"John Ringo - The Legacy of the Aldenata 3 - When the Devil D" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ringo John)

Mueller had eaten them and he had to admit that they tasted better than snake, something
like capybara. However, they nested in large colonies dug into the ground like anthills
and defended their colonies viciously, swarming out on anything that came near them and
attacking with a pair of mandibles that looked like oversized rat-teeth. They also cleared
large meadows out of the forests, felling the trees like beaver and chewing them up to
create underground fungus gardens. They also ate a variety of vegetation and had been
observed to scavenge carcasses.
They were eaten by everything at this point including wolves, feral dogs and
coyotes, but their only natural predator was what the Posleen called "grat." The grats
were much worse than abat, being a flying pest that looked remarkably similar to a wasp.
However, grats were limited since the only thing they could eat was abat. With a mature
abat nest in the area, Mueller made sure to keep a sharp eye out for grat; they were much
more territorial than the abat and the sting from one was deadly.
The rest of the trip was without incident, however, and by dawn they were bedded
down themselves on the hills overlooking Lake Rabun. Their movement had been slow
but that was okay. By tomorrow they would be snooping around the Posleen encampment
and sending back reports. Clarkesville was within range of the 155mm artillery batteries
around the Gap so whatever the Posleen were doing they could expect to receive a warm
welcome.
Sister Mary gave a thumbs up that communications were established. The commo
sergeant had been preparing to become a nun when the word came of the pending
invasion. She was released from the preliminary vows of a novice and enlisted in the
Army. The first days of the war had her repairing field radios in St. Louis but when a
Posleen globe surrounded the city, her service in a scratch company earned her a
Distinguished Service Cross. The unit of odds and sods from the support units in St.
LouisтАФno more than eight hundred personnel, none of them infantryтАФhad ended up
defending the Granite City Steel Works and shattering better than a hundred times their
number. Her own exploits were too numerous to list, thus the simple "actions in and
around the Granite City Steel Works" in her citation.
The communications situation Beyond the Wall was complex. The Posleen had
become more and more adept at detecting and localizing radio transmissions. After
repeated losses, the LRRP teams began using automatic laser retransmitters for commo.
Every team went out with large numbers of the bread-loaf sized devices and emplaced
them on the ridges in their areas of operations. Since the retransmitters doubled as
sensors they also gave the commands a feel for movement in their area.
Thus the short, stocky commo tech carried a huge load of retransmitters. And had to
continually ensure that they were in communication with the rear.
Mueller rolled out his poncho liner and covered it with the ghillie blanket. Crawling
under the combination he held up two fingers indicating he wanted second watch.
Mosovich nodded, pointed to Nichols and held up one finger then four fingers to
Sister Mary. They would sleep most of the day and head down to the river near dusk. By
the next morning he intended to be looking at Clarkesville.
Nichols dragged the ghillie blanket up to cover himself and his rifle then set up on a
convenient rock. The march had been a bastard; the hills were pretty steep and the
undergrowth was thick as hell. But he had a secret he was not about to share. The secret
was that a bad day hiking up and down hills was better than a good day in the Ten
Thousand. All in all he would rather be here than Rochester.