"02 - Battle Cry" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

Gloval ordered that the Gladiator force be called up, and Dr. Lang was requested to shunt sufficient energy from the shields to arm the main batteries aft. The second enemy wave was coming in from the relatively unguarded Fourth Quadrant, where Hunter's Black Team was on defensive patrol. As this sector was put up on the screen, the bridge crew readied themselves to render assistance.
Rick received the communiquщ from the bridge and moments later had the enemy assault team on his cockpit radar display.
"Company's coming," he told Max and Ben. "Let's show them how we treat party crashers."
Locked into the bridge command center, the three Veritech pilots swung their fighters toward the advancing pods. They were still too distant for visuals, but Rick was soon facing those characteristic pinpoints of explosive light that signaled laser bombardment.
A nanosecond later the bolts reached them. Rick ordered his men to begin evasive maneuvers to lessen the staying power of the charge. Some of his own circuits were already fried, but it was nothing he needed to worry about.
And then they had a visual on the pods: There were only a dozen of them, including an Officer's Pod. They came into the quadrant, weapons blazing, the Black Team ready for them.
"I'm gonna fly rings around these guys, Lieutenant. Just watch me go," Rick heard Ben say.
Dixon fired off a cluster of heat-seekers and attempted to roll out. But the enemy had outguessed him, and two of the pods were following him through, positioning themselves on either side of his mecha well inside the lethal cone.
"Break across that seven o'clock bandit, Ben," Rick shouted into the net. "Don't get cute, they're going to catch you in their cross fire!"
Dixon realized he was in trouble and called for an assist. The two pods were practically on top of him, pouring particle-beam energy at his booster pack. A Veritech could stand only a few seconds of this; ultimately, structural molecules would be altered and the ship would come apart. Ben would be fried alive.
Rick kicked in his aft boosters, found one of the pods in his reticle, and loosed two missiles. They caught the pod at its weakest spot, just where the cockpit cover was hinged to the main body of the sphere. The hatch blew open, precious atmosphere was released and the pilot inside clawed frantically at his controls. Soon the lifeless thing was drifting aimlessly out of the arena.
The second pod was still throwing heat into Dixon's fighter, but the pilot, realizing that he was now outnumbered, began to drop away.
"I'm going to save your skin, Ben. Just retro when I give the word." Rick haloed the ostrich and shouted, "Now!"
His thumb came down hard on the Hotas trigger. Two missiles dropped from their pylons and connected with the pod, blowing it to pieces.
While Ben was thanking him, Rick looked around for Max. There was a lot of activity going on off to his right; as Rick was soon to realize, Max was at the center of it.
The corporal had shifted to Battloid mode and was using the gatling cannon to take out pod after pod, executing evasive maneuvers the likes of which Rick had never seen. Max was pushing the Veritech into reverses Rick wouldn't have believed possible. He had heard about pilots who could totally surrender themselves to the alpha state, but he had never seen anything like this with his own eyes.
"Look at him go!" Dixon was yelling on the tac net.
Max had second sight, eyes behind his head, a sixth sense...the enemy mecha couldn't get near him. He was polishing off the last of the assault group, and Rick was on the horn congratulating him.
"I'm happy I was able to help out," came the humble reply. "Now I'll show you something I learned in flight school."
Rick was amazed: Max was literally about to talk Ben and him through a maneuver; it was difficult enough to control the complexities of the Veritech weapons system and answer to the demands of the mecha, but to have anything left over for movement, let alone human speech!...But here was Max, explaining every move as he went after two new entries. He drew the enemy in, then suddenly inverted himself, firing his thrusters so that he was coming right down their throats with his weapons blasting. The two pods were taken out, along with a third that had appeared at Rick's port side unannounced.
Rick's jaw went slack.
"It's called Fokker's Feint," said Max. "You have to confuse them. And while they're looking for you, you come up behind them and tap them on the back!"
Lisa Hayes was suddenly on the net at the same time, berating Rick for his poor response time. He offered as an excuse the two inexperienced pilots he had with him, listening to himself while watching Max execute a flourish of moves.
Maybe this was one of the advantages to being a superior officer, he thought. Foul up and you could lay the blame on your men; succeed, and their victories were your own.

Khyron was observing the progress of the battle from his Officer's Pod. The diversionary strategy wasn't working out exactly as he had hoped, but it had opened up a few holes in the fortress's defensive perimeter. Most of the Micronian mecha had been successfully lured far from Zor's ship, and those few remaining fighters were rapidly being eliminated. The second assault team had taken the sting out of the main batteries of the SDF-1, and the mecha dispatched to slow their attack had been eliminated. Now it was time for the coup de grace: Khyron's special elite assault team would storm the fortress and put an end to this game.
It was almost too easy...

