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

"True, sir, but because of that his own troops have named him the 'Backstabber.'"
Breetai was about to respond, when without warning the bridge went on alert. Lights began to flash, and warning klaxons were sounding general quarters. Exedore had already positioned himself at the control pads of one of the monitors, trying to ascertain the cause. Breetai stood over him now as data began to flash across the screens.
"What is it?" the commander demanded.
"Armed ships emerging from hyperspace in the midst of our battle group. A collision appears imminent!"
Breetai turned to the forward projecbeam. "Some of the Micronians' unorthodoxy!"
A card player at a show of hands, Breetai readied himself, fully expecting the materialization of a squadron of Micronian mecha. But what appeared instead were the ragtag ships of the Botoru Battalion.
Visual distortions in local space preceded their crazed arrival, shimmerings and oscillations in the fabric of real time. Several vessels of Khyron's battle group collided with ships of the main fleet, spreading shock waves throughout the field. Even the flagship itself was rocked by debris, the force of the impact strong enough to knock Exedore off his feet. Damage reports were pouring in to the bridge; debris appeared in the projecbeam field.
Exedore picked himself up; his voice was full of anger when he spoke.
"This is happening just as I expected! Khyron, sir, is totally without discipline!"
Was this an oversight, Breetai asked himself, or just a demonstration of Khyron's recklessness?
The Backstabber's face suddenly appeared on the forward screen. Khyron, long steel-blue hair falling over the collar of a uniform of his own design, saluted. His face was a curious mixture of boyish innocence and brooding anger, Prince Valiant's devilish shadow with a fire in his eyes that was not quite Zentraedi.
"Commander of the Seventh Mechanized Space Division reporting as ordered." His lowered salute turned into a mock wave. "Good to see you again, Commander Breetai." He finished off with a laugh.
"The sheer audacity-" Exedore started to say.
A square jawed battle-scarred warrior had appeared by Khyron's side in the projecbeam field, sharing some sort of joke with him. "Ha! Just as I thought, Khyron. We crashed into four ships total."
Khyron tried to silence him, but it was too late.
"You thought it would be three at best. I win the bet."
"Be quiet, you fool," ordered Khyron finally. "Our conversation is being broadcast."
Breetai fixed him with his one eye. "Khyron, don't trifle with me if you value your command. I'm willing to give you a chance to make up for your past mistakes, but I have no time for your games. Is that understood?"
Khyron straightened his smile, but the laughter remained in his eyes. "Yes, Commander, what is it you want me to do?"
"There's an abandoned base on the fourth planet of this star system. We intend to lure Zor's ship there, and I want you to see to it that it doesn't leave. Trap it with gravity mines if you have to, but understand this: Your Seventh will blockade the ship without damaging it unduly. You will then await my further instructions. Is that clear? You are to await my instructions before engaging the enemy."
"Perfectly clear, Breetai. I would naturally prefer you to have the honor and glory of the capture. Commander-in-Chief Dolza expects nothing less of you, I'm sure."
"That will be enough, Khyron," said Exedore.
Breetai gestured to his adviser. "Send out a recall order to our Battlepods. Let's give the Micronians enough breathing room to take the bait we're going to lay out for them."
Khyron signed off. Exedore continued to plead the case against using him, but Breetai was already looking forward to the plan. The prospect of a trap excited him. Furthermore, real sport required the unexpected, and in this contest for Zor's ship and the precious cargo it held, Khyron would play the Zentraedi's wild card.

Two Battlepods were right on his tail, pouring fire into the mecha. Rick didn't need gauges to feel the lock of those lasers; they might as well have been burning into his skull. He opened up the gap somewhat by hitting his afterburners, then tacked toward relative-twelve and waited for the pods to split up. He knew they'd attempt to pinch him, but he had plans of his own.
Rick took his mind off the pod below him. He had number one haloed in his rear sights. Firing the forward retros to cut his velocity, he loosed a cluster of heatseekers. The missiles tore from beneath the right wing of the mecha and accelerated into a vertical climb, homing in on the enemy ship. Rick used the port thrusters to angle himself free of the debris and risked a brief look up and over his shoulder. The rockets caught the Battlepod in the belly, blowing off both legs and cracking the spherical hull.
