Then, on the visiscreen, bleak Hyperion was looming. Boone waited, taut and strain-straught, hand on the carrier-release lever.
Now, slowly, the mountain peaks so far away began to form a pattern ... a distortion and projection of the same pattern Boone had seen before, looking up at the crags that pierced the ice-shell.
For a moment he almost thought that in a prick of black he was seeing the rift made by the fallen Cartel sphere-ship.
Not that it mattered; enough that he had a mark to shoot at.
The captain's voice rasped from the com-box: "Boone! You'd better hurry. Our detectors show Federation ships approaching!"
The last lingering fragments of Boone's hesitation vanished. He pressed the button set to trigger the first carrier.
Like a scarlet lance, the sleek craft shot from its cradle—speeding out from the sphere; hurtling down towards the ice-shell, faster and faster.
Boone pressed the second button.
Another explosive-laden carrier speared through the void upon its mission.