The Project Gutenberg eBook, Slingshot, by Irving W. Lande, Illustrated by
Emsh

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Title: Slingshot

Author: Irving W. Lande

Release Date: August 30, 2007 [eBook #22462]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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SLINGSHOT

by

IRVING W. LANDE

Illustrated by Emsh

[Illustration]

_The slingshot was, I believe, one of the few
weapons of history that wasn't used in the last war.
That doesn't mean it won't be used in the next!_

"Got a bogey at three o'clock high. Range about six hundred miles."
Johnson spoke casually, but his voice in the intercom was thin with
tension.

Captain Paul Coulter, commanding Space Fighter 308, 58th Squadron, 33rd
Fighter Wing, glanced up out of his canopy in the direction indicated,
and smiled to himself at the instinctive reaction. Nothing there but the
familiar starry backdrop, the moon far down to the left. If the light
wasn't right, a ship might be invisible at half a mile. He squeezed the
throttle mike button. "Any IFF?"

"No IFF."

"O.K., let me know as soon as you have his course." Coulter squashed out
his cigar and began his cockpit check, grinning without humor as he
noticed that his breathing had deepened and his palms were moist on the
controls. He looked down to make sure his radio was snug in its pocket
on his leg; checked the thigh harness of his emergency rocket, wrapped
in its thick belly pad; checked the paired tanks of oxygen behind him,
hanging level from his shoulders into their niche in the "cradle." He
flipped his helmet closed, locked it, and opened it again. He tossed a
sardonic salute at the photograph of a youn