"David Drake - Hammer's Slammers 10 - Paying The Piper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

imaging by trained reflex and saw armed figures rising from the ground to rush the open hatch.

I'm Arne Huber. We're being attacked.

His right hand was on the throttles; the fans were howling. He twisted the grip, angling the nacelles back
so that their thrust pushed the combat car instead of just lifting it.Fencing Master 's bow skirt screeched
on the deck, braking the vehicle's forward motion beyond the ability of the fans to drive it.

The second warhead had opened the plenum chamber like a ration packet. The fan-driven air rushed out
through the hole instead of raising the vehicle as it was meant to do.

The attackers had thrown themselves flat so that the missile wouldn't scythe them down also. Three of
them reached the base of the ramp, then paused and opened fire. Dazzling streaks crisscrossed the hold,
and thewhang of slugs hitting theFencing Master 's iridium armor was loud even over the roar of the
fans.

Huber decoupled the front four nacelles and tilted them vertical again. He shoved the throttle through the
gate, feeding full emergency power to the fans. The windings would burn out in a few minutes under this
overload, but right now Huber wouldn't bet he or anybody in his platoon would be alive then to know.

Fencing Master's ruined bow lifted on thrust alone. Not high, not even a finger's breadth, but enough to
free the skirt from the decking and allow the rear nacelles to shove her forward. Staggering like a
drunken ox, the car lurched from the hold and onto the ramp. Her bow dragged again, but this time the
fans had gravity to aid them. She accelerated toward the field, scraping up a fountain of red sparks from
either side of her hull.

The attackers tried to jump out of the way. Huber didn't know and didn't much care what happened to
them when they disappeared below the level of the sensor pickups feedingFencing Master 's main
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screen. A few gunmen more or less didn't matter; Huber's problem was to get this car clear of the ramp
so thatFlame Farter andFloosie, still aboard the freighter, could deploy and deal with the enemy.

Fencing Masterreached the bottom of the ramp and drove a trench through the gravel before
shuddering to a halt. The shock curtains swathed Huber again; he'd have disengaged the system if he'd
had time for nonessentials after the machine's well-meant swaddling clothes freed him. Skewing the stern
nacelles slightly to port, he pivotedFencing Master around her bow and rocked free of the rut.

The air above him sizzled with ozone and cyan light: two of the tribarrels in the car's fighting
compartment had opened up on the enemy. Somebody'd managed to board while Huber was putting the
vehicle in motion.Fencing Master was a combat unit again.

There must've been about forty of the attackers all told, ten to each of the shipping containers. Half were
now bunched nearFoghorn or between that car and the starship's ramp. Huber switchedFencing
Master 's Automatic Defense System live, then used the manual override to trigger three segments.

The ADS was a groove around the car's hull, just above the skirts. It was packed with plastic explosive