"Steve Perry - Matador 01 - The Man Who Never Missed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

THE MAN WHO NEVER MISSED


Steve Perry


Chapter One


DEATH CAME FOR him through the trees.
It came in the form of a tactical quad, four people walking the three-and-
one, the point followed by the tight concave arc; the optimum number in the
safest configuration. It was often said the Confed's military was always
training to fight the last war and it was true enough, only there had been
enough last wars to give them sand or cold or jungle troops as needed. These
four were jungle-trained, they wore class-one shiftsuits with viral/molecular
computers able to match backgrounds within a quarter second;"they carried .
177 Parkers, short and brutal carbines which held five hundred rounds of
explosive ammoтАФone man could cut down a half-meter-thick tree with two
waves of his weapon on automatic. The quad carried heat-sensors, corn-
implants, Doppler gear and personal sidearms; they were the deadliest and
best-equipped soldiers the Confed could field and they were good. They
moved through the cool rain forest quietly and efficiently, alert for any signs
of the Shamba Scum. If something moved, they were going to spike it, hard.
Khadaji felt the fear in himself, the familiar coldness in the pit of his belly,
an old and unwelcome tenant. He had learned to live with it, it was
necessary, but he was never comfortable when it came to this. He took a
deeper breath and pressed his back harder against the rough bark of the sum
win tree. He practiced invisibility. The tree was three meters thick, they
couldn't see him, and even without his confounder gear their directional
doppler and heat sensors wouldn't read through that much solid wood. He
listened as they moved past him. The soft ferns brushed against the shiftsuits
of the quad; the humus of a thousand years made yet softer sounds under
their slippers as they walked, but Khadaji knew exactly where they were
when he stepped away from his tree.
He was behind them, a tall figure in plain tan orthoskins with spetsdods
molded to the backs of both hands. He held his breath for steadiness and
brought his arms up, as might a man lifting a small child. He hyperextended
the index fingers of both hands and each of the spetsdods fired once, a polite
cough. Two hits, sounding like knuckles on wood as they pierced the too-
light armor.
They were fast, the last two. The bacterially-augmented reflexes had been
well-trained, but in this case, the instruction was wrong. Instead of dropping
flat, the point and left rear spun, carbines cleared for killing.
Khadaji fired both spetsdods again. The flechettes hit the soldiers halfway
through their turns, on the sides instead of the backs. The point managed to
trigger off a few rounds before he crumpled. The sound of the .177 was very
loud in the thick forest. The smell of the electro-chemical explosive tainted
the air with an acrid tang.
The four soldiers were knotted into odd angles amid the ferns and spider