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

for its life, hounded by the Zentraedi armada at every turn. Returning after
more than a year, the crew found that it was no longer welcome on the
homeworld-in the view of the ruling powers, they constituted too much of a
danger to Earth's safety as well as the rulers' own authority.
A renewed Zentraedi offensive resulted in horrendous casualties on Earth
and reinforced the Earth leaders' determination to refuse haven to the SDF-1-
even though it had waged the only meaningful resistance to alien invasion.
 So the great star battleship was forced to ride an orbit to nowhere, its
crew and civilian refugees struggling desperately to stay alive. The Zentraedi
continued to plot new war plans, determined to have the ship and the secrets
of Protoculture.
Alien agents were planted within the ship, reduced from their fifty and
sixty-foot heights to human size. These spies found themselves strangely
affected by the experience of human life as their long-dormant emotions were
awakened by the sight of humans mingling and showing affection and in
particular by the singing of Minmei-the ship's superstar and media idol and
the mainstay of its morale.
Upon their return to the invasion fleet, the spies' stories and
souvenirs of their experiences among the humans led to the defection of a
dozen and more of the Zentraedi and disobedience in the ranks of those who
remained behind.
Aboard the SDF-1, human life fell into patterns of conflict and emotion.
Lieutenant Rick Hunter, fighter pilot in the Robotech Defense Forces,
experienced constant confusion and turmoil over his love for Minmei and
simultaneous attraction to Commander Lisa Hayes, the SDF-1's First Officer.
This triangle formed the core of a larger web of loves and hates, the
sort of human emotional blaze that the colossal Zentraedi found so bathing and
debilitating.
Nevertheless, the Zentraedi imperative was battle, and battle it would
be. The aliens deployed a million-plus ships in their armada, restrained from
all-out attack only by their need to capture the SDF1's Protoculture secrets
intact.
Breetai, commander of the invasion force, moved in his own intrigues
against two of his rebellious subordinates: Azonia, the female warlord, and
Khyron the Backstabber, psychotic demon of battle.
But the Robotech War proved to be far more complex than any of them-
Zentraedi or human-could. have ever imagined.

Dr. Lazlo Zand,
On Earth As It Is in Hell:
Recollections of the Robotech War


CHAPTER ONE
I guess Max was the most conspicuous example of the growing war weariness and
hunger for peace. As the top VT pilot, he was revered by all the aspiring hot-
doggers and would-be aces.
When he came back from a mission, his aircraft maintenance people would always
stencil the symbols for his latest kills on the side of his ship; that was
their right. But like a lot of us who had been in the eye of the storm for too