"SD Gottesman - Firepower" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gotlieb Phyllis)

the rest of them?"
The Wing Commander looked very sick suddenly. "Them," he brooded. "Well, to our
one division they have twenty-six, each with a flagship of the line. They have
twenty-six bases including graving-docks, repair-shops, maintenance crews, fuel,
ammunition and what-have-you--and innumerable smaller ships and boats.
"And, Babe, they have one thing we haven't got at all. Each and every ship in
the numbered patrol wings of the Navy mounts at least one gun. The lineships, of
which there are eighty-two, mount as many as a hundred quick repeaters and
twenty loading ordnance pieces, each of which could blow a minor planet to hell
and gone. They have guns and we have minds."
The girl rested her chin in her hands. "Brainpower versus fire-power," she
brooded. "Winner take all."
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST CLASH came two weeks later off Rigel, Alexander Hertford III,
Commander of Patrol Wing Twenty-Three, was apprised of the startling facts as he
awoke from a night (theoretically) of revelry with Miss de-Winder.
Rubbing the sleep from his baby-blue eyes, he yawned: "Impossible. There aren't
any capital ships other than those in the navy. There's some silly mistake. You
must have decoded it all wrong."
"Impossible, commander," said the orderly respectfully. "And it wasn't sent
wrong either. They repeated several times."
The commander stared at the slip which bore the incredible message from Cruiser
DM 2. "As regard orders to pacify star-cluster eight, your district, impossible
to procede. Unrecognizable lineship heavily armed warned us away. When asked for
section and command they replied 'Section One, Command of Reason.' Instruct. The
Commanding Officer, DM 2."
With one of those steel-spring decisions for which the Navy personnel is famous,
he abruptly ordered: "My compliments to what's his name, the pilot and
navigator. We're going to relieve DM 2 and see what those asses think they've
found."
In just the time he took to dress and bid Miss deWinder a cheery though strained
good morning, the ship was hauling alongside the cruiser. After an exchange of
salutations, the commanding officer of the cruiser, frankly angry, yelled at
Hertford (over the communications system): "Use your own damned eyes, commander.
You can't miss the damned thing--biggest damned ship I ever saw in my damned
life!"
"Captain," said the commander, "you're over-wrought. Lie down and we'll look
about." He was on what they called the bridge, a vast arc of a room which
opened, for effect, on the very hull of the ship. Vast, sweepingly curved plates
of lucostruc opened on the deeps of space, though scanner discs would have been
structurally sounder.
Taking an angry turn about the bridge he snapped at the lookout: a "Have you
found that lunatic's chimera yet?" For, be it known, there is no such thing as
blundering on a spaceship. You have to do some very involved calculating to
blunder on a sun, and even so luck must be on your side. In short, unless this
mythical lineship chose to show itself there wasn't one chance in a thousand
thousand of its being located.
"Can't see any chimera, commander," said the lookout, one straining eye glued to
a telescope. "But right there's the biggest, meanest fighting ship I've ever
struck eyes to." He yielded to the commander, who stared incredulous]y through