"Clayton Emery - Descent FreeSpace - A Thousand Years" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

"Red Flight, regroup on me." The voice of "Butterfly" Butterfield. "No enemies within six
klicks. Take five, then weтАЩll redeploy."
"Computer, throttle back and reform." Atsuko let go her joystick and slumped in her seat.
With a hands-on/hands-off configuration, the computer took over whenever the pilot
released the joystick. Handy if the pilot became disabled, or dead. Grabbing the stick
returned full flight capability. The human pilot stole a minute to sip water from a hose. But
even resting, she watched the sky with one eye and read her cockpit and HUD displays with
the other.

The power plant hummed in overdrive to resupply the defenses, the starboard engine
lugging but within acceptable limits. Shield and Weapon Energy Statuses glowed gold
along three-quarters of the bar: a timer showed theyтАЩd be fully charged in minutes. The blue
concentric rings of shielding around her ship looked solid as angel wings. Her armament
was reassuring: twin banks of six ML-16 ceramic-argon lasers; two GTW-41 gatling-gas
Disruptor cannons; and in her secondary payload, a big surprise for some big enemy: six
GTM-3 Tsunami intel-track bombs. "Antimatter that mattered," the armorers joked.
LDF-E44, nicknamed CHERRY BLOSSOM, was an antique refitted GTF Hercules, a
two-man (one-woman) Heavy Assault Fighter-Bomber. At the shipтАЩs heart sat its weakest
component, a skin sack of guts, blood, and bones that was Atsuko "Rammer" Toranaga,
female, Asian descent, shavetail second lieutenant in the Laramis Defense Force. And
while the ship was running at ninety-percent capacity, its pilot thumped her forehead to stay
awake, feeling as if sheтАЩd been mauled by an ice-bear. Her eyes were grainy from lack of
sleep, her hands trembly from stimulants, her back and butt and thighs achey from tension
and exertion over too many twenty-hour days. Even her ship felt heavy and slow, as if the
bomb-bay were stuffed with lead and pig iron.

Red Flight reformed behind Colonel "Butterfly" ButterfieldтАЩs big Ulysses, CITY OF NEW
ORLEANS. AtsukoтАЩs wing had two coffee-grinder Apollos, an overengined Valyrie that
skittered all over the sky, and AtsukoтАЩs Hercules. She tapped her ShipтАЩs Status screen; it
flickered to show Fleet Status. Silver chips converged towards the deployment point near
their home, Laramis Prime. Red Flight, Green, Blue, and Gold. Such was the Laramis
Defense Force, a floating junkyard dubbed "The Flying Tigers" by a squadron history buff
who was now dead, as were too many good people. The Tigers had spent *days* fighting
friend and foe. Though her brain was beat, Atsuko tried to sort out the jumble of recent
events..
The Laramis solar system was the ass-end of Terran space, a research facility where not
much happened and hotshot pilots blasted asteroids for combat training. Then one dark
day, the Shivans jumped out of subspace, and the pilots had plenty of real-live targets.
Not long after, the GTA jumped in to save the day. Two Terran heavy cruisers, JUSTICE and
RETRIBUTION, and a skyfull of fighter/bomber-escorts turned LaramisтАЩs system into a
freefall war zone. Naturally, the mothers from the "mother planet" (snotty as Vasudans) had
first demanded the Laramis Defense Force supersede itself to the GTA. Laramis said no.
The GTA then demanded the LDF disband and surrender all vehicles, and that Laramis
Prime power down its weaponry! While the Terran Allied Command banged heads with
LaramiteтАЩs Parliament, the LDFтАЩs commander-in-chief, Admiral Carla American Horse, told
them ALL to torque off and mobilized every ship that would fly. (GTA now stood for "Get
Torqued, Asshole!") Ignoring the GTA armada, the Flying Tigers went to work pot-shotting
Shivans...

"Red Flight, tune in." ButterflyтАЩs voice crackled over the comm unit as they approached the