"Jack McKinney - Robotech 12 - Symphony of Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

The two Robotech fighters banked away from the mountain face to search out a suitable
spot, and within minutes they were reconfiguring to Guardian mode and using their foot thrusters
to warm a reasonably flat area of cirque above the road and just shy of the saddle. By the time
they put down, the sun had already dropped below one of the peaks, but the temperature was still
almost preternaturally warm. The weather was balmy enough for the two pilots to romp around in
their duotherm suits, especially with the added luxury of residual heat from the snow-cleared
moraine. There was a strong breeze rippling over the top of the col, but it carried with it the
scent of the desert beyond.
The rest of the team joined them in a short time. Lunk, Rook, and Lancer began to unload
the firewood they had hauled up from the tree line, while Rand went to work on the deer he had
shot and butchered. Moonrise fringed the eastern peaks in a kind of silvery glow and found the
seven freedom fighters grouped around a sizzling fire. The northern sky's constellations were on
display. Scott had developed a special fondness for the brilliant stars of the southern


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hemisphere, but Gemini and Orion were reassuring for a different reason: They reinforced the fact
that Reflex Point was close at hand. He had to admit, however, that it was foolish to be thinking
of the Invid central hive as some sort of end in itself, when really their arrival there would
represent more in the way of a beginning. He wondered whether the rest of the team understood this-
that the mission, as loose as it was, was focused on destroying the hive, or at the very least
accumulating as much recon data as possible to be turned over to Admiral Hunter when the
Expeditionary Force returned to Earth for what would surely be the final showdown.
Glancing at his teammates, Scott shook his head in wonder that they had made it as far as
they had, a group of strangers all but thrown together on a journey that had so far covered
thousands of miles.
Scott regarded Lunk while the big, brutish man was laughing heartily, a shank of meat
gripped in his big hand. He had done so much for the team, yet he still seemed to carry the weight
of past defeats on his huge shoulders. Then there was Annie, their daughter, mascot, mother, in
the green jumpsuit that had seen so much abuse and the ever-present E.T. cap that crowned her long
red hair. She had almost left them a while back, convinced she had found the man of her dreams in
the person of a young primitive named Magruder. It wasn't the first time she had wandered away,
but she always managed to return to the fold, and her bond with Lunk was perhaps stronger than
either of them knew.
Rand and Rook, who could almost have passed for siblings, had had their moments of doubt
about the mission as well. They had formed a fiery partnership, one that seemed to rely on strikes
and counterstrikes; but it was just that unspoken pact that kept them loyal to the team, if only
to prove something to each other.
More than anyone, Lancer had remained true to the cause. Scott had grown so accustomed to
the man's lean good looks, his lavender-tinted shoulder-length hair and trademark headband, that
he had almost forgotten about Yellow Dancer, Lancer's alter ego. That feminine part of the
Robotech rebel was all but submerged now, especially so since the tropics, when something had
occurred that had left Lancer changed and Scott wondering.
But the most enigmatic among them was the woman they had named Marlene. She was not really
a member of the team at all but the still shell-shocked victim of an Invid assault, the nature of
which Scott could only guess. It had robbed her of her past but left her with an uncanny ability
to sense the enemy's presence. Her fragile beauty reminded Scott of the Marlene in his own past,
killed when the Mars Division strike force had first entered Earth's atmosphere almost a year