"Daniel Keys Moran - A Tale of the Continuing Time 04 - The AI War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moran Daniel Keys)

asteroid's surface. Two hundred and forty meters away . . . two hundred and twenty. In the view from his
suit's optics, Trent could see the black combat suit following along after him. The Elite did not have a
visual lock on him yet, but he had to know roughly where Trent was, within the general radius of the
interference signal Trent's suit was generating --

A hundred and eighty meters until the ravine; and the Elite had his visual, all right. Trent could see the
man's rockets, lighting at full boost. No point in hiding any further; Trent lit his maneuvering rockets and
flew.

Trent wondered briefly where the Elite's backup was. Either the Elite had come in the transport --
unlikely, but not impossible -- or the ship in which they had come could not be too many kilometers off
Ceres. It was possible the transport was no longer functional; it had come down hard. But the
Peaceforcers were a cautious group; if they'd had enough time, they'd have sent backups.

Less than one hundred meters left to the gorge, and the Elite behind Trent was gaining on him. Purely a
function of design; Elite combat suits were designed to boost longer and at higher velocities than the
maneuvering rockets built into Trent's scalesuit. The Elite would not catch Trent before Trent reached the
gorge, though --

On a ball of rock 760 klicks in diameter, the horizon is very close.

The PKF corvette seemed to bounce up over the edge of the horizon, directly in front of Trent, coming
up over the top of a jagged uprise not two hundred meters ahead of him: a smooth sloping wedge shape
marred only slightly by its three laser cannon. Almost by reflex Trent cut his rockets, paralyzed for an
instant: enemies ahead, an enemy behind, he might be able to hide from a single Elite in that gorge, but not
from a ship armed with searchlights, the Elite coming up fast from behind, corvette approaching him from
the front, go left, go right, go straight up, bad options all. Go back, attack the Elite, worse option --

Trent went for the ship at full boost.

The ship was going in one direction, the Elite in the other. The corvette's front rockets cut in, blasting at
full, perhaps two seconds gone now since Trent and the ship had first seen each other. The ship
exploded into Trent's sky; five seconds, four, three, two --

Superconducting magnets buried in the palms and soles of Trent's scalesuit came alive at full capacity.
Trent went through the exhaust from the nose rockets, hit the hull of the PKF corvette just below the
Unification's flag, the blue and white Earth against a background of stars. He grabbed wildly, got one
hand flat against the hull before he bounced off, he and the ship going in opposite directions at what
seemed high speed only on the human level, fifty or sixty klicks an hour, and slid down the length of the
ship, palm of one hand holding him to the ship's smooth hull, got the other hand around and connected to
the hull, sliding backward down the ship --

It happened too quickly for his biological component to take more than a passing interest in it. His inskin
made the decisions:

Optical feed shows laser cannon approaching. Ankle rockets on high, nose rockets on the corvette
still boosting at max; drop boost on the left ankle rocket and I will slide laterally down the hull,
just missing the cannon emplacement. . . .

Trent's right ankle rocket died and his suit went rigid in the same moment. Trent and his suit slewed