"Zahn, Timothy - Conquerors 03 - Conquerors' Legacy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

"Confirm that," Smith said. "Damage to command structure; severe damage to sensors and forward missile ports."

"Cascadia'slaunched a missile attack against Bogie Two," Kyun Wu said. "Missiles hitting... no apparent damage. Bogie is attackingNagoya again."

"Damage toNagoya starboard flank," Smith said. "Make that severe damage. Command center's gone; Prasad has ordered ship-abandon. Bogie One's engagingWolverine"

"Trautmann, move us to backstopCascadia," Montgomery ordered the helmsman. "Kyun Wu: status onNagoyas honeycombs."

"Nothing yet," Kyun Wu said tightly. "Bogie's still firing atNagoya. Wait a minute; I'm picking up some pod emergency beacons-"

Abruptly, he broke off. "Beacons have gone silent, Commodore."

Germaine swore viciously under his breath. "Damn them all."

Montgomery squeezed his left fist hard enough to hurt, sudden fury burning along his throat. They were doing it again. Brutally, arrogantly, deliberately, the Conquerors were slaughtering the human survivors of their attack. Helpless survivors, in defenseless and unarmed escape pods. "Launch missiles," he ordered. "Full salvo."

"Acknowledged," the weapons officer called. "Missiles away."

"Too late, Commodore," Smith said quietly. "TheNagoyas gone."

For a half-dozen painful heartbeats Montgomery just sat there, staring at the expanding cloud of debris that had been theNagoya, a cloud still flashing and flickering with secondary explosions and enemy laser fire. There were things he wanted to scream at the Conquerors; things he desperately wanted to scream. But he was a NorCoord officer, from the heritage and tradition of Great Britain. Such men did not lose control. "Fighter status?" he asked instead.

"Samurai group is just coming into their bays," Schweighofer reported, his voice the bitter cold of a Rheinland on Nadezhda winter. "All other fighters have returned to their ships. Rather, all that will be returning."

Montgomery's fist tightened again. But there would be time later to tot up the casualties. Right now his job was to keep his force from suffering any more of them. "Fire another salvo at Bogie Two," he ordered the weapons officer as he touched his comm control. "All ships: defense formation; mesh out in order. Rendezvous at Point Victor."

He could feel Germaine's eyes on him as the other ships acknowledged and the task force began its orderly retreat. But the fleet exec said nothing. Perhaps because there was nothing to be said. Fifteen Peacekeeper warships, fleeing before two of the enemy, leaving a ship's worth of dead behind. And the two enemy warships not showing so much as a scratch.

But at least he hadn't lost his whole task force-the way Dyami had lost theJutland.

And, ultimately, it wasn't going to matter how viciously and arrogantly the Zhirrzh cut into them here. By now the NorCoord Parliament must certainly have authorized the use of CIRCE, the awesome weapon that had been used four decades earlier to end the Pawolian war, and which then for security reasons had been disassembled. Odds were, in fact, that all of CIRCE's components had already been gathered together from the dozen or more worlds on which they'd been hidden. Somewhere back in the Commonwealth-on Earth, on Celadon, perhaps somewhere out in deep space-top NorCoord ordnance techs were probably even now reassembling those components into the most spectacular killing device mankind had ever known.

So let the enemy slaughter and destroy. Soon they would find themselves facing CIRCE, and the Peacekeepers would have the final word.

And the Zhirrzh would find out who the true Conquerors around here really were.

2

The spokesman of the two Mrachanis spoke, his voice soft and low and with an earnestness that tugged oddly at Commander Thrr-mezaz's emotions. "You must listen to us, Commander of the Zhirrzh," the translation came a few beats later through the translator-link nestled in Thrr-mezaz's ear slits. "We are in great danger here on Dorcas. You must persuade your leaders to bring us to them."

"We're doing everything in our power to protect you, Lahettilas," Thrr-mezaz said, the translation into the Human-Conqueror language coming a few beats later from the speaker on his shoulder, linked by darklight beams to the interpreter installed in one of the buildings across the landing field. "You must understand that the Overclan Seating and Warrior Command are extremely busy-"

Lahettilas cut him off, the earnestness in his voice changing abruptly to scorn. "Everything in your power? You harbor the Human-Conqueror responsible for a vicious attack intended to be fatal to us; and yet you claim to be protecting us?"

"The Human-Conqueror prisoner Srgent-janovetz is being carefully watched," Second Commander Klnn-vavgi said from beside Thrr-mezaz. "If he was the one who launched that explosives attack on your quarters last fullarc, he won't have the opportunity to repeat it."

The second Mrachani growled something. "So you say," the translation came. "Yet you concede you don't even know the mechanism of the attack. How, then, can you presume to guarantee our safety?"

"I never said your safety was guaranteed," Thrr-mezaz said coldly. There was something about these aliens and their mannerisms that he found vaguely but increasingly irritating. And the last thing he needed right now was a lecture on his responsibilities as the commander of the Zhirrzh ground warriors. "Dorcas is a war zone, which you chose to enter. You'll just have to face the dangers here along with the rest of us."