"Baldwin, Bill - The Helmsman 04 - The Mercenaries" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baldwin Bill)

Outside, the weather was moderatingЧat last. Bromwich city (indeed all of Rhodor's boreal hemisphere) had been stormy that winter. But at present, the air was clean and crisp over squalid, whitecapped Glammarian Bight. Brim looked out across the ship's snub-nosed prow, drinking in the pair of graceful ebony pontoons that jutted almost fifty irals beyond. From the tip of each, two 406-mmi disruptors continued forward for another seventy-five irals. Once exclusively reserved for use on the largest battleships, twelve of these deadly and brutally efficient ship-killing mechanisms could now be mounted on light cruisers like StarfuryЧbut only by dint of recent technology, developed not a moment too soon. A sad, fragile peace that doggedly persisted among the Galactic dominions reminded Brim of the thin winter dayshine outside: it still managed a pallid light, but all the heat had long ago escaped. Even as he sat in his Helmsman's seat, the old enemy was constructing new, deep-space fortifications in a score of locations. War was about to break out all over the galaxy, and with a sadly depleted Imperial Fleet, only Starfury and the sister ships that would follow her from the Sherrington Works held any genuine promise for a bleak-looking future....
The bridge had grown quiet now, every console manned and active. "Ship's buttoned up, Captain," Tissaurd reported with a grin. "All hands are at stations and pretaxi checklists are done," she said. "Ready to proceed...."
"Good work, Nadia," Brim replied. He touched the COMM panel at his right hand. "Bromwich Ground," he sent, "Fleet K5054 requests immediate G-pool departure."
"K5054: affirmative. Cleared immediate G-pool departure."
"K5054," Brim acknowledged. Then, into the display: "Master Scirri, stand by springs!" He checked fore and aft through the HyperscreensЧall clear. Starfury had a quartering wind on her starboard bow. No particular problem, but it never hurt to be careful.... Narrowing his eyes, he waited for the proper balance of wind and mooring beams, before "Let go port springs!"
"All clear port, Captain," the bearded PoolMaster reported from his console.
The crosswind meant that Brim would have to go ahead on the back spring and get the stern to swing out to port. He touched his power console. Immediately two narrow amethyst damper rays warmed the palm of his hand, each controlled three of the ship's six gravity generators on its respective side. Nudging the starboard glow forward without altering its color, he called up only enough power to move the ship. "Let go the forrard spring!" he barked.
"All clear forrard, Captain," Scirri acknowledged.
Starfury's deck throbbed steadily to the increased beat of her Admiralty A876s; a mug of cvceese' rattled on a nearby console.
"Stow that mug," Brim snapped quietly.
"Aye, Captain," came someone's embarrassed reply. The mug disappeared immediately.
Brim regarded the spring tightening below. Too much strain and the poolside projectors would overrideЧletting Starfury skid downwind into a sleek destroyer moored on the next gravity pool. Unthinkable! He trained a second display aft, watching his gravity generators ram the view to shimmering haze, men remembered to breathe as afternoon light began to blank the blue glow of stationary repulsion units at the bottom of the pool. The stern was beginning to swing out, angling away while the solitary spring took the starship's slow thrust like a great leash.
Starfury was soon skewed across the gravity pool at about ten degrees, with the PoolMaster's cupola hidden beneath the port pontoon. Brim drew the starboard damper ray back to idle. "Let go aft spring!" he ordered.
"All clear aft, Captain!"
At the precise moment the last spring beam disappeared, Brim moved both damper rays forward together. With only a moment's hesitation the big starship eased off her gravity pool and out over the strand, hovering a regulation twenty-five irals above the unique, three-element footprint she pushed into the surface of the dirty water thumping and foaming beneath her hulls. "Bromwich Ground," Brim sent, "K5054 requests taxi instructions."
"K5054: cross one seven left without delay and hold at locus six five."
"K5054," Brim acknowledged. He glanced off to starboard. A trio of Sherrington F.7/30 attack ships was running up at the landward termination of takeoff vector Seventeen Right, clouds of mist and spume mounting into the pale blue sky behind them. They'd have to salute Starfury, of course. "Ready to take fee honors, Lieutenant?" he prompted Morris at the COMM console.
"Ready, Captain,"
Presently, old-fashioned characters flashed across his KA'PPA display, "MAY STARS LIGHT ALL THY PATHS."
