"Jack McKinney - Robotech 10 - Invid Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

Tirol, once the homeworld of the Robotech Masters, then an Invid colony when the Masters had
uprooted the remnants of their dying race and journeyed to Earth in search of Protoculture, was a
reconfigured planet, much of its surface given over to humankind's needs, its small seas and
weather patterns tamed. Not like this Earth, Scott thought, with its solitary yellow sun and
distant silver satellite. He yearned for Tirol. It had been his home as much as the SDF-3 had
been; he missed the binary stars of Fantoma's system, the protective presence of the motherworld
itself. How remote one felt from the heavens on this displaced world.
Scott recalled Admiral Hunter's rousing send-off speech, his talk of the "cool green hills
of home"-his home, Earth. Scott laughed bitterly to himself, the planet's native splendor lost on
him.
The Alpha had found a soft spot to cushion its fall in some sort of highland forest. Oak
and fir trees, Scott guessed. The VT was history, but cockpit harnesses and collision air bags had
kept him in one piece. However, the crash had been violent enough to plow up a large hunk of the
landscape. He had lost his helmet and sustained a forehead bruise; then came a follow-up thigh
wound of his own making when he had rather carelessly climbed from the wreck.
He was sitting in the grass now, his back against the fighter's fuselage, his head and
left leg bandaged with gauze from the ship's first-aid kit. He had gotten rid of his cumbersome
armor just before nightfall but kept his blaster within reach.
The forest was dark and full of sounds he could not identify, although he was certain
these were all natural calls and chirps and whistles-from what he had seen thus far, Earth was
primitive and uncontrolled.
And there were just too many places for an enemy to hide.
"Give me a scorched Martian desert any day," Scott muttered.
He heard a rustling sound in the brush nearby and reached out for the blaster-a discette-
shaped weapon developed on Tirol that was a scaled-down version of the one carried by the Masters'
Bioroids during the Second Robotech War.
"Is there somebody out there?" he asked of the dark.
When the movement suddenly increased, he fired off a charge; it impacted with a blinding
orange flash against a tree, flushing two small long-eared creatures from the undergrowth. Scott
mistook them for Optera cha-chas at first-the Flower of Life Pollinators-then realized that they
were rabbits.
What's happening to me? he asked himself, shaken by the cold fear that coursed through
him. Marlene and everything I loved destroyed, and now I'm losing my nerve. He set the blaster
aside and put his gloved hands to his face. It was possible he had sustained a concussion during
the crash. A delayed onset of shock...
Lifting his head, he found that Earth had another surprise in store for him. The sky was
dumping droplets of water on him-it was raining! Scott got up and walked to a clearing in the
woods. He had heard about this phenomenon from old-timers but hadn't expected to encounter it.
Scott could see that rain might not be a bad thing under certain conditions, but right now it was
only adding to his discomfort. Besides, there was something else in the air that had come in with
the rain: periods of a short-lived, rolling, explosive roar.


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Clouds backlit by flashes of electrical charge were moving swiftly, obscuring the Moon and
plunging the world into an impenetrable dark. Soon the angry bolts responsible for that
stroboscopic light were overhead, launched like fiery spears toward the land itself, earsplitting