"William Forstchen - Wing Commander 4 - Heart of the Tiger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forstchen William R)

read canned approach announcements just made matters worse. If he had
been in the cockpit with the control stick in his hand, he would have read
times and distances, thrusts and vectors, with the instincts of a combat
pilot, honed in years of almost continuous warfareтАФand the ride might
even have been infinitesimally smoother.

WarfareтАж the war between the Kilrathi Empire and the Terran
Confederation started before Christopher Blair was born. For nearly forty
years now, the two sides had hammered away at each other, and the
Kilrathi showed no signs of letting up. Sometimes Blair wondered if he
would live to see the war end. And sometimes he was afraid he would.

With his monitor still not working, he switched his attention to the tiny
newscreen clipped to one arm of his flight couch. Hesitantly, Blair tapped
the green key at the bottom of the device. The logo of the Terran News
Channel filled the screen for a moment before being replaced by a
head-and-shoulder shot of the TNC's best-known anchorwoman, Barbara
Miles. Her attractive features were almost too perfect, and Blair smiled
fleetingly at the memory of a shipboard bull session a few years back
where some of his shipmates claimed that the woman was actually a
computer-generated simulation.

The recording was paused, of course, waiting for Blair to tap in his
choice of news items from a menu in one corner of the screen. He selected
war news, then listened as the anchorwoman summarized recent events in
the struggle against the KilrathiтАж the ones that had been declassified.

He had heard most of it already from previous TNC newsbriefs or
official channels at the Confed HQ complex on Torgo III. News traveled
slowly across interstellar distances, and the average lifetime of any
particular report was apt to be long, especially from worlds along the more
distant frontiers.

His attention snapped back to the screen as the report passed from
news stories to a more general commentary.

"Despite recent losses in several densely populated sectors,
Confederation spokes-people insist that humanity maintains the upper
hand in its galactic struggle with the Kilrathi. However, our sources
document a consistent under-reporting of Kilrathi incursions, especially
against civilian and industrial bases."

The woman paused, looking directly into the camera, while conveying
thoughtful, serious concern for her viewers. "There are even reports of
Confed plans for a 'doomsday evacuation' of Earth to replant the seeds of
humanity in a distant part of the galaxy. The question isтАж who would go?
Who would be left behind? And, most importantly, who is making these
decisions?"

Blair cut the newscreen off with a snort of disgust. Leave it to TNC to