"Simon Hawke - Time Wars 01 - The Ivanhoe Gambit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

to that. However, there are compensations. If you succeed in your objective, then the completion of this
assignment will also constitute full completion of your tour of duty. That goes for all of you. The
remainder of your service time, whatever it may be, will be waived and you will be given the option of
retiring with the full pensions and benefits of first lieutenants or reenlisting as captains. And that goes for
you as well, Mr. Delaney, even with your rather remarkable disciplinary record."
Delaney spoke the first words Lucas heard him utter. "Shit," he said. "We're dead."

Between the two of them, Lucas and Bobby had put in some pretty heavy service. Hooker was still
fairly green, but Delaney was on his second tour of duty and had seen a lot of action. In spite of that, the
training period that followed was the toughest any of them had ever gone through. Their drillmaster was a
tough old bastard of indeterminate age. The antiagathic drugs made it difficult to accurately guess how old
a person was, but the drillmaster looked like Methuselah himself. His name was Major Forrester. He
was bald as an egg, wrinkled as a prune and as mean as a bear with hemorrhoids.
"You men might think you're old hands at this sort of thing," he told them. "Well, you're in for one
great big fucking surprise. I'm going to work you till you drop and then I'll kick your asses right back up
again and you'll work some more. And just for starters, I want a hundred push-ups, two hundred sit-ups
and thirty chins."
"That's not so tough," Bobby whispered to Lucas.
"And if you're not done in six minutes, you'll do it all again! Time starts right now!"
They were all used to strenuous demands placed on their bodies, but Forrester ran them ragged.
Every night, they went to bed so sore that they could hardly move. The nature of their training left no
doubt in their minds that they had been selected for a commando assignment. They were worked in the
finer points of medieval combat, becoming accustomed to moving about in full armor and learning to
control their horses by pressure of the knees. They were drilled in the use of weapons such as the
broadsword, the axe, the mace, the crossbow and the long bow, as well. They trained with daggers and
Hooker proved to be a surprise even to Major Forrester. He could throw almost any sort of knife with
unerring accuracy. Lucas wondered where he had grown up and what sort of childhood he must have
had. Hooker was barely nineteen.
Due to their varied past experiences, some things came easier to some of them than they did to
others. Lucas had brought to the assignment extensive experience in fighting with all manner of swords,
from foils and sabers to the Roman short sword. Bobby was an accomplished archer, surpassing all the
others with his skill. As an expert in several of the Oriental martial arts, Delaney took to a quarterstaff like
a duck took to water and he brought some innovative techniques to fighting with a broadsword.
A great deal of time and money had been invested in their training. They were subjected to everything
from implant programming to conditioned reflex training, but it was not until they went in for cosmetic
surgery that Lucas finally realized the true nature of their mission.
It was going to be a fix-it job. Somehow, someone had screwed up in this time period and a little
Trans-historical Adjustment and Maintenance was called for. Lucas had often wondered how such things
were accomplished. Now he was about to find out first hand.
By now, it was clear that they had been selected for their skills and general physical characteristics.
With the sole exception of Finn Delaney, all of them were smaller than average. The physical size of a
soldier had a great deal to do with his assignments. In the past, people were smaller and it wouldn't do to
send a mess of six footers back into a time where they would stand out like sore thumbs. Most soldiers
still wound up being somewhat larger than most people in the past, but within limits, this did not generally
present a problem. Most soldiers were cannon fodder to begin with. History could not be changed, there
was far too much risk involved. What modern soldiers could do on the Minus side was strictly defined
within the parameters of what was known about their period.
Cosmetic surgery was not unusual in the army. Lucas had been a Sioux at the Little Big Horn. In
order to allow him to properly play the part, they had changed his hair from blonde to black, enlarged his
nose slightly and flattened out the planes of his face, as well as darkening the color of his normally fair