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

Then a blasterbolt hit the creature from behind, and it tumbled forward lifelessly, face down in the dirt. Around the corner came Yvette, holding one of the alien guns she'd taken from a dead soldier. Tucked in her belt was one of the controlling ray tubes; it wasn't a weapon to use in a riot like this, but she'd grabbed one from a dead alien anyway. If there was no use for it later, she could take it back to Earth and have it analyzed.
Fortier gave her a smile and a brief salute. "I guess we're even," he said.
Yvette ran a finger around the rim of the metal slave collar she'd been forced to wear. "Can you help me get this thing off? I hate the very thought of it."
Fortier tried briefly to twist the collar apart, but the metal band was stubborn. "No time now," he said. "It'll have to wait till we have better tools. Come on, you've loafed long enough, there's work to do."
"You mean you didn't come just to rescue me?"
"Not officially. We're just the diversion while the others break into the headquarters over the hill."
Yvette gave a quick nod. "Then let's go ahead and divert, shall we?"
Now up to full complement, the team fanned out and continued its destructive progress through the camp. The compound was thinning out as more of the aliens were killed and more of the humans fled down the riverbank or over the hills to freedom. There was still one pocket of alien resistance, dug in stubbornly behind one of the collapsed inflatable buildings. It would take more firepower than the three of them had available to pry them out of that position.
Fortier looked at his watch and saw, with some surprise, that two hours had elapsed since they'd begun their raid. Anything that was going to happen at the other site would have happened by now; if Jules's team had successfully assaulted the headquarters building, they'd be established in there and might need extra help holding their position.
"Enough diversion," he called to his comrades. "Time for strategic withdrawal. I think we'll be of more help elsewhere."
Slowly, then, the trio started retreating from their positions, back toward the waiting copter. The enemy soldiers sensed a change in the tempo of the fighting, and within seconds came swarming up out of their trench, charging the three retreating figures. Moving at a full run and firing back only occasionally, the Empire group raced to the copterbus. Fortier made it first and kicked the engines quickly to life. Dodging through a barrage of blaster fire, Yvette dove through the open hatch, banging her head and shoulders hard against the seat but otherwise intact.
Ivanov was a touch slower. He arrived at the copter just as Fortier was about to take off. Yvette reached back to grab his arm and pull him in when three different energy beams hit him in a crossfire. Ivanov screamed as his clothing caught fire and the beams burned holes clear through his body. His fingers stiffened momentarily in Yvette's grip, then pulled away as he fell dead at the base of the copter. Fortier, unwilling to waste any more time here, zoomed recklessly into the air and away from the charging aliens.
Yvette turned away. She'd seen people killed by blaster-fire before, had even killed a few traitors herself that way, but it was never a pretty sight. She'd just been on a killing rampage, but those had been aliens who'd killed and enslaved innocent people. This was different.
"Ivanov was a murderer and a traitor," she said softly. "He'd have been condemned to death by any court in the Empire."
"I know," Fortier said, speaking just as quietly. "But for a while, he was a compatriot. He fought at our side and shared the risks with us to help save the Empire. It always hurts when you lose a comrade."
Fortier had the copter make a turn and hover a second out of range of the blasters, looking back at the burning slave camp. He thought of the "missing man" formation he'd flown too many times to honor a fallen colleague. He resolved to fly one for Ivanov as he kicked the copterbus's tail around and sped off. Right now he wanted to get back to the headquarters building before they lost any more comrades.
CHAPTER 10
Jackpot
The trek over the hills to the aliens' landing field was harder than Jules had imagined. With only the light from the last quarter moon to guide them, he and Tatiana were constantly tripping over rocks and small depressions. Only Lady A, with her artificially enhanced vision, seemed to have no problem in the dim moonlight. Adding to their difficulties was the fact that Tatiana was not in top physical shape as her two companions were, and had to pause frequently to rest. Jules fretted that they might not make it to the site before Fortier and Ivanov began their diversion.
Fortunately he'd left them plenty of time in his estimate, and the trio made it safely to the hill at the south end of the landing field well before the fireworks started in the slave camp. They looked down over the peaceful setting and began making their assault plans. "When things start happening, they'll happen quickly," Jules warned Tatiana. "You'll have to go in fast with your blaster drawn, and be prepared to use it."
"Shoot to kill," Lady A added coldly. "It would be nice to have prisoners to question, but we don't have the facilities for such a luxury and we don't know yet how to tell the privates from the generals. We'll have to settle for any written material we can find."
