"Elizabeth Moon - Familias 05 - Rules of Engagement" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moon Elizabeth)

Rules Of Engagement
by Elizabeth Moon




Regular Space Service Training
Command,
Copper Mountain Base


CHAPTER ONE
Halfway up the cliff, Brun realized that someone was trying to kill her.
She had already shifted weight from her left foot to her right foot when the thought penetrated, and she completed the movement, ending
with her left foot on the tiny ledge almost at her crotch, before she
gave her brain a "message received" signal.
Instantly, her hands slicked with sweat, and she lost the grip of her
weaker left hand on the little knob. She dipped it into her chalk, and
reached for the knob again, then chalked her right hand and refound that
hold. That much was mechanical, after these days in training . . . so
someone was trying to kill you, you didn't have to help them by doing
something stupid.
She argued with herself, while pushing up, releasing her right leg
for the next move. Of course, in a general way, someone was trying to
kill her, or any other trainee. She had known that coming in. Better to
lose trainees here than half-trained personnel in the field, where their
failure would endanger others. Her breath eased, as she talked herself
into a sensible frame of mind. Right foot there, and then the arms
moving, finding the next holds, and then the left leg . . . she had enjoyed
climbing almost from the first day of training.
A roar in her ears and the sudden sting on her hand: she was
falling before she had time to recognize the noise and the pain. A shot.
Someone had shot at her . . . hit her? Not enough painЧmust've been
rock splintersЧthen she hit the end of her rope, and swung into the cliff
face with a force that knocked the breath out of her. Reflexively, her
hands and feet caught at the rock, sought grips, found them, took her
weight off the climbing harness. Her head rang, still; she shook it and the
halves of her climbing helmet slid down to hang from the straps like the
wing cases of a crushed beetle.
Damn . . . she thought. Reason be damned, someone was trying
to kill herЧher in particularЧand plastered to a cliff in plain sight was
not her idea of a good place to be when someone was shooting at her.
She glanced around quickly. UpЧtoo far, too slow, too exposed.
DownЧ150 feet of falling in a predictable vertical line, whether free or
on the rope. To the right, nothing but open rock. To the left, a narrow
vertical crack. They had been told not to use it this time, but she'd
climbed in it before, learning about cracks and chimneys. If she could
get there . . .
She pushed off, and the next shot hit the cliff where her head had