"05 - Force of Arms" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

He sighed, the heavy brows lowering, staring down at the briefing file before him on the coffee table. Lisa held her breath.
"I'm not sure," her father said at last. He looked up at her again. "But I'll present it to them and make sure they listen, then we'll see what they say."
For the first time since she left the SDF-1, Lisa smiled.

Miriya bent over the VT machine, refining her game. Next to her, on the floor, were two plastic pans filled with playing tokens. Frankie Zotz had had to refill the game's reservoir twice to pay off all her winnings. She ignored his sweaty invitations to go play some other game-or, better yet, take a rain check and just go-with a slit-eyed amusement and a dangerous air that kept him from pressing her too hard about it.
Max came downstairs with Rick, holding his own tray of tokens. Suddenly, he stopped yammering his overcheerful encouragements about how Rick would eventually get the hang of the computer games. That was fine with Rick; he had had just about enough light banter.
Max paused on the stairs. "Oh! That girl! Sitting at that game!"
Rick looked at the green hair. She wore a tight brown body suit that showed off a lithe figure, and a flamboyant yellow scarf knotted at her throat. "So? What about her?"
"Isn't she incredible?" Max said, more excitedly than Rick had ever heard Max talk about anything. "I've been seeing her everywhere."
"Well, she is sort of attractive," Rick had to admit, his mind too full of Lisa Hayes and Minmei for him to go on at any greater length.
Max, the renowned VT wizard, wasn't much when it came to the pursuit of females; his few fumbling attempts with one or another of the Terrible Trio had failed, and he retreated completely when Sammie, Vanessa, and Kim became involved with the three Zentraedi ex-spies, Konda, Bron, and Rico.
Max's modest, self-effacing shipside persona made him a sort of uninteresting doormat for women. Perhaps he wasn't suave or seductively menacing enough. So when he wasn't out in a Veritech, he kept to himself for the most part.
But this was different; the Close Encounters arcade was his turf. "Maybe I can get her in a game with me!" Max said, as he went racing down the stairs.
There was quite a crowd around Miriya; she had rolled up one of the largest scores ever on the Veritechs game. She felt a little irritated, even a bit strange, with all these Micronians gathered around. Yet she endured their gaze, proud and pleased to show off her prowess.
She briefly considered the idea that her strange sensations had something to do with the damned Micronian food. It was nothing like the cold, processed, sanitized rations of the Zentraedi; human food had strange textures and flavors, odd biological constituents. It was all animal tissue and plant substances, and she suspected it was affecting her system.
She shook off the feeling and kept playing, rolling her score higher and higher, until she went over the top, beating the game, and more tokens poured into her tray. Getting enough money to survive in Macross had been no problem for Miriya since she had discovered the arcades.
Now someone pressed through the crowd: an unremarkable-looking VT pilot with a tray of token winnings in his hands. She was inclined to dismiss him; dozens of men had made overtures to her since she first came to the SDF-1.
But there was something different about this one, she thought.
Max worked up the nerve to say, "'Scuse me; would you be interested in playing a game with me? From what I've seen, I think we'd be equally matched. Don't you?"
He looked so young and eager that she almost laughed in his face and ignored him. Then she considered the tray of tokens in his hands. Miriya knew enough about the arcades to appreciate how good he must have been to have accumulated so many of the glittering pieces.
Of course it was beyond the realm of possibility that this slim youngster could be the premier enemy killer, but if he provided some competition, it might make for useful practice.
She looked at him languidly beneath long black lashes. Max felt his heart pounding. "Are you willing to bet all that?" Miriya asked.
He gasped happily. "Yes, I am!" He set his tray down next to hers, then scooted around into the seat opposite her. He babbled, "This is absolutely terrific! I know we're gonna have a great game!"
Watching frorn the sidelines, Rick wondered if there wasn't something else Max could do to screw up his chances of impressing her. Trip over her, maybe; or throw up.
But once in his seat, Max took on the air of confidence and aplomb that was his in matters regarding the VTs. "How about starting with level B? All right with you?"
She shrugged, somehow making it seem alluring and yet indifferent. "Fine."
"All right. Here we go."
He deposited the tokens, and the screen lit. Miriya had picked red for the color of her VT; Max selected blue, for the trim on his own ship. He didn't notice that Miriya's eyes suddenly narrowed at that choice.
