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

All Atsuko knew was sheтАЩd failed.
Failed her comrades, dead and alive, and failed herself.

AtsukoтАЩs loyal CHERRY BLOSSOM blacked out, electronics gone, life-support failing. The
spinning shell of metal was dying in space, with its pilot dying within for lack of air...

***
Air puffed on AtsukoтАЩs eyelids, filled her nostrils, cooled the sweat on her brow. Prying open
a swollen eye, she saw the word RESCUE swim past.

A GTA tech, a black man with merry blue eyes, snapped an oxygen mask over her face. A
red cross burned bright on his white helmet. As AtsukoтАЩs vision cleared, she saw another
medic rode a rescue boom that draped an oxygen tent over the shattered cockpit. A
mechanical umbilical ran back to a GTA convoy ship, an old hammer-headed Chronos
freighter refitted for rescue and repair. The second medic handed down instruments while
the first leaned into CHERRY BLOSSOMтАЩs cramped cockpit.

"You okay?" He smiled and waved a hand. "How many fingers?"
"Uh. Thirty or -- forty. You must play -- a hell of a piano." AtsukoтАЩs lungs gurgled as she
sucked oxygen, a wonderfully sweet "divine wind". With consciousness came curiosity.
"Hey! Why am I alive? What happened?"

"Plenty. Hold still." The medic aimed a long-needled syringe and punched clean through her
flightsuit into her skin. "When RETRIBUTION blew it fragged four of the nav buoys -- and
blew you five klicks, practically into our laps. Our GTA guys from the west pole clobbered the
other buoys. Yeah, we know you Tigers scuttled our cruisers: our CO explained the plan. I
wish you locals had given us Terrans the full picture: we couldтАЩa worked together."
"We -- tried." Atsuko sipped air and let the tech work. Finally she could relax. "Your top
brass -- wouldnтАЩt listen."

"They never do. But the olтАЩ home planet is safe because the jump node is flooey. The down
side is, you and us and a shitload oтАЩ Shivans are trapped in this system for good. But your
second-in-command says thereтАЩs plenty of other planets. WeтАЩll be okay. ThatтАЩs the news. Oh,
and youтАЩre a hero."

"He -- ouch! -- ro?" A cracked rib squeaked in AtsukoтАЩs chest, but the medicine soothed her
pain like cold fire.
"Yes, maтАЩam. Though us and your buddies might be the only ones whoтАЩll ever know."

"ThatтАЩs -- enough."

"That bombing run of yours was quite a sight." Plying a parachute knife, the medic cut loose
her harness, then attached snaphooks from the rescue boom to her flightsuit. Gently Atsuko
was plucked from her seat. She felt nothing, her head buzzing while the medic talked to
keep her awake. "You knocked out an enemy cruiser single-handed."
"No. Not single-handed." Atsuko pictured all the good men and women whoтАЩd gotten killed
escorting her down to that cruiser. And all those ancient dead ancestors whoтАЩd given her life,
and put her here today. "No, I was just the -- the point of the sword."