Berserker 12 Berserker Fury by Fred Saberhagen

Author:Fred Saberhagen [Saberhagen, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unknown
Published: 2010-05-23T12:15:23+00:00

Jory returned to her own shelter, then reemerged after fine-tuning her equipment. She came out to watch, as well as actively record, the squadron of farlaunchers as they lifted off and went heading out to try to get in the first blow against the enemy.

These heavy spacecraft, informally named Strongholds, were much bigger than fighter craft, and were heavily armed against berserker fighters. Watching them make ready and get spaceborne was thrilling.

The Strongholds were supposed to be able to do without fighter cover, defending themselves effectively against attack by small berserker fighter machines. Each of the heavy farlaunchers carried a solid array of defensive armament, designed for just that purpose.

Nineteen Strongholds went out as Jory watched, bounding up in sequence from their several launching cradles, then gathering in formation, hovering at low altitude, before heading spaceward. Almost before she could blink her eyes, they were silently out of sight.

The lead ship had been informally christened by its crew as the Knucklehead. The name was hand painted on the hull just forward of the main left pinna. The glowing letters disappeared temporarily, along with all other insignia, when the ship powered up and its hull went live just before liftoff.

Each of these heavy bomber types carried a livecrew of at least eight, some as many as ten Solarians. So many people were necessary to provide the brain-computer (officially called bio-hardware, more informally fleshware or boneware) combinations that, for reasons still not fully understood, gave better combat results than could be obtained using either kind of thought/reaction alone.

Jory wished she'd been able to go through the interior of every ship type, but there just hadn't been time.

According to her notes, which she hoped to be able to keep out of the censors' hands, each crew included several people whose duties in flight were usually restricted to gunnery. Each heavy-bomber crew included another specialist who concentrated on aiming, releasing, and guiding the main weapons when the proper moment arrived. One was a flight engineer, whose job was to fine-tune the drive when things were going well, and to keep it going as long as possible when things turned nasty.

An astrogator's mind was melded with the programming of the computer maintaining the ship's course, calculating its position, both in normal space and flightspace, relative to its destination. No object in space ever stood absolutely still, relative to any other object. And yet another member of the crew had the full-time job of bonding with the equipment managing incoming and outgoing communications - frequently, amid the white noise of battle, this became an impossible task.

When at battle stations, the whole crew, like that of any other fighting small ship, rode with virtually immobilized bodies and wired heads, blind and almost deaf to their environment, including the presence of their shipmates' bodies almost packed around them, except as they perceived it through their silver helmets. They could sense the location of their own ship, and could study the immediate environment of space in considerable detail - with emphasis, of course, on any suspicious presence that might represent an enemy.

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