"Smith, E E Doc - D'alembert 09 - Omicron Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

"The machine's concentrating all its fire over there," Yvette pointed out quietly. "I could slip in behind it and climb up one of the legs. If I can't break into the disk itself and take out some of the operators, I've got enough explosives in my belt to knock out one of the joints and topple it over."
"Absolutely not," Lady A said. "We came here to observe, not fight in hopeless battles."
Jules decided to use his position as team leader to put in a word on his sister's behalf. "Maybe the people who ran to the countryside can't help us, but these people have been battling the enemy face to face. They can tell us what sorts of weaponry they have and what their tactics are. If we can link up with them, and maybe capture some of the invaders for ourselves, we'll be ahead of the game."
"There are better ways of getting the information we need," Lady A insisted.
Jules nodded. "I'm sure there are. But none of them are available right now. Speed is the key to this mission, as you've said more than once. We can't wait for opportunities to present themselves-we have to make our own."
He turned to Yvette. "Go to it-but be careful. Bail out at the first sign of trouble."
Yvette gave him a brief nod and slipped from their hiding place, zigzagging her way across the rubble-strewn street. She took every opportunity to stop behind some cover so her approach would not be noticed.
The park in which the tower stood had been decimated by the initial bombardment and the current fighting around it. There was no cover worthy of the name to hide Yvette from view once she crossed the street. Steeling herself, she made a dash at full DesPlainian speed across the open ground, hoping there would be no guns trained on her. The gamble paid off: She made it without incident to the base of one of the tower's seven-story legs.
From this point it was simply a matter of climbing-a snap for an old circus trouper like Yvette Bavol. The legs were bare metal structures-no attempt had been made to ornament their functional design. The naked girders and bolts made easy handholds as Yvette scampered up the leg like a monkey up a tree. Her only concern was that the tower would start walking again; anything approaching the speed it had been moving before would surely dislodge her and send her plunging several stories to the ground. Fortunately, the tower's operators seemed content with their strategic position and were not inclined to move from it.
Jules and the others watched from their hiding place as Yvette made her daring climb. Jules would have liked to be along with her, but knew that would be stretching their risks a little too far. Besides, someone had to stay back and keep a rein on Lady A.
When Yvette was three-quarters of the way up, another factor entered the picture. Out of the sky, seemingly from nowhere, swooped one of those strange aircraft the team had seen earlier. It ignored the tower and made a strafing run at the resisters' hiding places. A combination of bombs and beams hammered at the defenders' position. Some of them were forced to retreat, while others stubbornly held their ground against the barrage.
The plane was gone as abruptly as it had come, but it unquestionably left its mark on the battlefield. Physically the defenders had suffered serious casualties and the piles of rubble they were using for cover were smaller and more jumbled. Emotionally, they were shaken. When they could be attacked so devastatingly from an unexpected quarter in so short a time, it was hard to press on with the fight. Death seemed the only sure outcome, and retreat seemed a better alternative. Still, the Omicronian pioneer stubbornness kept them fighting on when others might have turned and fled.
Yvette made it to the top of the tower's leg, just below the passenger disk. She studied it closely for any possible opening she might have, but the machine was too well sealed against external force; there might indeed be some way to get in, but finding it would take more time than she could afford. Frustrated, she turned her attention to the tower's external structure and met with more success.
The legs were attached to the disk at the top by a complex series of socket joints, enabling them to swivel rapidly at many angles. Reaching into the compartmentalized utility belt she wore, she pulled out a series of small explosive charges. It took every bit of her fantastic acrobatic abilities to climb around the joint, setting the charges in places where she calculated they'd do the most damage. Then, scurrying around to the other side of the tower, she set off the explosives.
There was no loud roar; the explosives were not that powerful. They were, however, accurately placed for maximum result, and that was what Yvette got. The "shoulder" of the tower trembled for a moment, then buckled and caved inward. The tower tilted precariously, more and more of its weight suddenly falling on the disabled limb. The crew inside made a frantic effort to readjust the three remaining legs into a tripod arrangement, but offbalance as they were they couldn't quite make it work. The tower twisted slowly around and began to fall.
Yvette clung to her precarious perch as the tower toppled with an exaggerated slowness. She held her spot while the tower fell, judging distance with a keen aerialist's eye. At the very last moment, while she was still about two stories above ground level, she pushed off with a mighty leap and soared through the air. She landed well clear of the falling behemoth, tucking herself into a ball and using the momentum from her fall to roll her safely along the ground.
Beside him, Jules could see Lady A nodding almost imperceptibly. "Impressive," she said beneath her breath. Jules smiled. There were still a few tricks he and Evie could show her.
The smile vanished an instant later as the top of the tower hit the ground. The group was unprepared for the violent explosion that rocked the street, bringing down a few more buildings with the sheer magnitude of the blast. An enormous fireball erupted into the sky, followed seconds later by an angry cloud of dense black smoke. The air for hundreds of meters around heated up to summer temperatures and stank of burning plastic.
"So much for our chances of capturing any of the invaders alive," Fortier muttered.
