"Harrison, Harry - Bill, the Galactic Hero 7 - The Final Incoherent Adventure" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

Once the general had loosened Bill's seat belt and slapped his face a few times to get his breathing started again, he explained.
"Only the Lord can perform a true miracle, son. That's just videotape. I recorded it this morning, before the attack."
Bill tried again to prostrate himself, and got caught again by the seat belt. This time he pulled himself up. "Ahura-Mazda must have imbued you with his spirit, to give you information about the future like that! It's a miracle!"
General Weissearse looked impatiently down at Bill and considered explaining, then sighed. It didn't look as though it would do much good, not to this moron, so he let it be. "Okay, son, it's a miracle, isn't the time to talk theology.
"I just wanted to make sure you're all right, and get you ready for tomorrow's battle. We're in for a tough one, and I'm counting on you."
Bill looked up at his video screen once more, and back at the general. "But - but -" he butted. He shook his head to clear it. "You just said that we destroyed all the enemy defenses."
On the screen the general was explaining again how much he and the emperor regretted this entire unpleasantness, and how they both hoped that no one else would have to die because of it.
Here in the turret he said something else. "You did a great job today, Bill. I bet you didn't even use up all the quarters I gave you, did you?"
Bill pointed with pride at the two coins on his shelf.
"Good. You'll have a chance to use them soon. Now you'd better get a good night's sleep. We're going in again in the morning, and you're going to be busy. There are going to be a lot of people shooting at this ship, and it's up to you to protect me. Remember the great honor I've given you, and keep my interest in mind, and you'll be all right."
General Weissearse walked to the door. "Oh, yes. And you got a medal. Get it from the machine."
The little one-line electronic display on the change machine was now blinking between GET CHANGE HERE and CREDIT: 1 MEDAL. Bill pressed the credit button, and the line switched to DEPOSIT ONE QUARTER OR TOKEN. This would leave him with only one for tomorrow's battle, unless he wanted to shell out some of his own hard-earned credits. Although he had nothing else to spend them on, and if he died tomorrow they wouldn't do him any good anyway, he did kind of resent having to pay the Emperor. He wasn't surprised any more, but he did resent it, just as a matter of routine.
Bill already had a medal or two stashed somewhere in his gear, and was entitled to wear the treasured Purple Dart with Coalsack Nebula (although he'd lost the actual medal long ago); but he finally decided that an extra decoration on his uniform could only make him more attractive to the Trooper groupies he kept reading about but never seemed to meet. If he ever did meet one, the extra quarter-credit investment would be well worthwhile. So he put half his stash back into the machine.
A terrible grinding noise came from the machine's innards. It moaned and cried and creaked and squealed, giving Bill a nostalgic thrill. It reminded him of his time as a drill instructor. A low rumble began deep inside the change machine, and moved slowly toward the dispenser. With a bounce and a clink, something fell into the little bin.
Bill fished it out. On one side of the oval, metal object was a portrait of the Emperor. It looked a lot like the portrait on all the coins, except it had been stretched diagonally. Around the rim ran the Imperial motto, IN HOC SEOR WENCES, also looking as though it had been stretched at an odd angle - the same odd angle, in fact. On the other side Bill could dimly make out what had once been an elegant sculpted bas-relief of the imperial log cabin where, by tradition, all emperors were born. That image, so familiar from all those quarters, had been mostly flattened out, though, and the words "Operation Friendly Persuasion Combat Medal" stamped in. A small hole had been punched in one end.
It wasn't the fanciest piece of jewelry Bill had ever seen. In fact, it reminded him very much of a souvenir he had once made out of a capper centicredit coin at a carnival. He wondered if he still had that souvenir; if he did, he could hang the penny and the quarter together, and they would make a much more impressive display. The chances of anyone looking closely enough to read the inscription on the penny - "I survived the Phigerinadon IV Fertilizer Fair" - were pretty slim.
Of course, the chances of Bill's recovering any of his treasured possessions, including his foot locker, were just as slim. Only victory would allow Bill to return to the relative safety of Camp Buboe, and there might very well be a court-martial waiting for him there. Failure to die on a suicide mission might get you a commendation, but it was also a violation of a direct order. Sad to say, Bill's safest refuge for the time being seemed to be right here in the rear turret of the Heavenly Peace.

It would be stretching the truth to say that Bill awoke refreshed. He did awaken, though, and that was enough of a triumph for the moment. He'd been sitting in that turret for weeks, on a liquid diet, hooked up to a catheter, mastering the intricacies of the Nintari TAIL GUNNER! system and being utterly ignored by the rest of the crew, so his legs were getting just a little stiff. But waking up after a battle was still better than the alternative.
He didn't awaken gently, either. The klaxon rang right in his ear, and a voice screamed, "Dive! Dive! DIVE!"
