"13 Sentinels 01 - The Devils Hand" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

The tac net was a symphony of voices, shrill and panicked, punctuated by bursts of sibilant static and the shortlived sound of muffled roars.
"Talk to me, Ghost Leader," a pilot said.
"Contact, fifty right, medium range..."
"Roger, got 'im."
"Ghost Three, Ghost Three, bogie inbound, heading zero-seven-niner..."
"Ghost Six, you've got half-a-dozen on your tail. Go to Battloid, Moonlighter!"
"Can't get-"
Rick cursed and went on the com net. "Ghost Leader, do you require backup? Repeat, do you require backup? Over."
"Sir," the pilot replied an instant later. "We're holding our own out here, but it's a world of shi-er, pain, sir!"
"Can you ascertain enemy's weapons systems? Over."
Static erased the pilot's first few words. "...and some sort of plasma cannons, sir. It's like they're throwing...energy Frisbees or something! But the mecha are slow-ugly as sin, but slow."
Rick raised his eyes to the ceiling of the bridge. I should be out there with them! Breetai and Exedore had returned to their stations elsewhere in the ship; and by all rights Rick should have been back in the Tactical Information Center already, but everything was happening so damned fast he didn't dare risk pulling himself away from a screen even for a minute. Lisa had ordered the SDF-3 to Fantoma's brightside, where it was holding now.
"Has anyone located General Edwards yet?" Rick shouted into a mike.
"He's on his way up to the Sit Room, sir," someone replied.
Rick shook his head, feeling a rage mount within him. Lisa turned to watch him. "Admiral, you better get going. We can manage up here."
Rick looked over at her, his lips tight, and nodded.
"Sirs, enemy are in retreat."'
Rick watched the board. "Thank God-"
"Ghost is in pursuit."
Rick blanched.
"Contact them! Who ordered pursuit-Edwards?!"
Blake busied himself at the console. "Negative, sir. We, we don't know who gave the order, sir."
"Direct the Skull to go-now!" Rick raced from the bridge.
Lisa regarded Fantoma's ring-plane and remembered a similar situation in Saturn's rings. "Activate ECM," she ordered a moment later. "We're bringing the ship up. And, dammit, send someone out to rescue that EVA craft""

Jonathan Wolff left the SDF-3 launch bay right behind the last of Max Sterling's Skull Squadron fighters. He was in a Logan Veritech, a reconfigurable mecha that would one day become the mainstay of the Southern Cross's Tactical Armored Space Corps. The Logan was often jokingly referred to as a "rowboat with wings" because of the bowshaped design of its radome and the mecha's overall squatness. But if it was somewhat less orthodox-looking than the Alpha, the Logan was certainly as mean and maneuverable-and much more versatile-than the VT. In addition, the mecha's upscaled cockpit could seat two, three in a pinch.
Scanners had indicated there were two people aboard the hapless EVA craft that had been caught up in the SDF-3's fold. And they were alive, though more than likely unconscious or worse. There had been no response to the fortress's attempts to communicate with the craft.
Empowering the fortress's shields had made use of the tractor somewhat iffy, so Wolff had volunteered for the assignment, itching to get out there anyway, even if it meant on a rescue op. Now suddenly in the midst of it, he wasn't so sure. Local space was lit up with spherical orange bursts and crisscrossed with blue laserfire and plasma discs of blinding light. Zentraedi Battlepods were one thing, but the ships the VTs found themselves up against looked like they had walked out of some ancient horror movie, and it was easy to believe that the crablike mecha actually were the XTs themselves. But Breetai and Exedore had said otherwise in their prelaunch briefings; inside each ship was a being that could prove swift and deadly in combat.
And that was indeed the case, as evidenced by the slowmo dogfights in progress all around Wolff. Skull's VTs were battling their way through the remnants of the Invid's original strike force in an effort to catch up with the Ghost Squadron, who'd been ordered off in pursuit of the main group. Wolff watched amazed as Battloids and Pincer Ships swapped volleys, blew one another to fiery bits, and sometimes wrestled hand-to-pincers, battering each other with depleted cannons. Wolff watched Captain Miriya Sterling's red Veritech engage and destroy three Invid ships with perfectly placed Hammerhead missiles. Max, too, seemed to be having a field day; but the numbers were tipped in the enemy's favor, and Wolff wondered how long Skull would be able to hold out.
He was closing fast on the EVA craft now, and thought he could discern movement in the rear seat of the cockpit. But as the Logan drew nearer, he could see that both pilots were either unconscious or dead. Reconfiguring now, he imaged the Battloid to take hold of the small ship and propel it back toward Fantoma's brightside and the SDF-3. But just then he received a command over the net to steer clear, and a moment later the fortress emerged from the ring-plane and loomed into view. Inexplicably, the Skull Squadron was falling away toward Fantoma's opaline surface, leaving the ship open to frontal assaults by the Pincer units, but in a moment those ships were a mere memory, disintegrated in a cone of fire spewed from the SDF-3's main gun.
Harsh static crackled through Wolff's helmet pickups as he turned his face from the brilliance of the blast. But when he looked again, two clam-shaped transports had materialized out of nowhere in the fortress's wake.
Reflexively, Wolff went on the com net to shout a warning to the bridge. Secondary batteries commenced firing while the fortress struggled to bring itself around, but by then it was too late. Wolff saw the SDF-3 sustain half-a-dozen solid hits, before return fire sanitized the field.

