"Jerry Pournelle - Birth Of Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

fate. We never really learn enough about the thoughts and motivations of the girl who is one of the two
supporting characters to become caught up in her story. The Martian colonial society also has a few small
but nagging inconsistancies.
Contents

ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
EPILOGUE
 ONE

"Here they come!" Our war leader crawled up to where I was crouched behind a garbage can. "You
ready, Garrett?"
"As I'll ever be." I don't mind saying I was scared. We'd been in plenty of stomps before, but this one
looked to be bad. The word was out that the Hackers had guns.
I patted my clothes to check weapons. As well as the bowie knife in my hand, I had four throwing
knives, each in its hand-sewn pocket on the left side of my jacket, a chain in my regular jacket pocket,
and a two-foot section of iron pipe in my belt. "I'm ready," I said.
"Good. We're counting on you." Spinny crawled off to encourage the other troops.
I was scared all right, but I felt pretty good, too. I was the hidden reserve, waiting in ambush to break
some heads and show just how much better we were than those goons could ever be. I had tough
comrades around me, and they depended on me. At the back of my mind I may have wished I was
somewhere else, but you don't let thoughts. like that up front when you're going into a fight. When this
was over we'd own this part of Baltimore.
We were in a big open space under the Washington slideway. When they built the rolling roads, they
left a lot of the old streets down under. There were shops and stores but not many customers wanted to
go down there, so Undertown belonged to gangs and clubs. Like ours.
Our official name was Werewolves, but we called ourselves Dog Soldiers, and we were a proud lot. I
was vice-president.
The first Hackers moved into the square and some of ours hit them from the sides. More Hackers
moved in; I waited. When I had their guns spotted, I'd come in from behind.
Spinny had planned it that way, but it didn't go. Just as a free-for-all developed in the square, three
Hackers came out of a window we'd been sure was boarded up tight. They'd loosened the nails earlier in
the day. Now they jumped me from behind.
I turned and flicked a knife at the nearest one. It hit him in the arm and he dropped back. That gave