Selunec: переводы

→He plucked the knife from Aaman’s hand and shoved the blade into his suit’s wrist where the articulation made it thinnest. A bright pain told him he’d gone just a little too far. That was fine. His suit alarm blinked into place, and he ignored it. He leaned forward, pressing the tiny opening in his suit to the clogged connector, the escaping air scattering the dirt and ice. A single drop of blood spat out, freezing into a perfect crimson sphere and bouncing away from the material. He stepped back, and Aaman slid the connection together. When he tugged this time, it held. The injured suit sealed the hole as soon as he pulled the knife out.

→Which, of course, they had.

→Aaman hauled the brace into place and tried to force the connection. It was close, very close, but when he tugged back, it came apart. Filip saw the man cursing, flecks of spit dotting the inside of his faceplate. If they’d only brought a can of air, Filip thought…

→Three minutes.

→Once he saw the stuck connector, black grit fouling it, the problem was clear. In atmosphere, it would have just taken a hard breath to clean it. Not an option here. Aaman was digging frantically with a blade, flipping out tiny bit after tiny bit, trying to empty the thin, complex channels where the metal fit together.

→“Hang tight,” Filip said, his mind racing. His two guards stood by the evac scaffold, ready to shoot anybody that wasn’t them. The three builders were struggling with a brace. Filip jumped over to them, catching himself on the black frame. On the line, Andrew grunted.

→“Plenty some,” Andrew said. “Chuchu’s down, and I’m pretty pinned. Might need a hand.”

→Andrew’s voice cut in. “We’re taking fire in the armory, bosslet.”

→Filip ignored the diminutive. “How much?”

→“Some of the ejecta crap’s fouling the scaffold. I’ve got grit in the joints.”

→Miral’s voice was soft in his ear. “Hoy, Filipito. Sa boîte sa palla?”

→Eighteen days before, a ship – Filip didn’t even know which one – out in the Jovian system somewhere had made a hard burn, topping out at ten, maybe fifteen gs. At the nanosecond specified by the computers, the ship had released a few dozen lengths of tungsten with four disposable, short burn rockets at the center of mass and cheap single frequency sensors tied to them. They were barely complicated enough to be called machines. Six year old children built things more sophisticated every day, but accelerated as they were to one hundred and fifty kilometers per second, they didn’t need to be complex. Just shown where to go.

→“Sabez sa. Solid as a stone, straight as a bullet, us.”