"Walter Jon Williams - Dread Empire's Fall 02 - The Sundering" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

clothing and draped around themselves silvery thermal blankets that made them look like walking tents.
Their breath blossomed out before their faces in a white mist, and frost coated the walls and cockpit
windows. Frozen white rimed the beards of the men and the eyelashes of the women.

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...d%20Empire's%20Fall%2002%20-%20The%20Sundering.html (4 of 324)23-2-2006 20:21:28
 Williams, Walter Jon - [Dead Empire's Fall 02] - The Sundering



Thus far SeverinтАЩs crew hadnтАЩt complained, and they had offered him no reproaches. Sometimes they
were even cheerful, which was remarkable under the circumstances. They had exercise equipment to
keep them fit and a full library of entertainments. But Severin reproachedhimself тАФreproached himself
for coming up with the scheme in the first place, and then for failing to provision the lifeboat for as
many months as he could. Six monthsтАЩ rations had seemed plenty at the time, but now he was beginning
to wonder if he should reduce the number of calories the crew were consuming. And if he did that, the
reproaches, both from himself and from his crew, would begin in earnest.

And so Severin avoided the glances of his crew, and counted the days.

No loyalist fleet came.

A pity, because if they ever arrived, Severin could teach them a great deal.




ONE

The defeated squadron was locked in its deceleration burn, the blazing fury of its torches directed
toward the capital at Zanshaa.Bombardment of Delhi groaned and shuddered under the strain of over
three gravities. At times the shaking and shivering was so violent that the woman called Caroline Sula
wondered if the damaged cruiser would hold together.

After so many brutal days of deceleration, she didnтАЩt much care if it did or not.

Sula was no stranger to the hardships of pulling hard gee. She had been aboard theDauntless under
Captain Lord Richard Li when, a little over two months ago, it had joined the Home Fleet on a furious
series of accelerations that eventually flung it through a course of wormhole gates toward the enemy
lying in wait at Magaria.

The enemy had been ready for them, and Sula was now the sole survivor of the crew of theDauntless.
Delhi, the heavy cruiser that had pulled SulaтАЩs pinnace out of the wreckage of defeat, had been so badly
damaged that it was a minor miracle it survived the battle at all.

All six survivors of the squadron were low on ammunition, and would be useless in the event of a fight.
They had to decelerate, dock with the ring station at Zanshaa, take on fresh supplies of missiles and
antimatter fuel, then commence yet another series of accelerations to give them the velocity necessary to
avoid destruction should an enemy arrive.

That meant evenmore months of standing up under three or four or more gravities, months in which