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

Jarant said. Captain Jarant nodded. "It's the Dark Wolf!" Jarant Kendis knew
well of the mysterious pirate who plied the spaceways-identity
unknown-attacking and looting freighters in flight. The faceless raider struck
swiftly, 4 accurately, and seldom left the target vessel spaceworthy. That the
crew usually perished in the assault gave First Mate Jarant more worries than
he could handle. He floated away from the viewing port and seized the
comm-mike. "Prepare to repel boarders!" The ancient command reached less than
half the ship. Tura ak Saiping controlled the actions of her semi-autonomous
cybers from the con of Black Dawn with a few commands tapped in on SIPACUM's
keyboard. She eschewed vocally interactive computers, though she owned one for
emergencies. Tura ak Saiping spoke little enough to Galactics. She had even
less to say to machines. The cyber-salvagers drifted past the useless DS nodes
of Abraxis and waited a few hundred meters from one of the damaged
airlocks. "Krishna!" the DS gunner cried as a plasma bolt flared from the Dark
Wolf's ship. It was the last word he uttered. The blue-white blob of
infernally hot ionized matter sizzled into the second hatch of the blasted
airlock and melted through like a diamond drill against cheap plaster.
Instantly, atmosphere punched outward. In a properly functioning ship, such a
blowout would immediately be sensed by the computer and pressure seals would
lock to protect as much of the ship as possible from damage. The lamprey
ensured that Abraxis functioned improperly at best. Air howled out of the
airlock, its staging area, and a dozen tunnels connected to it. The screams of
the crew soon died in the airless void that carried no sound. The gunner,
wrenched from his chair by the force of the outrushing wind, reached out to
grab a stanchion as he hurtled past. His fingers caught and held on. Almost as
quickly as it had begun, the vacuum hurricane abated. The gunner floated in
silence. Airless silence. 5 He heard sounds, though. In his few dying seconds,
he heard his blood throbbing in his arteries, trying to burst through vessel
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walls and boil in the negligible pressure. His lungs went first. Devoid of
air, they contracted under the expanding pressure of his veins and
fluid-filled organs. Other body parts tried to fill the void. His stomach and
intestines swelled and burst. His heart seized up from the vapors of his
boiling blood. By that time he was dead. A contorted rag doll that had been
more boy than man. Swollen, blood-filled eyes stared out into space. Eyes that
no longer saw the cybers jetting in through the hole in the side of
Abraxis. Since stoppers would be no good against non-living matter, Captain
Jarant and his son armed themselves with plasma beamers. They slipped on
emergency breath masks. If the con-cabin lost pressure, the masks ensured that
they would die in five minutes instead of one. The captain knew that- this
time-every second of life mattered. "Escape pod four is closest. Not badly
damaged, either." The first mate nodded and followed his father through the
hatch into the ship's main corridor. Tura ak Saiping watched the displays from
each of the telepresences mounted on the cybers. One of them neared the main
cargo hold. She watched it beam its plasmer at three floating figures. Two men
and a woman scrambled for handholds in the tunnel, the gloves of their mobile
life support systems clutching at anything handy. The plasma beam seared