"Smith, E E Doc - d'Alembert 8 - Eclipsing Binaries" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

"Smooth," the colonel nodded. He looked over the valley with a practiced eye and then
gave the deployment order to his shivering troops. Within minutes, the team from SOTE
had moved out and down the sides of the bluff in an attack on the criminal headquarters.

Going down the face of the bluff was the most dangerous part of the assault, for the
agents were easy targets against the cliff. They drew no enemy fire, however, and Hein
prayed his luck would continue. Maybe the enemy had no long-range weapons, or maybe
they just wanted to save themselves for the closer battle. In any case, he knew his
agents were trained and ready to cope.

When the entire assault team was down on the valley floor, they started moving across
the white, lightly packed snow toward the building. They crept in, bending low and taking
advantage of any natural cover this sparse landscape presented. Still there was no
enemy fire. That could be a good or a bad sign, and Hein was becoming nervous. As a
good commander, he had to assume the worst.

"Are you sure they're in there?" he asked over his portable comlink to the copter hovering
above.

"They're there, all right," Wombat said. "They're trying to lull you into a false sense of
security. Don't be fooled." Slowly Hein and his team closed in on the quiet building,
blasters at the ready to return enemy fire that never came. At last they were right up
against the walls, stationed on either side of the doors and windows of the first floor. At
a silent signal from Hein, they burst through the openings, steeled to meet tough
resistance.

The ground floor of the building was deserted. Perplexed, Hein pointed for some of his
agents to go upstairs while he returned to the comlink. "The place seems empty," he
reported.

"Are all your people in there? Have they checked everywhere?"

"That's what they're doing right now."

A single blaster beam from the waiting copter lashed downward, striking a bundle of
explosives planted on the roof.

With a ground-shattering roar that touched off avalanches seven kilometers away, the
building exploded in a blinding flash of light. Dust and debris were thrown high into the air,
only to fall again like a blanket of new snow upon the ruins of what had once been a
building.

The copter circled for several minutes over this scene of desolation, checking to make
sure there was not the slightest sign of life in the wreckage. Once convinced, the craft
and its passengers flew off, content with their day's work.

Chapter 2
Deadly Doubles

The small spaceship approached the asteroid belt at great speed. The space debris