"Jack McKinney - Robotech 16 - World Killers" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

Not that she'd meant to drink a lot; she had nothing but contempt for drunkards. But life
as the consort of General T. R. Edwards was a little easier to bear after a round or two. And then
there was the drink itself-from Edwards's private bottle-something she had heard the top-echelon
officers jokingly call weed-whacker.
It was a 150-proof vacuum distillate that had been soaked in fibers from a plant related
to the Flower of Life, and strained out again. Brackish; deadly. But oddly smooth and warming.
Best taken by the slow shot glass.
But, she had needed something to fortify her as she sat there and listened to Edwards-the
man Minmei had thought she loved, the man to whom she had given herself-reveal himself as a devil
incarnate.
She was dizzy, and thought she might lose her balance, or her lunch-she had had no dinner.
"Wait, wait," she puffed, breathless. Her head spun, and she tasted bile in the back of her
throat.
The VT pilot stopped and turned to her, gesturing in a way that made it clear he was
concerned about her. Minmei brushed her hair out of her eyes yet again, to study him. "Do I know
you? Who are you?"
He was tall and lean, and demonstrated a supple strength. Behind the tinted facebowl of
his flight helmet, all she could discern was the dark, thick beard. He regarded her for a moment,
then answered, "It says right here: REF Service # 666-60-937."
She could see that, and his flight officer's insignia and unit flash. But his name tape,
stitched over his left breast pocket, was unfamiliar: Isle, L. His voice, coming through the
helmet's tinny external speaker, was unrecognizable.
Her mystery savior was wearing the unit patch of one of the outfits from Dr. Lang's
research facility. Lang had managed to ram through the council an authorization for his own
security forces, but Edwards had fought the seconding of pilots to the Robotech scientist. So,
this was almost certainly one of the fliers who had been selected from the lower ranks and trained
on Tirol to fill the cockpits of Lang's personal army.
But what was he doing on SDF-3?
Minmei swayed slowly from side to side, closing one eye in an effort to focus on him.
"C'mom, c'mon; I mean, why're y'doing this?" She still wasn't sure he wouldn't drag her back to
Edwards-maybe to claim some kind of reward or favor.
She was also waiting for the alarms to go off.
Surely, by now, Edwards had realized that she hadn't simply fled his embrace and his
bedroom for some fresh air. Even vain, cold Edwards must have admitted to himself by now that
Minmei had made a break for freedom.
"You said you want to go to Tiresia, didn't you?" the VT flier was saying. "And perhaps to
Garuda, or Haydon IV? I'll see that you get to wherever you want to go, Minmei. But Tiresia's the
obligatory first stop."
There was some resonance in his voice, even over the speaker, that she thought she
recognized. Minmei sighed and ran her hand through her fine black hair again. Plainly, no VT could
make a star-jump; and the few remaining REF vessels that could go superluminal were scarcely the
kind of spacecraft you could sign out like a borrowed fanjet.
But there was something in the man's tone, something steely and yet compassionate, that
didn't sound like it brooked failure.
She vaguely remembered saying to him, outside Edwards's quarters, that she wanted to go to


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