"Steve Perry - Aliens 01 - Earth Hive" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

go home.”
Lyle touched more controls. The probe placed the small clean atomic against a wall where it
adhered. “Okay, three minutes to—aw, shit!”
The screen went blank.
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything! The camera’s gone out.”
“Switch to memory drive. We lose another probe and the Old Man’ll chew our asses to pulp.”
Lyle touched a button. The computer took over the probe. Since it had memorized every
centimeter of the flight in, it could retrace the flight and bring the probe back.
“It’s clear,” Lyle said a moment later. “Burning more fuel than it should, though.”
“Maybe it snagged on something coming out. Doesn’t matter.”
“Probe docking. Outer hatch open. Let me see if I can get an eye on the sucker and see why
it’s wallowing so bad.” Lyle ran his practiced hands over the controls.
“Holy fuck!” Barton said.
Lyle just stared. What the hell was that? Some kind of thing sat on the probe as it approached
the ship. It looked like a reptile, no, a giant bug. Wait, it had to be some kind of suit, no way it could
live in vac without a suit—
“Close the hatch!” Barton yelled.
“Too late! It’s inside.”
“Flood the bay with antirad! Pump the air out! Blow it back through the fucking door!”
A clang vibrated through the ship. Like a hammer smashing metal.
“It’s trying to open the inner hatch!”
Frantically Lyle tapped controls. “Antirad spray on full! Evacuation pumps on!”
The banging continued.
“Okay, okay, don’t worry, it can’t get in. The hatch is locked. Nobody can break through a
sealed boron-carbon hatch with his bare hands!”
Something crashed, ringing loudly. Then came the sound spacers fear more than anything: air
rushing out.
“Close the outer hatch, goddammit!”
But the dropping air pressure tugged at Lyle. The cabin was filled with loose items being
sucked toward the rear of the cutter. Light pens, coffee cups, a hard-copy magazine fluttering madly.
He lunged at the controls, missed the emergency button, lunged again.
Barton, also half out of his chair, stabbed at the red button, but hit the computer override
instead. The ship went to manual drive.
The cabin pressure raced toward zero. A hatch-sized hole blew air into space real damned
fast. Lyle’s eyes bulged, began to bleed. One eardrum popped. He screamed, but found the control
for the external hatch.
“I got it! I got it!”
The outer hatch cycled shut. Emergency air tanks kicked on. The faux gravity pulled the two
men back toward their seats. “Goddammit! Goddammit!” Barton said.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s closed!”
“Coast Guard Control, this is the cutter Dutton!” Barton began. “We have a situation here!”
“Oh, man!” Lyle said.
Barton twisted.
The thing stood right fucking there!
It had teeth! It came toward them. It looked hungry.
Barton tried to get up, fell, and hit the drive control. The ship was still on manual. The drive
kicked on. The acceleration threw the monster backward, drove Lyle and Barton into their seats.
Even though they couldn’t move, the thing somehow managed to drag itself onward.
It was a nightmare. It couldn’t be real.