Proximity torps began exploding all around me. They weren't doing
Thorsten a bit of good. Either they hit me, or, without air to carry
the shock, they were as good as not there at all.
"Here's your hyperspacial drive, Harry!" I howled. "Here it
comes--compliments of Ash Holcomb, hired gun!"
Suddenly a missile exploded under my bow. It was a clean hit. The ship
screamed escaping air, and shuddered, bucking upward. It wasn't just
stanchions ripping loose now, or buckling plates. It was snapping
girders, and metal spewing out into space like teeth from a broken
mouth. The trouble board winked solid fire at me.
I didn't care about that. The ship was unhurt in the only place that
counted--her engine room--and the stern jets kept firing. But I was
bent over the wheel, sobbing in pure, white-hot, frustrated rage,
because I was going to miss. I'd been slammed up off my trajectory high
enough to miss, and Thorsten's ship was firing every tube he had to
drive herself down and away, behind a protective screen of other ships.