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

"Wolff on the horn, Commander," a tech said. "He's requesting backup."
"Get his present location," Vince told the woman.
The tech bent to her task, but got no response. She tapped her phones and repeated Wolff's call sign and code into the net.
Vince leaned over the console and hit the com stud. "Go ahead, Colonel. We're reading you. Colonel."
"God, I don't believe it!" Wolff said at last.
"Colonel," Vince said more loudly. "Respond."
"They're...they're going after my men, pulling them out of the tanks..."
Several command-center techs turned to watch Vince at the com station. "Who is, Colonel?"
The net was silent for a moment; then Wolff added, "Cats, Commander. Some kind of goddamned cats!"
Grant lifted an ashen face to the room. "Notify Breetai that his Battlepod team has a green light."

"Bah," Cabell muttered, switching off the remote sensor's audio signal. "Our Bioroids were a better match for the Invid than these Earthers. It's a mystery how they defeated our Zentraedi."
Rem kept his eyes on the monitor screen while the old man swiveled to busy himself with other matters. Almost two dozen Human mecha had entered the city, but there was scarcely half that number now. They had successfully turned the tide against the Command ships that had surprised them, but Invid reinforcements had since appeared on the scene. The remains of countless Hellcats littered the streets the Humans had chosen for their last stand.
"But Cabell, isn't there some way we can help them?"
The scientist showed him his palms. "With what, my boy? We are effectively trapped down here." He motioned to the Pollinators who were peacefully huddled in a corner. "Would you drive these ferocious creatures against them?"
Rem made an impatient gesture. "We can tell the Humans about the Royal Hall."
"Break radio silence?" Cabell asked. "And draw the Invid right to us?"
"Would you rather the Invid inherit our world?"
Cabell stroked his beard and regarded the youth. "How like him you are..."
Rem beetled his brows. "Who?"
"Uh, why, your father of course," Cabell said, turning away. "He, too, would have thought nothing of such a sacrifice. But listen, my boy, how can we be certain these Humans are any better than the Invid? After all, we know the Invid's capabilities. But the Humans' ways are unknown to us."
Rem gestured to the screen. "Perhaps this will change your mind, Cabell."
Skeptical, Cabell faced the screen: a score of Battlepods had arrived to back up the Terran tanks.

"Zentraedi mecha," the brain announced. "Regult and Glaug."
"Yes," Obsim said, registering some surprise. "So there is a connection between these invaders and our old foes." He looked back and forth from the communicator sphere to the living computer. "Perhaps we are in some jeopardy, after all. Computer: evaluate and advise."
"Extrapolating from previously displayed battle tactics..." the brain began. "Defeat for our ground forces in seven point four periods unless reinforcements arrive from Optera. Substantial damage to aliens' mecha and casualties in excess of six hundred; but not enough to threaten their victory."
"Advise, then."
A bundle of raw energy ascended the floating organ's stem and diffused in the region of the midbrain. "Conserve our strength. Take the battle to the invaders' base. Sacrifice the troopers to keep the invaders from the city. And await the arrival of reinforcements."
Obsim mulled it over. "Is there more?"
"Yes," the brain added a moment later. "Protect the brain at all costs."

"Headless ostriches" was the term VT pilots had given Battlepods during the Robotech War. Bipedal, with reverse-articulated legs and a laser-bristled spherical command module, the pods had been designed for full-size warriors. There was just enough room for a single, fully expendable pilot, and little in the way of cockpit padding or defensive shielding. But Lang's teams had reworked the mecha, so that they could now be operated by two Micronized pilots with plenty of room to spare. RDF mechamorphs were trained in pod operation, but there existed an unspoken taboo that kept Humans to their own mecha and Zentraedi to theirs.
But there were no such lines drawn when Breetai's team leaped in to lend the Wolff Pack a much-needed assist. Battlepods and Hovertanks fought side-by-side hammering away at the Invid Command ships. Pulsed-laser fire and conventional armor-piercing projectiles split Tirol's night. An entire quadrant of the city burned while the battle raged, and friend and foe added their own fire and smoke to the already superheated air.
The Hellcat Inorganics had abandoned the scene, as though frightened off by the pods, and now the Command ships were suddenly turning tail.
Wolff sat in the mecha's seat, convulsively triggering the Hovertank's weapon as the enemy ships disengaged and began to lift off. The colonnade of a building collapsed behind him, sending gobs of molten metal airborne. He raised the GMU on the net to update his situation.
"We're being overrun," a panicked voice informed him in response. "Commander Grant says to pick yourselves up and get back here ASAP!"
Wolff ordered his few remaining tankers to reconfigure, and addressed Breetai. "We're moving out. The base is ass deep in pincers."
"At your command, Colonel," the Zentraedi responded, pleased to be taking orders once again, to have an imperative to follow.

Every bed and table in the GMU's med-surg unit was filled, and still the wounded kept coming. The mess hall was a triage area and battle dressing station now, and Jack Baker had found himself in the midst of it, pulled there from supply to lend a hand. All around him men and women were stretched out on the floor and tabletops in postures of distress and agony. A young woman with third-degree burns across half her body flailed her arms against the restraints a medic was attempting to fasten, while a nurse struggled to get an N drip running. Elsewhere a man drugged beyond pain stared almost fascinated at the bloody stump that had been a leg less than an hour before. Some of the wounded groaned and called on God and relatives for help; but Jack saw others expire with no more than a whimper, or a final curse.
Jean Grant, the front of her surgical gown red-brown from blood and antiseptic washes, was moving from table to table checking wounds and shouting orders to her staff.
"Move it, soldier!" Jack heard someone behind him yell. He felt the edge of a stretcher smack against his hip, and turned as two women medics rushed past him bearing a lieutenant he recognized to surgery.
A warrant officer called to him next, waving him over to a bloodied expanse of wall, three bodies slumped lifelessly against it. "These men are dead," the officer announced, getting to his feet and wiping his hands on his trousers. "Get them out of here, and get yourself back up here on the double." The officer looked around. "You!" he said, finding another aide in the crowds. "Get over here and give this man a hand!"
Jack bent down to regard the dead, unsure where to begin.
"You take his arms," a female voice said over his shoulder. Karen Penn was beside him when he turned. She gave him a wan smile and wiped a damp strand of hair from her face with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of someone's blood on her cheek.
"I want to get out there," Jack grunted as he lifted the body. "Some paybacks are in order."
"Maybe that's what this guy said," Karen bit out. "Let's just do our job and forget the heroics."
"We'll see."
When they had eased the body down onto the floor in the next room, Karen said, "If I see your sorry face show up in here, I'm going to remind you of that remark."