"J. Robert King - Invasion Cycle 01 - Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (King Robert J)

The four comrades climbed the stairs from amidships to
the bridge. They opened the hatch and one by one
clambered through. Mana conduits glowed around them.


5
 Invasion

"Here it is!" Hanna declared from the navigator's
console. "Look, hereтАФthree loci of topographic
disturbance."
Gerrard stalked toward her and stared down at a map of
Benalia. Hanna was marking Xs in an equilateral triangle
above the nation.
"Three loci of тАФ?"
"I've calculated it all out," Hanna said. Her blue eyes
flicked impatiently as she rapped the back of her hand on a
pile of figures. "There are disturbances here, here, and here.
Geometric disturbances."
"GeometricтАФ"
"Distortions in the fabric of space. Stretched-out
geometry. They shunt us off our target like a drop of rain
off an umbrella. That's why we can't get to Benalia."
Gerrard's eyes were grim beneath stormy brows. "Good
work, Hanna. Any idea what might be causing these
distortions?"
She breathed deeply, pausing for the first time in hours.
"We ourselves make a geometrical disturbance every time
we planeshift. It's a simple fold of space with a localized
effectтАФtwo hundred yards or so. These things are warping
space for a thousand miles each."
"That's a heck of a big ship," Squee offered.
Hanna shook her head, hands in sudden motion again
as she dragged a folio of Phyrexian ship designs from
beneath her desk. They were plans she had gleaned from
the wrecked armada base in Mercadia. She spread them
out. The ships depicted there were massive and grotesque.
They bristled with hornlike protrusions. Their hulls seemed
bone or carapace.
"No, even the largest ships we saw in Mercadia could
not make that kind of disturbance."
"Brace for reentry," Sisay warned.


6
 J. Robert King

The crew each grasped handholds and watched as
reality swam up around the ship. Scraps of sky and sea
schooled densely beyond the dissipating energy envelope.