"Jack McKinney - Robotech 07 - Southern Cross" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

Leonard, with his bullet-shaped shaved head, massive as a bear and dripping with medals
and ribbons, droned on to the end without saying anything new. It was almost silly for him to tell
them that the Earth, slowly rebuilding in the seventeen years since the end of the Robotech War-
fifteen since Khyron the Backstabber had launched his suicide attack-was a regrettably feudal
place. Who would know that better than the young people who had grown up in it?
Or that there must be a devotion to the common good and a commitment to a brighter Human
future? Who had more commitment than the young men. and women sitting there, who had sworn to
serve that cause and proved their determination by enduring years of merciless testing and
training?
At last, thankfully, Leonard was done, and it was time to be sworn in. Dana came to
attention with her squad, a unit that had started out company-size three years before.
Dana stood straight and proud, a young woman with a globe of swirling blond hair, average
height for a female cadet, curvaceous in a long-legged way. She was blue-eyed, freckled, and pug-


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nosed, and very tired of being called "cute." Fixed in the yellow mane over her left ear was a
fashion accessory appropriate to her time-a hair stay shaped to look like a curve of
instrumentation suggesting a half-headset, like a crescent of Robotechnology sculpted from
polished onyx.
The first graduating class received their assignments as they went up to the stage to
accept their diplomas. Dana found herself holding her breath, hoping, hoping.
Then the supreme commander was before her, an overly beefy man whose neck spilled out in
rolls above his tight collar. He had flaring brows and a hand that engulfed hers. But despite what
the UEG public relations people said about him, she found herself disliking him. Leonard talked a
good fight but had very little real combat experience; he was better at political wheeling and
dealing.
Dana was trying to hide her quick, shallow breathing as she went from Leonard's too-moist
handshake to the aide whose duty it was to tell the new graduates their first assignments.
The aide frowned at a computer printout. Then he glanced down his nose at Dana, looking
her over disapprovingly. "Congratulations. You go to the Fifteenth squad, Alpha Tactical Armored
Corps," he said with a sniff.
Dana had learned how to hide emotions and reactions at the academy; she was an old hand at
it. So she didn't squeal with delight or throw her diploma into the air in exultation.
She was in a daze as she filed back to her seat, her squad following behind. The ATACs!
The 15th squad! Hovertanks!
Let others try for the soft, safe, rear-echelon jobs, or the glamorous fighter outfits;
nowadays the armored units were the cutting edge of Robotechnology, and the teeth and claws of the
United Earth Government's military-the Army of the Southern Cross.
And the 15th had the reputation of being one of the best, if not the best. Under their
daredevil leader, First Lieutenant Sean Phillips, they had become not only one of the most
decorated but also one of the most courtmartial-prone outfits around-a real black-sheep squad.
Dana figured that was right up her alley. She would have been graduating at the top of her
class, with marks and honors succeeding generations would have found hard to beat, if not for
certain peccadillos, disciplinary lapses, and scrapes with the MPs. She knew most of it wasn't
really her fault, though. The way some people saw it, she had entered the Academy with several
strikes against her, and she had had to fight against that the whole way.
Cadets who called her "halfbreed" usually found themselves flat on their faces, bleeding,