A score of lifeless men and women lay sprawled across the floor of the fortress's engineering hold. Damage-control crews were rushing about, slipping in puddles of blood and cooling fluids, trying to bring dozens of electrical fires under control. A portion of the ruptured hull had already self-sealed, but other areas ruined beyond repair had to be evacuated and closed off by pocket bulkheads.
Lang and Exedore ran through smoke and chaos toward the fold-generator chamber, arriving in time to see one of the ruptured mechanisms vanish into thin air.
Lang tried to shout something to his team members above the roar of exhaust fans, but everyone had been nearly deafened by the initial blasts.
Just then a second explosion threw Lang and Exedore to the floor, as some sort of black, wraithlike images formed from smoke and fire and took shape in the hold, only to disappear from view an instant later.
Lang's nostrils stung from the smoke of insulation fires and molten metals. He got to his feet and raced back into the chamber, throwing switches and crossovers at each station. By the time Exedore got to him, Lang was a quivering, burned, and bloodied mess.
"They knew j-just where to h-hit us," he stammered, pupilless irises aflame. "We're stranded, we're stranded here!"


CHAPTER EIGHT
I'm of the opinion that in this instance Lang (with regard to Janice) was emulating the Masters-or more accurately perhaps, serving Protoculture's darker side. Zand, and anyone else who conspired to control, was serving this purpose as well. Protoculture's bright side had yet to reveal itself, for what had it wrought so far but conquest, war, and death? Indeed, it could be argued that Protoculture's only bright moment came at the end, when the Regis wed herself to it and was transformed.
Mingtao, Protoculture: Journey Beyond Mecha

Obsim was pensive as he regarded the communicator sphere; four troop carriers and countless Pincer Ships had been lost, but he had achieved a good portion of his purpose: the invaders' starship was crippled if not destroyed. It had come into full view now from Fantoma's brightside, and was holding in orbit near the giant's outer rings. ECM had foiled Obsim's attempt to reach the Regent, but a messenger ship had since been dispatched and reinforcements were assured.
But what now? the Invid scientist asked himself. Surely the outsiders recognized that Tirol would soon be entering Fantoma's shadow. Would they then move the ship into orbit, risk some sort of landing perhaps? Well, no matter, Obsim decided. The command ships would be there to greet them.

On the fortress, meanwhile, a mood of apprehension prevailed while the RDF licked its wounds and counted the dead. Unprovoked attack was one of many scenarios the crew had prepared for, but the Invid hadn't been seriously considered. Lang, for one, had thought that the Zentraedi had all but eliminated the race; and while he remembered the image of an Invid ship included in Zor's SDF-1 "greetings message," neither Exedore nor Breetai had been forthcoming in supplying him with any additional information. Moreover, the arrival of the "Visitor," and the subsequent Robotech War, had left the Earth Forces with the mistaken notion that humankind dominated the galaxy. Although the Zentraedi were giant, biogenetic clones, they were still in some way understandable and acceptable. But not so this new enemy wave. There had of course been prelaunch briefings that addressed the alien issue, but the Zentraedi's descriptions of the Invid, the Karbarrans, the Spherisians, might as well have been campfire ghost stories or horror movie tribute-War With the Newts! So as rumors began to spread through the ship, everyone was left asking themselves why the mission had once seemed a sensible idea. And Lang had yet to tell everyone the really bad news.