"David Freer - The Forlorn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Freer Dave)

they had managed to make him terrified of the non-hive world.

The women had known his time was coming. They had not realized that the time was tonight. S'kith
stood watch in the darkness on the hive roof. As soon as he saw them come out of the exit port, the
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Morkth-man knew something was wrong. The mistresses never exposed themselves on the roof of the
hive. Besides the safety aspect, they found clear, bright light unpleasant. The gene mistress leading the
all-Morkth party was easily recognizable, her high-status patterned chelicerae gleaming in the moonlight.
The conclusion was inescapable. They'd found him. S'kith drew his sword and began the ritual of
bioenhancement exercises he knew would double his reaction speed, and stop all pain for a few minutes.
There was a high physiological cost to this, but he doubted that he would be alive to pay it.

Two hundred zeth-klicks away the Beta-Morkth scanners were watching with their endless robotic
patience. They registered the presence of the traitorkind in an exposed position, and alerted their
masters.

The target was tempting: so many Alpha exposed in one fire zone. Clawed hands flickered across the
console, calculating the possibility of success, against the use of scarce and irreplaceable resources. The
target was declared worthy of one low-impact chemical missile unit. It streaked away on its killing
trajectory.

The blast knocked S'kith off his feet. But by the time the debris was starting to fall the warrior training
took over. He was up and running. This was a target zone for ordnance: get out, get down. The action
seemed to break down barriers within him. Now, he would not,couldnot stop. He hurtled across the
broken masonry, swung down from beam to beam, and ran at the gate of the outer hive enclosure.

The gate was intended to prevent entry by human ground troopsтАФa low probability threat here, deep in
conquered lands. The hive roof was where Beta-Morkth would attack. The best Morkth-men warriors
were put up there. After all, to defend the hive against true Morkth warriors with technologically
advanced weapons called for near superhumans. The next best of the crop of Alpha-Morkth bred
warriors went to the invasion troops. The gate guards were the bottom of the barrel, adequate for their
task, but almost totally rigid in their responses. They were gate guards. Not even an explosion from the
hive behind them would turn them. The gate was open, to allow the passage of a worker Morkth-man
party. The gate guards would continue to watch for any threat from outside, unless otherwise ordered.
S'kith, his body converted into a deadly killing machine by the bioenhancement and pure adrenalin, cut
through them like a sharp scythe through wheat stalks.

He was out, and still running. The surviving gate guards stood staring, confused. They watched as S'kith
235 hurtled straight into the flood-full river at the foot of the hill. He was gone, the black of his uniform
swallowed by the darkness and the black muddy churn of earth-laden water, and its broken flotsam of
branches and logs.

Swimming was not part of a roof guard's training. Drowning, however, was something for which he
needed no prior experience. S'kith 235 had, in his frantic thrashings, managed to break the surface
several times. He was about to go under for what would have been the last time, when a section of
uprooted walnut tree caromed into his back. He managed to grasp its branches with all the strength of a