Eden's War (A Distant Eden) Read Online Free Page B

surrender, or we commit suicide by nuking them out. So we have to figure out a way to beat them.”
    Adrian smiled at Linda and continued, “And I think I have an idea.” At this announcement Adrian stood up. “Admiral, I need to go for a walk and talk this over with Linda. I want to see what she thinks of my half-baked notion. If she thinks it has a chance, I’ll get back with you and we’ll get the ball rolling.”
    The Admiral stood. “I’ll come back for dinner and you can let me know then. And Adrian… I hope it’s a damn good idea, because I am at my wits end for ideas right now.”
    As Linda and Adrian strolled through the village, Adrian explained his plan. “Their navy and ours are more or less evenly matched right now. We’re better equipped, and have far better attack and defense systems. In a straight up fight we’d win. The Chinese know that, so it won’t be a straight up fight. Their primary advantage is that they can resupply their weapons with ammunition. They are making replacement missiles and torpedoes and we aren’t. One of the first things they fired back up after the solar storm was ammunition manufacturing. They are years ahead of us on that. Right now we can’t even make a single new .22 caliber bullet. So if I was them, the tactic I would use would be to push as many targets at us as they can, sacrificial targets they can stand to lose, hoping we’ll use up our finite armament supply and then… then their fleet has the advantage.”
    As they walked they came to Matt’s blacksmith shop. They found Matt busy working on yet another new invention. Matt saw Adrian and Linda approach and greeted them with a large smile. “Hey guys! You out for a stroll or did you come to see me on purpose?”
    Adrian shook Matt’s large hand and clapped him on the shoulder. “A bit of both actually. I want to ask your opinion on something.” Adrian explained what he had in mind, then he and Matt and Linda talked about it for half an hour, bouncing ideas back and forth. Matt made a quick sketch as Adrian watched, then said, “Something like this?”
    “Yes.” Adrian said, something like that indeed. “Can I borrow this? I want to show it to the Admiral tonight.”
    “It’s all yours Adrian, let me know if there is any way at all I can help.”
    Adrian rolled the sketch up and replied “If you could make a detailed drawing along with instructions and specifications on the same sheet that would be a tremendous help… especially if you could figure out some way to make several hundred copies.”
    “The drawing is easy… several hundred copies…” he scratched his head. “That’ll take some thinking. I’ll cypher on it and get back to you as soon as I have an idea. You kids enjoy the evening as best you can. Oh, and Adrian, you need to know that I, we all, understand the tremendous load on your shoulders and that we all have faith that you’re the best possible person to see us through this. We know it’s hard… just wanted you to know.” Matt finished with an embarrassed smile at his less- than-adept way of expressing himself.
    As they walked slowly back home, they came across a number of their friends and stopped to chat briefly with each of them before detouring to the horse pasture. Horses were fairly rare these days, most of them having been eaten during the great famine that followed the grid dropping. Whenever he could, Adrian bartered for horses, adding them to the slowly growing remuda. Taking a bucket of corn from the feed shed, he and Linda stood at the fence and lovingly hand fed the horses that came up to greet them. It was an almost daily ritual, visiting the horses in the evening.
    Adrian and Linda stood side by side, not talking, not needing to talk – taking a short break from the hardness they faced. These are the best moments , Adrian reflected. The horses taking food from our hands, sunset glowing red in the west, quiet… just a few bird calls as the night birds take