"Alastair Reynolds - Galactic North" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

He hadn't let her down. Under his supervision, half the ship's mass had been sacrificed,
permitting twice the acceleration. They had dug a vault in the comet, lined it with support systems,
and entombed what remained of the cargo. The sleepers were nominally dead -- there was no real
expectation of reviving them again, even if medicine improved in the future -- but Irravel had
nonetheless set servitors to tend the dead for however long it took, and programmed the beacon to
lure another ship, this time to pick up the dead. All that had taken years, of course -- but it had also
taken Seven as much time to cross the halo to his base; time again to show himself.
"Be so much easier if you didn't want the others back," Mirsky said. "Then we could just slam
past the pig at relativistic speed and hit him with seven kinds of shit." She was very proud of the
weapons she'd built into the ship, copied from pirate designs with Remontoire's help.
"I want the sleepers back," Irravel said.
"And Markarian?"
"He's mine," she said, after due consideration. "You get the pig."

NEAR LALANDE 21185 -- AD 2328

Relativity squeezed stars until they bled colour. Half a kilometre ahead, the side of Seven's ship
raced toward Irravel like a tsunami.
The Hideyoshi was the same shape as the Hirondelle; honed less by human whim than the edicts
of physics. But the Hideyoshi was heavier, with a wider cross-section, incapable of matching the
Hirondelle's acceleration or of pushing so close to C. It had taken years, but they'd caught up with
Seven, and now the attack was in progress.
Irravel, Mirsky and Remontoire wore thruster-pack-equipped suits, of the type used for
inspections outside the ship, with added armour and weapons. Painted for effect, they looked like
mechanized Samurai. Another 47 suits were slaved to theirs, acting as decoys. They'd crossed
50,000 kilometres of space between the ships.
"You're sure Seven doesn't have any defence?" Irravel had asked, not long after waking from
reefersleep.
"Only the in-system ship had any firepower," Mirsky said. She looked older now; new lines
engraved under her eyes. "That's because no one's ever been insane enough to contemplate storming
another ship in interstellar space."
"Until now."
But it wasn't so stupid, and Mirsky knew it. Matching velocities with another ship was only a
question of being faster; squeezing fractionally closer to lightspeed. It might take time, but sooner
or later the distance would be closed. And it had taken time, none of which Mirsky had spent in
reefersleep. Partly it was because she lacked the right implants -- ripped out in infancy when she
was captured by Seven. Partly it was a distaste for the very idea of being frozen, instilled by years
of pirate upbringing. But also because she wanted time to refine her weapons. They had fired a
salvo against the enemy before crossing space in the suits, softening up any weapons buried in his
ice and opening holes into the Hideyoshi's interior.
Now Irravel's vision blurred, her suit slowing itself before slamming into the ice.
Whiteness swallowed her.
For a moment she couldn't remember what she was doing here. Then awareness came and she
slithered back up the tunnel excavated on her fall, until she reached the surface of the Hideyoshi's
ice-shield.
 "Veda -- you intact?"
Her armour's shoulder-mounted comm laser found a line-of-sight to Mirsky. Mirsky was 20 or 30
metres away, around the ship's lazy circumference, balancing on a ledge of ice. Walls of it stretched
above and below like a rockface, lit by the glare from the engines. Decoys were arriving by the
second.