Slingshot | Page 5

hours of free wheeling. For ten or fifteen minutes, the interphone crackled with the gregariousness born of recent peril, and gradually the ship fell silent as each man returned to his own private thoughts.
Paul was wondering about the men on the other ship--whether any of them were still alive. Eighty thousand miles to fall. That was a little beyond the capacity of an emergency rocket--about 2 G's for sixty seconds--even if they had them. What a way to go home! He wondered what he'd do if it happened to him. Would he wait out his time, or just unlock his helmet.
Guns' drawl broke into his reverie. "Say, cap'n, Ah've been readin' in this magazine about a trick they used to use, called skip bombin'. They'd hang a bomb on the bottom of one of these airplanes, and fly along the ground, right at what they wanted to hit. Then they'd let the bomb go and get out of there, and the bomb would sail right on into the target. You s'pose we could fix this buggy up with an A bomb or an H bomb we could let go a few hundred miles out? Stick a proximity fuse on it, and a time fuse, too, in case we missed. Just sittin' half a mile apart and tradin' shots like we did on that last mission is kinda hard on mah nerves, and it's startin' to happen too often."
"Nice work if we could get it. I'm not crazy about those broadside battles myself. You'd think they'd have found something better than these thirty caliber popguns by now, but the odds say we've got to throw as many different chunks of iron as we can, to have a chance of hitting anything, and even then it's twenty to one against us. You wouldn't have one chance in a thousand of scoring a hit with a bomb at that distance, even if they didn't spot it and take off. What you'd need would be a rocket that could chase them, with the bomb for a head. And there's no way we could carry that size rocket, or fire it if we could. Some day these crates will come with men's rooms, and we'll have a place to carry something like that."
"How big would a rocket like that be?"
"Five, six feet, by maybe a foot. Weigh at least three hundred pounds."
It was five minutes before Guns spoke again. "Ah been thinkin', cap'n. With a little redecoratin', Ah think Ah could get a rocket that size in here with me. We could weld a rail to one of the gun mounts that would hold it up to five or six G's. Then after we got away from station, Ah could take it outside and mount it on the rail."
"Forget it, lad. If they ever caught us pulling a trick like that, they'd have us on hydroponic duty for the next five years. They just don't want us playing around with bombs, till the experts get all the angles figured out, and build ships to handle them. And besides, who do you think will rig a bomb like that, without anybody finding out? And where do you think we'd get a bomb in the first place? They don't leave those things lying around. Kovacs watches them like a mother hen. I think he counts them twice a day."
"Sorry, cap'n. Ah just figured if you could get hold of a bomb, Ah know a few of the boys who could rig the thing up for us and keep their mouths shut."
"Well, forget about it. It's not a bad idea, but we haven't any bomb."
"Right, cap'n."
* * * * *
But it was Paul who couldn't forget about it. All the rest of the way back to station, he kept seeing visions of a panel sliding aside in the nose of a sleek and gleaming ship, while a small rocket pushed its deadly snout forward, and then streaked off at tremendous acceleration.
Interrogation was brief. The mission had turned up nothing new. Their kill made eight against seven for Doc Miller's crew, and they made sure Miller and the boys heard about it. They were lightheaded with the elation that followed a successful mission, swapping insults with the rest of the squadron, and reveling in the sheer contentment of being back safe.
It wasn't until he got back to his stall, and started to write his father a long overdue letter, that he remembered he had heard Kovacs say he was going on leave.
When he finished the letter, he opened the copy of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" he had borrowed from Rodriguez's limited but colorful library. He couldn't keep his mind on it. He kept thinking of the armament officer.
Kovacs was a quiet, intelligent kid, devoted to his work. Coulter wasn't too