"Steve Perry - Aliens 03 - The Female War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

and that monstrous creature both wishing for the same thing."

Billie needed to do something. Awkwardly, she reached out and took Ripley's hand. "I'm sorry,"
she said.

"Yeah." Ripley pulled her hand away, not accepting the gesture of comfort. "Anyway. I didn't have
any kind of revelation about what to do, no brilliant inspiration. I just loved my daughter and I miss her
and I blame that thing for taking her away."

She looked up at Billie, her eyes angry. "My idea didn't come from wanting to save anyone, no
great love for humanityтАФI just hate her and her whole fucking brood and I want them exterminated."

She took a deep breath and dropped her gaze, then shrugged. "Enough history. We have a lot to
do."

Billie wondered how old the child had been; Amy's age, perhaps? Something that all three of them
had in common, then; Ripley, Billie, and the alien queen. Just wanting their children ... No. Amy wasn't
her child. Just a face on a viewscreen. Don't think of her that way.

Billie moved a chair over to Ripley's desk and sat beside her. There would be time to sort through
the reasons later. For now, Ripley was rightтАФthere was a lot of work to be done. After two weeks of
hanging around, the idea didn't seem so bad. Doing nothing was always worse than doing just about
anything.



4


Sergeant Kegan Bako was ten years younger than Wilks and looked years younger than that. He
had a baby face and a blond's complexion, fair and unwrinkled. Wilks guessed that Bako only had to
shave every other day, if that, to keep with military office standard.

The two men sat in Bako's office, separated by a desk covered with paper flimsies and plastic food
wrappers. The small room was stuffy, the smell of soy sauce cloying in the air.

"Sure you don't want some of this? Better than that shit they serve in the dining rooms." Bako
maneuvered his chopsticks clumsily to his mouth, losing at least half of his fried noodles in the process.

"Thanks, I already ate some of the dining room shit."

'Too bad. So what brings you here? Don't tell me you're looking for a rematchтАФ?"

"What, you haven't suffered enough this week?" He'd met the younger man at a gym while looking
for a handball partner. They'd played several times since; although Bako hadn't won yet, it was a good
workout and okay company. "Actually, I wanted to check something. Who'd I talk with to requisition a
transport?"

Bako swallowed a mouthful of noodles and grinned. "God, maybe. You're kidding, right?"