"07 - Southern Cross" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

Robotechnology, especially the second-generation brand currently being phased into use, required intense training and practice on the part of human operator-warriors. It was another era in human history when the citizen-soldier had to take a back seat to the professional.
And somehow Bowie-who had never wanted to be a soldier at all-was a member of this new military elite, entrusted with the responsibility of serving and guarding humanity.
Only, I'd be a lot happier playing piano and singing for my supper in some little dive!
Sunk in despair, Bowie found that even his treasured Minmei records couldn't lift his spirits. Hearing her sing "We Will Win" wasn't much help to a young man who didn't want anything to do with battle.
How can I possibly live this life they're forcing on me?
He plucked halfheartedly at his guitar once or twice, but it was no use. He stared out the window at the parade ground, remembering how many disagreeable hours he had spent out there, when the door signal toned. He turned the sound system down, slouched over, and hit the door release.
Dana stood there in a parody of a glamour pose, up on the balls of her feet with her hands clasped together behind her blond puffball hairdo. She batted her lashes at him.
"Well, it's about time, Bowie. How ya doing?" She walked past him into his room, hands still behind her head.
He grunted, adding, "Fine," and closed the door.
She laughed as she stood looking out at the parade ground. "Su-ure! Private Grant, who d'you think you're kidding?"
"Okay! So I'm depressed!"
She turned and gave him a little inclination of the head to acknowledge his honesty. "Thank you! And why are you depressed?"
He slumped into a chair, his feet up on a table. "Graduation, I guess."
They both wore form-fitting white uniforms with black boots and black piping reminiscent of a riding outfit. But their cadet unit patches were gone, and Dana's torso harness-a crisscross, flare-shouldered affair of burnt-orange leather-carried only the insignia of her brevet rank, second lieutenant, and standard Southern Cross crests. Dark bands above their biceps supported big, dark military brassards that carried the Academy's device; those would soon be traded in for ATAC arm brassards.
Dana sat on the bed, ankles crossed, holding the guitar idly. "It's natural to feel a letdown, Bowie; I do too." She strummed a gentle chord.
"You're just saying that to make me feel better."
"It's the truth! Graduation Blues are as old as education." She struck another chord. "Don't feel like smiling? Maybe I should sing for you?"
"No!" Dana's playing was passable, but her voice just wasn't right for singing.
He had blurted it out so fast that they both laughed. "Maybe I should tell you a story," she said. "But then, you know all my stories, Bowie." And all the secrets I've ever been able to tell a full-breed Human.
He nodded; he knew. Most people on Earth knew at least something of Dana's origins-the only known offspring of a Zentraedi/Human mating. Then her parents had gone, as his had, on the SDF-3 expedition.
Bowie smiled at Dana and she smiled back. They were two eighteen-year-olds about to take up the trade of war.
"Bowie," she said gently, "there's more to military life than just maneuvers. You can make it more. I'll help you; you'll see!" She sometimes thought secretly that Bowie must wish he had inherited the great size and strength of his father, Vince Grant, rather than the compact grace and good looks of his mother, Jean. Bowie was slightly shorter than Dana, though he was fierce when he had to be.
He let out a long breath, then met her gaze and nodded slowly. Just then the alert whoopers began sounding.
It sent a cold chill through them both. They knew that not even a martinet like Supreme Commander Leonard would pick this afternoon for a practice drill. The UEG had too much riding on the occasion to end it so abruptly.
But the alternative-it was so grim that Dana didn't even want to think about it. Still, she and Bowie were sworn members of the armed forces, and the call to battle had been sounded.
Dana looked at Bowie; his face registered his dismay. "Red alert! That's us, Bowie! C'mon, follow me!"
He had been through so many drills and practices over the years that it was second nature to him. They dashed for the door, knowing exactly where they must go, what they must do, and superlatively able to do it.
But now, for the first time, they felt a real, icy fear that was not for their own safety or an abstract like their performance in some test. Out in the corridor Dana and Bowie merged with other graduates dashing along. Duffel bags and B-4 bags were scattered around the various rooms they ran past, clothing and gear strewn everywhere; most of the graduates had been packing to go home for a while.
Dana and Bowie were sprinting along with a dozen other graduates, their fifty, then more than half of the class. Underclassmen and women streamed from other barracks, racing to their appointed places. Just like a drill.
But Dana could feel it, smell it in the air, and pick it up through her skin's receptors: there was suddenly something out there to be feared. The cadet days of pretend-war were over forever.
Suddenly, emphatically, Dana felt a deep fear as something she didn't understand stirred inside her. And without warning she understood exactly how Bowie felt.
The young Robotech fighters-none older than nineteen, some as young as sixteen-poured out of their barracks and formed up to do their duty.


CHAPTER TWO
It seems an imprecise thought or ridiculously metaphysical question to some, I know, but I cannot help but wonder. If the Robotech Masters rid themselves of their emotions, where did those emotions go?
Would there not be some conservation-of-energy law that would keep such emotions from disappearing completely but would see them transmuted into something else? Were they all simply converted to the Masters' vast longing for power, hidden knowledge, Protoculture, immortality?
And is that the byproduct of stepped-up intellect? For if so, the Universe has played us a dreadful joke.
Zeitgeist, Insights: Alien Psychology and the Second Robotech War

Cold Luna swung in its ages-old orbit. It had witnessed cataclysms in epochs long gone; it had watched the seemingly impossible changes that had taken place on Earth through the long eons of their companionship.
In recent times the moon had been a major landmark in the war between Zentraedi and Human, and looked down upon the devastation of Earth, fifteen years ago.
It was into the moon's cold lee that Captain Henry Gloval attempted to spacefold the SDF-1 at the outset of the Robotech War. There was a grievous miscalculation (or the intercession of a higher, Protoculture-ordained plan, depending on whether or not one listened to the eccentric Dr. Emil Lang), and the battle fortress leapt between dimensions to end up stranded out near Pluto.
But Gloval's plan, using Luna as cover and sanctuary, was still a sound one. And today, others were proving its worth.

Six stupendous ships, five miles from end to end through their long axes, materialized soundlessly and serenely in the dawn. They were as strong and destructive and Robotechnologically well-equipped as the Masters could make them.
Still, they were wary. Earth had already provided a charnel house for mighty fleets; the Robotech Masters had no more Zentraedi lives to spend, and had no intention of risking their own.
The voice of one of the Robotech Masters echoed through the command ship. He was one of the triumvirate that commanded the expedition, that ruled the ships, the Clonemasters, soldier-androids, Scientist Triads, and the rest.
He had sprung from the humanlike inhabitants of the planet Tirol, creatures who were virtually Human in plasm and appearance. But the Robotech Master's words came tonelessly, expressionlessly, and without sound; he was in contact with the Protoculture, and so spoke with mind alone.
He sent his thoughts into the communications bond that linked his mind with those of the transformed overlords of his race, beings like him but even more elevated in their powers and intellect-the three Elders.