He looked up in time to see glowing KA'PPA rings shimmer out from Starfury's high beaconЧthe message would arrive instantaneously throughout the Universe, though all but the three F.7s would ignore it; "AND THY PATHS, STAR TRAVELERS." Gradually moving both damper rays forward, he hurried across their path, then slowed and came to a hover with HOLD buoy number sixty-five off the tip of Starfury's port pontoon. Moments afterward, the malevolent-looking F.7s thundered past in close formation, trailing three lofty cascades of spray that doused Starfury's Hyperscreens like a waterfall before they abruptly subsided about a c'lenyt out on the bight, where the three ships soared gracefully into the sky.
Brim grinned to himself. Cheeky rascals, those young Helmsmen, just about as cheeky as he'd been himself twenty-live years ago in his native CarescriaЧespecially when he thought he had a faster ship. They clearly hadn't heard of Starfury's dazzling accelerationЧyet. He relaxed in his recliner and listened to Tissaurd and Zaftrak completing their lift-off checklist.
"Transponders and 'home' indicator?" Tissaurd asked.
"On," Zaftrak responded.
"Fullstop cell?"
"Powered."
"Warning lights?"
"On."
"Engineer's check?"
"Complete."
"Antiskid?"
"Skid is on."
"Speed brake?"
"Forward."
"Stabilizer trimЧdelete the gravity gradient, if you please."
"Gradient null."
"Course indicators?"
"Set and checked."
"Lift-off check is complete, Captain," Tissaurd reported.
"Very well, Nadia," Brim responded, then used the next brief moments to make his own audits of the starship's systems, finishing only moments before Ground Control came back on line. "K5054; taxi into position, hold one seven right," the controller sent. "Contact Bromwich Tower. Good day."
"Into position and hold, 5054. Good day," Brim acknowledged, easing forward again to follow a series of bobbing markers until a ruby light gleamed out of the distance. Then he put the helm over, turned into the wind, and centered the glimmer in a small circle projected on the Hyperscreen from his console. "Bromwich Tower K5054 in position and holding...."
"K5054 is cleared for lift-off," the Tower sent. "Wind three one five at two seven gusts four seven."
"Cleared for lift-off, K5054," Brim acknowledged. He flicked the blower. "All hands stand by for lift-off," he warned the crew, then glanced over his shoulder.
Zaftrak was holding her left hand up, thumb in the air. Starfury was ready.
In all his years at a helm, Brim had never outgrown the wild, almost-physical thrill of lift-off. "I'll have full military power, Strana'," he said.
"One hundred percent military," Zaftrak replied.
"Steering engine's amidships," Tissaurd addedЧthe last item on Starfury's preflight checklist.
Taking a deep breath. Brim stood on the gravity brakes and cautiously moved both damper rays forward until they passed from amethyst to blue, then to green... yellow... orange... finally to flashing red. The deep rumbling of the gravity generators changed voice to a thunderous bellow that shook Starfury's whole spaceframe and resonated deafeningly through the Hyperscreens as if the big ship were centered in the midst of some gigantic explosion. Astern, a long strip of the Bight had suddenly flattened into a madly flowing millrace that ended in a towering cloud of spray and ice particles soaring at least a c'lenyt into the pale winter sky.
"Six lights are on, Captain," Zaftrak called above the noise, "you've got one fifteen thrust!"
Brim cleared his flight path visually, made another pass over his readouts. "Here we go!" he shouted, then released the brakes....
Instantly, the big starship began to move forwardЧcompletely unlike generations of predecessors that took what seemed to be eternities at full power before they would even respond to their steering engines. In only moments Starfury was trailing lofty cascades of spray and plunging smoothly across the water at tremendous velocity. The enormous quantities of power available did little to interfere with the ship's naturally delicate, quick, and positive response to control manipulations. After a moment, her bows lifted slightly to the mighty beat of the generators, then fell again while speed increased through 165 c'lenyts per metacycle. At about 170, Brim eased back on the controls overcoming a slight tendency to nose down farther, then as she accelerated through 180, he lifted the bow and let the ship's weight transfer to the gravs, applying about a third rudder to check a normal swing to port during lift-off. A moment later she separated from her shadow and began climbing smoothly over the Sherrington Works on the way to the ultimate freedom of her native element: deep interstellar space.