"JAMES LUCENO. SABOTEUR" - читать интересную книгу автора

The eight unpiloted craft rose from the ground on repulsorlift power,
pirouetting and bringing their blunt noses around to the southwest. The air
beneath them rippled with heat. When the shuttles were fifty meters above the
ground, their sublight engines engaged, flaring blue, rocketing the ships high
into the dust-filled sky.
The ground shook slightly, and Bruit could feel a reassuring rumble in his
bones. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. For the next hour, he could
relax somewhat. He had turned from the view of the launch zone when his bones
and his ears alerted him to a shift in the roaring sound, a slight drop in
volume that shouldn't have occurred.
Sudden apprehension tugged at him. His forehead and palms broke an icy sweat. He
whirled and pressed his face to the south-facing transparisteel panel. High in
the sky he could see two of the shuttles beginning to diverge from course, their
vapor trails curving away from the straight-line ascent of the rest of the
group.
"Fourteen and sixteen," the technician affirmed. "I'm trying to shut down the
sublights and convert them back over to repulsorlift. No response. They're
accelerating!"
Bruit kept his eyes glued to the sky. "Give me a heading."
"Back at us!"
Bruit ran his hand over his forehead. "Enable the self-destructs."
The technician's fingers flew across the console. "No response."
"Employ the emergency override."
"Still no response. The overrides have been disabled."
Bruit cursed loudly. "Vector update."
"They're aimed directly for the Castle."
Bruit glanced at the indicated tor. It was one of the largest of the mines, so
named for the natural spires that graced its western and southern faces.
"Order an evacuation. Highest priority."
Sirens shrieked in the distance. Within moments, Bruit could see workers
hurrying from the mine openings and leaping onto waiting hover platforms. Two
fully occupied platforms were already beginning to descend.
"Tell those platform pilots to keep everyone aloft," Bruit barked. "No one'll be
any safer on the ground than in the mines. And start moving those droids and
lift beasts out of there!"
A colossal bipedal drilling machine appeared at the mouth of one of the mines,
engaged its repulsorlift, and stepped off into thin air.
"Thirty seconds till impact," the technician said.
"Jettison the shuttles' guidance droids."
"Droids away!"
Bruit clenched his hands. The two rudderless shuttles were plummeting side by
side, as if in a race to reach the Castle. The technicians had already managed
to shut down fourteen's sublight, and sixteen's flared out while Bruit watched.
But there was no stopping them now. They were in ballistic freefall.
In the control station, droids and beings alike were crouched behind the
instrument consoles-all except for Bruit, who refused to move, seemingly
oblivious to the fact that concussion alone could turn the booth's
transparisteel panels into a hail of deadly missiles.
The shuttles struck the Castle at almost the same instant, impacting it above
the loftiest of the mines, perhaps fifty meters below the tor's jungled summit.