Bill jerked spasmodically. His whole body twisted around, except the part that was attached to the catheter. That stayed behind. It hurt enough to bring him to full consciousness.
The video screen was flashing in all the colors available to neon. DEPOSIT COIN OR TOKEN NOW! DEPOSIT COIN OR TOKEN NOW! I REALLY MEAN IT! YOU BETTER GET THAT COIN IN RIGHT NOW! NO KIDDING! DEPOSIT COIN OR TOKEN NOW, OR GET READY TO DIE!
Bill grabbed his last quarter and slammed it into the slot. He ran through the menus into combat mode as fast as he could, and started looking for targets.
All he could see was sky and spaceships, none of them highlighted in red. Then the view swung around as the Heavenly Peace came out of her dive and went on the attack.
The ground lit up in the bright orange of rocket exhausts, and a moment later it was a patchwork of red, if the enemy triple-A had been wiped out, they must have rebuilt pretty fast. In the background, Bill heard a clatter of quarters as the change machine anticipated his needs. He wasn't going to have much time to ask for coins today.
The Eyerackian defenses started out behind the first wave again, as they had the day before. Bill got busy picking off missiles that were aimed at some of the ships trailing the spider-shaped scout. But the defenders got organized faster today, and concentrated more of their effort on the leader.
A group of Eyerackian fighter planes drove up just behind the Heavenly Peace, not attacking her directly but trying to cut the general off from the rest of the wave. With help from the gunners on the other ships, Bill sliced them to ribbons with his lasers.
A big target flashed on his screen: AMMUNITION DEPOT, the screen said, 1000 POINTS. Bill needed to rack up points today if he wanted to get that 12-hour pass. The smart missile was launched even before his lips worked their way through the message.
Eyerackian lasers stabbed out at the missile, trying to keep it from its goal. Which would keep Bill on this ship longer than necessary. He started to take this war personally. He made the missile swoop and dive, turn and twist, weaving it through the web of defenses toward the little bull's-eye that the computer painted on the entry door. Compared to gunning down the counterattack, this was almost fun.
Bill corkscrewed the missile in around a laser beam. He looped it around an anti-missile missile. He ducked it under some exploding flak, and bobbed it over a line of bullets. He swung it around an oncoming fighter and swerved past an office building. He jumped it over a hedge and threaded it through a copse of trees. And then there was nothing but a straight run for the door.
There was a sign on the door, and he focused on that as the missile rode in to the ammo dump. There were no pictures, so it was hard to read, but he worked his way through all the text just an instant before the bomb hit it dead center.
AIR-RAID SHELTER - MAXIMUM CAPACITY 600 CIVILIANS was what it said.
Something seemed wrong to Bill.
Hadn't General Weissearse said something about not killing any civilians? It stuck with him because it had seemed a little odd at the time; normally the idea was to kill as many civilians as possible, and it wasn't the military way to make a change of this sort, or to give up the chance to kill people who wouldn't be fighting back.
It didn't seem like a bad idea, not killing civilians, just an unusual one. Bill could even vaguely remember being a civilian, and at the time he had thought not being killed was a really good idea. And now it looked very much like he had just killed up to 600 civilians.
But the video screen had clearly labeled the building an ammo dump.
Moral dilemmas were not within Bill's limited expertise. He wasn't at all prepared to deal with this one. He bucked it upstairs.
The general responded to Bill's call by appearing in the same small box on the screen where the press conference had been. He was watching another video screen and cheering the bombs as they dropped.
"What can I do for you, Bill?"
"General, Sir, I think I just blew up a civilian air-raid shelter!"
"So?"
"Well, aren't we supposed to be avoiding that?"
"Sure we are, Bill, but don't worry about it." General Weissearse waved the issue away. "It must be a mistake of some sort."
"But my target computer gave me 1000 points for it, just like an ammo dump!"
"Then it must have been something else, like an ammo dump." The general gave a small cheer as something blew up on the screen before him. "What made you think it was an air-raid shelter?"
Bill thought hard for a second. "There was a big sign on it that said 'Air-Raid Shelter.'"
General Weissearse laughed the hearty laugh he had learned at the Imperial Military Heroes Academy. "That's just enemy propaganda, son. Pay it no mind." He looked intently at the screen for a moment. "Now you'd better do something about that fighter closing in on us, or we'll both be in heaven tonight."
The long hours catheterized in the chair paid off. Bill sliced up the fighter and touched his laser to the heads of a small flight of incoming missiles.
The morning dragged on. Even the adrenaline rush of combat can get routine if there is never a break to recover, and the action continued without a pause. When he was not under attack, Bill had more ground targets than he could possibly hit. And he was under attack most of the time.
It was tense. It was exhausting. It was mind-boggling. But it wasn't interesting.