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.
"I'll record it."
"And don't tell Amos."
A section of the ceiling paneling turned translucent and slid back. Joat's face showed through and then her body somersaulted down.
"There's a crawlspace we c'n get into now that leads to a bunch of air-ducts and electric-conduits. Come on."
Channa examined the hatch in the ceiling and smiled wryly. "Just like in a holovid," she murmured.
Joat grinned. "Yeah, only a lot smaller." She looked anxiously at Channa's lean length. "You may find it a squeeze. Had to leave the others back a ways. Do you nurdly when you're cramped?"
"Is there a choice?" Channa said.
"Then you don't. Push yourself along with your hands and toes. Don't try to use your knees or you'll eventually black out from the pain."
"Do you speak as one who knows?"
"Uh-huh, I've seen it happen. Give me a boost?"
Channa braced, cupped her hands, lifted Joat towards the ceiling hatch.
"Ready." Joat's voice came down, sounding a little hollow.
"Stand back." Channa crouched down and sprang upwards, catching the sides of the hole and pulling herself straight up, arms trembling with the strain.
The crawlspace was narrow and cramped and confining. She had to breathe and move in different motions. It was wonderful.
Chapter Twenty-Two
"Okay," Florian Gusky croaked. "Go." He coughed, his lungs and throat a mass of pain and fire. The air system had not been designed to be occupied for two-week stays. "Go, you bastards."
Eight tugs and the mining scout In Your Dreams brought up their systems. There had been ten tugs, but Lowbau and Wong hadn't been answering on tightbeam for four days. If something had gone wrong with their life-support, neither of them had made a sound while it happened, accepting death in the silence of their powered-down ships, alone in the dark.
"Comin' home," Gus whispered.
The tugs had drifted with the other debris that cluttered the vicinity of the station. He gave silent thanks for the fact that Simeon had never been a neat housekeeper. More that Channa hadn't had time to reform him before the trouble struck. Now the energies of their drives painted half of heaven. Acceleration pushed him back into the padding, beyond what the compensators could handle. The screen ahead of him was a holo-driven schematic, with his target and approach vector marked off as a box, and the tug a blip that had to be kept inside it. Easy work for a military craft, but these tugs were designed for hard slow pulls, not whipping around. Nothing else mattered but the vector, and the load of scrap and ore trailing behind him. Through his body the drives hummed, pushed past all prudence and all hope.
His mind found time to note the bright spark that was a tug going up, a pulse from the engine detonation and then the brighter flash of the destabilized powerplant.
"Well, that ought to let 'em know we're here," he muttered. Whiskers rasped against the feeding nozzle and the mike as his head moved in the helmet. He knew his face must look neither sane nor pleasant. The tug surged as he corrected. The station filled a sidescreen, and the bristling saucer shape of the Kolnari battle platform docked to its north polar tube, like some monstrous tick swelling with blood.
"You're mine," Gus shouted past cracked lips. "All mine!"
Simeon stood in the passageway. Rock rumbled around him, the bomb exploded away from a spot above, chips stinging his eyes and going spang off his armor. The long head that battered through was scaled in sapphire and had eyes set all about it, in a bone rill that turned to spikes. The muzzle split four ways, and each segment was lined with fangs. The tongue between was a metal-tipped spear ready to strike.
He struck first, grabbing it in an armored gauntlet and hauling back before the quadruple jaws could slam shut. When they did, it was on their own tongue. A high whine of pain drove needles into Simeon's ears. He kept his grip on the lashing end, whipped it three times around the muzzle and tied a quick slip-knot. Then he stood back and took a double-handed grip on his glowing baseball bat. Tkwak. The guardian program shivered, slumped, dissolved into metallic fragments that scurried back and forth disorganized, then decayed instantly into floating bytes.
"Next," he said, walking forward toward the iron-strapped door, which was probably the entrance to the CPU. "Geeze, I've got to patent this AI interface," he said, taking stance again. "It's-"
Boom. Oak splintered, wrought iron bent and shrieked.
"-fardlin'-"
Boom.
"-fun."
"Lord, lord!"
The commander of the High Clan battle platform Skull Crusher pivoted on one heel. The big circular room was half-empty; the liberty parties were only now returning.
"What?" he barked at the info-systems watch-officer. Not now. He was scheduled to undock and begin transit first, to be there when the transports came in for rendezvous with the rest of the High Clan. Just in case, but the weight of the responsibility was heavy, and this was his first independent command.
"Lord, our system is under attack!"
"The worm program?" Chindik t'Marid was a specialist in those. He had designed the standard Clan attack worm himself. He was also a game designer of note, although that was merely a hobby.
"No," the tech said. His fingers were dancing over his board. "Something's just smashing its way in."
"Aside." Chindik called up a graphic. He whistled silently. Something with enormous computational power was battering at the defenses with tremendous force, trying all the solutions. There was no indication of realspace location. His computers were spending all their capacity just keeping the enemy out. But since there was only one enemy installation in sight-
"Cut the cable feeds to the station," he said. "Battle alert to all other vessels."
"I can't cut the feeds," the tech said. "The retractors won't answer. Neither do the landline comms to the rest of the flotilla."
"Well, then-" Chindik began. Another cry stopped him.
"Detection," the sensor operator said. "Multiple detection. Powerplant signatures. Close, lord, close. Approaching."
"Attack vectors," the tactical computer announced. "Vessel is under attack."
"Those aren't warships," Chindik said in astonished dismay as he read the screen. His head whipped back and forth, reflex in a creature attacked from all sides. Then he straightened, strode back to the commander's station, and sank into the couch.
"Combat alert," he said. The chimes began to sound, wild and sweet. "Battlestations. Deploy short-range energy weapons. Fire on any of those… gnats as the weapons bear. Gantry?"
"Lord?" The dockside guards were looking away from the pickup. "Lord, we hear-"
"Silence! Send parties through the sidelock and blow the feeds connecting us to the scumvermin hulk."
"Lord?"
"Obey!"
The guards scattered like mercury struck with a hammer.
"Blast-broadcast," Chindik said. "Five-minute signal, all crew rally to the Crusher. Then undock."
"Lord, I've been trying to activate the decoupling procedure." The bridge was filling as the standby crew ran in and slid into their stations. "My telltales say it is working, but the visual scanner shows no activity."