"Drake, David - Redliners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

feet per second. He hovered beside the window he'd chosen for
entry and fired a penetrator through the pane. The projectiles were
fuzed to burst a tenth of a second after impact and spray their
filling into the space beyond.

The blast blew the remainder of the paneЧclear thermoplastic
rather than glassЧout past Blohm in a gulp of red flame. He pulled
himself through the opening and unlatched the jump belt with his
left hand as soon as he was into the smoldering corridor beyond.
The belt still had another thirty seconds or so of fuel, but the
weight was more of a hindrance than any possible gain it could
offer the striker now. The ground wasn't so far away that Blohm
couldn't jump down without serious concern.

The bodies in the hallway looked like charred logs. The explosion
had destroyed the light fixtures and filled the air with swirling hot
smoke. The faceshield of the striker's helmet offered light
enhancement and thermal imaging as viewing options, but neither
would have helped a great deal under these conditions.

Blohm didn't bother. He had four rounds left in the magazine of his
short-barreled grenade launcher. He ran down the hall, firing one
round into each room as he passed. Because the fuze required
impact to arm it, Blohm shot through the wall if the door was
already open. He had to hope that the internal partitions would be
thin enough for the grenade to penetrate.

Blohm compensated reflexively when explosions rocked him from
side to side. He wasn't thinking or seeing as a human does. He'd
programmed himself like a machine to accomplish a particular
task as fast as possible.

"Coming through!" Gabrilovitch shouted. The hall darkened as the
sergeant's armored body filled the window sash.

Blohm crouched against the wall as he reloaded. The launcher
wasn't a weapon he particularly liked, but he'd spent the voyage
out practicing with it until he could perform all the necessary
operations instinctively. It was hard to breathe. His helmet filtered
toxins, but the fuel-air grenades had used up a lot of the available
oxygen.

There were three rooms left on the corridor. The Spook troops in
them could have used the pause to ready their own weapons, but
there was no time to worry. Just to act.

Blohm straightened. Gabrilovitch's stinger rasped behind him as
the sergeant shot a body that was still twitching after the grenade
went off.