"Mike Moscoe - The First Casualty" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moscoe Mike)

EVERY ALARM IN Sergeant Mary Rodrigo's space suit
went off at once. Red lights flashed on her eyeball as her
heads-up display demanded her attention. She ignored
them.

Mary had five moles laying a minefield for her. Mines
were tricky beasts. Laying a field from underground was a
tight bitch, not to be left to unsupervised remotes. Twitching
her right hand, she froze them in place.

Mary twisted her right wrist and blinked twice, cycling
her heads-up display to the screen her alarms were so hot
on. The newly deployed infrared sensors were screaming
about hot targets. But there weren't supposed to be anyтАФ
yet!

She chinned her mike to a new channel. "Lek, we got a
problem. Either our sensors are spooked, or the colonials got
here without you knowing."

"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 Eimo
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,

2 тАв Mike Moscoe

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, even Dumont 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 vi-
sual- "What... Where ... How ... ?" he stammered.