"Kevin Killiany - Battletech - Battlecorps - Immortal Warrior" - читать интересную книгу автора (Killiany Kevin)

She set thoughts of her aunt aside and focused on finding Billy.
He wasn’t in the fruit cellar and he wasn’t in the pantry. He wasn’t
under the library table and he wasn’t in the little attic room with
his comic vidbooks. She knew he knew better than to go into the
guest bedrooms or the formal living room.
He must be hiding outside.
Jessie stood by the dining room window, considering. Outside
the sun was shining in a clear blue sky. No sign of the summer
storms that sometimes blew down whole forests. It was a perfect
day for being outside instead of in.
Her brother was a year and a half older than her, but he always
hid in the same places. If Billy was hiding outside, he was either
under the side porch, in the feed barn or up in the big lonely oak.
That last was a favorite of his, because he could climb the rope
holding the tire swing and she could not.
“Hey,” her big sister Cassie called from the family room, “the
video just went out!”
Jessie ignored her. Cassie watched too much video; all she ever
wanted to do was watch kissy stories, anyway.
She looked toward the oak. Sure enough, the empty tire was
swinging without a breeze. Billy was up the tree.
And a giant metal man walked over the hill.
Jessie blinked.
“BattleMechs!” yelled Aunt Grace from somewhere upstairs.
“Not the Militia!”
Throughout the house, Jessie heard the grown ups shouting.
BATTLECORPS Battle of Vorhaven • Page 5


“We’re surrounded!”
“Where are the children?”
“Everybody, get to the cars!”
“No!” Grandpa’s voice cut across the others. “They’ll cut us down
if we try to escape. Get into the storm shelter!”
“The children! Find the children!”
Whirling from the window, Jessie dodged around Cassie and
ran up the stairs as fast as she could. She heard Aunt Grace call
her name, but she didn’t break stride.
Once in her room, it took her only a moment to find what she
needed and less than that to pull on her bandana and loop an ammo
belt across one shoulder. One minute after the metal giant came
over the hill, the Immortal Warrior dashed from the kitchen door.
She could hear her mother’s voice through the open windows of
the house behind her, calling. She ran harder. No time to turn back
now, there was a mission to accomplish.
The giant metal man, the BattleMech, was standing next to the
big oak. It did not move. It just stood, watching the house while
two other BattleMechs—one that looked just like it and another that
looked different—fired their lasers again and again at Grandpa’s
crops. The AgroMechs and tractors were all smoking masses of