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

"Minmei," he resisted, "I'm not going to spend my leave shopping."
"I promise I'll only be a second."
"It always starts out that way and, and..."
Minmei already had her hand on the doorknob. "Just what else did you have in mind for today, Rick?"
She disappeared into the woman's shop, leaving him standing on the sidewalk, feeling somehow guilty for even thinking about going to the park.
By the time he entered, Minmei had the hangered dress draped over one arm and was going through the racks, pulling out belts, blouses, patterned stockings, skirts, sweaters, and lingerie. Rick checked his watch and calculated that he'd be AWOL long before she finished trying everything on. She had entered the dressing room and was throwing the curtain closed.
"And no peeking, Rick," she called out.
Fortunately there were no other customers in the store at the time, but the saleswoman standing silently behind Rick had found Minmei's warning just about the funniest thing she had heard all week. Her squeal of delight took Rick completely by surprise. He thought an early-warning signal had just gone off-and in the middle of squatting down for cover, he managed to lose some of the items from the top of the shopping bag. In stooping over to recover these, he tipped the bag, spilling half the contents across the floor.
The woman was laughing like a maniac now, the door buzzer was signaling the entry of three additional shoppers, and Minmei was peeking over the top of the dressing room curtain asking what had happened. Rick, meanwhile, was down on his hands and knees crawling under tables in search of the goods-bottles of shampoo, creme rinse, body lotion, baby oil, lipsticks, and sundry makeup containers-all of which had become covered in some sort of slippery wash from a container of liquid face soap that had partially opened. Each time Rick grabbed hold of one of the items, it would jump from his hand like a wet fish. But he soon got the hang of it and had almost everything rebagged in a short time. Only one thing left to retrieve: a tube of tricolored toothpaste just out of reach, bathing in a puddle of the face soap. Rick gave it a shot, stretching out and making a grab for it. Sure enough, the tube propelled itself and ended up under another table.
It was time to get serious. Rick set the bag aside and crawled off stealthily after his prey, as though the tube had taken on a will of its own and was on the verge of scurrying off, like some of Macross City's robo-dispenser units. He squinted, held the tube in his gaze, and when he was near enough, pounced.
The tube seemed to scream in his hands and immediately worked itself into a vertical launch. But Rick had prepared himself for this; he lifted his head, eyes fixed on the tube's ascent.
The one thing he hadn't taken into account was the height of the table. His head connected hard with the underside, the tube made its escape, and Rick collapsed back to the floor, rolling over onto his back and holding his head.
When he opened his eyes, he was staring up at a rain of brassieres and three pairs of silken female legs. The women owners of these were backing away from the table, high heels clicking against the floor, hands tugging at the hems of their skirts as though they'd just seen a rodent on the loose.
Rick pushed himself out and got to his feet, facing the three women from across the table. They were still backing away from the tabletop lingerie display with looks of indignation on their faces. Rick was stammering apologies to them as they exited the shop, the saleswoman was once again laughing hysterically, and Minmei was suddenly behind him, tapping him on the shoulder, soliciting his opinion of the dress she was trying on. He stood shell-shocked for a minute, laughter in one ear, Minmei's questions in the other, and left the store without a word.
Minmei remained inside for well over an hour. She had two additional shopping bags with her when she came out. Undaunted, Rick once again tried to suggest a walk in the park, but she had already made other plans for the two of them. Her surrogate family, who ran Macross City's most popular Chinese restaurant, the White Dragon, had been asking for Rick, and this would be a perfect time to visit-he looked so "gallant and dashing" in his uniform.
Rich could hardly refuse. Minmei's aunt and uncle were almost like family to him; in fact, he had lived with them above the restaurant before joining the Defense Forces.
They were an odd couple-Max, short and portly, and Lena, Minmei's tall and gracious inspiration. They had a son back on Earth, Lynn-Kyle, whom Lena missed and Max preferred not to think about, for reasons Rick hadn't learned. Although there was little else that either kept from him. As Rick entered the restaurant they pretended surprise, but within minutes they had his favorite meal spread out before him. While wolfing down the stir-fried shrimp, he regaled them with the barracks stories he had been saving for Minmei. They wanted to know all about the Veritech fighters-how they handled in deep space, how they were able to switch from Fighter to Guardian or Battloid mode. And they asked about the war: Had Gloval managed to contact Earth headquarters? Did his commanders believe that the enemy would continue their attacks? Was Rick worried about his first mission? How long it would be before the SDF-1 returned to Earth?
Rick did his best to answer them, sidestepping issues he was not permitted to discuss and at other times exaggerating his importance to the Defense Forces. It concerned him that the residents of Macross City were not being given the same reports issued to the Veritech squadrons. After all, Macross was as much a part of the ship and the war as the rest of those onboard.
He was about to allay their fears for his safety by telling them that a combat assignment was far off, when he saw Roy Fokker enter the restaurant. The lieutenant's six-six frame looked gargantuan in the low-ceilinged room, but there was something about Roy's unruly blond hair and innocent grin that put people at ease immediately. He greeted everyone individually, made a show of kissing Minmei's hand, and took a seat next to Rick, snatching up the last of the shrimp as he did so.
"Figured I'd find you here," Roy said with his mouth full. "Gotta get you back to the base on the double, Little Brother."
"Why, what's up?" Rick asked.
"We're on alert."
Rick was suddenly concerned. "Yeah, but what's that have to do with me?"
Roy licked his fingers. "Guess who's been assigned to my squadron?"
Rick was speechless.
Aunt Lena and Uncle Max stood together, worried looks behind the faint smiles. Minmei, however, was ecstatic.
"Oh, Rick, thats wonderful!"
Like he'd just been awarded a prize.
Roy stood up and smiled. "Up and at 'em, partner."
Rick tried valiantly to return a smile that wasn't there.
The war had caught up with him again.