Stunned by the blast, it was all Yvette could do to scramble to her feet and run for cover, in case more explosions or fires followed. In the confusion she ran toward the line of the city's defenders rather than back to her own group. It didn't seem to matter: the only direction of immediate importance was away from the fallen tower. The defenders, who had also witnessed her act of bravery, welcomed her into their ranks.
Then, diving through the black cloud, the enemy aircraft came again. This time it delivered neither bombs nor blaster beams against the brave band of militia. Instead, like a cropduster, it left a trail of smoke in its wake, a thick yellowish cloud that settled heavily on the ground. A few of the defenders farthest along the flight path had time to see what was coming and get away, but most of the people-Yvette included-were caught up in the yellow cloud.
The Empire group across the park could hear the sounds of coughing, but the yellow smoke was so dense they couldn't see what was happening. The gas dissipated quickly, though, and they could see bodies sprawled haphazardly across the rubble. At this distance it was impossible to tell whether they were dead or merely unconscious.
Jules jumped up to run to his sister, but Lady A grabbed him tightly by the shoulder and held him in place. He started to protest, but she merely pointed to the sky in the direction from which the enemy plane had come.
A bigger, slower craft was settling to the ground near the sprawled bodies. Although it, too, was of a strange design, it reminded the team members of nothing so much as a transport copter. As the vehicle touched down, a door opened in its side and a team of creatures emerged. They were all wearing bulky suits to protect themselves from any vestiges of the yellow gas, and it was impossible to tell much about them other than the fact that they had two arms, a head, and walked upright on two legs. In height they were slightly shorter than an average DesPlainian, but they seemed much more slender.
Moving quickly, the spacesuited figures began picking up the bodies and carrying them quickly into their waiting aircraft. A couple of them picked up Yvette and began carrying her unceremoniously in with the others.
"We've got to save her!" Jules exclaimed.
"How?" Lady A asked coolly. "It'd be suicide to charge that ship. I won't allow it."
Looked at from the logical side of his mind, Jules had to admit she was right. To make a direct run at the craft would take him across some fifty meters of exposed terrain; it would be foolish to think they wouldn't spot him and shoot him down before he could reach them. He could circle the perimeter of the park, taking advantage of cover afforded by rubble and old houses-but at the rate the creatures were working, they would be finished loading all the bodies by then, and they might already have taken off.
"We've got to do something," Jules muttered. "Maybe a diversion." His mind started thinking along convoluted paths, of having a few members of the party go off to one side and start creating enough disturbance to allow the rest to move in and perform the rescue. But there wasn't the manpower, the equipment, or the time, and Jules knew it.
"I didn't want her going on that fool's errand in the first place," Lady A said smugly. "We can't risk any more of our people trying to save her."
Jules clenched his fists in anger and watched, frustrated, as the enemy figures finished their task. The last of them hopped back aboard the transport craft, and the vehicle took off once more into the afternoon sky-carrying Yvette with them.
CHAPTER 7
The Omicron Liberation Army
"At least we can be sure the gas didn't kill her," Lady A commented as the enemy vehicle vanished from view.
"How can we know that?" Tatiana asked.
It was Jules who answered glumly, "The invaders would hardly go to the trouble of picking up dead bodies-not when they've already left so many lying around after the bombardment."
"But what do they want with them?" Ivanov asked.
"Interrogation, ransom, slaves, sacrifices, food, or experimentation," Lady A said calmly. "At least, those have traditionally been the reasons for taking prisoners throughout human history. If these are indeed alien creatures, they may have come up with some new permutation."
Jules shot her an angry glance. "You're so comforting."
The woman shrugged. "I'm not afraid of voicing the unpleasant truth. You knew it as well as I."
"I think we ought to go looking for some of those defenders who managed to get away," Fortier said, trying to defuse the touchy situation. "They've spent the past week fighting the enemy; they may be able to fill us in on some of the background."
Jules nodded slowly. He needed something to take his mind off Yvette's predicament for the moment. "Good idea," he said. "Maybe they even know where the enemy base is or where they take their prisoners."
Flames were still engulfing the disk that had been atop the enemy's walking tower. The team skirted around that and went across the park to where the defenders had mounted their courageous stand against the fearsome war machine. The yellow smoke had completely dissipated by now and the five members experienced no ill effects. They did note that, while the enemy figures had loaded the bodies of the fallen defenders into their vehicle, they had left the weapons behind. Apparently they were not too concerned about the damage any survivors could do to them.
The streets were once again as silent as those of the other villages they'd visited. The other people must be around here somewhere, but they'd retreated to some hiding place to lick their wounds after the battle.
Jules and his team could have spent days trying to find the particular hiding place the defenders were using, but there just wasn't the time to waste. Cupping his hands to his mouth, Jules cried out, "Hallo, where are you? We're friends, we want to talk to you."
When that brought no immediate response, the five members of the team continued on through the deserted streets, calling aloud to the people they knew must be there. After twenty minutes they were starting to grow hoarse when they finally got results. A blaster beam sizzled the ground a few meters in front of them, coming from the second-story window of a house on their right.
"Hey, don't shoot, we're friends!" Jules called up to the unseen sniper.
"Prove it," a voice called back.
"Do we look like some of them?" Fortier asked.
"No," the voice admitted. "But maybe you decided to work for them."