Joan D. Vinge - Lost in Space.pdf - Joan D Vinge - przemosta

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Prologue

“Hypergate Docking, this is Grissom One. Request final descent vector.” The pilot of the Grissom One

looked out at the view slowly filling the bubble dome of the ship’s bridge, and smiled. There was no other

choice, when you first saw this view. No matter how many times you saw it, it was like nothing else: the

Earth hanging in space, a blue opal on black velvet... and in the nearer distance the spires of the space

station sitting like a crown on the surreal, ten-mile-circumference construct of the hypergate.

Construction workers looked up, their helmet faceplates mirroring sunlight as bright as their laser torches,

to watch the ship’s silhouette pass overhead. The gate’s structure was almost finished; soon it would be

humanity’s first conduit through hyperspace.

“Roger, Grissom One, this is Hypergate Docking Control.” Bill Randall’s familiar voice was comfortably

serene in her headset speakers. “You are cleared to land. Hope you got some Partagas in that rust

bucket, Sal.”

Sal grinned as she fed landing coordinates to the onboard computers and felt the ship’s thrusters fire in

response. The cargo vessel’s trajectory began to shift slowly and precisely, aligning its angle of approach

to the designated docking platform. “I brought you the most amazing-“

Randall never found out what. Death fell out of the starry night and exploded the Grissom One’s bridge,

swallowing the freighter in a ball of fire.

Major Don West shifted in his gyroscopic harness, working the heads-up holographic display as his

V-winged craft launched from the ASOMAC fighter base. The ship cut through the night like a silent

scream as he vectored toward the expanding cloud of debris. The cockpit was a bubble of transparent

alloy, set like a pearl at the nose of his craft; his controls gave him almost a 360 view of the hypergate

ring, the freighter’s remains at its center... and the enemy.

The gaping work crews vanished behind him in a heartbeat, while ahead of him the expanding blizzard of

jagged shrapnel hurtled toward his ship... and toward the surface of the half-finished hypergate structure.

Two blunt-nosed Sedition ships burst through the tumbling debris-the same ships that had just blown the

freighter to bits.

“Who hit us?” Jeb Walker’s voice demanded over his comm link.

The Ranger One entered West’s peripheral vision, its extended wings taloned with gleaming weaponry;

the twin of his own Eagle One except for its markings. He smiled as he saw the shark-toothed grin

painted on Walker’s right wing, and the cosmic Hand of Fate on the left.

His own wing bore an eagle’s shadow and an eagle’s eye; everything a hunter needed, nothing more.

Sometimes Jeb thought too much... But there was nobody he trusted more. Jeb had been his buddy,

back watcher, and cheerful rival ever since their Academy days.

“Sedition raiders,” West said grimly. “They’ve never come this far out before.”

Walker grunted. “This cold war just got hot.”

The enemy ships vectored across the hypergate’s arc; their plasma cannons blasted gaping holes in its

superstructure. West spun his controls, seeing the entire scene in one giddy rush as he veered off after the

closest raider. “Last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer.” He activated his targeting computer.

Whatever else the Sedition raiders were, they were good pilots. The insectoid ship, its angular arms

bristling with weaponry, danced infuriatingly in and out of the crosshairs inside his holographic array.

West fired, cursing in frustration as the attacker jagged upward at a ninety-degree angle, and his laser

burst burned vacuum.

He dodged hurtling debris, closing in on the fleeing raider as if he and his ship shared a single mind. The

fraction of his attention that was always watching his partner’s back told him Walker had engaged the

other attacker; the lancing bolts of energy were a psychedelic light show below his feet. “Hey Jeb,” he

called, glancing down, “I can see your house from here-“

The split second of distraction almost cost him, as the raider up ahead made a sudden coin-flip and hit its

thrusters, firing nonstop as it came back at him.

A game of chicken. West grinned without feeling it as the enemy ship burned toward him. He’d never lost

one yet. He returned fire, pushing his ship’s speed, holding the collision course as the distance between

his ship and the enemy fighter closed precipitously. “The band is warming up...” he murmured, and music

was the furthest thing from his mind.

He didn’t check his displays, didn’t need to now; his gaze was locked on the closing ship. “The crowd

begins to roar...” His grin widened. His eyes were filled with the dazzle of pulse lightning. He felt more

alive now, on the brink of death, than he ever felt any other time.

A nova in the neon starfield of his displays was warning him of imminent collision as the attack ship’s

image flashed on his screen, captured in the targeting hash marks. The display expanded around him,

becoming a tactical grid.

“Target lock,” the computer said.

“The lights are dimming...” He laughed, his voice rising with elation. “The curtain’s coming up.

Showtime!” He fired.

The laser bursts converged on the attacking ship, barely meters ahead of him. It exploded just off his

bow. West screamed in exhilaration and giddy terror as his ship tore through a swarm of debris.

A spacesuited body slammed into the transparent wall in front of him. West jerked back; sucked in a

deep breath, face-to-face with the anonymous corpse that would have been his own if his luck hadn’t

held. “While you’re at it,” he muttered, “check the oil.”

In another moment the body was gone, and only the gleaming curve of the hypergate lay ahead, cradling

a lagoon of stars.

