"McCay, Bill - Stargate Rebellion" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCay Bill)

STARGATE REBELLION
by
BILL MCCAY

CHAPTER 1

THREE AWAKENINGS

Dawn was still hours away, but a subtle lightening of the shadows in the
suburban bedroom foretold that sunrise, inevitably, would come. Bit by
tiny bit, Sarah O'Neil could distinguish more and more details on the
dresser and bureaus. She lay propped on one elbow, silently studying her
bedmate in the indistinct gloom. Soon Colonel Jack O'Neil would be up,
shaved, starched, and off to the nearby Marine base. Sarah was glad
that his classified tasks now involved deskwork instead of killing
people in the field-for the time being, at least. She'd feared his most
recent mission was to have been his last. Jack had fallen apart when
their son, Jack Junior, died in a gun accident. Their all-American boy
had joined the casualty lists in a case of friendly fire-from jack's own
pistol. In the months that followed, Jack had either avoided this bed
or lain beside her, his entire body tight as a clenched fist. For hours
he'd sat alone in his den, playing with a 1911 Army Colt automatic, an
old-line officer's sidearm, .45 caliber-capable of spattering his brains
all over the wall if he finally decided to swallow the gun barrel. When
the orders came, sending Jack away on another mission, Sarah believed
his superiors were merely aiming him like a piece of ordnance-a
combination suicide bomb and detonator. But Jack had come back. And she
had been surprised by joy when, even more inexplicably, Jack returned a
healing man. Their son's death wasn't completely behind him, but
somewhere on this mission he never spoke about, he'd come to terms with
Jack junior's loss. Jack returned neither as the walking wreckage he'd
been right after the funeral, nor the near parody of the spit-andPolish
officer he'd transformed into upon getting his orders. He'd been-himself
again. And on his return from wherever, they'd made love for the first
time in too, too long. As soon as he'd undressed, Sarah saw he had not
had an easy mission. Technicolor bruises marred Jack's ribs and the pit
of his stomach-souvenirs of brutal hand-to-hand combat. She'd tried to
be gentle. And the usually gungho colonel had been almost shy, as if he
wasn't sure the pieces would fit together again. They certainly had, and
that had helped the healing. Silently, Sarah examined the familiar
features. From the moment she'd met the cocky young combat corporal,
she'd been struck by the contradiction implicit in his go-to-hell eyes
and his set, determined jaw. Now the eyes were closed, the jaw
softened. In the vulnerability of sleep, the elder Jack looked almost
like his lost son. Sarah slid across the bed, wrapping her arms around
her husband as if trying to shield him with her body. After months of
quiet, she knew that today one of those shadowy superiors Jack answered
to would be coming to the base. He's had so little time to be a human
being-so little practice, she thought as she clung to her husband. I
hope they won't send him somewhere that will turn him back into a robot