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

out.
So I shot the frigging bastard before he could utter
another syllable. I raised my M-14 and squeezed off a
burst of four, the big rifle kicking against my shoulder
like a Missouri mule, disemboweling the Newbie
where he stood. Arlene stared. "Jesus, Fly" was all she
said, her voice tentative and questioning.
The Newbie staggered back against a hydraulic
pumpЧGod only knows what use the Freds had for
hydraulics in a spaceshipЧbut it didn't clutch its
belly or moan or gasp "ya got me!" or anything. It
bled, the blood being pinkish white, like pale Pepto-
Bismol.
A bulge started in his side. I understood
immediatelyЧit was evolving more organs to relink
around the damage! I blasted them, too, and at last
the damned thing truly died ... as nearly dead as the
living dead ever could be. It bubbled softly, leaning
back against a bulkhead, then nothing.
Yeah, but I'd seen that act before. I unloaded the
rest of the magazine into him, hitting every major
biological system I could imagine. I guess maybe I
went a little overkill; but, criminey, what else could I
do?
"A.S.," I explained guiltily, "he was getting under
our skin. I had to do it! If I'd have let him speak,
Lance, he would have had us eating his solid waste in
five minutes flat."
"I ... understand, butЧJesus, Fly!"
The Newbie slid slowly to the ground, staring at me
with such intensity I almost reloaded and shot anoth-
er burst into its face, just to shut those eyes! I didn't.
But for the first time, I really understood the protago-
nist of Poe's "The Telltale Heart." He turned his head
to the side, staring down at the deck. I think he was
already "dead," unable to control his neck and eye
muscles, but I still know he saw what he saw. They all
did.
"Jesus was a man of action, Corporal." I was
getting a bit offended at her taking of the Lord's name
in vain. Maybe I was just a bit worried that Jesus
might not have liked what I had just done. "I had no
choice ... his tongue was silver!"
She just stared, shaking her head. The ship contin-
ued to accelerate back to cruising speed, giving us two
"down" directions: outboard and aft. I felt sick, but I
didn't know whether it was from the weird "gravity"
or being sick at heart about what I had just doneЧ
blown away the only representative we had met from
an entirely new alien species.