Through his headset, Rick heard the voice of Lisa Hayes:
"Enemy forces have broken through our defenses in the Third Quadrant. You're our only hope, Black Leader."
"We're on our way," Rick told her.
Ben was out front, making up for lost time with continuous fire, little of it effective. Rick warned him not to waste his ammo. Max, meanwhile, took two pods off Rick's tail and asked Rick if it was all right to fire when it wasn't a waste. Rick ignored the joke and ordered Max and Ben to split up, hoping they could drive a wedge into the attacking enemy units.
Only a few of the Phalanx and close-in guns on the SDF-1 were capable of giving them cover fire, and most of those had sustained some damage. Destroids and Gladiators floated above the ship, pieces of debris, sparking out as they drifted toward oblivion.
Rick, already reaching out for the B mode lever, ordered his team to switch over to Battloid. He watched as the tailerons of Max's fighter folded down and the wings swept fully back to lock into place. Next, the entire undercarriage, including the twin aft thrusters, swung down and forward, riding on massive pins located beneath the cockpit module. As rear thruster sheaths chevroned to become the Battloid's feet, the ventral fuselage halves split away from each other and spread outward to form the arms. Hands slid out from armored compartments. Inside the mecha Max's seat would now be riding upward along a shaft that would reposition the pilot inside the head-a minute ago the undercarriage laser-gun bubble. Rick's own fighter was going through the same changes. He could sometimes feel his own body react, as though unseen hands were at work on him.
Thus reconfigured, the three members of the Black Team touched down on the SDF-1's hull and brought their gatlings to bear on incoming enemy pods. Ben stood his ground, screaming curses at the ostriches as they made their approach. Initially he was positioned near one of the damaged phalanx guns, his cannon at high port, but he stepped out into the open. to trap-shoot an incoming bandit just as a second flew in from behind and dropped him with a blast that caught the Battloid full in the back. Rick winced and tried to raise him on the net.
"Ben, are you alive in there?"
Dixon answered weakly; he was hurt but had somehow managed to survive the hit.
Rick was moving in to lend a hand, when several pods appeared over the horizon of the ship. High-density transuranic slugs from the gatling brought two down. Two others loosed their rockets ineffectively and streaked overhead, but the Officer's Pod that led them seemed determined to go one on one with him. It was the second time that day that Rick was to witness incredible maneuvering.
The Officer's Pod-not spherical like the others but somewhat elongated and fishlike above its legs, with twin "hand-gun" arms and a top-mounted long-muzzled plastron cannon-toyed with him, dodging each of his shots as though the pilot inside could read Rick's mind. The pod leaped over a conning tower and came down behind him; Rick turned and fired, but the enemy was already spaceborne again and swooping in, clawed legs swinging back and forth, discharging rounds from its hand-guns.
Rick's mecha took several hits through the torso; then the glancing blow of a projectile sheared off the Battloid's left arm. Rick thought the damaged vehicle down to one knee as the enemy pod came in to finish him. When it was within reach; he brought the Battloid to its feet and used the useless cannon to bat at the thing. He connected, driving the ostrich into a spin that brought it crashing down to the surface of the ship, minus one of its own cannon appendages.
The two mecha faced each other across a distance of about 200 meters-a showdown on a western street. Rick worked frantically at the controls, trying to divert power from the main mechamorphosis systems into the main gun, but all his efforts proved futile. He stared out of the cockpit faceplate of the Battloid as the enemy manning the Officer's Pod raised the muzzle of the one good arm and prepared to fire...

Onboard the Zentraedi flagship Breetai was informed of the battle being waged against the SDF-1, in direct violation of his orders. He rushed from his quarters to the command bubble, where Exedore was waiting for him, watching images play across the projecbeam field with growing disgust.
"It is as I feared, Commander. Khyron has taken matters into his own hands once again."
Breetai stood, arms akimbo, regarding the action as explosive flashes of light reflected in his faceplate.
"So this is Khyron's idea of war games?" Breetai snorted. "Again he has the temerity to disobey my orders!"
"I suggest that we recall him...before he succeeds in destroying the ship."
"The fool, I warned him." Breetai turned away. "Use the nebulizer to override the astrogational systems of his attack force. We'll pull this offensive out from under him."
Exedore moved to the nebulizer controls. "Ready to initiate on your command."
"Mark!" Breetai shouted to the screen.