"Alan Dean Foster - Splinter of the Mind's Eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

Gone, no matter how frantically he cajoled the communicator. His attention was diverted as something
in one overhead panel blew out in a shower of sparks and metal fragments. The cockpit filled with
acrid fumes.
Impelled by a desperate thought, Luke activated the fighter's tracker. Part of the little ship's offensive
armament, it was among its best-built and sealed components. Even so, it had been overloaded by the
fury of the peculiar distorting energies, energies which its designers had never anticipated that it would
encounter.
Useless now, nonetheless its automatic record was intact and playable. It showed for several moments

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Splinter Of The Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster

the falling spiral which could only have been left by the Princess' ship. As best as he could without
auto-enhancement, Luke set the X-wing on a pursuit course downward. There was little to no chance
of following the Princess precisely. He simply prayed that now they might land somewhere other than
on opposite sides of the planet from each other. He simply prayed they might land.
Swerving slightly like a crippled camel in a sandstorm, the fighter continued to drop. As the lush
surface of Mimban rushed up at him Luke caught rolling, twisting glimpses of mountainless green
swaths interwoven with veins and arteries of muddy brown and blue.
Though he was utterly ignorant of Mimbanian topography, the green and blue-brown of rivers and
streams and vegetation seemed infinitely preferable as landing sites to, say, the endless cerulean of
open sea or the gray spires of young mountains. No rock is as soft as water and no water so soft as a
swamp, he reflected, trying to cheer himself. He was starting to believe he actually might survive the
touchdown, the Princess doing likewise.
Frantically he fought to discover a combination of circuits that would reactivate the target tracker.
Once he partly succeeded. The screen showed the Y-wing still on the course he'd just plotted. His
chance of setting down close to her ship was looking better.
Despite the demands on his mind, he couldn't help but consider the energy distortions that had ruined
their instrumentation. The fact that the rainbow maelstrom was confined to one areaтАФan area very
close to the location of the landing beaconтАФraised questions as intriguing as they were disturbing.
Trying to minimize the effects of his insane controls, Luke switched off his engines and continued
down on glide. Back on Tatooine he'd had plenty of practice idling in his skyhopper. But that was
considerably different from doing practically the same thing in a vehicle as complex as this fighter. He
had no idea if the same thought would occur to the Princess, or if she had had any experience in
powerless flight. Anxiously chewing his lower lip, Luke realized that even if she tried gliding, his own
craft was far better suited to such a maneuver than her Y-wing.
If only he could see her he'd feel a lot better. Strain his eyes as he might, though, there was no sign of
her. Soon, he knew, all chance of visual contact would vanish. His ship began plunging recklessly into
a floor of dirty gray cotton, thick cumulo-nimbus clouds.
Several rambling flashes crackled through the air, only this time the lightning was natural. But Luke
was deep in clouds by then and could see nothing. Panic hammered at him. If the visibility stayed like
this all the way to the surface he'd locate the ground a bit too late, the hard way. As he considered
switching back to auto, distorted as it was, he broke out of the bottom layer of clouds. The air was
thick with rain, but not so bad that he failed to make out the terrain below. Time was running out faster
than altitude now. He had barely enough of either to pull back on the atmospheric controls before
something jolted the fighter from below. That was followed instantly by a series of similar crackings
as he clipped off the crowns of the tallest trees.
Eyeballing his airspeed indicator, Luke fired braking rockets and nudged the ship's nose down ever so
gently. At least he would be spared the worry of igniting the vegetation around the landing site.
Everything hereabouts was drenched.