"E. E. Doc Smith - D' Alembert 9 - The Omicron Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

pursuers chase them through the descending ranks of enemy craft. Two enemy ships crashed spectacularly
as one of them chased an imperial ship a little too closely. The fiery explosion brought cheers to the
defenders' lips.

But their joy was shortlived. As brave and determined as they were, they were still grossly
outnumbered. They could not match the enemy ships in speed or firepower. One by one, the gallant
defenders of Omicron were blown out of the sky until only two ships remained.

At this point, knowing there was nothing further they could do here, Captain Osho made the
decision to retreat. The ships had been trying, ever since the appearance of the invaders, to contact some
other naval bases via subetheric communicator, but the enemy was jamming the subcom channels.
Presumably no other communications had gone out from the surface of the planet, either. The Empire had
to be warned that this attack was taking place so it could mount a counteroffensive of its own.

The two remaining naval vessels broke off their contact with the enemy and, heading in two
separate directions, made a dash for freedom. They were hoping that at least one of them could escape to
spread the alarm.

Such were the overwhelming numbers of the invading force, however, that it was able to dispatch
eight of its own ships to deal with each of the escaping vessels. They tracked relentlessly after their
quarries, encircling them before they could get far enough from Omicron's gravitational field to slip into
subspace safely.

The enemy ships englobed the two naval vessels, pouring beams of incalculable energy at the
trapped craft. In both cases, the result was tragically the same: The Navy ships' shields held out against the
bombardment for a few moments before finally overloading and popping out. Without that protection, the
naval vessels easily succumbed, flaring in brilliant, silent explosions that scattered debris through the cold
darkness of space. There was no one to take the official message back to the Empire that Omicron had
been lost to a mysterious invading force.

With the last organized resistance finally defeated, the invaders must have thought they'd have a
free hand—but they reckoned without knowing the spirit of the Omicronians. People living on the frontier
of civilization develop a tough, stubborn nature—and the citizens of Omicron, confused and frightened as
they were, were not about to surrender their world without a struggle. The Navy and its big guns were
gone, but the Omicronians still clung to their little pockets of resistance.

The big cities were a shambles, but the smaller towns and villages were almost untouched by the
firestorm the attackers had unleashed. Police departments around the world dragged out their heaviest
weaponry and riot-control equipment in an attempt to shore up a last line of resistance. Radio
communication seemed a little more reliable than subcom, and the forces scattered over the face of the
planet managed to patch together some preliminary coordination of their efforts.

The invading forces seemed reluctant to land, at first. Out of the holds of the bigger battleships
came scores of small fliers to flit through Omicron's skies, looking for opposition. These fliers were not
heavily armed, but they didn't have to be—they faced only small, ill prepared and hastily assembled
militia.

Occasionally one of the pockets of defenders would manage to down an attacking flier, but that
only doubled the enemy's will to wipe out resistance. More often, a few quick return shots from the flier
would destroy any weapons the ground unit had, killing a few of the citizens and sending the rest fleeing