"GRAF, L. A - STAR TREK ROUGH TRAILS" - читать интересную книгу автора (Graf L A)

The hatch rolled shut with a grinding squeal that made Chekov's teeth
hurt. Dust in the mechanism, sliding between the parts. Dust in
everything-the air, the floor, his hair, his clothes. When Reddy, the
shuttle's pilot, had promised they'd be above the ceiling of the dust
storms, Chekov had assumed that meant they'd be flying in clear air.
Instead, it meant Reddy kept the shuttle just high enough to avoid
clogging the intakes on the atmospheric engines; Chekov, Baldwin, and
Plotter could stand in the open hatch under the protection of goggles
and filtration masks, but didn't have to wear the kevlar bodysuits
required by stonugoers on the surface. Not much of a trade-off,
considering he'd still have to buy a new set of clothes the minute he
set foot in Eau Claire. Or, at least, he would if he wanted Uhura to
be seen with him in public.

Swiping uselessly at the front of his trousers, Chekov finally settled
for patting himself down to dislodge the uppermost layers of grime. "I
never thought I'd hear myself say this." He stepped sideways out of
his own dust cloud. "But there's too much olivium on this planet."

Plotter and Baldwin shucked their breath masks before the light above
the hatch had even cycled from red to green. "Maybe." Plottel didn't
smile as he crossed the cargo shuttle's deck to dig a battered canteen
out of a locker. "But if it weren't for all that olivium, Starfleet
wouldn't have stuck around, and we'd be deprived of the pleasure of
your company on this little flight "

Chekov watched him fill his mouth with water, n'rise and spit into a
disposal pan, then pass the canteen on to Baldwin. "And if Starfleet
weren't here, there'd be no one in-system with rations to spare for
your emergency supply drops."

"If Starfleet weren't here-" Baldwindischarged a mouthful of water at
Chekov's feet, creating an anemic slurry of mud, dust, and olivium.
"-we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with."

Chekov nodded once, lips pursed, then went back to beating the planet
out of his clothes.

This was an exchange they'd had, in various permutations, at least
twenty times since the cargo shuttle kicked off from the orbital
platform above Belle Terre. Chekov had given up pointing out that,
while Starfleet's actions might have directly led to the gamma-ray
burst that most everyone called the Burn, it was only because of
Starfleet that the planet still existed at all. Allowing the Burn had
actually been the best in a very short list of options. While it all
but defoliated most of a hemisphere, the colonists had been ferried out
of harm's way. When house-sized segments of Belle Terre's largest
satellite slammed into the face of her smallest continent, there was no
one there to kill, no homesteads to lay waste. The combined Starfleet
and colony ships, led by the Enterprise, had salvaged half a planet and