"John G. Hemry - Stark's War 3 - Stark's Crusade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hemry John G)

case of soldiers in bunkers, it was an almost irrational reflex, since any shell penetrating their
underground lairs would be certain to kill everyone whether prone or standing fully upright.
But sometimes even irrational reflexes made you feel a little better, made it a little easier to
handle the thought of tons of explosives falling all around you.

Wiseman’s armed shuttles were maneuvering again, putting everything into pulling out of
their death dive toward the surface and converting it into a dash straight over the enemy line.
The cargo shuttles were also altering course, jinking as madly under the push of their attitude
jets as their forward velocity would allow.

Symbology converged. Stark avoided calling up visual of the artillery hitting the enemy
positions. He’d seen it happen a thousand times, and derived no joy from thinking of the
soldiers cowering under the bombardment. Wiseman’s armed shuttles tossed out weapons of
their own, and a flurry of countermeasures, as a scattering of enemy defenses tried to engage
the fast-moving targets. At the last instant, a few of the enemy shots sought out the cargo
shuttles as they and Wiseman’s armed shuttles rocketed past each other. Almost instantly, the
armed shuttles fired their attitude jets again, then kicked in their main drives, arcing up once
more in a high-g maneuver to curve back inside the American defenses as quickly as possible.

Stark realized he hadn’t been breathing and took in a long, shuddering breath as the cargo
shuttle symbology lunged toward the American defensive line. Damn. Did we pull this off?
Actually get our people out intact?

“Got a hit,” a watchstander announced as alarms sounded. “Shuttle Alpha.”

“How bad?”

“Hull rupture, stabilization systems out, got an uncontrolled tumble. The shuttle’s close to
the deck. She’s got no room to recover.”

“Oh, man.” Nerving himself, Stark called up vid from the shuttle, jerking involuntarily as
his vision suddenly filled with wildly tossing images. The impact of the hit and secondary
explosions on the shuttle had thrown it off its smooth trajectory.
 Lunar terrain littered with rocks zipped past in flashes of gray and white, alternating with
the star-sown blackness of space.

“Gutierrez!” Chief Petty Officer Wiseman shouted over the circuit at the shuttle pilot.
“You’re too low for autorepair to stabilize that pig. Do it manual!”

“R-roger,” Gutierrez came back, his voice shaking, as his body was tossed constantly
against its restraining harness.

Stark blinked as Vic deliberately broke his vid connection, then toggled another circuit.
Now he could see the shuttle from the outside, captured by ground sensors as it cartwheeled
over the Moon’s surface inside the American perimeter. Apparently random spurts of heat
marked firings of the shuttle’s stabilizer jets as Gutierrez tried to halt the tumble by feel. “Is it
working?” Vic asked.

“Can’t tell. Wait.” A heavy burst from two stabilizers and the shuttle seemed to shudder in
place, the uncontrolled tumble replaced by a ragged corkscrew with the shuttle’s nose yawing