"Joe Haldeman - Blood Sisters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

roughly in our direction, fast. "Trouble coming?" I asked him.
"Cannot tell yet, sir. I suggest you remain below." He had a gun in each hand, behind his
back.
Below, good idea. I slid the hatch off the engine compartment and tipped over the cases of
beer that hid the weaponry. Fished out two heavy plastic bags, left the others in place for the
time being. It was all up-to-date American Coast Guard issue, and had cost more than the
boat.
I had rehearsed this a thousand times in my mind, but I hadn't realized the bags would be
slippery with condensation and oil and be impossible to tear with your hands. I stood up to
get a knife from the galley, and it was almost the last thing I ever did.
I looked up at a loud succession of splintering sounds and saw a line of holes marching
toward me from the bow, letting in blue light and lead. I dropped and heard bullets hissing
over my head; heard the regular cough-cough-cough of Helmuth One's return fire. At the
stern there was a cry of pain and then a splash; they must have caught the other guard
coming up the ladder.
Also not in the rehearsals was the effect of absolute death-panic on bladder control; some
formal corner of my mind was glad I hadn't yet dressed. I controlled my trembling well
enough to cut open the bag that held the small-caliber spitter, and it only took three tries to
get the cassette of ammunition fastened to the receiver. I jerked back the arming lever and
hurried back to the galley hatch, carrying an armload of cassettes.
The spitter was made for sinking boats, quickly. It fired small flechettes, the size of old-
fashioned metal stereo needles, fifty rounds per second. The flechettes moved at supersonic
speed and each carried a small explosive charge. In ten seconds, they could do more damage
to a boat than a man with a chainsaw could, with determination and leisure.
I resisted the urge to blast away and get back under cover (not that the hull afforded much
real protection). We had clamped traversing mounts for the gun on three sides of the galley
hatchтАФnautically inclined customers usually asked what they were; I always shrugged and
said they'd come with the boatтАФbecause the spitter is most effective if you can hold the
point of aim precisely on the waterline.
They were concentrating fire on the bow, most of it going high. Helmuth One was
evidently shooting from a prone position, difficult target. I slid the spitter onto its mount and
cranked up its scope to maximum power.
When I looked through the scope, a lifetime of target-shooting reflexes took over: deep
breath, half let out, do the Zen thing. Their boat moved toward the center of the scope's field,
and I waited. It was a Whaler Unsinkable. One man crouched at the bow, firing what looked
like a .20-mm. recoilless, clamped on the rail above a piece of steel plate. They were less
than a hundred meters away.
The Whaler executed a sharp starboard turn, evidently to give the gunner a better angle on
our bow. Good boatmanship, good tactics, but bad luck. Their prow touched the junction of
my crosshairs right at the waterline, and I didn't even have to track. I just pressed the trigger
and watched a cloud of black smoke and steam zip from prow to stern. Not even an
Unsinkable can stay upright with its keel sliced off. The boat slewed sideways into the
water, spilling people, and turned turtle. Didn't sink, though.
I snapped a fresh cassette into place and tried to remember where the hydrogen tank was
on that model. Second burst found it, and the boat dutifully exploded. The force of the blast
was enough to ram the scope's eyepiece back into my eye, painfully.
Helmuth One peered down at me. "What is that?" "Coast Guard weapon, a spitter."
"May I try it?"
"Sure." I traded places with him, glad to be up in the breeze. My boat was a mess. The
mainmast had been shattered by a direct hit, waist high. The starboard rail was splinters,