Nimisha's Ship
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Nimisha's Ship». Краткое содержание книги:
When Nimisha takes an experimental ship on a solo test flight, something goes horribly awry, marooning her light-years from home on a planet as deadly as it is beautiful. Now the ruthless members of a rival branch of the Rondymense family are given the chance they've been waiting for: to reclaim the Ship Yards by any means necessary.
Only Nimisha's ingenious child, Cuiva, stands in their way. But for how long? For just when her daughter needs her most, Nimisha is in a precarious situation herself--and unable to help. But Nimisha has never given up in her life--and she's not about to start now . . .
The forward screen magnified the advancing waves of avians, looking so evil that both Perdimia and Cuiva, standing out of the way at the entrance to the bridge, gasped at their appearance.
"Aren't we going airborne?" Caleb asked.
"No need," Nimisha said. "Lordee, they've got some big ones today, haven't they, Jon?"
"Are they all that size?" Caleb sounded properly awed.
"I mean the boulders they're carrying to drop on us," Nimisha said. "It's not the size of the predators that makes them so dangerous. It's their payloads."
"Why?" Caleb asked. "Repellers should be able to cope with rocks."
"Screen's giving you a false picture of their actual size, Cal. Some are bigger than the Fiver from that armed tail to the nasty snout," Nimisha said. "The Sh'im are as good marksmen as we are, but we've learned to shoot down as many as possible before they get in too close, because any hits over the repeller shields leave an awful mess to scrape off. Not to mention a stink in the summer."
"I think we'll catch most of these before they get anywhere near the perimeter of the shields," Jon said, making a minute correction in trajectory just as the Fiver opened up. "Good man, Casper."
"Not if Globan got there first," Nimisha said, her expression gleeful.
"Not this time. Globan's manning the gig, don't you remember? Syrona's in the skiff." He turned his head slightly toward the three observers. "We managed to fit the Fiver's skiff with homemade rockets. And our allies are operational, too," he added as the batteries on the heights began bracketing the still distant avians. "Used the Poolbeg's ordnance-what hadn't been destroyed by scraping along the wormhole. That's proof enough for me of the wisdom of having AI helms for emergencies."
"1 gather that the Acclarke's AI took over when it was sucked into the wormhole?" Caleb asked.
Nimisha gave a wicked laugh. "I got the distinct impression that Meterios went paralytic."
"Then wasn't it fortunate that the AI was preprogrammed," Caleb said wryly. "I gather the Poolbeg was not?"
"Captain Querine was a damned good pilot, and Peri Swanick was the jig on helm and had taken us safely through two asteroid belts earlier on-" Jon nodded Sh'im-like. "-but no human reflexes are fast enough to handle a transit as treacherous as that wormhole. You'll see that from the state of the other wrecks."
"Fiver got off with only minor scrapes and Helm is still apologising," Nimisha said.
"I think I see what you mean about the attackers." Caleb pointed to the screen as they all watched avians disintegrating in the air, their disparate parts leaving bloody trails as they dropped to the plains well before the spread of the settlement. "Your confederates are good marksmen."
"More avians attacking from starboard, coming in over the hills," Helm said.
"Order Globan and Syrona to intercept," Jon said. "Hoping to catch us with the sun in our eyes, are they?"
"The avians have that much intelligence?" Caleb asked, surprised.
"Whatever they use for brains is sufficient to make them a real nuisance," Nimisha said. "We'd hoped that Doc's little ploy would work."
"What was that?" Caleb asked.
"Leaving out treated bait that would inhibit yolk-formation in the females," Nimisha said. "We haven't had a raid in so long I was hoping that had done the trick. In the last two spring seasons we've cleared out as many nests as we could find."
"Don't you hunt them?" Caleb asked.
"Constantly," Nimisha said.
"You never hunted at home, Mother," Cuiva said in a scared little voice. She was standing right up against Perdimia, who had a comforting arm about her.
"Hunting here is not a sport, Cuiva dear. It's a necessity-both for food and survival, as you are witnessing," Nimisha said.
"I perceive the distinction, Mother."
"We'd've spared you this, believe me," Jon said, his fingers busy on the touch panel to adjust the launchers' trajectories. "The avians have an uncanny instinct for appearing at precisely the most inappropriate moments…"
"Like when our crops are ready to be harvested." Nimisha added, desperately trying to find some way to alleviate Cuiva's distress. "You don't have to watch, you know."
"If this has been part of your life, Mother, and will be part of mine, I must learn to accept it."
"Well said, Cuiva," was Caleb's accolade.
Cuiva stood up straighter, gently disengaging herself from Perdimia's support. She watched for a few more moments while the Five B's missiles joined the hails from the smaller ships, cutting down the avians as they tried to swoop down on the eastern side of the settlement.
"Aren't aerial displays often put on to welcome visitors to new planets?" Cuiva asked, trying for a lighter tone.
"Not quite this kind," Nimisha said, but she gave her daughter a grateful glance. Then a heartbeat later, she added, "I think that might have been their last fling. At least today. We certainly have decreased the numbers they can put in the air. Fiver?"
"Yes. ma'am?"
"Do the cliff batteries see any more incoming from the east?"
"Casper here, Nimisha. Syrona, Globan, and I are going to make sure. Reset the trajectories to lob shots over the hills, will you? Just in case?"
"Will do," Nimisha said, glancing over to see Jon's fingers busy on the touch controls.
"Reset," he said, his hands poised to hit the toggle at the first hint of more trouble.
"Any ground casualties?" Caleb asked with understandable concern.
Nimisha started to nod, then switched to shaking her head, and asked Helm to bring up the side screens to show where his crew, the other humans, and the Sh'im had taken refuge well under the repeller shield that protected the settlement. A siren blared out the end of the emergency. Those in the Five B could see the excited reception of the all clear, with humans dancing around with the much smaller Sh'im as if they had established friendly relationships during the air raid.
"There's no ill wind that doesn't blow some good, is there," Nimisha said, rising and stretching the tension out of her shoulders before she embraced her daughter. "Better now than during the Necklacing."
When Jon saw the stricken look on the girl's face, he added hurriedly. "They're dawn or dusk attackers, Lady Cuiva. Your ceremony's safely scheduled for noon."
"So my birthday fireworks were a little early," Cuiva said and, though her voice was a little shaky, she managed a fairly humorous grin.
"Attagirl!" Jon grinned approvingly at her.
"D'you have any more surprises like this on your Erehwon?" Caleb asked in a dry tone.
"None quite as dangerous as those," Jon said. "As Nimisha mentioned, we haven't had a raid in a while. Either they saw you landing and thought to catch us off guard…"
"If they're clever enough to think of such a thing," Nimisha put in.
"Which I doubt," Jon replied. "They should have got the message that now we've got ships, the cliff batteries and enough ammunition to keep hammering them until they leave, that maybe they should give up."
"Or," and Nimisha didn't like to voice the suspicion, "they've called in reinforcements from the other continents and that means they're more intelligent than we've suspected."
"Fiver's Helm wishes me to inform you that the number of avian casualties are the largest so far on record," reported the Five B Helm.
"I can't say I'd be sorry if the species does commit mass suicide," Nimisha said. "Oh, I shouldn't say such things, love," she added when she saw the stricken look on Cuiva's face. "But those monsters killed so many of the Poolbeg's crew."
"My deepest apologies, Captain Svangel," Cuiva said with formal but sincere remorse. "I had no idea you had suffered any casualties from those dreadful creatures."