"Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 17 - The Carnadyne Horde" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

Abraxis's prow, she ordered SIPACUM to launch three computer traumatizer
lampreys at the freighter. The only sound the missiles made was a momentary
hiss and thunk as they shot out of Black Dawn's launching tubes. Surprise was
on her side. The freighter's Defense Sys-temry was slow in actuating-eight
seconds from the moment of sighting. In that time, she had already launched
the lampreys and ordered her own DS lasers to blast the weapons nodes on the
other ship. .1 2 She never bothered to confirm whether the ship was the one
she wanted. She knew it would be, for Tura ak Saiping made it her business to
know the movements of TGW freighters. The DS gunner onboard spacer Abraxis
managed to knock out two of the missiles closing in on his craft. He was a
gunner in about the same sense that his captain "piloted" the ship-computers
handled nearly everything onboard. The captain, the gunner, and everyone else
merely turned the computers on and acted as emergency
overrides. Excruciatingly slow emergency overrides, compared to the
 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html



computers. The DS gunner, a round-faced young man who had never really wanted
to be a spacefarer but who went where the money was good, watched in dismay
and a fair amount of terror as the nameless spacer attacked without warning
and immobilized his weapons. Then he felt a reverberation through the
unipolymer plasteel deckplating. "Impact!" he snapped into the inship comm. He
said it with too much alarm, too much fear. "Take us out of here," Captain
Jarant Anstiss told his first mate. One glance at SIPACUM's display revealed
to that mate that escape was no longer possible. "Fobbied, sir. They hit us
with a lamprey. It's already gotten to SIPACUM." "Comm the ship. Demand to
know why we are being subjected to this unwarranted and-and illegal
attack!" "Comm is out too, sir. We can't transmit or receive!" Captain Jarant,
a short Ghanji who had allowed his hairline to recede under the mistaken
impression that his crew would respect him because of his age, commed down to
DS. "Haven't you placidated it yet?" After a pause and a crackle of gibberish
from the trau- 3 matized comm network, a subdued voice replied, "We've been
placidated, Captain. DS won't respond," "Prepare for tachyon conversion,
then." First Mate Jarant Kendis rubbed the bridge of his small, flat nose.
"Sir, the lamprey has attached itself to our hull. It is busily fobbying our
SIPACUM, our DS, and every other ship's 'puterlink." As if in emphasis, the
con-cabin's lights flickered twice, flared, and dimmed. In darkness relieved
only by the confused flashing of the control panels, captain and mate regarded
each other. The captain looked with uncertainty toward the frantic, jumbled
'puter displays. "I think we-" "It's blasting our airlocks!" Kendis kicked
over to the viewing port and floated close to the crysplas that separated the
con from the vacuum a few sems-centimeters-away. With Abraxis's telepresence
cameras (routed, as was everything, through the spacer's computers) scrambled
and disinformed and otherwise fouled up by the lamprey, human eyes were the
only sensors to be trusted. "Firm," Mate Jarant muttered. "It's wrecking them.
We can't escape." The captain joined him at the port. "And they can't get
in." "Don't be too sure, Father. Look!" A hatch in the dorsal midsection of
the attacking spacer opened quickly. Five spheres-the same grayish-blue hue as
the plating of the nameless spacer-darted from the airlock. "Cybers," Mate