Harry Harrison Bill 07 The Final Incoherent Adventure

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switched to the lasers. He swept them through the incoming pack and blew up
three more, plus one of his own escort fighters. The gunner on the ship behind
got two fighters before he developed more pressing concerns of his own.
Another heat-seeking missile blew up another fighter. Bill fired yet another
before he knew what the first had done. Then he switched back to the lasers
and touched off a missile before it could reach him.
The last heat-seeking missile caught the last fighter.
Nailing ten incoming targets at once was pretty good. Bill knew it was a
personal best, and thought it might be a record of some sort.
Unfortunately, it wasn't quite good enough. Bill had intercepted ten, but
there had been eleven, and that last missile found one of the small and
vulnerable spots on the
Heavenly Peace
.
There was a great explosion and the ship went into a steep dive. Alarms went
off, even more of them and louder than reveille. The safety harness and the
catheter tightened up, cutting off Bill's breathing and nearly cutting off
small but important pieces of his body. His video display went solid red.
Electric blue letters flashed, PREPARE TO DIE! PREPARE TO DIE! PREPARE TO DIE!
WE'RE GOING
DOWN! PREPARE TO DIE!
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ncoherent%20Adventure.htm (30 of 105)24-12-2006 1:57:24
Bill, the Galactic Hero The Final Incoherent Adventure
A small window the one that Bill had started to think of as the general's
private window opened in the screen. "I'd like to thank the whole crew for
all your effort in our great endeavor. I'd particularly like to thank you for
making me look so good. I only wish it were possible now, in the moment of
your greatest trial, for me to be with you. However, the
Heavenly Peace has been shot down, and I am much too important to the war
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effort to be captured or killed.
"So I am leaving in my command pod. But I wish you every success in getting to
the surface alive. If you are captured, which you surely will be if you aren't
killed in the crash, please remember that you are expected to die under
torture before telling them anything at all. Not that you know anything
useful, but it is the principle that is important.
"Remember that you will all be eligible for citations, as long as you die
under torture. If you survive, of course, you will be eligible for court
martials followed by execution as deserters.
"Good luck, and gods bless."
It was a stirring and touching speech, especially compared to Captain
Kadaffi's farewell to the troops.
The music to the well-known hymn, Nearer, Whichever Deity Applies to Thee
, welled up, and the words scrolled across the bottom of the screen. A
beautiful picture of the sky filled the rest of the screen, punctuated by
General Weissearse's private cabin-cum-escape-capsule lifting itself to
safety.
Once more, Bill prepared to die.
CHAPTER 8
All Bill could do was hold on for the ride.
It was a pretty good ride, if it wasn't going to end with a crash, with loops
and swoops and turns and dives and an extraordinary variety of bumps and
sudden turns. The pilot managed to find an instant to turn off the klaxons,
but there was no way to shut down the hymns. So the deadly dive was
accompanied all the way down by pious and mournful music.
Bill tried singing along to the music, but he didn't know any of the official
Imperial non-denominational hymns. He only remembered one prayer "Save me! I
don't want to die" and his repertoire of assorted screams for mercy and
pleas for help was getting stale from overuse. All those responses to dire
crisis that had proven so effective in the past were meaningless now.
Even though the safety belts were holding him in his seat so tightly that he
could move only his face and his toes and his fingers, he was still holding on
to the straps as though his life depended on it.
What his life really depended on, of course, was the skill of the pilot of the
Heavenly Peace and a great deal of luck. The pilot was doing what he could,
and so far the luck was holding. For one thing, none of the other Imperial
ships were shooting at them, and Bill knew for certain that that had to be
pure luck.
For another thing, none of the Eyerackian gunners seemed to be aiming at them;
this might have been luck, or maybe the ship was swerving around too much for
them to hit. Or maybe the Eyerackians didn't think it was worth shooting down
twice.
That didn't mean that bombs and missiles and bullets weren't zooming all
around them. They were, and some of them were exploding not terribly far away.
On the video screen, over the pious lyrics and the bouncing ball, Bill was
getting a close-up view of the death and destruction behind the scout ship.
There was some consolation in the vision of the debris and completely exploded
ships that were falling down even faster than the
Heavenly Peace
, with even less chance of survival. But not much. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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