The second attack ship roared past below his feet, weapons firing, locked in a pinwheeling battle with

Jeb’s fighter. He watched Walker jag sharply, clearing the lethal fireworks of a high energy volley-almost.

A lash of energy grazed Jeb’s ship; West grimaced as he saw the glowing furrow it plowed in the

fuselage. Jeb’s attacker looped the loop and was back on his tail already, firing.

“Weapons are off line.” Walker’s voice came through the headset phones, sounding as matter-of-fact as

if he’d lost a pair of socks. “I’m gonna jettison the main drive core.”

The thruster core of Walker’s ship blew free in a bolus of flame, and West watched it fly back with the

uncanny accuracy of an avenging sword blow to collide with the pursuing craft. He hooted with glee as

the raider ship exploded in a ball of light.

“Am I good, or what?” Jeb crowed triumphantly.

West opened his mouth to reply, broke off as he heard Walker’s sudden curse, half drowned in a burst

of static. “Jeb...?” he said.

The echo of a computer’s synthesized voice answered him through Walker’s open mike: “Warning.

Failure in redundant drive systems.”

West swore as he looked up and realized where they were heading: on a collision course with the

hypergate.

Static stung his ears, and an alarm began to sound aboard Walker’s ship. “Impact in ninety seconds,” the

onboard computer said.

“Damn,” Jeb muttered. “Gate Control-“ He broke off, as the sight of the hypergate coming at him like a

mailed fist emptied his thoughts, “-this is Ranger One,” he finished, his voice straining. “Engines will not

respond. Require assistance. Repeat...”

West watched and listened, barely breathing; trapped in his best friend’s worst nightmare and unable to

wake up. A stranger’s voice over the radio said, “Ranger One, this is Grissom Base. Rescue craft have

been dispatched.”

West shook himself out, angled his position until he could see three rescue ships streaking toward them.

“Impact in sixty seconds...”

They would be too late. He looked ahead again. The hypergate filled his vision; he could make out every

detail of the scorched, twisted metal and the dangling entrails of ruptured lines where enemy fire or flying

debris had found their marks. He opened his comm link. “Grissom, this is Eagle One. Those Pugs will

never reach him in time.”

“Eagle One,” the radio spat, “clear this frequency, and return to base.”

West hung motionless for a handful of heartbeats, staring down at his friend’s ship, watching inertia’s

irresistible force sweep it toward the hypergate’s immovable object.

“This is Eagle One. I’m going after him.”

“Negative, Eagle One,” the controller said sharply. “Your craft is not equipped-“

West hit his thrusters, sending his craft in a headlong dive toward Jeb’s ship and the massive structure

that was rising with unbelievable speed to meet them both.

“Impact in thirty seconds-“

A section of flaming debris exploded outward from the gate’s surface and hurtled toward them. Jeb’s

ship would never even survive long enough to hit the gate-

West hit the firing stud, grinned in satisfaction as his lasers fragmented the massive chunk of debris and he

watched it scatter harmlessly. He was still accelerating, closing faster all the time with Jeb’s ship; his mind

and the displays told him it still wasn’t fast enough.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jeb’s voice demanded suddenly, hurting his ears.

“Making balloon animals,” West snapped. He could actually see Jeb in his harness now-the precise curve

of his shaven skull, his dark face looking out in disbelief through the Ranger’s transparent dome. “Saving

your ass!” he hissed.

But the vast pockmarked surface of the gate was all that Jeb saw now, all that he could see-

“Major West!” the radio blared; West’s jaw tightened. “You are not authorized to jeopardize this asset.

Return to base. That is a direct order. Acknowledge-“

West slammed his hand down, shutting off the radio. “Never liked that station, anyway,” he muttered, to

the naked mass of twisted metal that was about to vaporize them both, ship and all. He was one with the

ship again, dodging debris, blowing fragments of gate out of his path with a laser burst. Jeb’s ship was

directly below him now. He could almost reach out and grab it...

“Impact in five seconds-“

“Don, man,” Jeb whispered, “I’m really scared...”

West pulled ahead at last, shooting past Jeb’s fighter as he drove his ship toward the wall of steel and

alloy in an ever-steepening dive.

“Warning, proximity alert-“

“Jeb,” West murmured, “I’m going to give you a little kiss. Don’t take it the wrong way.”

He dove past Walker’s bow, blotting out Jeb’s view of Armageddon with his fuselage.

“You’re too close!” Jeb shouted frantically. “Abort. Abort!”

“Going up,” West said, his voice inhumanly calm. His hands were white with tension as he angled the

joystick up; his face was a mask of resolve so utter that he wouldn’t have known it in a mirror.

Sandwiched between the gate’s surface and Jeb’s fighter, he jagged sharply upward; the Eagle One’s

cockpit dome glanced off Walker’s cockpit like a cue ball. Eight ball in the side pocket.

The kiss knocked Jeb’s ship off course, through a flaming gap in the gate’s surface where the attackers

had scored a direct hit, and onward into clear space.

West’s teeth gritted together over his wordless shout of elation as his own rebounding craft skreeled

across the surface of the hypergate, sending up a red-hot plume of shaven metal.

He goosed the thrusters; gasped in relief as the ship responded, arcing out and away from the gate’s torn

surface before he became the final statistic on its damage report.

Joan D. Vinge - Lost in Space.pdf

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