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

long, he began avoiding the jokes and high-fives and swaggering in the ready
rooms, barracks, and officers' club. He was still top man on the roster, but
it was plain that his attitude was changing.
The Collected Journals of Admiral Rick Hunter

"Ya ain't so big now, are ya, ya freakin' alien?" the big bruiser said,
shaking a scarred fist the size of a roast in his face.
Well, no, he wasn't. Karita had been a Zentraedi soldier some forty feet
tall. But now, having been reduced to the size of a human and defecting to
their side in the Robotech War, he was only a medium-build, slightly less-
than-average-height fellow facing three hulking brawlers eager to split his
head wide open in a Macross alley.
Even as a Zentraedi, Karita hadn't excelled at combat; his main duty had
been tending the Protoculture sizing chambers, the very same ones in which he
had been micronized. The situation looked hopeless; the three ringed him in,
fists cocked, light from the distant streetlamps illuminating the hatred in
their faces.
He tried to dodge past them, but they were too fast. The biggest grabbed
him and hurled him against the wall. Karita dropped, half-stunned, the back of
his scalp bleeding.
He cursed himself for his carelessness; a slip of the tongue in the
restaurant had given him away. Otherwise, no one could have told him apart
from any other occupant of the SDF-1.
But he could scarcely be blamed. The wonders of life aboard the super
dimensional fortress were enough to make any Zentraedi careless. The humans
had rebuilt their city; they mingled, both sexes, all ages. They lived lives
in which emotions were given free expression, and there was an astonishing
force called "love."
It was enough to make any Zentraedi, born into a Spartan, merciless
warrior culture with strict segregation of the sexes, forget himself. And so
Karita had made his error; he had gone into the White Dragon in the hopes of
getting a glimpse of Minmei. He didn't realize what he was saying when he let
slip the fact that he had adored her since he had first seen her image on a
Zentraedi battlecruiser. Then he saw the hard looks the trio gave him. He left
quickly, but they followed.
During the course of the war, everybody aboard had lost at least one
friend or loved one. The Zentraedi, too, had suffered losses-many more than
the SDF-1, in fact. That didn't stop Karita and the other defectors from
hoping for a new life among their former enemies. Most humans were at least
tolerant of the Zentraedi who'd deserted from their invading armada. Some
humans even liked the aliens; three of them, former spies, had human
girlfriends. But he should have known there would be humans who wouldn't see
things that way.
The three closed in on him.
One of the men launched a kick Karita was too dazed to avoid. It was not
so much a sharp pain he felt as a tremendous, panic-making numbness. He
wondered woozily if his ribs were broken. Not that it mattered; it didn't look
like his attackers were going to stop short of killing him. They didn't
realize that they had picked on one of the most unmilitary of Zentraedi; given
a different one, they would have had more of a fight on their hands.