"Timothy Zahn - Blackcollar 2 - The Backlash Mission" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

shuriken in the direction of that voice and dived into a forward roll just as a flechette gun opened up.
The darts missed him completely, and the gun's sound gave him yet another target. Ending his roll
on his knees, he scrabbled a shuriken from his belt pouch and threw it. Someone gurgled and Caine
again hit the ground.

And froze, listening. The woods had gone silent. Had there in fact been only six, not seven,
attackers?

Abruptly, Caine's tingler came on: Bandit bearing twenty-five degrees, under cover.

So there was a seventh man... but for the information to help him, Caine now needed to remember
which way was north. Kinesthetic memory would have that, if he could relax his mind enough for
the proper psychor technique to draw it out. There?... there. Twenty-five degrees east of that... there.
Ten degrees left of dead-on. Sliding a finger under his right sleeve, Caine tapped out his own tingler
message: Specify bandit's cover.

No response. Probably a small bush, Caine decided. Large trees seemed to be rare in this area, and a
bush would at least provide the visual protection a sapling wouldn't.

Visual protection from a blind man. Though a thick enough bush would also provide some
protection against the throwing stars, too. Caine was just reaching for the release strap of his
slingshot when a sudden sound barely a meter away threw him into instant, violent reaction.

Ducking his head, he shoved off the forest mat into a flat somersault, rolling on his shoulders and
kicking straight out at the unseen figure his ears had said was in front of him. His heels caught
something solid, knocked it backward. He leaped after it, snatching his nunchaku from its hip sheath
and swinging it toward the sound of the crash. The thirty-centimeter hardwood stick, swinging like a
buzz saw from its plastic chain, connected with a hollow thud... and as Caine drew a three-pointed
shuriken into a push-knife grip, a shrill whistle split the air. Caine slid off his goggles, blinking in
the sudden sunlight, and looked down at his opponent as he got to his feet.

Rafe Skyler was a big man to begin with, and with the heavy armor he was wearing he looked
positively monstrous. "I think I'm glad I couldn't see you," Caine told him. "You look like a giant
sculpture of a beetle."

Skyler chuckled as he got easily to his feet. "A lesser man might take that as an insult," he
commented, unsnapping his helmet and lifting it off for examination. On the top was a flaming-red
mark a few centimeters across. "Good shot," he said approvingly. "Clean hit, with enough force to
break even a Ryq's skull." Craning his neck, the big man looked down onto his chestplate and the
twin red marks left there by Caine's heels. "Nice," he said.

"Of course," a voice behind Caine added, "ideally you shouldn't have let him get that close."

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E...ollar%202%20-%20The%20Backlash%20Mission.htm (6 of 246) [1/3/2005 12:23:25 AM]
Blackcollar: The Backlash Mission



Caine turned, feeling the rush of mixed emotions that always, on some level, accompanied his
interactions with Damon Lathe. A blackcollar commando commanderтАФcomsquare for shortтАФdoyen