"Karin Lowachee - Warchild" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lowachee Karin)

bedroom. But eventually you had to. Eventually you had to
find out why Daddy and Mama hadnтАЩt come back like they
always did at the end of drills. They never forgot. Daddy
would brush off your bottom and ruffle your hair while Mama
locked the guns back in the cabinet. They thought you didnтАЩt
know how to open it. But you did. You thought of that cabinet
as you finally crept out of the compartment and made a run
for the other side of your bed. You peeked above the rumpled
covers but there wasnтАЩt anybody in the room and you couldnтАЩt
hear anybody in the outer room either. So you climbed over
your bed and then over your parentsтАЩ and ran to the outer
room so you could take the comp chair and use it to get to the
cabinet. Quick before somebody came in.
You stood on the chair and poked the right numbers that
youтАЩd seen Daddy and Mama use, then the green button, and
waited. The cabinet comp beeped, then the lights behind the
buttons glowed green and you grabbed the handle and tugged.
A rack of guns. You couldnтАЩt remember exactly how to use
them but you probably could figure it out. YouтАЩd seen Daddy
and Mama use them on the firing range. Daddy and Mama
were good with guns, even though they were engineers.
Everybody old enough had to be good with guns, Daddy said,
because of the war. Nobody could predict aliens or the symps
like the Warboy, and merchants like Mukudori could get
caught between some Hub battleship and a strit one, you just
never knew. And pirates were worse. Pirates liked to take
hostages.
Never can be too safe, Mama said, when she locked away
the guns after a drill.
You took the smallest one in the cabinet and looked at it all
over, where the activation was, where the safety was, where
the kill release was. Your friend Evan was older and heтАЩd
explained all the parts before, even though he never let you
touch one. But now you could protect Mukudori like Daddy
and Mama did, if you had a gun. You hopped down and ran to
the hatch to put your ear against it like when you played
hide-and-seek with Evan and Derek.
Now you heard the noise, muffled, and smelled smoke very
faintly. You didnтАЩt want to go out, it was better to hide in the
room and wait. But what if something was wrong with the
ship and you had to evac? What if something was wrong with
the intercom so you couldnтАЩt hear the captain telling you to go?
What if Daddy and Mama got hung up somewhere and
couldnтАЩt come back for you? Strits or pirates attacked
merchants, Mama said, because the Hub warred with the
strits and the pirates were greedy. What if they were out
there now? You knew you were breaking regs by opening that
hatch but you couldnтАЩt sit and wait when it had been so long
without anybody coming to tell you anything. You had a gun.
You could help.