" Perry Rhodan 0102 - (94) Action Division Three" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

boat if he didn't make an effective move pretty soon. With an elastic step he
crossed that section of the corridor that separated his cabin from Dynah
Langmuir's quarters. He intended only to knock on her door and offer an
invitation to dinner. Trenton was convinced that the invitation would not fail
to achieve the desired objective. Even as fascinating a woman as Dynah
Langmuir could not refuse an invitation from the chief Terran liaison officer
on Arkon. He had just reached her door when the unbearable bedlam of the
alarm sirens began. Lyn turned irritably and headed for the lifeboat hangar in
compliance with emergency regulations. However, he had hardly taken a step
before Dynah Langmuir opened her door and emerged into the passageway,
impelled by sudden fright. When he spotted her over his shoulder he turned
back toward her, suddenly ceasing to consider the alarm a personal affront of
Providence. He smiled at her quickly. "I was just about to put in a humble
request for your company at dinner but the way it looks now we'll be on dog
rations in the hangar-not quite the right atmosphere." Dynah was much too
confused at the moment to share his levity. "What is it?" she asked. "What's
the meaning of the alarm?" In view of her obvious concern, Lyn decided to
show his fatherly side. "Nobody knows, my child. But in any case we'll be
safest in the hangar. Come on!" As Dynah hesitated he grasped her gently by
the arm and drew her along with him. By this time the ship was beginning to
sway. From somewhere came a bellowing clap of thunder. When Lyn Trenton saw
the girl's shocked reaction he realized that the situation was really serious.
He increased his pace but by now Dynah was running on her own. . . .
. Until disaster struck, Richard Silligan had been carping about his boring
duty in the lifeboat hangar. All the while he had been trying to dissuade
himself from the thought that Odie Rhyan had it in for him and for this reason
he continued to assign him to guard duty in the hangar. Naturally that was
ridiculous since nobody in the world could seriously doubt Odie Rhyan's
impartiality in such matters. Then the alarm had struck and the ship began to
buck like a billygoat, so badly that the antigravs couldn't compensate for it.
Silligan quickly opened the lifeboats' main airlock hatches. The enlisted men
under his command slipped into their spacesuits and clambered into the smaller
vessels' control seats. The engines were fired up and the hangar was suddenly
filled with a thundering uproar that even muffled the shrieking sounds of the
freighter's overstressed hull. Richard Silligan waited. The lifeboats were
intended for the passengers but when none appeared, Richard began to think of
his responsibility for the men in his command. If no passengers showed up he'd
have to let the boats take off without them so as to at least save the deck
watch crew. There was no doubt in his mind now that the ship had reached her
limitations. He was about to swing up into the airlock of the lifeboat
farthest back in line when two of the hangar's access hatches opened
simultaneously, emitting two men and a woman. For a moment Silligan lost his
usual control. "Hurry, you fools!" he shouted at the passengers, although each
of them had paid 22000 solars for their passage to Arkon. . . . . The
ship burst asunder in a fiery spray of colourful eruptions which momentarily
illuminated the darkness of the void with an unaccustomed brightness.
Suddenly, where the long fighter with its central ring-bulge had been
matching. the Terran freighter's course but seconds before, there was nothing
but emptiness. The attacker had disappeared! A cloud of glowing gases spread
out in space. Small pieces of debris were interspersed with it, continuing to