The City Who Fought
- Автор: Маккефри Энн, Стирлинг Стивен Майкл
- Серия: brainship #4
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The City Who Fought». Краткое содержание книги:
Simeon's love of wargaming would find unexpected uses when the brutal Kolnari attack the nearby colony planet, Bethel. Sheltering the colony's refugee's brought the city an invitation to serious trouble with Kolnari pirates.
The screen jerked, a different scene coming into abrupt focus: a manor-house among formal gardens, only a few scorch-marks on its walls. Invader infantry stood at their ease; the picture had the slightly glassy look of a flatpic extrapolated by a long-distance camera. Armored fighting vehicles rested in leagues on the lawns, their cannon pointing outward in a herringbone pattern, lighter weapons on their upper decks tracking restlessly across the sky. An aircraft slowed overhead. Bulky armored shapes disembarked, one in a suit marked with complex blazons in a script of angles and sharp curves.
The viewpoint zoomed in, as a group of young women in long robes were pushed out of the front door of the manor, many carrying bundles. They knelt under the alien guns; one opened the chest she carried, filled with miniature crystal vials. She smiled, gesturing to the bottles, opening one and smelling, extending it to the warrior in the decorated suit. From her looks she was about sixteen Standard years and very beautiful, with the classic features similar to Amos'. The pirate raised both gauntlets to his helmet, lifted it free and tucked it under one arm, bending to sniff. The exposed face was scored with age, roughened skin pockmarked by radiation damage, blossoming growths, thinning blond hair startling against dark complexion. It smiled…
Leered, Simeon thought, reviewing the scene. I've heard the word, but never really seen the corresponding expression till now.
The view of the pirate's face was brief. Even as he bent, a red dot appeared between his brows. Less than a second later, his head exploded into mist.
The body stayed erect in the armored suit, blood pumping in a high arc from the stump of the neck. The girl with the perfume box stood, smiling truly this time as the blood bathed her. Until one of the other warriors stepped forward and, gripping her head in a powered gauntlet, squeezed. Her head burst in a spray of pink bone and gray matter. The other girls joined hands and were singing when the plasma gun scythed them into ash and steam.
Someone in the hall was retching; several sobbed.
"For the death of that Kolnar, I claim only the marksmanship," Amos said, his archaic accent adding gravity to his clear tone. "The bravery was my sister's. Sahrah led the maiden volunteers. I did not know what she had planned. I was trying to reach the manor before the enemy could. We think… we think that dead dog was fourth or fifth in rank among the pirates."
All heads turned to him; his was slightly bowed. "Such was Bethel, when the Kolnari came to us," he said. "They have the souls of-" he spoke a nonstandard word.
"Rats," Simeon said.
"-rats that walk like men. They kill for killing's sake, they rape and torture and steal, and what they cannot steal, they foul out of depravity."
Another holo came up. "Keriss," Amos said. There was total silence now. A city by a bay, astride a river, lower-built than the worlds influenced by Central's architectural styles, bright-colored buildings amid broad gardens. A scattering of taller buildings at its center, and one that led the eye up and up in a leap of towers and domes.
"The Temple," Amos said. "This was a remote pickup, a news-service shot, just before the end."
White light flashed. The city dissolved as the bulging doughnut shape of the Shockwave billowed out. The slow scene gave it a terrible grace; trees exploding into flame under the heat-flash and scattering as less than splinters an instant later, the water of the bay beginning to flow and swell into a wave taller than the hills.
"So died Keriss," Amos whispered.
"I'm not calling wolf this time," Simeon said, matching that same tone. "If anyone doubts, speak now."
He let the ensuing silence echo. "Does anyone think they're better equipped to play me than Simeon-Amos is?" No one gainsaid him. "This emergency is all too real. Until help arrives, we're going to have to rely on each other. I believe we can do that," he said confidently. "If you weren't pretty brave and independent sorts of individuals, you wouldn't be on a station anyway. You'd be on a planet somewhere trying to figure out how to get the bugs off your vegetables."
This got more of a chuckle than it deserved, he thought, but they needed the release from tension.
Channa rose, ubiquitous notescreen in hand.
"There will be a meeting for council members at two," she announced, "and there will be a meeting of evacuation group leaders at four. Subsequent to those meetings, evacuation groups themselves will meet at times appointed by the group leaders. We aren't going to take questions because we're now on a need-to-know basis. We thank you for your cooperation. Ladies and gentlemen, this meeting is adjourned."
"Right, listen up, you crap-headed rock hounds," Gus bellowed.
The noise level in the docking chamber fell fairly quickly. Stands to reason, he thought. These were working spacers, not data-pushers and entertainers. About fifty of them glared up at him as if he'd thought up this little crisis himself The shapes of the tugs and miners in the interior dock bulked at their backs, huge and shadowy with all but one of the overheads turned off. That cast a puddle of light over the assembled pilots and crew. He had staged the meeting this way at Simeon's suggestion, to make them feel like a group.
"You know what's coming down," he said, making his voice intense without making it loud. "All our shipping with interstellar capacity has been moved out."
"Not all," one of the miners said, running a hand over her luridly tattooed head.
"Can it, Shabla. You can do maybe ten lights, scouting for minerals. That won't get you to the next system."
She shrugged, grinning at those ranged about her.
"What we've got left is the tugs," said Gus, "and some mining scouts. It isn't much, against four frigate-class warships."
"It's fardling nothing," another said. "Unless you want us to ram 'em?" The man didn't think much of that idea even as he voiced it.
Ramming was not completely out of the question; if you cut something heading toward you at high speeds into smaller pieces, you were just multiplying your troubles. You had to blast it into gas, or deflect it, before you were safe. They all understood the principle, and the limitations.
"Ramming's not on," Gus said, shaking his head even as he gave them a sly grin. "Not when we lose to any beam-weapon they care to turn on us. But," and he waited until a schematic of a standard tug came up on the screen behind him, "what has a tug got? A big normal-space engine and a great big power plant, and a fardlin' humongous grapnel field. Mining scout's about the same, only with a sampling laser. So there isn't much sense in us getting into slugging matches with warships." He caught the universal sigh of relief that wafted about the bay. "But-" and he held up one gnarled finger "-there are things we can do."
Then he outlined the changes needed on the screen behind him. Gratified and slightly vulpine grins replaced frowns even when he explained the strategy to be effected by such alterations.
"Hey, wait," Shabla said. "I got a husband-two, actually-on this tin can. You want me to leave 'em here while the place is taken over?"
"Exactly," Gus said, giving her stare for stare. "What the crap could you do for 'em here? Get your head kicked in? Start a firefight in a corridor and blow the pressure hull? Out there, we've got a chance to do something worthwhile for all our skins. We've all got someone here, or nearly all of us. This is what we can do for 'em. Who's with me?"
The cheer was more nearly a howl.