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

crush me. I froze, unable to move, while waves of
panic battered me. The only thing that kept me from
turning around and crab-crawling back out of there
was the fact that Arlene was staring at me, and I
would rather die than have her think a sergeant in the
Marine Corps was a screaming coward.
After a minute, the panic subsided into gripping
anxiety; it was still horrible, but now bearable. "Are
you all right?" Arlene called from behind me.
"Y-yeah, just trying to f-figure out what the thing is.
Gotta git a lit ... get a little closer." I forced myself
to crawl until I was as close as I could get. I set up my
Sure Fire flashlight-lantern to illuminate the body
while I inched forward until my head was caught
between the spongy material and the ship's hull.
It was amazing, a scene straight out of The Wizard
of Oz: when the Fred ship touched down, it landed
right on top of a dead alien! It definitely wasn't a Fred;
this creature looked more like an alien is supposed to
look: white skin, long multiple articulated arms and
legs, fingers like tendrils, not like the Freds' chopsticks
or Sears and Roebuck's cilia. I swear to God, this
thing actually had antennae, even. The eyes were
huge, big as the cross-section on an F-99 Landing
Flare, and Coca-Cola red; I couldn't quite see, but I
think they continued around the back of the head.
The face was turned toward me, and I got hot and
cold chills running up and down my spine, like it was
staring at me and demanding why? The mouth was a
red slit, and there was no noseЧdark lines on the
sides of the face, where the cheeks would be on a
human, might have been air filters.
My heart started pounding again, another wave of
panic; I was staring at my first NewbieЧI just knew.
After I calmed down a bit, I slithered sideways,
through my light; it was a bad moment when I
eclipsed the light, casting the Newbie into total shad-
ow. God only knew what it was doing in the dark. I
got far enough to the side to see the body and legs.
"You know," I yelled back, my voice still shaky, "this
thing doesn't look half bad. It's crushed a little, but I
think it could be salvageable."
Arlene yelled something back that I couldn't hear,
then she got smart and spoke into her throat mike
instead. "Can you drag it out if I throw you a rope?"
"I bet I can," I responded. I was never a rodeo
roper, but I'd been around a calf or two in my day. I
grew up on a farm and worked the McDonald's Ranch
when I was a kid. "Throw me the rope, A.S. I bet I can
lasso that thing and drag it into the light of day.