"David Weber - Fifth Imperium 02 - The Armageddon Inheritance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

stars sweep towards him and the sleek, deadly shapes of Achuultani starships floated behind his eyes
once more. The report from the sensor array replayed itself again and again, like some endless recording
loop, and it filled him with dread. He'd known they were coming; now he'd "seen" them for himself. They
were real, now, and so was the horrific task he and his people faced.

Dahak was more than twenty-seven light-years from Earth, but the nearest Imperial Fleet base had been
over two-hundred light-years from Sol when Dahak arrived to orbit Earth. The Imperium proper lay far
beyond that, yet despite the distances and the threat sweeping steadily towards his home world, they'd
had no choice but to come, for only the Imperium might offer the aid they desperately needed to save
that home world from those oncoming starships.

But Dahak had been unable to communicate with the Imperium for over fifty thousand years. What if
there no longer was an Imperium?

It was a grim question they seldom discussed, one Colin tried hard not to ask even of himself, yet it beat
in his brain incessantly, for Dahak had repaired his hypercom once the spares he needed had been
reclaimed from the mutineers' Antarctic enclave. He'd been calling for help from the moment those
repairs were madeтАФindeed, he was calling even now.

And like the sensor arrays, he had received no reply at all.
Chapter Two

Lieutenant Governor Horus, late captain of the mutinous sublight battleship Nergal and current viceroy of
Earth, muttered a heartfelt curse as he sucked his wounded thumb.

He lowered his hand and regarded the wreckage sourly. He'd worked with Terran equipment for
centuries, and he knew how fragile it was. Unfortunately, Imperial technology was becoming available
again, and he'd forgotten the intercom on his desk was Terran-made.

His office door opened, and General Gerald Hatcher, head of the Chiefs of Staff of Planet Earth
(assuming they ever got the organization set up), poked his head in and eyed the splintered intercom
panel.

"If you want to attract my attention, Governor, it's simpler to buzz me than to use sirens."

"Sirens?"

"Well, thatтАЩs what I thought I heard when my intercom screamed. Did that panel do something, or were
you just pissed off?"

Terran humans," Horus said feelingly, "are pretty damned smart-mouthed, aren't they?"

"One of our more endearing traits." Hatcher smiled at Jiltanith's father and sat down. "I take it you did
want to see me?"

"Yes." Horus waved a stack of printout "You've seen these?"

"What areтАФ" Horus stopped waving, and Hatcher craned his neck to read the header. He nodded "Yep.
What about them?"