screens and Gracias.
"What's our friend doing now?"
He granted, nodded up at the main screen. The comp was plotting another graph, showing the other
ship's course in relation to Aster's Hope.
She blinked at it. That was impossible. Impossible for a ship that size moving thai fast to turn
that hard.
But of course, she thought with an odd sensation of craziness, there isn't anything living aboard
to feel G-stress.
"Well." She swallowed at the way her voice shook. "At least we got their attention."
Gracias fried to laugh, but if came out like a snarl. "Good for us. Now what?"
"We could try to run," she offered. "Put as much distance as possible between as and home."
He shook his head. "Won't work. They're faster."
"Besides which," she growled, "'we've left a particle trail even we could follow all the way back
to Aster. That and the incessant radio gabble If that mechanical behemoth wants to find our
homeworld, we might as well transmit a map."
He pulled back from his board, swung his seat to face her again. His expression troubled her. His
eyes seemed dull, almost glazed, as if under pressure his intelligence were slowly losing its
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edge. "Got a choice?" he asked.
The thought that he might fail Aster's Hope made panic beat in her forehead; but she forced it
down. "Sure," she snapped, trying to send him a spark of her own anger. "We can fight."
His eyes didn't focus on her. "Got laser cannon," he said. "Hydrogen torpedoes. Ship like that he
nodded toward, the screen "won't have shields we can hurt. How can we fight?"
"You said they're ordinary force-disruption fields. We can break through that. Any sustained
pounding can break through. That's why they didn't build Aster's Hope until they could do better."
He still didn't quite look at her. Enunciating carefully, he said, "I don't believe that ship has
shields we can hurt."
Temple pounded the edge of her console. "Damn it, Gracias! We've got to try! We can't just sit
here until they get bored and decide to go do something terrible to our home world. If you aren't
interested " Abruptly, she leaned back in her seat, took a deep breath and held it to steady
herself. Then she said quietly, "Key com over to me. I'll do it myself."
For a minute longer, he remained the way he was, his gaze staring disfocused past her chin.
Slowly, he nodded. Moving sluggishly, he turned back to his console.
But instead of keying com over to Temple, he told the comp to begin decelerating Aster's Hope.
Losing inertia so the ship could maneuver better.
Softly, she let a sigh of relief through her teeth.
While Aster's Hope braked, pulling her against her momentum restraints, and the unliving alien
ship continued its impossible turn, she unlocked the weaponry controls on her console. A string of
Sights began to indicate the status of every piece of combative equipment Aster's Hope carried.
It wasn't supposed to be like this, she thought to herself. She'd never imagined it like this.
When/if the Asterin mission encountered some unexpected form of life, another space-going vessel,
a planetary intelligence, the whole situation should've been different. A hard-nosed distrust was
to be expected: a fear of the unknown; a desire to protect the homeworld; communication problems;
wise caution. But not unprovoked assault. Not an immediate pitched battle out in the middle of
nowhere, with Aster itself at issue.
Not an alien ship full of nothing but machinery? Was that the crucial point?
All right: what purpose could a ship like that serve? Exploration probe? Then it wouldn't be
hostile. A defense mechanism for a theoretically secure sector of space which Aster's Hope had
somehow violated? But they were at least fifty lightyears from the nearest neighbor to Aster's
star; and it was difficult to imagine an intelligence so paranoid that its conception of
"territorial space" reached out this far. Some kind of automated weapon? But Aster didn't have any
enemies.
None of it made any sense. And as she tried to sort it out, her confusion grew worse, it started
her sliding into panic.
Fortunately, Gracias chose that moment to ask gruffly, "Ready? It's hauling up on us fast. Be in
range in a minute."
She made an effort to control her breathing, shake the knots of panic out of her mind. "Plot an
evasive course," she said, "and key it to my board." Her weapons program had to know where Aster's
Hope was going in order to use its armament effectively.
"Why?" he asked. "Don't need evasion. Shield'llprotect as."
"To keep them guessing." Her tension was plain in her voice. "And show them we can hit them on the
run. Do it."
She thought he was moving too slowly. But faster than she could've done it he had a plot up on the
main screen, showing the alien's incoming course and the shifts Aster's Hope was about to make.
She tried to wipe the sweat from her palms on her bare legs; but it didn't do much good. Snarling [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]