"L. E. Modesitt - The Parafaith War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

file:///F|/rah/L.%20E.%20Modesitt/Modesitt,%20L%20E%20-%20The%20Parafaith%20War.txt

The Parafaith War
L.E. Modesitt JR.
1997
Version 2.0, 8-9-01




Trystin Desoll shifted in the control seat of East Red Three and tried to ignore the acrid smell
of plastic decaying under the corrosive assault of Mara's atmosphere and the faint hint of ammonia
that lurked in the corners of the perimeter station. Both odors mingled with the false citrus of
too many glasses of Sustain mixed in the small galley behind the duty screens, and with the
staleness of air recycled and reprocessed too many times.
At 13:02.51, his implant-enhanced senses seared alert-red, and Trystin stiffened, lingers
reaching, implant clicking in. As his direct-feed commands flared through the station net, he
could sense the shields dropping into place even before the faint vibrations through the station
confirmed the electroneural signals. "Revs at zero nine two--" Before Ryla's words had reached his
ears, Trystin triggered the direct-feed for the eastern sector, splitting his mental screen into
the four all-too-familiar images. In the upper right were the forward reclamation towers, still
well behind the eastern perimeter; in the upper left the line of brown-suited attackers; in the
lower right the computer enhancement showing the various hidden defense emplacements, the
attackers, and the probability figures for each system, the numbers changing as the revs moved
toward the towers. The lower left simply showed the entire sector as if from a satellite plot,
with a colored dot showing the location of the downed-and since destroyed-paraglider, a
reconstruction of the probable revvie tracks, East Red Three itself, and the hazy spot where
another storm was forming over the badlands to the northeast.
Trystin scanned the revvie communications band, ran the comps, realizing that the revs had almost
reached the perimeter before the sensors had discovered them. He triggered the line of antisuit
bomblets, checking the display that seemed to scroll before his eyes against each clickback,
finally nodding as the mental images indicated that all the bomblets had vaporized, immediately,
the lower left display showed the slowing of the revs' advance.
Nearly simultaneously, he fired off a standard attack report to Perimeter Control, to keep them
informed, not that they could help him now, but PerCon would be all over him if he reported the
attack after the fact. That was one reason for the implant and standard format-it took less than
an instant.
To take out the revs, Trystin could have gone with the gattlings, or with the laser, but the input
from the scanners indicated new reflectives on the revvie suits. Besides, he preferred giving some
of the revs a chance to survive, a preference that some of the other perimeter officers,
especially Quentar, who was one of the duty officers in East Red Two immediately to the north,
suggested might be Trystin's undoing.
According to the net's computations, there was a ninety-percent probability that the revvie
assault had originated from the downed paraglider that had hit the badlands less than a day
earlier. The radar-transparent paraglider had come from the revvie troid ship that had gotten
through the SysCon DefNet before being neutralized by the backups. How many assault wings had
gotten free before the neutralization was another question. So was how much equipment the revs had
pulled out of the glider before the patrol wing had lobbed in rockets and scorched it out of
existence.
Trystin needed to find out. So some of the revs would survive, not that they'd necessarily enjoy