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

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 Tiresia or Garuda, but the beginning of their adventure
was an alcoholic mini-blackout. She was not sure what her plan had been,
though, except that Jonathan Wolff and Rick Hunter were out there someplace.
She shook her head slowly. "I don't-I don't..."
He took her hand again. "Don't worry, Minmei."
Then he led her off again. Minmei lost track of things for a while, but
Wearily realized at one point that he was shoving oversize deck slippers onto
her bare feet. At another point, she felt something sting her arm and saw that
he had given her a shot with a medikit ampule.
"Antinausea," REF # 666-60-937 explained. "It makes it tough to see out
the cockpit canopy if you heave your cookies."
"Cockpit?" she repeated, trying to figure out what he was getting at.
Then she realized that he had her standing near a hatch that led to a hangar
deck. There were the distant whines of VTs being readied for flight.
"Wait right here," he said after he led her into the vast, mostly
darkened hangar deck. Minmei did not get to ask what he was doing; he was
gone.
The antinausea drug settled her queasiness and brought her around a bit,
too. She was drawing deep breaths and burping a bit, sitting on the deck, when
he caught her hands and pulled Minmei upward.
"All set; just follow me. That's our ship over there."
"Wh-"
And then they were walking among the parked mecha of the hangar deck.
Welding sparks leapt and humming maint-crew machinery made noise in the
distance, and she could hear men and women yelling or cursing or cajoling or
laughing as they sweated to keep the REF's fighting forces operational.
He was leading her toward an armored Alpha, a lusterless gray fighter
trimmed in olive drab, bulked by its augmentation pods. It was one of the most
formidable ships in the REF inventory, and she didn't think it likely that it
had been assigned to one of Lang's "six-month-wonder" pilots.
Minmei saw the boarding ladder before her and it brought back a flood of
memories. She was a non-tech person; why did mecha insist on playing such an
overwhelming part in her life?
Then somebody yelled from the distance, and more voices took up the cry.
She realized woozily that the voices were coming her way. She had both hands
on the boarding ladder and one foot on the first rung when she became aware of
a ruckus behind her.