"Diane Duane - Harbinger 2 - Storm At Eldala" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duane Diane)

Gabriel knew what the words meant, but he found them hard to believe at the moment. It's the software,
he told himself. But his brain insisted that he couldn't let down his guard, that something terrible might still
happen. Those little ships were only fighters. They could not have come all this way by themselves.
Somewhere around here was the fortress ship or dreadnought that would have dropped them. It could
not be allowed to find Gabriel and Enda, not aliveтАФnot even dead and in one piece. The pilots of those
little ships were reminders enough that there were some fates worse than death.

"All the same, we cannot be constantly relying on overarmed allies to come sweeping in out of the
darkness to save us!"

"I thought that was what you kept me around for."

Even through the fear, Gabriel had to grin. "He's incorrigible," Gabriel said, still gasping for air. "You
should know that by now."

"Maybe I should," Enda said with a sigh. "Meanwhile, let it go now, Gabriel. This has been enough
exercise for one day. Shut it down."

Gabriel reached out in the fighting field to the glowing collection of virtual lights, indicators, and slider
controls that appeared within his reach. One slider well off to his right was pushed right up to the top of
its course. He reached out and pulled it down.

Reality ebbed out of everything. The blackness of space melted away to the virtual gridlines of the
system's training mode . . . and it was all a dream. Gabriel's
muscles unknotted themselves for the first time in about five minutes.

"Better?" Enda said.

"Much."

"Then come out of it, now. I do not see why you feel you must drive yourself so hard, just for an
exercise."

"It's a human thing," he said, taking another breath for the appreciation of it not being his last. "You
wouldn't understand."

He could sense Enda putting her eyebrows up. A couple of moments later Gabriel was alone in the field.
He took his time about getting out, shutting down instruments, making gunnery safe, and checking the
pieces that purported to have been made safe. It was not that he didn't trust Enda, but partners checked
one another's work when weapons were involved. Besides, said that nasty hard-edged part of his mind,
someday you might have to do all this yourself. Get used to the possibility now so that when it catches
you by surprise, you will survive. She would want it that way.

He finished his checks, then made the small movement of mind that folded the fighting field away from
him. A moment later he was sitting in the normal lighting of Sunshine's narrow cockpit looking over at
Enda.

"Helm," she said as she unbuckled her restraints, "do not change the subject."

"I got tired of fighting for their side," Helm said. "Besides, you were winning."