"Dafydd ab Hugh, Brad Linaweawer DOOM: Hell on Earth (english)" - читать интересную книгу автора

interior scaffolding in the mail tube. We bolted the
motor inside, mooring it securely to the deck plates.
Last, I attached a highly sensitive pressure sensor to
the forward edge to measure the thrust. I'd trust
Arlene to make the calculations and tell me whether
we would make it into orbit or not.
"Want to say a prayer?" she asked before I switched
it on.
"Yeah; I wasn't always in trouble with the nuns.
Maybe I can collect on a few good deeds." Arlene
stationed herself behind a bulkhead; I reached over
and flipped the switch, then dived behind cover.
Superheated gases rushed out the back with a
tremendous roar . . . and I could tell immediately it
was too much force; I'd tweaked my rocket engine too
good.
But I couldn't switch it off! It was just a model,
designed to burn until the fuel was gone; no cut-off
valve.
The scaffolding strained, groaning like a dying
steam demonЧwhoops, remind me laterЧand I
knew what was about to happen. "Get your head
down!" I screamed. No useЧshe couldn't hear any-
thing over the roar of the engine and the scream of
steel twisting and ripping free.
The mooring tore loose with a horrible, grinding
noise that for an instant even drowned out the 44. My
beautiful, working rocket engine broke free, ate the
pressure sensor with one gulp, and smashed through a
dozen boxes of precious parts before making a smok-
ing hole against the nearby bulkhead, leaving a per-
fectly straight series of holes, like a cartoon.
4
Destroying a bulkhead on a doomed base, or
even some spare parts, was no cause for alarm.
Destroying the motor was something else again.
Arlene screamed something obscene, but I couldn't
hear her over the ringing in my ears. We got off lucky.
It could have struck the JP-9 and ended everything.
After we extinguished the fire and salvaged what we
could of the motor, Arlene looked at me humorlessly.
"Flynn Taggart, what deviltry did you do to those
poor nuns?"
"Can you rephrase that, after what we've been
through?" We were both a little punchy, getting by on
shifts of four hours sleep. But no spiderminds were
trying to kill us, no imps throwing a wrench in the
machinery, no hell-princes setting fires worse than the
one we'd just put out. It felt like we were on vacation.
All right, to fill in a bit: an imp is what we dubbed