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

been, between head and right hand. Splinters of rock sprayed her hand,
the right side of her face. She did not fall. She lunged for the next hold,
not in a panic but with the controlled speed of someone who knew just
where each hold would be. Whoever it was had some reason not to fire
on automatic, at full speed. But now they knew which way she was
going. They could adjust their aim . . . she took a chance, and her foot
slipped on one hold. For an instant, she hung from her arms, feet
scrabbling . . . then she found the hold, and the next. The sheltering
crevice was just aheadЧthis time it was her left hand that slipped, when
she reached too far, and even as she cursed, the next shot shattered the
hold for which she'd reached, loosing a shower of rock.
She didn't hesitate. The breakage offered new holds; in a second
she was into the crevice, yanking hard on the rope for more, for enough
to move into deeper cover. What she hoped the shooter didn't know
was alignment of the crevice. Here, she was as vulnerable as on the cliff
face, apparently held in a vertical groove. But the forces which had
made the crevice had produced an almost spiral fracture. Not ten feet
above she could be safely hidden from the shooter.
The rope from below dragged at her. No more slack. They hadn't
understood . . . or were they part of the plot? She yanked again,
unsuccessfully.



Our Texas, formerly Kurzawa-Yahr

Joint Investment Colony

Mitchell Langston Pardue, Ranger Bowie of the New Texas
Godfearing Militia on Our Texas, sat in his heavy carved chair and
waited for the Captain to finish reading his report. He stroked the
carving on the right armЧsupposed to resemble the Old Texas animal
called a dilla, whatever that had beenЧand thought how he could imply
that the Captain was an idiot without actually saying so.
"Mitch, you payin' attention?" Pete Robertson, Ranger Travis and
Captain of Rangers, had a querulous waver in his voice that made Mitch
want to slap him upside the head with something heavy. He was getting
old, with a wattled neck like a turkey gobbler.
"You bet, Captain," he said. "You say we need about thirty more
of them nukes from Familias Regnant's space fleet, in order to top up the
first depot. Your timetable for hittin' the Guernesi is runnin' behind a little
. . ."
"It's stopped in its tracks like a mule in a swamp," the Captain
said. "An' if we wait too long, they won't make the connection we want."
The Guernesi had reacted with vigor to the theft of a shipload of tourists,
and had gotten them back, though with casualties. Then they'd imposed
a trade embargo, and blown up a couple of ships to make their point
that they held a grudge about the ones who had died. "We've gotta get
more weapons. And there's somethin' wrong with our main agent at their
space fleet headquartersЧthe last signal we got from him makes no