Little animated Minmei figures walked out from either side of the screen to strike a gong in the center, and the action began. They guided their VTs through the twisting, changing computer-modeled landscape, using control sticks and foot pedals, maneuvering at each other and firing.
It didn't take long for Miriya to lose her nonchalance. Try as she might, she couldn't gain the advantage on him, couldn't shake him once he'd gained on her. A frown crossed her face, then a sudden flare of rage, when his fighter destroyed hers. She hid the expression in an instant, looking at him more closely.
The video warriors gathered around them were aghast. It had been a master-level fight. Max grinned at her. "Whoops! Looks like I won, huh? Wanna go on to level A?" He winked at her.
Rick groaned to himself. Somewhere along the line, Max had learned exactly how to antagonize beautiful young women.
She regarded him coldly. "Yes. Let's go on to level A. That should prove quite interesting." This time she would give the fight serious attention.
Max fed in more tokens; this time a blue hemisphere sprang from the game, a holoprojection. The muttering of the growing crowd became louder, until the real purists silenced everybody.
The miniature Veritechs flew over the flat surface of the gaming table now, going to Battloid mode and taking their autocannon in hand at high port. There was a moment in which Miriya gazed through Max's bluetrimmed, ghostly mecha, through his blue aviator glasses, into his eyes.
Somehow, she knew in that moment; all the rest of the game would only be proof of what her instincts were telling her.
The little Battloid computer images looped and fired, maneuvering on each other, going to Guardian or Veritech as their players decreed. There were outbursts and yells from the onlookers as the game moved. It was the fastest, most canny maneuvering anyone had ever seen; even though side bets were strictly illegal, everybody was making them.
Frankie Zotz projected it onto the arcade's main screen. Veteran players looked on in awe at the amazing dogfight. Tiny missiles and tracers spat; the computers could barely keep up with the instructions coming from the control sticks. The minuscule mecha circled and attacked.
Miriya used the same tactics she had used that day in her Quadrono armor; his responses were the same. For a moment, it seemed to her that her simulacrum Battloid had become a miniature Quadrono. Any doubts she had were swept away.
Max was thinking, Boy, is she beautiful! as he played his best at the machine. Another VT pilot, a lady's man, might have lost to Miriya on purpose. But then, another VT pilot probably couldn't have won.
People were whooping and cheering on the sidelines. In her mind's eye, Miriya saw the apocalyptic combat in the streets of Macross, as her own powered armor smashed through buildings and wreaked havoc, backpack thrusters blaring. She also saw that one-on-one final confrontation, when she had bolted rather than die in a point-blank shootout.
And just as his autocannon rounds had defeated her that day, Max's VT image destroyed hers. The red VT fragmented and flew into modeled, spinning bits, then de-rezzed to nothingness.
The blue hemisphere faded away, leaving her openmouthed and blinking. I lost! This cannot be! I will not be humiliated again!
The victorious Battloid image's head turret swung back, and a little figure that looked suspiciously like Rick Hunter appeared, crying the word "STRONG!!" as a tiny Minmei raced up to throw her arms around his neck, kissing him and kicking her feet. The real Rick Hunter, still standing on the staircase, edged back in order to be more inconspicuous and thought dark thoughts about the sense of humor of video game designers.
An onlooker was saying to Max, "I dunno how you pulled that off, buddy."
"Aw, there were a couple of tight spots in the middle and near the end, but all in all, it wasn't too tough."
"Oh!" Miriya breathed. The insult of it. So she'd presented him with little challenge, eh? She rose, turning on one booted heel.
Max forgot his warm victory feelings and plunged after her. He caught her wrist, not knowing how close he was to getting a fist in the throat. "Wait, I've been wanting to speak to you for a long time. I think you're wonderful, and I want to get to know you better. This is my only chance to get your name and phone number."
His grip was very strong but not painful; his palm very warm. For a moment Miriya felt as though her wrist were burning.
"My name is Miriya," she said coldly. "And I don't currently have a phone number." She turned to go, tugging at his grip. The feel of his skin against hers made her feel a typical Zentraedi loathing of contact between the sexes but stirred something else, something she couldn't put a name to.