"L. E. Modesitt - Spec-Ops" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

nerves. In instants, the guard was shaking so badly the fire-rifle struck the plastcrete
under his boots. In seconds, he was beside the rifle, bones breaking under the
convulsive power of his own hyped muscles.

More scowls feathered down. Alarms began to screech, and the second guard
sealed the booth. That would only buy him minutes before the first scroach ate its
way through the heavy plastic.

DeJahn switched images. He didn't need to see what the adapted
scorpion-roaches would do. At the next guard post, the sentries were still bringing
down scowls, each scowl death a line of flame into his own nerves, but the guards
did not see the wave of scroaches close to underfoot, advancing inexorably.
 He began to exert pressure, shifting the rodent-prey image, strengthening it,
and positioning it to bring the scowls through the failing screens into the technical
area. The guards were the initial target, just the initial target.

Primary target was scientists and technicians . . . primary target...

****

IV.
You got bioethics issues in chim-ops. Stuff those. Big question, that's
whether mod-techno weapons should be used in war at all... Two soldiers
faced off at Waterloo. A bunch stormed beaches at Normandy against another
bunch, or even slog-fought in the jungles of Vietnam against a VC bunch.
Back then, fighters on both sides died. Lots of them. Different today.
Americans changed it all when they high-teched the Middle East, used biowar
in Iran. Nowadays, the tech-types use chim-ops, spec-ops, remote ops.
Nothing touches them. Just like old Greek gods, they throw lightnings, never
see what they've done, don't ever experience the horror. Think our special
operatives are even soldiers at all? Or just techno-chims themselves?

--Editorial, Whazup Tonight
March 15, 2051

****

V.
Thursday before breakfast, deJahn had to shower. Sometimes, dreams were almost
as bad as infiltration spec-ops themselves. Even flying the scowls with the scroaches
following had been bad enough. He needed a long shower, but water was one thing a
forward base had. Surrounded by it. He dressed deliberately. He still had enough
clean poopsuits. He'd finally reclaimed enough fresh ones for the days ahead.

He felt cleaner, for the moment, before he headed down the passageway to the
tech mess and breakfast. Softboots whispered on the deck. Hard to believe that fifty
yards up through the overhead was what looked like marsh and reeds in the river
delta.

Tech mess was an oval room with five tables and dispensers and formulators.