"David Weber - Dahak 01 - Mutineer's Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

And then, as his senses faded at last, he realized: It wasn't directed at him-
-it was raking the ground behind him and cutting down the mutineers who had
pursued him. . . .
Book One
Chapter One
The huge command deck was as calm, as peacefully dim, as ever, silent but for
the small background sounds of environmental recordings. The bulkheads were
invisible beyond the projection of star-specked space and the blue-white shape
of a life-bearing world. It was exactly as it ought to be, exactly as it
always had been-tranquil, well-ordered, as divorced from chaos as any setting
could possibly be.
But Captain Druaga's face was grim as he stood beside his command chair and
data flowed through his neural feeds. He felt the whickering lightning of
energy weapons like heated irons, Engineering no longer responded-not
surprisingly-and he'd lost both Bio-Control One and Three. The hangar decks
belonged to no one; he'd sealed them against the mutineers, but Anu's butchers
had blocked the transit shafts with grab fields covered by heavy weapons. He
still held Fire Control and most of the external systems, but Communications
had been the mutineers' primary target. The first explosion had taken it out,
and even an Utu-class ship mounted only a single hypercom. He could neither
move the ship nor report what had happened, and his loyalists were losing.
Druaga deliberately relaxed his jaw before his teeth could grind together. In
the seven thousand years since the Fourth Imperium crawled back into space
from the last surviving world of the Third, there had never been a mutiny
aboard a capital ship of Battle Fleet. At best, he would go down in history as
the captain whose crew had turned against him and been savagely suppressed. At
worst, he would not go down in history at all.
The status report ended, and he sighed and shook himself.
The mutineers were hugely outnumbered, but they had the priceless advantage of
surprise, and Anu had planned with care. Druaga snorted; no doubt the Academy
teachers would have been proud of his tactics. But at least-and thank the
Maker for it!-he was only the chief engineer, not a bridge officer. There were
command codes of which he had no knowledge.
"Dahak," Druaga said.
"Yes, Captain?" The calm, mellow voice came from everywhere and nowhere,
filling the command deck.
"How long before the mutineers reach Command One?"
"Three standard hours, Captain, plus or minus fifteen percent."
"They can't be stopped?"
"Negative, Captain. They control all approaches to Command One and they are
pushing back loyal personnel at almost all points of contact."
Of course they were, Druaga thought bitterly. They had combat armor and heavy
weapons; the vast majority of his loyalists did not.
He looked around the deserted command deck once more. Gunnery was unmanned,
and Plotting, Engineering, Battle Comp, Astrogation. . . . When the alarms
went, only he had managed to reach his post before the mutineers cut power to
the transit shafts. Just him. And to get here he'd had to kill two subverted
members of his own staff when they pounced on him like assassins.
"All right, Dahak," he told the all-surrounding voice grimly, "if all we still
hold is Bio Two and the weapon systems, we'll use them. Cut Bio One and Three