"Mike Moscoe - Society of Humanity 01 - First Casualty" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moscoe Mike)

"Not bloody likely," the old guy said with a chuckle. "Check the angles from the two outer sensors, girl.
We've picked up the Colly attack fleet coming around Elmo Four!"

"Acid crap," Mary swore. "They're that sensitive!"

"Bet they made a fuel scoop and got their balloon heat shields out,"Dumont said beside her, "What a ride
for real, not just a vid-game," the young man from the streets said wistfully.

"I better pass this to the LT," Mary growled. "Let's get back to the mines." In the end, evenDumont and
his street kids had voted her for sergeant, but that didn't mean he couldn't give her plenty of lip before he
did what she said. Today, without a word,Dumont went back to putting in mines. On the other side of
Mary, reliable Cassie had never quit work on the minefield.

Mary switched to the command channel. "Lieutenant, we got targets."

"Sergeant, where the hell have you been? What?" His voice died in mid-question as Mary passed
through the visual. "What... Where ... How ... ?" he stammered.

"This is Major Henderson at battalion. What have you got for me?" So the battalion CO was lurking on
their command channel, or had an alert on it. Considering all the lurking and alerts Lek had rigged
through the brigade's net, Mary had no complaint.

She shut up; let the young officer talk to the man. Only when the wait stretched and started to bend did
she speak. "Our infrared sensors have picked up the colonials coming around Elmo Four. We don't have
an ETA on them," she said, though she suspected Lek did by now. No need telling management what
they didn't want to hear from dumb worker bees.

"Brigade finally risked a radar sweep about the time the bandits went behind the gas giant," battalion
drawled. "I'll pass this report along. Colonials are right on schedule."

Which was not what the command net had been saying for the last fifteen hours. Lek had warned Mary
not to believe the official word from HQ. She'd learned long ago not to trust what a foreman said. The
old electronic wizard had been passing along to Mary and the rest of the unemployed miners the straight
dope.

Battalion signed off; the young LT found his voice.

"'Sergeant, what the hell is going on here? We've got to talk."
 What the sergeant had going on here was her own usual go at making everyone happy, to give the LT
what he wanted, and the rest of the platoon what they wanted. What Mary wanted was to be light-years
away from all this with a beer in one hand and a warm hunk on her shoulder. But today, nobody was
getting what they wanted. With a sigh, Mary got ready for a long talk.

****

Captain Anderson, commander, 97th Defense Brigade, frowned at his screen. "Since when does a leg
infantry platoon have infrared sensors that good? Not that I'm complaining, but..."

His XO, Commander Inez Umboto, grinned at the display, showing no sign of surprise. "Half the troops