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

the brown, spiny, leathery alien that throws flaming
balls of mucus. Hell-princes looked like the typical
"devil" from my troubled youth in Catholic schoolЧ
red body, goat legs, horns, and they too threw some-
thing noxious that killed you real dead; we pretty
much decided it had to be an example of genetic
engineering, since it was too close to a human concep-
tion of evil.
We had also killed demons, which I privately called
pinkies, that were huge, pink, hairy critters with no
brains but an awful lot of teeth; flying, metallic skulls
with little rocket motors; invisible ghosts; and an
unbelievable horde of zombiesЧspiritually, they
were the worst, for oftener than not, they were our
own buddies and comrades at arms, "reworked" into
the living dead.
But the granddaddy monster of them all was the
steam-demon, so called because it was a five-meter-
tall mechanical monstrosity with a back rack full of
rockets and a launcher where its hand should have
been. When it moved, it sounded like a steam loco-
motive and shook the ground.
None of that was important compared to one fact:
Arlene had completely changed her mind about build-
ing the rocket. "I'm sorry I ever doubted you," she
said. "I guess it is possible."
But now I was the contrarian. "We did all the
calculations right, A.S. We checked and triple-
checked everything . . . How could the engine be so
much more powerful than we thought?"
She smiled. "Because they obviously deliberately
understated the capabilities in the technical
literatureЧprobably for security reasons."
"So all our calculations are worthless crap. How are
you going to fly this thing?"
She didn't seem overly concerned. "Fly, the vehicle
hasn't been built that I can't pilot."
"Um . . . well, this rocket hasn't been built, has it?"
"You know what I mean! If you build it, I will fly. I
swear."
"Hm." I didn't know what to say. I had no idea
whether she was or wasn't a hot-shot rocket pilot. We
don't get much call for that in the Light Drop Infan-
try. But now that she believed in the rocket, nothing
was going to stop us.
There were other motor parts, and we patched
together something I figured was eighty percent ready.
There was no time for better. The air was growing
thinner and the temperature was dropping ... the
crack in the dome was finally taking its toll.