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

Her surprised gasp probably said the same: that she too couldn't believe he was finally
getting around to it. She turned away from him, nervous hands at her chin it an attitude of
prayer.
"Well, will you?" Scott pressed.
"It's a bit sudden," she said coyly. But Scott didn't pick up on her tone and reacted as
though he had been slapped.
"You'll have to speak to my father first," Marlene continued in the same tone, her back to
him still. "My mother, too." When she turned around, Scott was staring at her slack jawed.
"But they're back on Tirol!" he stammered. "They might not be here for-" Then he caught
her smile and understood at once. He had literally known her for her entire life, and he still
couldn't tell when she was putting him on.
Marlene was smiling up at him now, eyes beaming. But the sudden shrill of sirens collapsed
her happiness.
"Defold operation complete," a voice said over the PA. "All wing commanders report to the
bridge for final briefing and combat assignments."
Scott's lips were a thin line when he looked at her.
"Answer me, Marlene. I might not get another chance to ask you."

The command ship bridge was a tight, no-nonsense affair, with two duty stations squeezed
between the wraparound viewports and four more back to back behind these. There was none of the
spaciousness and calm that had characterized the SDF-1 bridge; here everyone had a seat, and
everyone put duty first. It took something like the first sight of Earth to elicit any casual
conversation, and even then the comments would have surprised some.
"I'm so excited," a woman tech was saying. "I can hardly wait to see what Earth looks like
after all these years.'
Commander Gardner seated at the forward station of starboard pair, heard this and laughed
bitterly to himself. He had served under Gloval during the First Robotech War and had been with
Hunter since. His thick hair and mustache had gone to silver these past few years, but he still
retained a youthful energy and the unwavering loyalty of his young crew.
The woman tech who had spoken was all of seventeen years old, born in deep space like most
of her shipmates. Gardner wished for a moment he could have showed her the Earth of forty years
ago, teeming with life, wild and wonderful and blissfully unaware of the coming tide...
"What does it matter?" the tech's male console mate answered her. "One planet's the same
as another to me. Robotech ships are all I've known-all I want to know."
"Don't you have any interest in setting foot on your homeworld? Our parents were born
here. And their parents, right on back to the first ancestors."
Gardner could almost hear the copilot's shrug of indifference clear across the bridge.
"Just another Invid colony, color it what you will. So this place is blue and Spheris was
brown. It doesn't do anything for me."
"Spoken like a true romantic."
The copilot snorted. "You get romantic thinking about the Invid grubbing around the old
homestead looking for Protoculture?"
Commander Gardner was hanging on the answer when the door to the bridge hissed open
suddenly and Lieutenant Bernard entered.
"Alpha Group is just about ready for launch," Bernard reported.
Gardner muttered, "Good," and rose from the contoured seat, signaling one of the techs to
turn on the ship's PA system.
"Most of you know what I'm about to say," he began. "But for those who don't know what
this mission is all about, it's simply this: Several months ago we became aware that the Invid