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.
"Oh, smooth, very smooth," Simeon said in some dismay. Channa made an enquiring sound into the clenched silence of the control room.
"To begin with, they're wearing heavy field armor," he replied, calling up interior shots.
The Kolnari were in powered hardsuits. At once more massive and sleeker than the Central Worlds naval equivalent, the suits were a soft matte black, and moved with the jerky quickness of servo-powered systems. In a closed environment they looked more elephantine than they had in Amos' shots from Bethel, more unstoppable. The deck thundered under their weight, though the pirates moved with fluid precision and the snapping quickness of long practice. Teams of three or more secured corridor junctions; techs moved behind them, tying down control of one facility after another.
"And look at the way they're moving," Simeon went on dolefully. "Look." He brought up a schematic of the station. "Power, atmosphere, communications. They're coming here, too. They've done this before." And those plasma guns they're carrying like rifles are crew-served weapons in the Navy, he added to himself.
"Yes," Channa said, "that's how it looks to me. They've done this before. Only where?" And did that station die? Do I remember ever hearing of a dead station? She watched in a morbid fascination as the units moved inward, following the direction of the conduits. "Of course, they're heading here now."
"No resistance," Serig reported.
Either they are wise cowards, or simply wise, Belazir thought. "Secure the control center! Pol?"
A miniature of the scarred face of the Shark's commander came up on one helmet screen.
"My people are meeting no resistance," she said. "All targets occupied on schedule. We have them in a nutcracker fist."
"Good, clan-kin Captain," he said. He trusted Pol more than most. She had no ambition to climb beyond her present position. Any equal of his own rank and age was a dangerous rival-rival by definition, and dangerous if they had survived to climb so high. "Now we will crush their stones. Serig! Watch and wait when you've secured their command center, I'll join you there."
"I hear and obey, lord," Serig said, slamming through another door with his assault team.
Serig's pickups showed a roomful of suited figures. Plain vacuum suits, some small enough to hold children, and the chamber looked to be an emergency shelter, reinforced and near the core of the station. The people moved away from the armored violence of the Kolnari like grass rippling under wind. To Serig, their cringing was a profoundly satisfying sight.
"Faugh!" he said in sharp disgust. "There are non-humans here! Shall I open fire, lord?"
"No, Serig," Belazir said patiently. Of course, nonhuman sentients were worse than scumvermin. They bore none of the Divine Seed that made Kolnar. "We're going to destroy this place and everything in it, Serig. Or had you forgotten? In the meantime, we need it functional."
"I abase myself before you, Great Lord," Serig said formally-another one-word expression in their tongue. "Proceeding with plan."
"Ooof," Channa said.
They were all lying with their feces in the fortunately soft decking with their hands tied behind their backs. The Kolnari had not moved or spoken since they ordered the others down on the floor, except when one of the stationers so much as twitched-in which case they prodded them with the muzzle of a plasma rifle, hard, as one had just done to Channa. None of them spoke Standard, she thought, except perhaps the leader with the gold slashes on his arm. He had the same thick accent as the amplified voice which had hailed the station.
The iron tramp of powered-armor boots sounded in the corridor outside. Another squad of Kolnari entered. All she could see was feet and a glimpse of something heavy carried in by the last two. A voice spoke in the invader's incongruously musical, lilting tongue, and the feet with the load put something over the main communications console. There was a chung and then a minute of high-pitched buzzing, followed by silence.
More clanks and clicking sounds. They're getting out of their armor, she thought, watching a pair of bare feet step to the deck.
"You may kneel," a voice said in Standard, much less accented than the first. Either an interpreter, or the big boss; from the authority in the tones, the latter. "Let those who once led here, identify themselves."
"Obey!" screamed the other voice, the first one, and a foot sank into her side.
Channa grunted and came to her knees, sinking back on her heels. Then she raised her eyes and gasped.
The pirate chieftain was the most beautiful human being she had ever seen. 190 centimeters, but so perfectly proportioned that he looked shorter. His skin was black-not the dark-brown usually miscalled as such, but an actual gunmetal black; tightly stretched over long, swelling muscles, and he stood and moved as lightly as a racehorse. Much of this was visible, because what the pirates wore under their armor turned out to be a pair of tight briefs the same color as their skins, and an equipment belt. The chieftain's face had the same inhuman exotic perfection as his body: high cheekbones, slightly aquiline nose, full lips, slanted yellow eyes, and the long mane of white-blond hair was caught at the back with a clip of silver and iridescent feathers.
Channa blinked, shook her head, and forced herself to look at the others. Apart from a pair still in power armor, the rest looked eerily similar. Two of those were women, with the same features and long lean bodies. Even their breasts looked as if they were carved out of ebony… and the expressions differed, of course. The pirate beside the chief was paring his nails with a small sharp knife. He looked at her and smiled. Channa glanced down again.
Oh, great, Simeon thought, noting the reaction from the others as well. We've been boarded by the Ultimately Intimidating Elves from Hell. Ow! That hurt. Something tugged at him, calling.
Behind Channa, one of the armored troopers touched his belt. The unoccupied suits turned and marched like a line of lockstep golems to stand themselves along the walls.
Ow! Pain-signals flooded in from the computer extensions of Simeon's mind. Emergency overrides. He turned his attention inwards.
"Simeon?" Channa subvocalized. There was no reply. "Simeon!"
Silence.
"I am the Lord Captain Belazir t'Marid Kolaren," the pirate chief said softly. "Master here now, by right of conquest. I hold your lives in my fist, to spare or crush as I will. Who led here before we came?"
Chapter Seventeen
helpbosshelpbossowowow OW!
Simeon had never told anyone about the AI system. Well, nobody but Tell Radon. He was interfaced with the computers directly, of course; he could "remember" anything in the banks and use their capacities the way he could those of his own human brain. The AI program was something else again. It was as sophisticated as anything this side of Central. He and Tell had spent many a happy hour tweaking it further. Simeon needed the best. There were limits to how many tasks even a shellperson could do simultaneously, and many were far too routine for continual supervision. An ordinary human had the hindbrain for running heart, lungs, and other physical basics, a consciousness for thought, and a subconscious for monitoring and mental housecleaning. Simeon had the AI.
help! boss!
Of course, it was impossible to actually visualize what was going on in the AI system, any more than you could visualize every neuron firing in your brain. Simeon had chosen to make it something of a playground, with something he had always wanted.