Scratch one.
Number two was still below him, trying to roast the underside of Rick's mecha with continuous heat. A little more of this and he'd be cooked. Lateral swings were getting him nowhere, so he thought the fighter into a rapid dive, rolling over-as he fell. The enemy lasers were now tickling the back of the Veritech, and Rick had to act fast: He returned fire with is own top-mounted guns, training them on the hinge straps of the pod's chestplate.
The enemy pilot understood Rick's move and arced his guns toward the more vulnerable cockpit of the mecha. But he was too late; the hinges of the chestplate slagged out, and the pod opened up like a newly hatched egg. Rick caught a glimpse of the giant flailing around in his cockpit before he completed his roll and engaged the boosters.
Scratch two.
He was headed away from the fortress now. The scene before him had to have been lifted from some nightmare: Space was alive with swarms of Battlepods...photon beams laced through the blackness, and silent explosions brought the colors of death and destruction to an indifferent universe.
For three days now the pods had pressed their attack. There had been little sleep for the Robotech forces, even less for the SDF-1 flight crews. After the Daedalus Maneuver and their success in the rings of Saturn, there was some hope that the enemy had for once suffered a setback. And for almost a month, while the fortress crossed the Jovian orbit and the asteroid belt, there were no attacks. But that period of calm was behind them.
Captain Gloval and Dr. Lang had reversed the modular transformation and disassembled the pin-point barrier system in an attempt to arm the main gun once again, but their efforts had proved futile. For the rest, the still slightly shell-shocked masses of displaced persons of Macross city, catapulted like himself from the southern Pacific to the icy regions of deep space, there was nothing to do but adjust to the reality of the situation, continue to rebuild lives and the city itself. Every now and again, they could marvel at the wonders of space travel, the stark and silent beauty of it, and forget for a moment that they were not tourists out here but unwilling players in a nonstop game of death, pursued by the seemingly limitless forces of a race of giant warrior beings who had dropped out of the skies and turned the world upside down.
Only a month before, Rick had been face to face with one of those titans in an air lock on one of the alien ships. He recalled staring out of the cockpit of the transformed Veritech at the giant, who at first had openly feared him, then cursed and ridiculed him for not having the will to blast him away. The laughter of that alien still rang in his ears, followed by his guilt and confusion.
But most of all the memory of the giant's fiery death.
How could one ever forget?
Two Battlepods were suddenly behind him, looking for laser lock. Rick executed a double rollover and dive to lose them. Peripherally, he saw the Blue Team leader swoop in and take them out.
"Way to go Blue Leader!" Rick shouted into the tac net.
"Just do the same for me sometime, buddy," came the reply.
"You got it."
Rick and the Blue Leader, wing to wing, led a frontal assault on yet another enemy wave. They launched themselves into the thick of it, dispatching several of the enemy. Lateral thrusters took them out of the arena momentarily, and the SDF-1 came into view, her main batteries, Phalanx guns, and Gladiator mecha issuing steady fire. The fortress, enveloped by a swarm of pods, looked as though it had somehow wandered into a fireworks display.
Commander Hayes was calling for an assist in Fifth Quadrant, and Skull and Blue Teams were ordered to respond. Rick and Blue Leader were initiating course corrections when five pods appeared on Rick's radar screen. Three of them were quickly dispatched by Roy Fokker in Skull One, but the remaining two were hounding Blue Leader's VT with a vengeance. The enemy unleashed a massive volley of rockets that caught the mecha broadside. For a moment Blue Leader seemed to hang in space; then the fighter exploded and disintegrated, its parts scattered, its pilot a memory.
Rick turned his face away from the wreckage. I could be next, he thought.
How could one ever forget?
The pods continued to press their attack.
Death had a free hand.
Then, as suddenly as they had appeared they were gone. The fighting was over and recall orders came in from the bridge.
Rick followed Roy Fokker's lead into the docking bays of the Prometheus.
Roy caught up with him in the hangar and slapped him on the shoulder.