Hyperion Cantos, The by Simmons Dan

Author:Simmons, Dan [Simmons, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Second World Fantasy, Horror, Adventure, Epic, Sci-fi, Fiction, Novel
ISBN: 9780804180580
Publisher: Ballentine / Bantam
Published: 1989-01-05T02:00:00+00:00

22

Sergeant Gregorius and his two troopers are waiting in the open sally-port air lock of the Raphael as the archangel-class starship closes on the unidentified spacecraft that has just translated from C-plus. Their spacesuit armor is cumbersome and—with their reactionless rifles and energy weapons slung—the three men fill the air lock. Parvati’s sun gleams on their gold visors as they lean out into space.

“I’ve got it locked,” comes Father Captain de Soya’s voice in their earphones. “Distance, one hundred meters and closing.” The needle-shaped craft with fins on the stern fills their vision as the two ships close. Between the spacecraft, defensive containment fields blur and flash, dissipating high-energy CPB and lance attacks faster than the eye can follow. Gregorius’s visor opaques, clears, and then opaques as the close-in battle flares.

“All right, inside their minimum lance range,” says de Soya from his perch on the Combat Control Center couch. “Go!”

Gregorius gives a hand signal and his men kick off at the precise instant he does. Needle thrusters in their suits’ reaction paks spurt tiny blue flames as they correct their arc.

“Disrupting fields … now!” cries de Soya.

The clashing containment fields cancel each other for only a few seconds, but it is enough: Gregorius, Kee, and Rettig are in the other ship’s defensive egg now.

“Kee,” says Gregorius over the tightbeam, and the smaller figure tweaks thrusters and hurtles toward the bow of the decelerating ship. “Rettig.” The other suit of combat armor accelerates toward the lower third of the ship. Gregorius himself waits until the final second to kill his forward velocity, does a complete forward roll at the last instant, applies full thruster, and feels his heavy soles touch hullplate with hardly a tap. He activates the magties in his boots, feels the connection, widens his stance, and then crouches on the hull with only one boot in contact.

“On,” comes Corporal Kee’s voice on tightbeam.

“On,” says Rettig a second later.

Sergeant Gregorius pulls the line of boarding collar from around his waist, sets it against the hull, activates the sticktight, and continues kneeling in it. He is within a black hoop a little more than a meter and a half in diameter.

“On the count from three,” he says into his mike. “Three … two … one … deploy.” He touches his wristcontroller and blinks as a microthin canopy of molecular polymer spins up from the hoop, closes over his head, and continues to bulge above him. Within ten seconds he is within a twenty-meter transparent bag, like a combat-armored shape crouching within a giant condom.

“Ready,” says Kee. Rettig echoes the word.

“Set,” says Gregorius, slapping a charge against the hull and setting his gauntleted finger back against his wristplate. “From five …” The ship is rotating under them now, firing thrusters and its main engines almost at random, but the Raphael has it locked in a containment-field death grip, and the men on its hull are not thrown free. “Five … four … three … two … one … now!”

The detonation is soundless, of course, but is also without flash or recoil.

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