Try: "You've got to trust somebody, Pham." Pham glared back at her, and for an instant she feared he might go completely to pieces. "You'd land in the middle of that castle? Medieval villains are just as smart as any you've seen in the Beyond, Rav. They could teach the Butterflies a thing or two. An arrow in the head will kill you as sure as an antimatter bomb." More ######## memories? But Pham was right on this: She thought about the just-concluded conversation. The second pack -- Steel -- had been a bit too insistent. He had been good to Jefri, but he was clearly desperate. And she believed him when he said that a high fly-by wouldn't scare the Woodcarvers off. They needed to come down near the ground with firepower. Just now, about all the firepower they had was Pham's beam gun. "Okay, then! Do what you and Steel talked about. Fly the lander past Woodcarver's lines, laser blast them." "God damn it, you know I can't fly that. The landing boat is like nothing either of us know, and without the automation I --" Softly: "Without the automation, you need Blueshell, Pham." There was horror on Pham's face. She reached out to him. He was silent for a long moment, not seeming to notice. "Yeah." His voice was low,
mbt shoes black, strangled. Then: "Blueshell! Get up here." OOB's lander had more than enough room for the Skroderider and Pham Nuwen. The craft had been built specifically for Rider use. With higher automation working, it would have been easy for Pham -- for even a child -- to fly. Now, the craft could not provide stable flight, and the "manual" controls were something that gave even Blueshell a hard time. Damn automation. Damn optimization. For most of his adult life Pham had lived in the Slowness. All those decades,
复件 (32) air max2, he had managed spacecraft and weapons that could have reduced the feudal empire below to slag. Yet now, with equipment that should have been enormously more powerful,
复件 (92) air max1, he couldn't even fly a damn landing boat. Across the crew compartment, Blueshell was at the pilot's position. His fronds stretched across a web of supports and controls. He had turned off all display automation; only the main window was alive, a natural view from the boat's bow camera. OOB floated some hundred meters ahead, drifting up and out of view as their craft slid backwards and down. Blueshell's fidgety nervousness -- furtiveness,
复件 (94) air max2, it seemed to Pham -- had disappeared as he got into piloting the craft. His voder voice became terse and preoccupied, and the edges of his fronds writhed across the controls,
复件 (26) air max2, an exercise that would have been impossible to Pham even if he had a lifetime of experience with the gear. "Thank you, Sir Pham.... I'll prove you can trust...." The nose lurched downwards and they were staring almost straight into the fjord-carven coastline twenty kilometers below. They fell free for half a minute while the rider's fronds writhed on their supports. Hot piloting? No: "Sorry,
复件 (38) air max1, sorry." Acceleration, and Pham sank into his restraints under a grav load that wobbled between a tenth gee and an intolerable crush. The landscape rotated and they had a brief glimpse of OOB, now like a tiny moth above them. "Is it necessary to kill, Sir Pham? Perhaps simply our appearance over the battle...." Nuwen gritted his teeth. "Just get us down." The Steel creature had been adamant that they fry the entire hillside. Despite all Pham's suspicions, the pack might be right on that. They were up against a crew of murderers that had not hesitated to ambush a starship; the Woodcarvers needed a real demonstration.
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