"Moorcock, Michael - The Blood Red Game" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

The twin star was very close and bright now, blacking out the planets on Renark's laser screen.

Asquiol broke the energy seals on the guns with the key Renark handed him.

About ten of the weird ships came jolting closer, the metal of their hulls giving off a peculiar, yellowish glint. They pulsed through space and there was something menacing in their approach. Then they veered away, describing a long curve, and began to circle the area through which Renark's cruiser would have to pass.

Then, with a jerk which seemed to tug at their nerves and muscles and threaten to turn their bodies inside out, they entered alien space. They were in the Shifter's territory now - that was why the other ships had come no further, but awaited them. Their senses blanked momentarily, they felt dizzy, sick. Renark, feeling his senses going, sent out a desperate tendril of mental energy, anchoring himself to the Shifter ahead. Also he felt the presence of the darting alien ships. The metal of their construction was unfamiliar to him.

Then, suddenly, his whole mind seemed to explode, as the fabric of space was ripped apart.

He gasped with the agony, forced his eyes open. He looked at the screen, and the planets, no longer whirling so rapidly around the binary, were moving at a more leisurely pace.

An inhuman growl rumbled through the control room. Talfryn worked the receiver, trying to pick up a picture, but couldn't. The growl came again but the language was unrecognisable. The leading vessel of the yellow fleet moved.

It seemed to turn over on itself, described a couple of somersaults, and then sent a Coiling blast of energy before the humans' ship.

Renark blocked his mind and tensed his body. 'Screens!' he yelled.

But Asquiol had already raised them.

The ship shuddered and the screens proved effective against the alien weapons - but only just Asquiol aimed the energy-laden guns on the leading ship.

'The anti-neutron cannon would dispose of them quickly enough,' he said wistfully.

'And probably the system as well,' Talfryn added as Asquiol's rapid shots bit into the alien ship, and it exploded to form, almost immediately, nothing more than a ball of ragged metal.

Now the other ships came on in formation. But Asquiol bent over his guns and grimly pressed his fingers down on all studs. The ship took the enemy retaliation, but shuddered horribly. His own fire damaged two, which then spiralled away from their comrades.

Then the whole fleet sailed up in the strange, somersaulting motion and fired together.

'We can't take this attack!' Talfryn screamed.

Asquiol's eyes were intent on the enemy craft. He sent another great blast of energy slamming through space as the force of the joint attack hit the cruiser.

The ship shook, shuddered, groaned and came to a dead stop. Lazily it began to spiral through space while more of the alien ships came flooding up from the nearest planet. Asquiol did what he could to stop them, but with the ship out of control it was difficult to aim.

Renark was fighting the controls.

'We took it,' he shouted, 'but it's thrown our circuits crazy. Talfryn, get down there and see what you can do with the Master Co-ordinator!'

Talfryn scuttled from his seat and entered the elevator, dragging a space suit with him.

Asquiol, eyes narrowed, aimed his guns carefully, cursing.

He cut down several more, but these ships didn't seem to care whether they were destroyed or not. Momentarily Asquiol wondered if they had living crews aboard.

Something was wrong with the quality of the void. It did not have its normal sharpness. Rivers of colour, very faint, seemed to run through, and shapes seemed to move just beyond the limit of his vision. It was tantalising, it was maddening...

Willow, pale and tense, clung to a bulkhead, her eyes fixed on the big laser screen. Space was alive with boiling energy. It swirled and coiled and lashed through the disturbed vacuum. To her, it was as if the binary had suddenly gone nova, for she could not see through the multi-coloured patterns of force which obscured everything but the yellow, darting shapes of the enemy ships.