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

Somewhere out there in the starry black sky was the Elite who had chased him out of Ceres; Trent's
optics could not locate him. With any luck he'd reach the Asteroid, or be picked up by the Vatsayama,
without ever having to see the man again.

Trent took a quick, shallow breath, lifted his hands and lit the wrist rockets.

He moved off from the corvette and without intending to found himself holding his breath. It wouldn't take
long; he probably wouldn't even feel it if the cannon were still functioning --

Nobody shot him, and the corvette dwindled away behind him, drifting motionless through space.

While he was less than five hundred meters from the Temple of 'Toons Asteroid, turned around and
descending toward the Asteroid feet first, preparing to brake, the Elite hit him from behind at high speed.

The impact almost knocked Trent out. The Elite had not matched speeds well, or had not tried to; the
Elite hit Trent from behind at nearly sixty kilometers an hour. Even the Elite was unable to keep hold of
Trent; they spun away from each other after the impact, tumbling off through space.

He couldn't breathe. Trent had already altered the air mix in his suit; it was nearly pure oxygen. He
sucked oxygen in little sips, trying to fight for breath past the constriction in his chest. He couldn't breathe
and could barely see and what he did see of the universe was not promising, spinning stars and the Ceres
and the Temple, revolving around him as he tumbled. He couldn't see the Elite and didn't know where the
man was. His inskin made the correct decisions, took over the scalesuit and gave the commands to brake
and slow the tumble. It did not give him much of an advantage; Trent knew that the Elite's battle
computer was performing the same task for him. The spinning universe slowed, stabilized --

The Elite hit him again. Trent barely saw the man before the Elite boosted into Trent. He hit Trent with his
ankle rockets blasting, got one hand looped into the toolkit hanging at the side of Trent's pressure suit,
and pulled Trent in to him. The Elite no longer had the autoshot, but that hardly mattered: he could shoot
directly through the gloves of the combat suit, if he had to. The suit would seal against death pressure at
the wrist, and the Elite's hands wouldn't even notice the vacuum.

They struggled together, locked in silent dance. Trent got his left hand on the Elite's free wrist, locked the
servos for that hand in place, and was reaching for the hand holding him by the toolbelt when the Elite
pulled Trent even closer and tried to head butt the cracked faceplate of Trent's scalesuit. Trent jerked
backward in a panic, and the Elite's helmet cracked into the scalesuit's metal chin. Trent pushed the Elite
as far away as he could get him, and for a moment they hung there together, motionless, looking at one
another through their faceplates.

The name painted on the Elite's combat suit was Captain R. Colbert.

"I know you," Trent started to say, and then he and PKF Elite Captain Roger Colbert struck the surface
of the Temple of 'Toons Asteroid, together, at forty-four kilometers per hour.
-3-
Trent did not even have to move to know that something new had broken. His left leg hurt, burned fire
from the knee down, and that was the good news; it meant that his spinal cord was still in one piece.

His inskin was chattering at him, and in his own voice, too, which seemed a bit much. Trent ignored it,
made no attempt to move and tried to figure out if he was going to live.