he needed a terminal for cover—one not close enough to terminate him, but one sufficiently near that, with luck on the side of the Primgranese gunner, some vital area of his life-support could conceivably be knocked out.
He felt the glare on his back of the terminal he needed two seconds before the time to make his move. That time came.
Instantly he went full inert and tumbled Earthward from the raider formation, a pinwheel of flailing arms and legs that quickly spread-eagled as if his pressor system were giving way and exposing him to the effects of space vacuum. In fact, the pressors did weaken sufficiently to assure the spread-eagling did not look faked.
That far, all was according to plan. But then came the unexpected . . . the statistically possible but improbable accident.
He was holed by a zerburst lance. It could have been fired by friend or foe, and could not have been aimed at him. It terminated too many hundreds of miles away for him to pick out its flare among all the others. He felt the intense burning pain