"Jim Farris - Pandora's Box" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farris Jim)

"Command: Save this game. Arm main laser, bring all other weapons systems to standby status.
Withdraw all manipulators, seal all manipulator hatches. Extend a sensor pod - try the port one, we need
to make sure it's working again. Give me a visual."


"By your command."


Immediately, the cave bloomed around me in my mind. The wyrm was looking in the direction of
the movement she had sensed, so I could see the cave entrance 50 meters ahead of me. "Command:
Add audio." I said. Now I could hear the dripping of the water into the two-meter wide, 5mm deep pool
in front of us. It was the water that had originally brought us up this close to the entrance a thousand
years ago - the wyrm had to have it for us to survive. Without it, her reactor would die and we'd both be
doomed. We were still on full battle alert, and had to make every effort to keep going. After purification
and splitting off the useless oxygen, we'd managed to build up about 1000 kilos of hydrogen in our tanks.
At the level of activity we'd been engaging in, that should last 15 years or so - enough to see us through
any dry spell. With her processing plant still functioning at around 98% efficiency, we could manufacture
the parts we needed from having her chew up some of the rocks in the cave. The nanomachinery in her
processing plant could rip the stones apart and reassemble them into whatever we needed. It took time,
sometimes years. Of course, time was all we had.


"Comment: I still don't see anyone. I think you're just trying to distract me from the game." I said.
The sun was out, though you couldn't see it from the cave entrance - it faced north. We could see the
blue sky and a couple clouds outside the cave, and the bushes which almost completely covered the
entrance.


"Reply: Negative. Target will be near the entrance in 58 seconds if they maintain their
current course and speed. Calculations indicate the target weighs approximately 44 kilos plus or
minus five kilos. Target is walking directly towards us. Comment: This may only be a scout for a
larger force. It is illogical to heavily arm and armor a scout. A lightly armored individual may be
terminated with a single shot from the 12.5mm cannon. Recommendation: You should arm the
12.5mm cannon instead of the main laser. The laser may ignite the bushes and draw attention to
us from other enemy units. The cannon will not." the wyrm whispered in my mind.


"Reply: Negative. If we wait until they're inside the cave, the laser won't pass through the bushes
and thus won't ignite them. As soon as they've moved away from the entrance and have rock behind
them, we'll blast them. I'm not going to fire off ammo it takes us about a year to replace when I can use
lasers. If they spot us and turn to run, then we'll use the cannon. Besides, if it is a scout for a larger force,
we'll want to be as quiet as possible. Blowing their head off in a steam explosion will probably make less
noise than the cannon. There's also another possibility - at 44 kilos, it may be a child. We may have to
interrogate them before we kill them to determine whether they're a civilian who decided to get lost in the
mountains or if maybe the enemy has just started using women and children in their army. Command:
Ready the interrogation tank against that possibility."


"By your command."