Free Strider's Galaxy by John Grant Page A

thumping the surface in front of her with her fist.
    "Meteor shields are now up to fifty per cent strength," said the Computer.
    "That's not very relevant at the moment. How's the shuttle doing?"
    "It appears to be locked on target."
    "Good. Keep it that way."
    For the first time Strider noticed the rate at which her heart was pounding. It was lucky some nearby medbot hadn't come rushing on to the command deck, insisting that she take it easy.
    She looked at O'Sondheim. He was still ashen.
    "Fingers crossed," she said, with assumed optimism.
    "Shouldn't we suit up?" he said.
    "There's no time. Besides, a captain goes down with her ship." It suddenly hit her. She was as terrified as he was, but she'd been too busy to notice it.
    "Progress?" she snapped at the Main Computer.
    "If impact is to be achieved, it will be between fourteen point nine and fifteen point eight seconds from now. The range of values is as wide as this because I am uncertain about the probability of impact indeed being achieved. The meteor deflectors are now at seventy-five per cent strength and rising."
    Fifteen seconds or so. Not a long time to think about being dead. Even the personnel who'd managed to get themselves suited up wouldn't have a great chance. A mass of several thousand tons moving at upwards of seven thousand kilometers per hour would probably break the Santa Maria in two. Depending on where it hit, one or other of the craft might explode. Short-circuiting through the electrics would do untold damage. There were likely to be flash-fires in the few seconds before the Santa Maria 's oxygen dissipated: suits were designed to withstand vacuum, not flames. Some of her people might be able to cling on to installations around them long enough for the people on Ganymede to be able to get here in time to save them, but most would be spilled out into space: you don't go hunting for a person floating in space, because space is too big and a person is too small. Anyway, the force of the impact would probably be so great that no one aboard her ship— her ship, dammit—would have a bone in their body left unbroken.
    "Don't blame yourself," said Pinocchio, who had suddenly appeared behind her.
    "Between six point four and six point seven seconds," said the Main Computer. "My accuracy is improving because—"
    "Just tell me to the nearest second!" she screamed at the screen.
    "Four." That was the number of people she was really fond of aboard the Santa Maria : Pinocchio, Lan Yi, Maloron Leander and Umbel Nelson. OK, since she was being honest with herself in what could prove the final few moments of her life: five. Leonie Strider could be added to the list.
    "Three." Which was the number of infants who had been born since the vessel had left Phobos. She had an insane urge to start singing her thoughts out loud, as if they were some kind of nursery rhyme.
    "Two." She didn't have a thought for the number two, so she was glad she hadn't started singing.
    "One." The one thing she had wanted for over twenty years to do was to go starside.
    There was an impossibly long delay. Her crudely improvised guided missile had failed to find its target.
    Then . . .
    A flash of brightness to her left, like the first rising of the Sun in a tropical dawn, appeared in the view-window in front of her. It grew with implausible speed, seemingly becoming even brighter. She shut her eyes tightly, but the light still stabbed through the lids. She put up her hands, but even they didn't seem to give her retinae enough protection.
    "Impact achieved," she heard the Computer say.
    She'd been holding her breath for too long. Now it came rasping painfully out of her.
    "Status of meteor-deflection shields," she croaked, her hands still over her eyes.
    "Ninety point two per cent," the Main Computer replied promptly. "There is a four point one per cent chance that any of the debris from the impact will hit the Santa Maria with sufficient momentum to cause major damage."
    "Keep the shields