Fred Saberhagen Berserker 11 Berserker Kill

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to any human being in the suit.
Turning, wondering if he had the time to try for one of the HO
men, Havot was stunned to see Becky's anxious countenance gazing out
at him from the helmet of another suit.
And there was Gazin, also still alive. Havot realized that he had wasted a
chance, killed the wrong person, wiped out no one more dangerous than a
bureaucratic coward. Only Ariari was in that suit down on the deck,
well cooked by now inside his armor bubbling with fumes and heat.
Here, curse her, was Becky
Thanarat still alive and on her feet, tearfully glad to see that
Havot himself had survived uninjured this almost hand-to-gripper fight with a
berserker.
Terse exchanges of conversation assured Havot that the other two were
blaming the man's death on the berserker. And now things had calmed
down a little; it would be necessary to wait before he tried to use
another grenade on Becky.
Aroused by fear and the proximity of death, Havot was now gripped by an
almost physical yearning for a knife. Almost certainly there would be a
good selection of edged weapons from
which to choose, available among Prinsep's elaborate table cutlery.
Checking the charge on his shoulder weapon, Havot left the room and
started down the corridor. Someone called after him on scrambler radio, and he
tersely put them off, saying he was only scouting.
Down one deck, he went prowling through the deserted galley, excited by a
profusion of knives arrayed in high racks, left lying carelessly on wooden
cutting boards among the meat and fruit.
Choosing hastily, he picked the biggest weapon that would fit into
one of his suit pouches and stowed it there for later use.
Of course the knife was not going to be of much use as long as
Agent Thanarat continued to wear armor, and she wasn't likely to take her
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armor off until the combat concluded-if she was still living then.
Havot considered other ways, such as possibly pushing Agent Thanarat
into some berserker's grasp. And even her death would not completely set
Havot's mind at ease. He still suspected that some of the incriminating
message might be around, perhaps still waiting to be decoded. He'd have to
search
Becky's dead body, if at all possible, and then her quarters.
The latest estimate from what still survived of Damage Control was that two or
three or four small berserker boarding machines had actually entered the
flagship. It was now thought that all but one of these had been destroyed, but
only after bitter fighting that had left much of the vessel's interior in a
shambles.
No one knew at the moment where the single surviving berserker
boarder was.
Meanwhile, heavy-weapons fire was still being exchanged with large berserker
units. By now the
Symmetry's drive had been somewhat weakened, and the outer and inner
hulls both damaged.
Havot, after picking up his knife, made his way back to the control
room. On the way the only humans he saw were dead, and he encountered
no more berserkers. When he arrived he discovered that Fourth Adventurer
had finally emerged from his cabin to join the other passengers, wearing
his own Carmpan version of space armor.
Havot, in what he imagined was something like proper military style, reported
to Prinsep that he had disposed of one berserker-said nothing about the
objectionable human-and that he was present and available for duty.
Prinsep, his hands totally full with other matters, only looked at him and
nodded.
That was all right. Havot again went out and down the corridor a little
distance, to look for at least one more metal killer. This was fun, more fun
than he had expected.
Meanwhile Prinsep, still in the fleet commander's chair, his human
staff badly decimated around him, was attempting on intercom to raise
crew members in other parts of the ship. The results were discouraging. It
sounded like only a few wounded survived anywhere in the ship.
Then something made him look up, to discover where the last berserker boarder
was. Much more nimble than its predecessor, it had just come popping out of
God knew where to appear at the very entrance of the control room. One of its
grippers, blurring sideways at machine-speed, knocked Havot's armored
body smashing into a bulkhead before the man could get his carbine into
firing position. In the next eyeblink the berserker had selected a
target and fired its own weapon, killing Becky
Thanarat, who had her carbine almost raised.
The next shot, fully capable of piercing Solarian body armor, was snapped
off a fraction of a second later at Prinsep, a
conspicuous target in his central chair. It missed the commodore only by
centimeters, and no doubt would have killed him had not
Fourth Adventurer, unequipped with formal weapons, propelled his suited body
at that moment right into the berserker's legs.
Gripper arms beat at the Carmpan like the blades of a propeller, snagged and
tore his suit, mangled his flesh.
Havot was not dead. Firing while still flat on his back, slashing away coolly
with his alphatrigger weapon, he cut the berserker's legs from under it, and a
moment later detonated something vital deep inside its torso.
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A stunned, ear-ringing silence fell.
Slowly, his back against the bulkhead, weapon ready, Havot
centimetered his way back to his feet. His armor had saved him.
He had been momentarily stunned, but was not really hurt.
Dead people were lying everywhere. Becky was among them, Havot saw; at the
moment he hardly cared. He picked his way around and over fallen bodies,
smashed machinery, back into the control room, where Prinsep still presided,
though one support of his acceleration couch, that nearest his left ear, had
been neatly shot away. He and the surviving human pilot, and even
the surviving HO superintendent were now all looking at Havot with something
like awe. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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