CHAPTER TWO
From the start it was inevitable that a cult should develop around the Veritech fighters. Like the World War I aces, jet fighter jocks, astronauts, and computer linguists before them, the men who were chosen to interact with the first by-product of Robotechnology considered themselves to be at the cutting edge of human progress. And in a sense they were. For who before them had interfaced with machines on such an intimate level? It was only fitting that they should form their own club and speak their own language-call themselves "mechamorphs." They were continually borrowing and applying mystic phrases from their Zen masters-those actually responsible for teaching the pilots the essentials of meditative technique...You'd be walking around Macross in those days and hear phrases like "dropping trou" and "standing upright" being tossed about-referring to reconfiguration to Guardian mode and battloid mode, respectively. Pilots would talk to you about your "thinking caps," the sensor-studded helmets worn, or about the thrill of "haloing" (fixing an enemy on target in the mind's eye) or "alpha-bets" (gambling with yourself that you were deep enough in trance for the mecha to understand you) or "facing mecha" (going into battle) or "azending...
Zachary Fox, Jr., VT: the Men and the Mecha

Gloval met frequently with Dr. Lang during the development phase of what was being called the pinpoint barrier system. The lambent energy that once filled the spacefold generators' chamber had been harnessed and redirected. Such was the nature of this antielectron energy, however, that a photon shield for the entire fortress would have further destabilized an already weakened gravity control system. The best that Lang and his Robotechnicians had been able to come up with was a cluster of movable barriers capable of deflecting incoming bolts. An area aft of the ship's bridge had been retrofitted with three manually operated universal gyros, each tied to one of the cluster's photon discs.
With the barrier system now operational, Captain Gloval was confident that his "Blitzkrieg" attack plan would prove viable. The strategy was simple enough: When the SDF-1 was in close proximity to Saturn's rings, electronic countermeasures would be activated to jam the enemy's radar scanners. The fortress would hide within the rings to take full advantage of their intrinsic radio "noise," while at the same time, squadrons of Veritech fighters would be deployed in a simulated attack mission to act as decoys. When the enemy moved in to engage the VTs, the SDF-1's main gun would take them out. Orbital dynamics would make the timing critical: If the fortress reentered orbit too early, it would be catapulted back toward the outer planets; too late, and the launch window to Mars and the inner planets would be closed.
The VT fighter pilots would receive most of this information at the scheduled briefing, and it was to this briefing that Rick and Roy were headed after they left the restaurant.
Roy had been doing his best to cheer up the newly graduated cadet. Rick was one of five cadets chosen; it was really an honor, an endorsement of his flying skills. He would be able to move out of the dormitory barracks into his own room. There would be more free time, special privileges.
They were walking along the tall chain-link fence that surrounded the barracks compound now. Fifty-foot-tall Battloid sentries patrolled the perimeter, their gatlings shouldered like proper soldiers. Defense Force personnel were moving quickly in response to new orders which had been delivered to each unit.
But Rick's morale was low; his hands were in his pockets, and his shoulders drooped. Roy, however, succeeded in bringing him around with a sharp, "Ten-shun!"
Rick responded expertly to his conditioning: His head came up, he squared his shoulders, brought his back straight, hand at his forehead. His eyes searched for a superior's uniform, but the only people in his field of vision were four young women in civilian dress. The oldest among them, not more than twenty-three or twenty-four herself, was the one who returned his salute. She had thick brown hair coiled at her shoulders, small, attractive features, and an athletic body even her conservative outfit couldn't conceal. There was an air of cool command about her.
The other three were suddenly laughing and pointing at him; the tall, dark-haired one-Kim, Rick understood-was whispering something to the one with glasses-Vanessa. Rick was resisting an urge to check his fly buttons, when the short blonde among them yelled, "Mr. Lingerie!"
He decided to risk a full look and recognized three of the women from this morning's incident in the dress shop. One of them was saying, "Hold your skirts down, ladies," and Roy was elbowing him in the ribs.
"What gives, Little Brother?"
"Don't ask," Rick said out of the corner of his mouth.
The oldest had stepped forward; she gave Rick a look and turned to Roy.
"Commander Fokker, don't tell me this is the brilliant new pilot you were raving about?"