"S. M. Stirling & David Drake - The General 01 - The Forge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

billowing clouds of mist. Impossibly fast, the ships drove up from
the sea to the land; laser fire stabbed out from them, and flashes
that ended in explosions where oddly slender cannon pointed.
Then ramps dropped, and armored soldiers poured out into the
streets. The resistance was even less this time, and the attackers
less disciplined; they began to loot and rape almost immediately.
He recognized their insignia as well; 3rd Cruiser Squadron, the
overlords of the Southern territories. Angry puzzlement grew at
the back of his mind; even the Brigade considered the Squadron
to be savages, and they had trouble maintaining flintlock
shotguns, much less unFallen technology.

Again the swoop, and a lock on a man with visor raised who
directed resistance from behind a barricade of wrecked vehicles.
A flash, and there were only body-parts mixed inextricably with
metal and synthetics.

next.

Again Raj found himself back at his starting point. The city
was almost completely overgrown except for a core around the
Palace, and that was being disassembled for building material. A
checkerboard of farm fields and dirt roads stretched around;
walls of rubble on dirt mounds protected the core, and a beaten
pathway stretched down to improvised docks where sailboats
lay. The broadest road stretched south and east; he estimated
distances with an officer's trained eye, triangulating off hills he
recognized. Yes, that was the course of the Great River Way, the
main highway out of East Residence. Far smaller, and without
the superb stone-block pavingтАж and there was an army
marching up it, fighting its way through the overgrown ruins. He
swooped lower.

Colonists, this time: dark men, many in billowing robes,
bearded, with the green crescent flag of Islam at their head,
alongside the scarlet peacock of the Settlers, the family that
claimed to have led the first humans from Terra to Bellevue. Few
of the beam weapons this time, and they were being sparingly
used. Raj frowned, directing his attention from one unit to the
next. Odd, he thought. The Colonists were mortal enemies of the
Civil GovernmentтАФhad been the first to rebel after the Fall, in
feetтАФbut they were civilized, in their fashion. This looked like a
mob, and a badly equipped one. No cavalry at all, not a single
riding dog even for the officers; ox-drawn guns, but so primitive!
Muzzle loaders all, that looked to have been cobbled up out of
some sort of tubing, and the footmen carried everything from
spears to matchlocks. Their opponents wore the, blue and
crimson of the Civil Government, but were no better armed and
far less numerous.