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

asteroid belt had never been undertaken by a human crew. Who was to say how it might have been if
the Global Civil War hadn't put an end to the human experiment in space? But that was the way the
cards had been dealt, and in truth, humankind had the SDF-1 to thank for getting things started
again, even if the ship was now more weapon than spacecraft. All this, however, would be for the
historians to figure out. Gloval had more pressing concerns.

Relatively speaking, the Earth was on the far side of the sun. The fortress's reflex
engines would get them home, but not quickly, and even then they were going to need a healthy send-
off from Saturn. Engineering's plan was for the ship to orbit the planet and make use of
centrifugal force to sling her on her way. It was not an entirely untested plan but a dangerous
one nonetheless. And there was one more factor Gloval had to figure into the calculations: the
enemy.

Unseen in full force, unnamed, unknown. Save that they were thought to be sixty-foot-tall
humanoids of seemingly limitless supply. They had appeared in Earthspace a little more than two
months ago and declared war on the planet. There was no way of knowing what fate had befallen
Earth after the SDF-1's hyperspace jump, but some of the enemy fleet-or, for all Gloval knew, a
splinter group-had pursued the ship clear across the solar system to press the attack. The SDF-1's
main gun had saved them once, but firing it had required a modular transformation which had not
only wreaked havoc with many of the ship's secondary systems but had nearly destroyed the city
that had grown up within it.

For two months now the enemy had left the ship alone. They allowed themselves to be picked
up by radar and scanners but were careful not to reveal the size of their fleet. Sometimes it
appeared that Battlepods made up the bulk of their offensive strength-those oddly shaped, one-
pilot mecha the VT teams called "headless ostriches." At other times there was evidence of scout
ships and recon vessels, cruisers and destroyers. But if the enemy's numbers were a source for
speculation, their motives seemed to be clear: They had come for their ship, the SDF-1.

Gloval was not about to let them have it without a fight. Perhaps if they'd come calling
and asked for the ship, something could have been arranged. But that, too, was history.

There was only one way to guarantee a safe return to Earth: They had to either shake the
enemy from their tail or destroy them. Gloval had been leaning toward the former approach until
Dr. Lang had surprised him with the latest of his daily discoveries.

Lang was Gloval's interface with the SDF-1; more than anyone else onboard, the German
scientist had retuned his thinking to that of the technicians who had originally built the ship.
He had accomplished on a grand scale what the Veritech fighter pilots were expected to do on each
mission: meld their minds to the mecha controls. There was suspicion among the crew that Lang had
plugged himself into one of the SDF-1's stock computers and taken some sort of mind boost which
had put him in touch with the ship's builders, leaving him a stranger to those who hadn't. Gloval
often felt like he was dealing with an alien entity when speaking to Lang-he couldn't bring
himself to make contact with those marblelike eyes. It was as if the passionate side of the man's
nature had been drained away and replaced with some of the strange fluids that coursed through
many of the ship's living systems. You didn't exchange pleasantries with a man like Lang; you went
directly to the point and linked memory banks with him. So when Lang told him that it might be
possible to create a protective envelope for the SDF-1, Gloval merely asked how long it would take
to develop.