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of hydraulics and a tung-chink as the seals went into place.
The Speed closed around him, infinitely familiar. Alone in the blue-lit gloom
as he settled into the control couch, he grinned to himself at the bittersweet
pleasure. He didn t bother with the restraints as he slid his hands into the
control gloves and the holohelmet sank to cover his face and shoulders.
 Main power off, he said.  Shipside power feed on.
The status bars came up green on either side of his vision, and the deck
sprang into being around him.  Three-sixty.
That gave him a compressed view of the outside, an all-around view squeezed
down into a hundred-twenty degree arc ahead of him. Weirdly distorted to a lay
eye, but second nature to a pilot.
 Sim run, plasma cannon, port, he said. The AI brought up the icon, circled
with a red bar through it to show that the weapon wouldn t
actually be firing. It couldn t
, not without a feed from the main fusion bottle, which was powered down at
the moment . . . but better safe than sorry. Even a partial wasn t a nice
thought, not in a pressured-up flight bay.
 Lieutenant Robbins, Casey, give me a direct confirm on the cannon, please.
He could see the squeezed-looking figures jacking in to the plasma gun,
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datalinking directly, then Casey making a physical check . . . and sticking a
marker between two components that had to touch for the weapon to function.
That guy is thorough Raeder thought. Just as thorough as Robbins, , which was
saying something. He just did it without looking, as if he was an
obsessive-compulsive. It was a wonder a ten-year man with his abilities wasn t
higher in rank, until you looked at his record. Wonderful on shipboard, even
better in action, but his idea of recreation appeared to be to walk into a bar
frequented by Marines and drag his uniform jacket along the floor, daring
anyone to step on it. He d gone up and down the pole several times, reaching
CPO twice. And how on Earth had he managed to get a kangaroo out of the
Lunaport Zoo and halfway back to his ship before Shore Patrol caught him? Both
of them drunk as lords, to boot.
 Casey. How do you get a kangaroo drunk?
There was an injured silence for a moment.  Why, to be sure, with whiskey,
sir. In beer; they re partial to it, I find.
Maybe Robbins will give him an incentive to try for Officer Candidate
School.
God knew Space Command needed all the leaders it could get, with casualties
and the expansion program.
 Confirm stimulation status on port plasma cannon, sir, Robbins said,
sneaking a sideways look at Casey. Raeder saw her lips move:
a kangaroo?
The holohelmet showed the weapons board. Raeder s hands moved instinctively in
the glove, and he felt a surge of triumph as the cannon came out of its slot
and tracked smoothly on its swivel pivot. The aiming pip slid over the arched
interior of the flight deck, a complete three-sixty
turn and then up to vertical.
 Excellent, Raeder whispered. An instructor s voice came back to him from
flight school, a martinet with a tongue like a rasp and cold gray eyes, named
Oleg Katchaturoff. It had been a triumph ever to get a word of praise from
him, until that day when Raeder outflew him in a practice dogfight. He d come
up to Raeder afterwards, and said two words:
ochen korrosho.
They fit here.  Most excellent.
 Nominal on the plasma cannon, Robbins said.  Thank you, sir.
 Thank you
, Raeder replied.  Both of you.
 This is the decision point, Captain Knott said, looking down the table.
 We ve finally found a Transit route the enemy isn t checking or patrolling.
Unfortunately, our antihydrogen reserves are now at critical levels. If our
mission succeeds, we ll be sitting pretty. If we fail, we may be trapped
outside Commonwealth-controlled space and unable to
Transit back to base. Comments, please, ladies and gentlemen.
 It s an important target, but not worth the ship, Larkin said promptly,
absently knocking his academy ring on the table. Knott had one just like it.
 Sir, I recommend that we return, refuel, and try the route we ve found.
Sutton scowled.  With all due respect to the quartermaster, sir, he said, his
voice making a liar of him,  We ve got a narrow window here.
The enemy are patrolling the Transit routes to our target zone vigorously and
may step them up. We d lose two weeks that way with no guarantee that there [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]