"Ian Douglas - Inheritance Trilogy 1 - Star Strike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglas Ian)

just hid it better than most. “They don’t want to tip the grounders off that we’re on final.”

“Yeah, but it would be nice to see where the hell we’re going,” Corporal Takamura observed. “We can’t
see shit through the LV’s optics.”

That was not entirely true, of course. Ramsey had a window open in his mind linked through to the feed
from the Specter’s cockpit. Menu selections gave him a choice of views—through cameras forward or
aft, in visible light, lowlight, or infrared, or a computer-generated map of the planet that showed twelve
green triangles in a double-chevron formation moving toward the still-distant coastline. Ramsey had
settled on the map view, since the various optical feeds showed little now but water, clouds, and stars.

The MLV-44 Specter Marine Landing Vehicles were large and slow, with gull wings and fusion thrusters
that gave them somewhat more maneuverability than a falling brick, but not much. Each mounted a pair of
AI-controlled high-speed cannon firing contained micro-antimatter rounds as defense against incoming
missiles, but they relied on stealth and surprise for survival, not firepower, and certainly not armor. A
Specter’s hull could shield those on board from the searing heat of atmospheric entry, but a mag-driven
needle or even a stray chunk of high-energy shrapnel could puncture its variform shell with shocking ease.
Ramsey had seen the results of shrapnel impact on a grounded Specter before, on Shamsheer and on
New Tariq.

The Specter jolted hard, suddenly and unexpectedly, and someone vented a sharp curse. They were
falling into denser air, passing through the cloud deck, and things were getting rougher.

“One more of those,” Sergeant Vallida said, her voice bitter, “and Private Dowers gets jettisoned.”

“Hey, Sarge! I didn’t do anything!”

“Don’t pick on Dowers,” Adellen said. “He didn’t know.”

“Yeah, but he should have. Fucking nectricots….”

It was rank superstition, of course. Even if it went back over a thousand years. Maybe it was the sheer
age of the tradition that gave it so much power. But somehow, back in the twentieth or twenty-first
century, it had become an article of faith that if a Marine ate the apricots in his ration pack before
boarding an alligator or other armored transport, the vehicle would break down. Over the centuries, the
focus of the curse had gradually shifted from apricots to genegineered nectricots, but the principle
remained the same.

And Ela Vallida had walked in on Dowers back on board the Kelley just before the platoon had saddled
up that morning, to find him happily slurping down the last of the nectricots in his drop rats. Dowers was
a fungie, fresh out of RTC, and not yet fully conversant with the bewildering labyrinth of tradition and
history within which every Marine walked.

“Fucking fungie,” Vallida added.

“Belay that, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Jones growled. First Platoon’s CO wasn’t evenly physically present
on the squad bay deck; the eltee was topside somewhere, plugged into the C3 suite behind the Specter’s
cockpit, but she obviously was staying linked in on the platoon chat line. “Chew on him after One-one
Bravo craps out, and you have something to bitch about.”