The pip on his screen drifted to the left, and he gave a short burst to center it. He begrudged having to use his infinitesimal fuel on tracking when he needed it so desperately to go home. He looked through the canopy, but saw nothing, and returned his eyes to the screen. The telltale pip had drifted slightly to the right. He had overcorrected. Cursing, he fired another burst, shorter this time, with the left bank, and watched the pip center. That was good enough.
His ranging said only twelve miles, his speed two mps, relative to target. One second, two seconds, three—there it was, occulting a tiny area of star patched sky.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a bright flare as some other Hornet disappeared in the wave of energy released by its molecular disruption. Then another, in another quadrant. The Alien was fighting back. He jabbed violently at the Stinger release, and saw the two pencils roar fiercely out ahead of him on their own power. He cut his flimsy launching rack into as tight a turn as it would take. The familiar red haze clouded his vision, and just before blacking out he fired another last long burst on the rockets to head him toward home.
"You understand," said Mackley, "that the amount of fuel we can pack into a Hornet is severely limited by the size of the craft. There is not enough to perform the complicated braking maneuvers necessary to return to the Satellite.
"Therefore, the Hornets make no attempt to return to the Satellite from which they were launched. Instead, they return directly to Earth. This may sound contradictory, but remember that the planet has a heavy envelope of air, which the Satellite Bases, of course, have not. We use that air to brake the ships, through friction."
"But Captain, wouldn't the Hornet burn as soon as it touched atmosphere?"
"Ordinarily, if it plunged directly in, yes. But there are techniques for slowing your flight through friction without heating excessively. Basically, the operation is the same as skipping a flat stone on a lake. The Hornet actually only skims the atmosphere, entering at a very shallow angle. The entire delta-wing of the ship is a control surface. That much area, even at such extreme heights, gives a certain amount of control, and the pilot can pull up out of the atmosphere again before heating has become too extreme. He has also been considerably slowed by the same friction which causes the heating. Do you follow me?"
"Yes, I suppose so, but it seems pretty tricky."
"It is tricky, Cressey, and you never want to forget it. It takes a very considerable amount of piloting skill, but it can be done."