"Jack McKinney - Robotech Sentientals 4 - World Killers" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

Jack Baker shot yet another of the energy serpents, watching it de-rezz
into fast-swirling will-o'-the-wisps of light that dissipated and went dark.
It occurred to him that those flickering pinpoints of light might be fading
only to reconverge and come at him again, but there was no time to wonder
about that.
"Jack! Two o'clock!" gritted Learna, who stood to Jack's right, still
finishing off a writhing, crackling mass that was headed straight for her from
her right. Twelve o'clock was the leader's position, of course.
Jack finished blowing away a bunch of the things to his left that were
wriggling at him, then traversed his beam and flamed the two-o'clock snakes.
He caught sinuous movement to his left again and began hosing down a nearby
console with a sustained Protoculture salvo; it was thick with energy
serpents, like a medusa.
Bela, in the Battloid's rear-now lower-seat, whistled and made
ear-piercing war cries, when she wasn't spotting new targets for him. She
seemed to be enjoying herself.
The Battloids' security wheel was surrounded by a sea of undulating
glow-shapes; more and more seeped forth by the second, from every crevice and
feature of the place. The mecha swept their constant-fire aim around and up
and back, but the snakes closed in relentlessly. It was as if the
technolandscape had come alive.
The Battloids fought with all the strength, power, and precision that
Robotechnology had built into them, but it seemed hopeless. Energy levels were
dropping sharply due to the ferocious demands of the weapons systems.
My first real command. Jack thought bitterly, and my last, too, maybe.
Perfect record: no wins.
Then he thought of the afflicted-Karen and the others-somewhere above,
in Glike. And Veidt, Cabell, and the rest of the escorts would be there, too,
all of them counting on Jack's team to get through.
But it was Karen's face he saw before him, and it made him fight like a
man possessed.
But even the awesome firepower of five titan Battloids wasn't enough to
keep back the tide of Haydon defenders; energy serpents struck at the foot of
Jan's mecha, sending out bursts of heat and light, and dissolving metal. She
lurched, checked herself when her first impulse was to stomp them (which would
only have made it that much easier for them to damage her), and zapped them
instead, melting decking and sending gobs of incandescence flying.
 But while Janice was doing that, another dozen snakes got in close
enough to coil and strike at Kami, who was to her right. The shields appeared
to give no protection whatsoever against the things. In the meantime, several
more dropped onto Lron from high overhead and began melting their way through
his Battloid.
Jack made himself face the fact that there was no way out for the
Battloids. Snakes were beginning to rain down from the ceiling, and he
couldn't see any avenue of retreat for the mecha. It was a command he hated
giving as much as a naval officer would hate giving the order to abandon ship,
but Jack gritted his teeth and said, "Prepare to eject."
He got no argument; everyone had seen that their current situation was
untenable, and knew that getting clear of the Protoculture-powered mecha was