straightened up to its full height, and, with a clanking noise, stepped out.
Only now could they see how tall it was. Steve measured it with his eyes from head to foot. It must have been about six and a half feet tall.
After activating and checking the remaining machines and supplying them with ammunition, Toshi wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Skip, we're all done here."
"Roger. Put the robots on duty. Steve, return here to the bridge."
After passing through the gravity lock on his way back to the bridge, Steve sighed with relief. Whatever you say, gravity is a lot more pleasant than weightlessness. There's no nausea, and your face doesn't swell up like a balloon due to the rush of blood to your head.
"Well, let's see if our pursuers will listen to the voice of reason," said Kimble with the hint of a smile, and switched on the radio.
Like any other large cargo ship captain, deep down Kimble was longing to take revenge on the pirates. Anyone with twenty or more years of commercial flight experience to the limits of assimilated space could always remember unpleasant stories about space robbers. If you have experienced their cruelty first-hand, any pity for the corsairs instantly evaporates.
"Attention unidentified ships on approach course, this is the captain of EMC1906. I consider your actions an attempt to seize my ship. I order you to cease your pursuit. Change course," said Kimble, and, after switching off the microphone, added: "I bet they don't bat an eyelid."
Silence was the response. Kimble waited several minutes and repeated the warning. The pirate ships continued to fly on the same course, as if they had not heard the captain.
"Attention unidentified ships. This is the captain of EMC1906. Change course. This is the last warning. Keep at a distance of not less than one million kilometres. We are authorised to use force without further warning."
Kimble grimaced at his own words.
"I hate having to warn the enemy."
Steve just shrugged his shoulders.
"Flight rules are what they are. You can't do otherwise."
"Exactly."
Kimble patiently waited another few minutes. There was no response from the ships, nor were they going to change course.
"They are not reacting at all," said Steve, somewhat surprised.
Kimble laughed. "Of course they aren't. They think we're ordinary civilians, just bluffing." He looked at the clock again.
"All right, they don't want to listen to the voice of reason..." He switched off and contacted Toshi.
"Let the birds out of the nest," he ordered him.
Toshi could be seen on the image from the camera in the cargo compartment standing next to the drones and saluting, then keying something in on his tablet. Vapour issued from the tails of the drones, and Toshi hurried towards the exit. The magnetic soles made movement difficult, particularly running. Toshi was lifting his knees unnaturally high, trying to run as fast as possible before the cargo compartment became filled with mist.
Eventually, the drones started their engines. The screen showed their tail ends beginning to light up. The first one rose slowly and floated to the exit. A few seconds later, the second one followed.
Kimble switched on communication with their onboard computers. All systems were working normally. Their coordinate system was linked directly to the heart of EMC1906, its reactor. Now they were moving at two and a half metres a second relative to the ship.
When the first one went out into space, the ship's computer divided the picture into two parts. One part of the screen showed the view from the external camera, the other showed the view from the cargo compartment. A few moments later, the second one passed through the lock. By that time, the first one had already turned and accelerated away from the ship towards the pirates. Its speed rapidly increased to 100 metres a second. The second one followed, a few dozen seconds behind it in flight time.
The external camera tracked them, keeping them in the centre of the picture and gradually increasing the optical magnitude. Then the image suddenly disappeared and reappeared. Now the picture was coming from a telescope. Both drones were clearly visible against the background of the black starry sky, although they were covered in light-absorbing paint. The speed readings increased still further to 500 metres a second. Now the two drones, which so far had been flying in the same direction, accelerated in absolute synchrony.
1000 metres a second, 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000...
After passing the five thousand mark, the computer changed the units to kilometres a second.
6.0... 6.5... 7.0... 7.5 kilometres a second...
"Why have they separated?" asked Steve in surprise.
"They will approach the target from different sides. It's harder to neutralise them that way," replied Kimble calmly. He leaned back in his seat and put one leg on the console in front of him.
"When will they be in position?"
"In three or four hours," replied the Captain, not taking his eyes off the screen in front of him.
"And then what?"
Kimble raised his eyes.
"Then there will be two less pirate ships."
"Just like that, so unceremoniously?"
"Piracy is a serious crime. They know the risks."
"Couldn't you just scare them off?"
Kimble grimaced as if from a nagging toothache.
"If we had not had the drones, we would only have had a few hours to live, Steve. In nine out of ten cases when a ship is seized, the crew does not survive. If we just scare them off, in another couple of weeks they'll seize another ship."
"I realise that, but I'm still not happy about it. It seems kind of underhand."
"Have a chat with Toshi, he'll tell you a lot of interesting things. He and his friend were the only survivors of an entire crew when they were kidnapped during loading. They spent eight weeks in a shuttle before a patrol chanced to pick them up. And another shuttle with his fellow crew members in it could not be intercepted, because it went too far into space and was lost."
Steve nodded to show that he understood the seriousness of the situation. After the incident on Mars, he himself knew what sort of people they were dealing with. For distraction, he immersed himself in reading the dossier on the anomaly. Shelby and his group were continuing to work on their research on Earth, and were keeping Steve and Clive in the picture if they succeeded in finding out anything new.
"Drones will be in position in three minutes," reported the ship's computer in a matter-of-fact voice several long hours later. Kimble dimmed the light in the bridge.
"Action begins!"
Steve saw the image of the pirate ships taken through the drones' telescopes. Over the past few hours, they had reached the pirates, turned, and were approaching them from behind. Now they were flying directly behind their targets, within the exhaust of their engines. The picture was partly covered by grey vapour. The drones were photographing from such a great distance that even the exhaust dissipated in space clouded them over somewhat.
"How can they transmit images without the pirates noticing? They are directly between us!"
"The drones sent out a communications satellite, which is flying a few thousand kilometres to one side. The image is relayed through it by laser."
The live image of the pirate ships was not very varied. Nothing could be seen apart from the light from their rear turbines. They twinkled slightly, and that was all the variety there was in the picture.
"Drone 1 in position, awaiting Drone 2," came a message from the first drone. Automatic devices provided information about the current combat situation in text form.
"Drone 2 in position," reported the second machine a little later, indicating its readiness. After that, the status reports from both drones began to come in almost synchronously.
"Drone 1 locking on to target. Locked on to target."
"Drone 2 locking on to target. Locked on to target."
"The world will be a cleaner place without you guys," muttered Kimble. Although th
e pirates deserved to be atomised, he was clearly deriving no pleasure from the process of killing them.
"Drone 1 attacking."
"Drone 2 attacking."
Steve looked intently at the screen. His heart began to beat faster. Although the pictures from the monitors did not look any different from a computer game, they still made a very strong impression on him. He was so involved in the combat situation that he felt as if he were there, on board one of the pirate ships.
He saw in his imagination the dim light of its bridge, where its captain was sitting with a bottle of whisky in his hand. The other members of the crew, unshaven, half drunk, their breath reeking of alcohol, were playing cards in the next compartment. They were discussing how they would spend the money they would get from seizing another ship, not realising that their plans were destined to fail. They only had a few seconds to live.
Steve saw a fine white thread heading towards the pirates. The anti-matter charge fired from the drones' weapons was annihilating the sparse molecules of the exhaust from the pirates' turbines along the path of the shot. An instant later, quite silently and almost simultaneously, both pirate ships were transformed into a bright flare, shooting out orange fireworks in all directions.
The drones, as if by command, decreased the magnification of the telescopes through which they were conducting visual observation of the targets. The spheres of the explosions were now fully in the picture. They rapidly increased in size, and, as they increased, they slowly became dimmer, changing from white to the colour of a dark Bordeaux wine. A few seconds later the light