Genesis

The island in space was now complete bedlam, with alien mecha massed in suicidal assault waves, while the ship's guns blazed away. Rick Hunter rocketed into the midst of this with a ship he could barely control.

Still, he did the best he could, gradually bringing the little racer in end for end through judicious use of the boosters, his only method of halting being a retrofire. He made microburns, slowing, trying to line up his approach. It seemed hopeless.

Then a bad situation became even worse. All the landing bays were closed, sealed tight. 'I forgot, they shut them during combat,' Rick said, tight-upped. Minmei blinked, looking at him as if he'd said it in another language.

A mortally damaged pod went tumbling past them, trailing fire like an erratic meteor, victim of an armor- piercing, discarding-sabot round from SDF-1-so close that it all but singed Mockingbird's wingtip. Rick and Minmei shrank from it in reflex, but it was already impacting the SDF-1.

Rick had to crane around, glancing over the back of the plane, to see what happened. The pod gave up all its destructive power in one great explosion, hitting at the confined area of a recessed maintenance causeway.

It was a million-to-one shot, but the explosion acted as a shaped charge, blowing a gaping hole in the dimensional fortress's armored hide. And it was toward that hole that the plane was going.

Until the explosion's shock wave hit it.

Mockingbird was jarred, stopped in midflight, spun. It ended up with its nose more or less pointed at the SDF-1 but moving away from it.

Rick was already feeling a little light-headed, and breathing was an effort. Moreover, the boosters didn't have very much left to give. 'Maybe we can get through the hole the invader made!'

Minmei nodded, too short-winded to answer. Rick cut in the boosters, steering as best he could.

Another pilot would have died then. But Rick knew Mockingbird well, even under circumstances as bizarre as these. He nursed the racer along with minute bursts of thrust, knowing there'd be no time to flip and retro, hoping he and Minmei could survive a crash.

But they would have to endure one more bad break to even the balance of the sudden luck that had come their way: A thick curtain of armor was descending over the hole, the reaction of an automatic damage-control system.

Rick cut in all boosters full throttle, seeing his only chance of survival disappearing. He cranked up the propfan in full reverse, hoping that it might stop the ship once it hit atmosphere.

He'd calculated that most of the outsurge of air from the breached compartment would have spent itself by the time he got there. There was no point in thinking-otherwise; neither boosters nor propfan could take Mockingbird «upstream» against the terrific pressure of such a monster air leak.

He wasn't too far off. In fact, he did a piloting job worthy of a place in the record books until the descending armor curtain sheared the racer's uppermost wing off.

Still, the little plane shot into the vast compartment, more or less intact, aimed at a far area of the ceiling. The propfan howled as the blades got some bite in a very thin atmosphere. The armor patch clanged into place.

And there was gravity. Mockingbird's upward climb topped out and became a crash dive. We almost made it, Rick realized. The deck whirled at the canopy.

But they'd happened into an area still strung with hoisting cables, rigging slings, and tackle-a jungle of them. Mockingbird was successively snagged, whirled, flipped, and caught in a matter of seconds, with more pieces broken from it.

Rick and Minmei felt themselves blacking out but shook it off a few seconds later to discover themselves hanging upside down, the deck only a yard or, two below the cockpit dome. The rumble of life-support equipment pumping air back into the chamber was already loud.

Mockingbird hung ensnared in the lines and cables, upside down but stable for the time being. A last piece of good fortune: None of the lines had caught across the canopy to hold the cockpit shut and imprison them.

Rick had no reserves left to think of elegant solutions. He hit the release, and the canopy swung down. He lowered Minmei with the last of his strength and, resigning himself to a fall, released his safety harness. He landed on the deck at her feet, saying only, 'Oof!'

She knelt next to him. They looked themselves over with wonder, having resigned themselves to being dead. Then they looked at each other and burst out laughing at the same moment.

It was the best, loudest laugh either of them had ever had. Somehow, it was immeasurably important to Rick that he share it with Minmei.

'We just shot down the last enemy Battlepod, sir,' Sammie relayed the information.

'Very good.' Gloval nodded. 'Any contact with headquarters yet?'

That was Claudia's hot potato. 'No, Captain. I've tried, sir, but nothing works. We can't raise them.'

Sammie broke in, 'Are you sure there's no system malfunction?'

'Negative,' Claudia shot back tersely.

'None at all,' Vanessa said, backing her. 'It's operating perfectly.'

Gloval didn't want to indulge his fears; he had a pretty good idea what had happened, but if it were to prove true, the consequences would be dire indeed. Still, there was no avoiding the inevitable. 'Give me the reading on our position.'

Vanessa was prompt and precise in answering. 'The planet Pluto's orbit, according to the computer plot.'

'The planet Pluto?' So much worse than even he had suspected. Gloval dipped deep into the fortitude that develops when death has been cheated a hundred times and comes back for a rematch. Relentlessly.

The bridge gang was gathering around Vanessa, even rocklike Lisa. 'Pluto?' 'Impossible!'

'It can't be!' Claudia was proclaiming, knowing very well that it was. 'I was against this fold jump business all along!'

More than just about anyone else alive, Gloval knew when it was time to play martinet (rarely) and when it was time to play patriarch (the manner in which he had won every important citation there was, some several times over).

'Now, now, now. Settle down; don't panic.' His voice was calm and sure. It brought order and discipline back to the bridge by its very measured resonance. 'All we have to do is refold to get back to where we started.'

That made them all exchange looks and get a grip on themselves. Gloval was four steps ahead of everyone, as usual; everything was all right.

Far aft, in the engineering section, Lang stared up and laughed, then doubled over, slapping his knees-a laugh that seesawed between the hysterical and the Olympian. The techs and scientists and crewpeople around him looked at him dubiously.

It had been going on for a half minute or so, and each time he took a fresh look, Lang laughed again. Tears had begun squeezing out of the corners of his strange eyes for what he perceived as a monumental joke.

Before anybody around him could act, Lang forced himself to stop. Cosmic jokes weren't something you could share with everybody; the gift of humor didn't run that deep in some people.

Lang straightened and caught his breath, gathering himself, shaking his head.

'Somebody get me Gloval.'

'There's absolutely nothing to worry about,' Gloval was saying.

'I hope not, Captain,' Lisa muttered, back at her duty station. And that was when the hot line rang.

'Now what?' Gloval got it, growling like a bear. 'Yes? What? Are you absolutely sure? Stand fast; I'll be right there.'

Gloval slammed the handset down. He ignored the questioning faces around him and headed for the hatch. Lisa stood rooted, stunned by the idea that the captain would even think about leaving