He'd like to go on tearing and gouging, fighting the only way he knew—fighting nature.
Those slim, tube like army ships weren't for him. His job was to slog along, ripping away at the barrier that at once protected and cut off his home satellite from the other satellite nations.
The Z1000 was a fighting ship that would never enter the war directly, and yet affected its course more vividly than any single unit of the fleet.
Never enter the war directly?
Freedman wondered. Listening to the inhuman power of the Cutter, he wondered. It might be feasible. He had never studied speeds and pressures. Just how much punishment could the big ship take?
Suddenly, with a lurch, the Z1000 tore itself from the wall and flew out into space.
Swiftly, as the cutters were already whirring upward toward a breaking speed, Freedman cut the power and idled in space. To his left, the fleet was drawn up in neat battle lines. Captain Stew's guard ship was floating about, and he knew that Stew himself would be watching him coming. They had been listening to his thunderous battle with the rocks for some minutes.
For a second Freedman felt elation because he had once more battled with nature and won. Then he remembered Jerry Graham, stretched lifelessly on the bunk in the room below.
The fight was just starting.