entered the conversation, “How did that ship get inside your force field?”
    “I have no idea but I’ve been unable to hit it with enough beams to destroy it.”
    “Are you saying one beam won’t do it?”
    “Apparently not, it survived three hits before it broke through. I wonder why it hasn’t attacked.”
    The Operator hit his board and thirty more battleships appeared on the scene. They surrounded the penetrated ship. The operator said, “All ships, target that ship.”
    “Wait a minute; you aren’t going to fire on my ship!”
    “We are; we do not tolerate violations of our borders.”
    “But you’ll destroy my ship and kill the crew!”
    “Then I would highly recommend you evacuate your ship.”
    The ship’s captain was frustrated beyond words but knew he was going to die. All efforts to destroy the tiny ship had failed and he knew time was running out. He looked over and said, “Abandon ship.”
    • • •
    Mikal and Loree watched the gathering ships and wondered if they would fire on one of their own. Suddenly, hundreds of small escape vehicles flew out of the ship’s hull and headed toward the force field. Loree said, “Notice that all of those escapees are headed toward the same place in the force field.”
    “That’s the only safe route out. I’m lining up with that point and I’ll accelerate to the closest ship on that line once those escape pods clear. Let’s see if we can do this again.”
    “Are we going to destroy this ship?”
    Mikal thought a moment and said, “They’ll probably do it if they see us escaping with the others.” Mikal paused and said, “They may not fire on it if we’re leaving. Launch a missile on my mark.” Mikal watched the escape pods exiting the force field and said, “Ready…mark!”
    The small white ship accelerated at an amazing speed towards the force field surrounding the battleship and broke through just behind the escape pods. It roared up on another battleship and penetrated its force field before the surrounding ships could target it. An instant later a huge atomic blast blew out from the previously infected battleship leaving nothing but an expanding vapor cloud.
    The Operator was furious. The expanding blast blew most of the escape pods away without killing them and the small ship was again inside the force field of another ship. The Operator watched what happened and said, “All ships back away from