"Bud Sparhawk - Alba Krystal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sparhawk Bud)

I hoped the all-channel emergency had awakened some of Alice's functions as we pulled away.
Otherwise I dreaded what they would find when they arrived.

I came around Grimm high up and then pointed the nose of the transport straight at the center of the
planet. By my rough calculations were well behind the freighter in kilometers but nearly ten minutes closer
in time than if we'd followed her directly, and it's time, not distance that matters in running intercepts.

James pointed a stubby finger at the horizon. Just above the sky-glow, where the planet's outer fringes
dispersed the sun on the far side, was a bright glint that pointed our way. I gave the ship an extra kick
and changed the angle of attack relative to the "horizon." I looked at the tell-tales from the transport's
computer. The poor thing was never designed to run the plots I'd given it and was damned near having a
breakdown.

We'd be on the higher, faster orbit while the other was trading time and going deep into the gravity well
to gain the advantage of the boost to achieve critical speed. I signed a prayer we'd get to her probable
exit point at the right time. If we didn't there was no way we could hope to catch her.

Forty minutes later I watched through a red haze as the other ship came to us. The crew had reported
that Alice had been gutted and Alba, my priceless Alba was dead.
A few kilometers below us and falling quickly behind was the accelerating freighter. We let her drop out
of sight behind the horizon before I hit the retros and dropped our speed down and we fell toward the
dark form of the freighter, rushing on us like a meteor. I lifted our prow, waited a fraction of a second
and then opened the cargo bay.

Consider the situation: You're a freighter captain whipping along at the top of an atmosphere of a world
with a deep gravity gradient. In order to build your speed up as high as you can and get the maximum use
out of that field you dropped down on a sharp angle as deep as possible because the deeper you go the
higher your exit speed will be at breakaway. Simple, yes?

Now consider that having done so, having bottomed out as close as you dare -- for the tenuous outer
reaches of the atmosphere would rip the unstreamlined spars and booms of your deep-space freighter to
pieces -- you fire your engines to their maximum, flaring them for the extra bit of speed they give and
suddenly you see a few tons of mass dropping toward the cobweb of struts and wires that hold the
components of your ship together.

Choices: Shut off the power and pray that your tangential will carry you past without too much damage,
fire an outrigger engine to change your line of flight, or topple the ship so the onrushing rocks hit some
less vulnerable part. Quick now -- you've got less than five seconds to decide and about forty seconds to
consider what you've done.

Too late. The rocks hit the port dorsal cargo spar and bend it back until it snaps in two. The cargo
canister twists loose and wobbles crazily into the rear fuel segment as other rocks tear into the low
cross-braces, the rear radio sail and the hundreds of control wires and cables connecting the parts of the
ship to each other. Elapsed time -- three seconds.

The center of mass for the freighter was now somewhere to the starboard of center line and changing
every minute as the damage spreads. The freighter began to slew around in a flat turn and assume a
nose-down attitude to her track. The engines continued to fire as the disintegration of her structural
integrity was compounded by the stresses being put on her.