"Drake, David - Redliners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

Strike Force companies were prefixed B, C, or D depending on
their size. C-class units had a nominal strength of one hundred
personnel. C41 had received eight replacements since the last
operation, but Farrell decided not to bring them along on a mission
as rough as Active Cloak looked like being. The replacements
were good people or they wouldn't have passed Strike Force
screening after they volunteered, but they hadn't worked with C41
before. There was no margin here for somebody who
misunderstood an order or reacted in an unexpected way.

The Spooks had a civilian colony of five hundred thousand on
Maxus 377 in addition to the logistics bases that served their
military on fourteen worlds. There was no margin at all when C41
seized the planet's main port ahead of the full-scale Unity invasion.

The tripod landing legs touched the ground in sequence. The
freighter rang in three descending notes. "Go!" Farrell shouted,
unheard over the clangs of the bolts shearing. He and a dozen
other strikers shoved at the toppling bulkhead.

They'd landed just before local noon. Sunlight quivered through
heat waves from the port's white concrete surface. Anti-emitter
missiles launched in snarling cacophony from the freighter's upper
cargo deck, homing on every operating radio-frequency antenna
within their ten-mile range.

Major Arthur Farrell hit the ground running, headed for the port
administration building with his headquarters group and two
squads of Third Platoon. C41 had begun the invasion.

The rest of the Unity armed forces better follow soon.



The pair of Spooks in the cab of the maintenance vehicle goggled
to see the recently-landed freighter fall apart as they drove past.
Sergeant Guilio Abbado killed them both with a single burst from
his stinger before he jumped to the ground.

"Three-three to the truck!" Abbado shouted. Most of his squad
was already running toward the eight-wheeled vehicle. It slowed
but still coasted forward after the driver died in a spray of coppery
blood. Horgen and Glasebrook leaped aboard, flinging the dead
Spooks out of the way. Horgen managed to turn the vehicle before
it plunged into an open sump, but she couldn't seem to find the
brakes.

One of the Spooks hung out the open door. Abbado kicked the
body the rest of the way to the ground as he climbed into the cab
beside Flea Glasebrook. The other five strikers of Third Squad,