"Clayton Emery - Descent FreeSpace - A Thousand Years" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

This was it, she thought. Her *final* descent.
Alone, Atsuko dived while the cruiserтАЩs conning tower grew in her screen. Her lasers and
cannon are auto-firing, more for distraction than damage. She needed to concentrate to hit
her target.

"Computer!" Atsuko barked. "Cut the HarbingersтАЩs fuses long but squeeze the range to
minimum! Divert all power to front shields!"

"Harbinger charges delayed to fifteen seconds. Detonation interval reduced to fifty meters,"
confirmed the machine. "Full power to bow screens."
Atsuko felt the ship lurch, fishtail and headstall, as her shields blinked out at the stern and
thickened before her bow. Down in the secondary bomb-bay, the dangerous Harbingers
hummed alive, probably frying her auxiliary electronics. Yet this configuration should do the
deed just dandy, she calculated. Harbingers alone might not penetrate the cruiserтАЩs
defenses and armor. But a 146-ton starcraft tipped with twelve layers of shielding should
smash like a fist through wet paper. Four missiles, delivered deep into the cruiserтАЩs guts,
would deliver 20,000 megatons of atomic destruction.

And the pilot, sitting at the heart of the explosion, wouldnтАЩt feel a twinge.

Wrestling the joystick, Atsuko aimed straight for the glistening window on the bridge, where
interior lights illuminated silhouettes crooked as a dogтАЩs leg. The vision was fuzzed by the
heavy shielding, but she saw the evil armored faces of Shivans swivel towards her.
Atsuko screamed a battle cry that hadnтАЩt been heard for a thousand years. "BANNN-ZAIIIII!"

She thumbed the joystick: once, twice. CHERRY BLOSSOM bucked and bucked again as
the Harbingers fired two and two. Missiles drilled like lasers for the bridge window.
Atsuko clamped the joystick against her gut to hold her course, but the cruiserтАЩs massive
shields, like multiple layers of splintering ice, sent her Hercules skidding and slipping in a
dozen directions at once. Lacking the mammoth payload, with afterburners driving the stern
to overtake the bow, the shipтАЩs nose dropped. Atsuko yanked upwards and CHERRY
BLOSSOM took wing like a bird, flattening into a shallow arc. The pilot grit her teeth as
armor plate and plexiglass cartwheeled across her screen. Her ship straightened, bored on
--

-- and rammed the cruiserтАЩs bridge.

Although Atsuko never saw it happen, the nose of the Hercules caromed off the bridgeтАЩs
brow like a cannonball. Despite safety harness, the pilot was flung forward hard enough to
snap bones. Her crash helmet splintered gauges while her nose hammered her faceshield
and spurted blood. The joystick busted ribs.
CHERRY BLOSSOM suffered worse. Far behind AtsukoтАЩs seat, the power plant blew as
shields ruptured from feedback. Electronics sputtered and spat and burned and burned out.
Hull plates sheared and rivets popped. Stubby wings crumpled and snapped off. The wreck
pinwheeled across a backdrop of stars.

Dimly, despite the frantic spinning, Atsuko saw only that the cruiser sailed on, still fired all its
guns, still dealt death in all directions. She blacked out moments before a nuclear-powered
star blossomed inside RETRIBUTIONтАЩs bridge and the conning tower shattered like a
volcano.