"Phyllis Eisenstein - In the Hands Of Glory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eisenstein Phyllis)

some to be turned over for auction, the majority to be retired to
тАЬpermanent storage.тАЭ The message ended:


After the Federation Patrol is disbanded, every effort will be
made by the independent planetary governments to find
alternative employment for Patrol personnel.


Like our ships, we were going to be junked.


тАФfrom the Memoirs of Brigadier General
Marcus Bohannon, Commander,
36th Tactical Strike Force,
Stellar Federation Patrol
 ONE
^┬╗

An instant frozen in memory: above, beside, before, behindтАФthe placid
sky; belowтАФthe sculptured carpet of summer-green forest, with rivulets
like silver wire sparkling under the high sun. The aircraft rode an
electromagnetic jetstream across the winds of Amphora; in the cockpit,
Dia opened her mouth to ask her companion some trivial questionтАж
The instant melted in chaos: a flash too brilliant for the eyes, leaving
darkness in its wake; a sound too loud for the ears, ringing through flesh
and blood and bone; a breath-snatching concussion, as if a giant hand had
batted the craft aside.
Blind, deaf, numb, she screamed the pilotтАЩs name even as she reached
for her own controls.
Vision came back slowly, black and gold, a narrow corridor set with
burnished bits of brass. The sky was a shimmering clockface, the horizon a
spinning sweep hand. Her fingers tugged at the steering grips, flicked
switches, rapped dials, pushed, pulledтАж but Dia felt none of itтАФthey were
someone elseтАЩs fingers, directed at a distance by her will.
Fighting the sluggish controls, she chanced a sidelong glance at
Michael. His pilotтАЩs console was a wreckage, and fragments of the
shattered windscreen glittered among the ruins. His chair was cracked
and smoldering. He slumped in the seat, held there by only one strap, his
body blackened, bloody, ripped from groin to neck, his skull showing
sudden white where the face was peeled away.
DiaтАЩs own blood blurred the horrid vision, closing her eyes when she
could not; smearing it away with one crimson sleeve, she was able to
wrench her attention back to her own half of the cockpit. The horizon had
slowed its mad reeling, but now the forest loomed close. Wind screamed
past her cheeks as she cursed the failing grips, the gutted fusilage, the
dying engines, but her skin was numb to the blast, and her ears were filled
with the discordant toll of bells. Heeling the craft around, she sought an
open landing space; there was none. The forest changed with proximity:
the nubbly carpet became an endless expanse of green-fringed pikes.