"Peter W. Prellwitz - Book 02 - Shards" - читать интересную книгу автора (Prellwitz Peter W)

"All right. We should be breaking through in about twenty minutes. Have the commandant phone in
from his lunar vacation home and ask for an important conference with ... with ... what's his name?"

"Captain Garber."

"Right. With Captain Garber and the two lieutenants. Put the call through in, say, twenty-five minutes.
That'll give us time to disembark. Make him really ticked off."

"Check! He'll be chewing nails! Anything else?"

"Not right now. I'll talk to you in twenty."

"Twenty it is! And may I say,тАЭ he dropped his voice down to a smooth, silky octave, тАЬyou look ravishing
tonight, my dear. I just love what you've done with your spleen.тАЭ He shut off quickly, laughing his brash
laugh.

I giggled and would have shaken my head, if I could. I had purposely made Mike my age to help me
keep perspective. He could be pretty gross sometimes. But he could be a darling, too.

****

Half an hour later, I wasn't thinking how sweet Mike was, I was thinking how slick he was. We'd broken
through in an abandoned part of the warehousing district. Slightly populated is normal for a Sunday
night, but a false radiation leak about two miles upwind had caused full evacuation. Mike talked the
security puters into liking us, so we were undisturbed. Parked alongside an old building in the pouring
rain, we couldn't have been seen from 100 meters.



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The squad was already ten minutes gone, leaving just the hover crew and myself. I paced the deck back
and forth, waiting impatiently for word, but knowing there couldn't possibly be any for at least another
ten minutes, and that would be word of the mission's cancellation. I sat down and hugged my knees,
staring out the lowered back ramp into the rain and lightning. I wished I was with them.

Suddenly, the sky lit up, and there was a flash on the horizon. Mike whooped excitedly. I could almost
picture him jumping up and down, pumping his fist.

"Wow! That was great! Direct hit!тАЭ He started laughing. тАЬYes! Oh, yes!"

"What? Mike, what? Give me an image!тАЭ A blurred image showed up in the middle of the deck. The
crew turned to look. There were huge flames spouting out of a ruined stack. The bottom half glowed a
dull red.

"Is that the shield regenerator?"

"It sure is, sister! Man, can we call 'em or what? We picked up a two-point-six-gigawatt bolt perfect! No
reported injuries, fire crews responding but not yet arrived. Perfect, Abby!"