"Daniel Keys Moran - A Tale of the Continuing Time 04 - The AI War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moran Daniel Keys)

It could have been any of a dozen bad things; Trent did not let himself leap to conclusions. "And?"

"He beamcast a message to the Unification Embassy at Vesta saying that he'd found you at Gandhi
CityState -- "

Okay, thought Trent, that's pretty bad.

" -- and they beamed back to him that they would send a pickup squad to take you off of the Temple of
'Toons Asteroid after he shot you -- "

And that's worse --

" -- a pickup squad of four PKF Elite."

-- and that's about as bad as it gets.
Bittan glanced aside at something, moving her head with exaggerated caution, not lifting her skull from its
headrest. She looked back to the holocam and said simply, "We're en route."

Trent killed the simulation he'd been beaming back to the Vatsayama and said aloud, "Might as well
have jumped to conclusions."

Reverend Andy said, "What?"

Trent's thoughts moved along at a quick calm clip as he brought the sled down onto the surface of Ceres,
nudging the craft down onto the parking lot on the asteroid's surface, aiming for the red zone next to the
airlock. There was another sled there already; he would have to double-park.

The Elite would have watched them sled over to the Vatsayama; would be watching them sled back,
right now. Unless they had brought something larger than a troop transport with them they wouldn't want
to try and take Trent and Reverend Andy out here on the surface; better to get them inside, into
enclosed, pressurized areas, where the Elite's unnatural advantages of strength and speed would be
maximized.

Trent said, "Nothing important, Ben. Let's get inside."

He couldn't tell Reverend Andy; the scalesuit Chuck Clearmountain had shot had secure communications
gear on it, but the loaner from the Vatsayama had only the general bands, which the Elite were surely
monitoring. He risked a quick glance up at the sky while undoing his seatbelt -- and Jesus and Harry,
there it was, maybe a hundred and forty meters out, a pressurized troop transport with the glowpaint
tuned black and running lights off, coming in fast. Reverend Andy followed his look, realized what was
going on, and scrambled out of his seat belt.

Trent double parked in the red zone near the airlock and kicked over to the airlock, Reverend Andy right
behind him, crawling over the sled parked in between them and the airlock, as the PKF troop transport
came to a hard landing forty meters away, sending chips of asteroidal stone flying from the impact; one of
the chips hit the back of Trent's helmet. Trent glanced back in his helmet's rear-view mirror, and it was
more Bad News: the Elite weren't inside the transport; they clung to the transport's exterior, wearing
black combat scalesuits, and let themselves loose as the transport came down. They hit the asteroid's
surface hard --