"Foster, Alan Dean - Damned 2 - The False Mirror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

results, I will be there for you when all is over."
They waited in respectful silence until their instructor was out of earshot. It
had been a typical Kouuad speech: terse, to the point, and devoid of the flowery
exhortations sometimes favored by other instructors. No matter. They did not
need fancy words. They had training. Ranji knew they would not let the old
warrior down.
A certain amount of pomp and ceremony was unavoidable as they were marched to
the south entrance of the Maze and subjected to final Trial instructions.
Somewhere to the north of their starting position lay the Kizzmati headquarters
and twenty-five highly trained opponents as dedicated to winning as themselves.
In between were the unscalable ceramic walls that cut the Maze up into multiple
twists and terrains.
Ranji paid little attention to the declamatory Trials official. He and his
companions knew the rules by heart. They were assembled across from the Maze
entrance, already planning and plotting, their eyes alert for potential
antagonists even though they knew that the Trials had yet to begin.
Tense and expectant as he was, he knew this was no more than a student exercise,
a prelude to the real thing, to actual combat. That would come soon enough.
First there was this one final test to get past. A last chance to accrue
artificial glory.
As the official droned on, some of Ranji's friends began running in place or
performing restricted range-of-motion calisthenics to stay loose. Cossinza's
quintet was particularly agitated. As the fastest of the five squads, they had
been given the task of moving out first, striking quickly for the enemy's
headquarters in hopes of bypassing or catching any defenders off guard. It was a
risky strategy but one they had brought off before. For it to work, Cossinza had
to find the shortest path through the Maze on the initial try.
The rest of the group would advance more deliberately, cautious but still
pressing the attack. Relentlessness was their hallmark, a natural tendency which
Kouuad had wisely encouraged. As far as Ranji was concerned, emphasis on a
strong defense was the sign of a battle already half-lost.
No martial music, no blaring sirens announced the start of the Trial Finals. An
official simply gestured in their direction, and a couple of squad leaders
responded in kind. Led by Cossinza's people, the young representatives of
Ciilpaan entered the Maze.
Immediately they separated into their respective squads. Moving forward at the
run, Ranji's quintet passed through a ceramic portal that opened onto gently
rolling desert terrain. His heart sank even as the temperature rose alarmingly.
He didn't favor desert fighting. Automatically he and his colleagues made
appropriate adjustments to their equipment and camouflage.
Small sandstone buttes glazed with the hue of forgotten rust protruded from
shifting dunes. To their right a small pool of water collected at the end of a
dry gully. Alien-looking, spiny plants were the only visible life in the
artificial landscape. Ranji reminded his friends to avoid them. The Maze was as
much their opponent as the Kizzmatis.
Squads Four and Two hugged opposite walls as all three moved forward, Four
taking up positions on slightly higher ground to cover Two's advance while
Ranji's people worked their way up the middle. While it was unlikely that their
opponents had come this far already, no one from Ciilpaan was taking any
chances. The Kizzmatis did not have a reputation as sluggards.