"Piers Anthony - Bio of a Space Tyrant 05 - Statesman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

The pirate reacted by firing another shell at us. That was an error; we now presented a minimal target, end-on, and were accelerating; there was little space or time for this. The pirate had to move in a hurry, or be rammed. That would likely destroy both ships.

Now our own crewmen were catching on. "Suicide!" someone screamed in Russian on the intercom.

"It is chicken," I said in Russian. "But we have less to lose than they do."

"All will die!" the voice cried.

"Armament," I said.

"Sir," the experienced officer replied immediately.

"Can you launch the lifeboat by remote control?"

"Yes, sir."

"In the manner of a torpedo?"

Now he caught on to my new ploy. "The window is very narrow, sir."

"The lifeboat!" another voice exclaimed. "Without that, we die!"

"Silence," the captain snapped. He had evidently come to terms with his demotion and was enforcing discipline under the new order.

"Watch the pirate," I said to the armament officer. "Judge the direction he moves. Assume he will accelerate at his maximum. Plot the course to intercept that escape path. I will proceed straight, accelerating at three gee till launch."

"Understood, sir."

We closed rapidly as I brought the gee up to three. That tripled the weight of every person on the ship; even in acceleration harness, that isn't comfortable. But if this ship was built to do five gee, the personnel had to have been trained for it. I was the weak link here; I wasn't sure I could handle more than three gee at my age and condition, at least not for long.

The pirate ship moved out of the way. It was indeed chicken. It had double our mass and at least double our personnel, and it could destroy us in any ordinary encounter. Thus it had much more to lose than we did. I had never doubted it would avoid the collision; the only question was when it would start its maneuver. Because it had foolishly tried to shoot us down first, it had lost valuable time; now it had no chance to reorient. That meant that its path was predictable. If that Saturnian officer was worth his salt-

We closed. The pirate was in motion, but barely in time.

Our lifeboat launched. Then we shot past the pirate's tail section-and the lifeboat rammed it.

We watched it in the screen as I cut our acceleration. Vapor shot out of the pirate's side. She had been holed by our missile. A cheer went up on the intercom.

I rotated our ship in place and resumed thrust. This had the effect of decelerating us, relative to the other ship. There was no rush now; I held it at one gee. "Captain," I said.

"Sir."

"My mission has been accomplished. I am returning command to you." And I knew that Spirit was putting away the laser pistol.

"Thank you, Tyrant," he said, with only a trace of irony.

"But if I may make a suggestion, sir?" I continued.

"Speak."