"Jeff Verona - Myrmidons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verona Jeff)

brushed mud from his weapon as best he could and set off on a perpendicular
course, heading south.
The mist from his breath mingled with the mist of the rain as he dodged
from
tree to tree. He prayed that the enemy patrol wasn't using IR. Despite the
protection of the mimic polycarbon in his armor, he felt naked -- a nice,
fat
target. But the two men he'd encountered seemed bored; they were probably
wishing to return to base for a shower and a hot meal. His own stomach
rumbled
as he thought of food, and he tried to ignore it.
Pausing in the lee of a swamp oak, he called up the terrain readout he'd
downloaded earlier. Three hundred meters away, a ravine cut through the
swamp.
If Harris was down there, the surrounding earth might have cut off his
transmissions. Cabesa hefted his canteen and drank, feeling the cold rain
needle his neck, then set off for the ravine.
A hundred and fifty meters passed, and a ghost whispered in his ear. He
fumbled for his transceiver, stepping up the gain while concentrating on
the
faint words that rose out of the roar of static: "...injured...from
camp...rebroadcast this message in...." The signal died. He queried his
computer, seeking the source of the transmission. Somewhere in the quadrant
ahead of him, so at least he was headed the right way. And it had been on
his
squadron's tactical channel, so it was probably Harris. Hang on, soldier,
he
thought.
Cabesa slogged through the dull grey landscape, concentrating on finding
Harris and getting the hell away. But his thoughts drifted, reminding him
of
other rescue missions -- and other failures. He remembered Kryzinski,
buried
under a landslide, the man's fingers jutting obscenely from the jumble of
broken rock. The heat and stench of a jungle world rose in his mind, a
nightmare place with spiders the size of his hand. By the time he'd found
Baker's body, scavengers had stripped it to wet bone. But worst of all were
the vid messages he had to record for the families, messages that began
"Sir,
your daughter...." or "Ma'am, your son...." This time, there would be no
 messages. This time, they would all make it home alive.
A sharp, flat crack broke his reverie. Instinctively he fell, tucked, and
rolled, springing to his feet behind a nearby tree as his heart hammered
beneath his breastplate. A second crack followed, and a cluster of leaves
exploded from a nearby tree. Cabesa peered futiley into the mist. Within a
few
meters, individual trees dissolved into blurry shapes; there was no way to
find the shooter. Then, cursing himself for a fool, he switched to IR.
Nothing, nothing...wait. A reddish-orange smudge materialized in the lower
right hand corner of his visor, some fifty meters distant. As he watched, a