With an abrupt shake of his head, Vorgens put such ^ thoughts aside. He began dictating his instructions.
Deep in the bowels of the dreadnaught, the master computer translated the Star Watchman’s words into electromagnetic pulses and began sorting them out with the speed of light. Automatically, the computer processed the instructions into a separate set of orders for each of the three hundred individual vehicles in the Mobile Force.
\ Automatically, each set of orders was relayed to theommunications transmitter and beamed to each individ^ ual dreadnaught, cruiser, scoutcar, troopcarrier, supply van. On three hundred separate vehicles, communications receivers relayed the messages to computers. On three hundred vehicles, computers suddenly chugged to life and busily rattled off detailed orders. As the tapes ormed out of the printers three hundred skippers read the orders and began barking commands. The sum total of all these individual messages was Vorgens’ plan for breaking out of the Komani trap.
Scoutcars and troopcarriers were to speed to the slopes where the Komani had thinned out their forces—Sectors W5 and W6 on the Terran maps. The troopers were to seize those two sectors and hold them, with the scoutcars neutralizing any pockets of enemy resistance. Light cruisers, slower and less maneuverable than the sma&er vehicles, would follow up the first assault and provide extra firepower.
As the troopers gained command of the slopes, engineers’ vans were to immediately begin grading the territory, using force beams and explosives. The objective was to gouge out a broad, easy slope with no major obstructions, so that the larger vehicles of the Mobile Force could skim up the slopes and out of the valley as quickly as possible. Vorgens remembered how his battle cruiser was forced to crawl along the twisting, narrow trail up the slopes. He wanted no more of mat. If the entire Mobile Force had to file out of the valley like that, they would never escape alive.