"Keith Laumer - Bolos 9 - Bolo Strike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

I exchange data with Bolo Mark XXXIII serial 837987, "Ferox," the
other Bolo in my battalion, then with the other members of my unit, the 4th
Regiment, Second Brigade, First Confederation Mobile Army Corps.
I sense deceleration and the steady ticking of the transport's drive and
feel the shudders in the vessel's hull that indicate she is maneuvering
toward a primary approach vector. I estimate that action is imminent and
that deployment will begin within the next three hours. I require only my
tacsit briefing and operational orders before launch.
***
Colonel Jon Jarred Streicher entered the enclosed walkway above the
main cargo bay and paused, looking down through the slanted windows
opening above the canyon vastness of the bay's seemingly bottomless
depths. Major Carla Ramirez, his Executive Officer, paused with him.
"What do you think, Major?" he asked. "Are they ready?"
"As ready as they can be, Colonel," Ramirez replied. "I'd feel better if
we had a clear intel report. I don't care what Moby Dickhead says, we're
going in at a disadvantage."
"Watch that," he warned, glancing down the walkway at a group of
technicians just beyond earshot. Euph sang in his blood. He'd just taken
a tab minutes before and was well into the manic phase of the drug,
powerful and completely focused.
She shrugged. "The man's an idiot."
"He's ConSAGCom, and Skymarshal in charge of this whole damned
show. And he knows what he's doing. I won't have his authority
undercut, Major."
 "As you say, sir." She didn't sound convinced. "We're still at a
disadvantage, even if we had the God of Battles running the show."
"We have the technological advantage," he reminded her. "We know
the Trixies don't have anything like the Mark XXXIII."
"They have a planet, Jon," she reminded him in turn. "A planet is a
big place, an enormous place, even for a full corps of planetary siege
units. We're up against a planet's entire population, both the Aetryxha
and the indigenous human population. And they have Bolo technology of
their own, even if we don't have a good idea of how up to date it might be.
And they have a culture shaped and molded by a long, long tradition of
endless warfare. They could so easily surprise us."
"Of course, of course." He hesitated, trying to put into words what he
was feeling. "But . . . I mean . . . just look at them!"
He gestured at the black, swollen shapes beyond the transplas
barrier. Most of the cargo bay beneath the enclosed catwalk was in
darkness, so vast was that immense maw, deeper and broader and more
voluminous than most planetside buildings short of orbital towers or city
arcologies. Floodlights nestled among shadowy webworks of struts and
support beams cast pools of light across curved hulls and fairings;
worker bees drifted among the leviathan pods, each bearing dazzling
lights beneath outstretched mechanical arms and grippers and bringing
life and motion to the mountainous tableau below. The bay was kept in
vacuum; when the time came, it would take too long and be too wasteful
to depressurize such a huge volume, and it wasn't as though the cargo
needed atmosphere.