"Simon Hawke - Time Wars 05 - The Nautilus Sanction" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

A softly glowing red outline in the shape of a submarine suddenly appeared upon the grid screen.
“Got her! Look at that! Isn’t she a beauty?”
“You can admire her at your leisure later,” the voice came back over his headset. “Right now, I’d
appreciate having the transition coordinates. I would prefer a more hospitable environment.”
 “Coming right up . . . Captain,” the man said, glancing over his shoulder and grinning behind his
faceplate. “Stand by. We’re going down and under!”
There were fourteen men seated in the wardroom of the submarine. They were all young, ranging in
age from twenty-two to thirty-five, and dressed in dark-blue, short-sleeved jumpsuits. The temperature
inside the submarine was a comfortable, constant 70 degrees and the fluorescent lights were white, for
day cycle. At the end of the watch, they would go to red interior light to simulate nighttime. Several of the
men were eating snacks; others were drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Valentin Mikhailov
watched Aleksander Muraviov’s face intently as the latter frowned down at the pieces of the chessboard,
pursing his lips thoughtfully. At twenty-nine, Mikhailov was senior to the younger Muraviov by seven
years. He smiled, slightly. Muraviov was going to lose again. Still, he got better every time. He had the
makings of an expert player and Mikhailov knew it would not be very long before he would be giving him
good matches. He picked up his package of American cigarettes, unfiltered Camels, and lit one up,
drawing the smoke in deeply and exhaling it through his nostrils.
“Davaye, davaye, Sasha,” he said, addressing Muraviov by the affectionate diminutive of his first
name, “ni kopaisiya.” (Come on, come on, Sasha, don’t dawdle.)
“Zatknise, Mikhailov. Uspakoisya. Ya dumaiyu.” (Shut up, Mikhailov. Calm down. I’m thinking.)
“Sleduistchi budiet mat.” (Next move will be mate.)
“Yob tebyeh, Valentin.” (Fuck you, Valentin.) Muraviov compressed his lips into a tight grimace
and shook his head. “Aah, nyet smisla.” (Aah, what’s the use?) He knocked over his king.
“Istcho raz?” said Mikhailov. (One more time?)
Muraviov grinned and began to set up the pieces for a new game. Suddenly, he looked over
Mikhailov’s shoulder and his eyes grew wide. “Chiyort vazmi!”
Two men dressed head-to-toe in weird-looking, shiny suits materialized in the wardroom out of thin
air. In the splitsecond instant of shocked hesitation by the members of the submarine’s crew, both of
them twisted something in their hands and gently lobbed two slender tubes onto the floor. There was a
hissing noise. Mikhailov shot out of his chair, but didn’t even take two steps before his eyes rolled up and
he collapsed. It took only a matter of seconds. All fourteen men were unconscious. At that same
moment, the exact scene was replayed when one man materialized in the submarine’s control room,
another in the engine room and one in the crew’s quarters. The invisible gas spread rapidly throughout the
sub. There was never any chance of giving an alarm. The five men moved rapidly through the boat,
already familiar with its layout. They released more gas, just to be safe, making certain that each member
of the submarine’s crew was incapacitated. In less than five minutes, they controlled the boat.
“All right,” said their leader, over the comcircuit in their helmets. “Nicely done. Now let’s get that
equipment on board.”

When Forrester had finished, one of the soldiers raised her hand.
“Sergeant Chan,” said Forrester.
She stood as she was called on. “Sir, assuming a small strike force of some sort actually did manage
to overpower the crew of a Soviet submarine, how would they plan to operate it? Wouldn’t it require
highly specialized training of the sort no longer offered in present time?”
Forrester nodded. “An excellent point, Sergeant Chan. We have two possible answers to that one.
One, it is not beyond the realm of possibility for this to have been a long-range plan on the part of the
hijackers. With access to warp discs, they could easily have clocked back to Minus Time, to the 20th
century, and enlisted in the United States Navy, for example. The Navy had a nuclear-powered
submarine training school in Idaho Falls and they might have obtained the necessary knowledge in that
manner. However, that would have been doing it the hard way. If we are to presuppose an extremely