They climbed quietly down the hill until they reached a boulder that could provide them adequate cover. While the other two waited, Jules sneaked out and planted explosive charges by the unguarded front and rear doors to the headquarters building. Then he slipped back to the hiding place and waited for the diversion to begin.
Things started happening right on schedule. Even though the slave camp was a few kilometers away, Jules heard the dull roar of the exploding bombs and he could picture the chaos that must have broken out over there. He and the others waited patiently for their plan to show effects here.
They didn't have too long to wait. A strange thrumming sound-the alien equivalent of a siren, Jules guessed-filled the air, and within seconds the base was alive with activity. Swarms of enemy soldiers came scrambling out of the building and out of some nearby ships. A loudspeaker blared some incoherent gibberish, and the soldiers ran to take their places on three open-topped carts. The carts took off into the night, over the hill to the slave camp.
Jules watched them go. He would have loved to take some shots at them-the soldiers seated there made simple targets-but he had more important things to take care of here. Those soldiers were Fortier's and Ivanov's responsibility.
They waited a few more minutes to make sure no more aliens would be leaving the area. When they were certain the situation had stabilized, Jules gave a silent nod and the trio moved out of hiding and down toward their predetermined positions. Lady A waited by the door to the far end of the building; Jules kept Tatiana with him for safety's sake at the near end.
When he could see that Lady A was set at her end, Jules touched the control that detonated the first set of explosives in front of his door. The blast shattered the simple wood construction, opening a gaping hole for him to enter.
"Stay behind me," he called to Tatiana as he leaped through the cloud of dust and smoke left in the wake of the explosion. Actually, he moved so quickly that the young woman would have been hard pressed to do anything else. Her main concern was staying out of his way while he was in action.
Only a small contingent of aliens had been left behind to guard this building; the main threat was thought to be at the slave camp. Although all of them were armed, the nearest ones had no time to draw their weapons before the deadly beams from Jules's blaster cut them down. By the time the creatures at the far end of the building could start firing back, Jules and Tatiana were well inside the building and safely behind the cover of a partition.
Then, to add to the enemy's confusion, the Empire team initiated stage two of their assault. The second explosive charge was detonated outside the far door and Lady A came racing into the building like an avenging Fury, her blaster carving a swath through the alien forces.
This assault from two directions at once totally demoralized the enemy soldiers. Lady A was a blur to the eyes, a literally inhuman killing machine; even Jules, no slouch himself when it came to personal combat, was impressed by the speed of her reactions and the accuracy of her aim. It put any DesPlainian to shame, and he was glad she was on his side, however temporarily.
Caught in a crossfire between Jules and Lady A, the aliens had no chance at all. Within minutes the opposition lay dead on the ground: Jules, Tatiana and Lady A found themselves in sole possession of the aliens' headquarters.
"Now comes the hard part," Lady A said casually, as though killing a few dozen creatures were no more a task than brushing her teeth. "We have to look through this entire building and find something of value, to make all this carnage worth the effort."
This task would fall almost entirely on Tatiana's shoulders; it was her reason for being along on the mission in the first place. The desks in the various cubicles were all computerized, as would have been expected in a human office, but nonetheless their tops were cluttered with paper and printed cards much like the instruction cards they'd found in the ruins of the walking tower.
Tatiana started reading these at random. Her purpose was twofold. First, she was trying to build up a vocabulary and grammar by guessing at the meaning of new words through their context with ones she already knew. Second, she was looking for key words or phrases that would indicate a document of special importance. There had to be something in all this vast array of information that would tell them about the aliens, their background, and their plans for the future.
Jules and Lady A were unable to read the alien language, but they did not stand idly by. They had to be constantly on the alert for any more soldiers re-entering the building so they could protect Tatiana and give her as much time as possible to do her job. They also moved through the building on their own looking for signs they themselves could interpret, such as a larger or more impressive looking office which might belong to a more important officer. The odds of finding something valuable were higher there than on the desks of junior level staff.
As Jules was rummaging through one cubicle, he pushed aside the dead body of one of the aliens. As it fell to the ground he noticed something strange, and bent over to examine it more closely.
The creature had died from a blaster beam; the burn hole in its uniform and the charred flesh on its chest attested to that. Yet, strangely, there was no blood. Blaster wounds were often known to cauterize themselves by the nature of the energy beam, but it was seldom a perfect seal; there was usually some leakage of blood or lymph from the burn. Here there was nothing and, thinking back on it, Jules could not recall seeing blood from any of the bodies.
He became aware of Lady A standing over him with a looming presence. "Have you taken up xenobiology as a hobby?" she asked icily.
"They don't bleed," Jules pointed out, ignoring her sarcasm. "There's not a drop of blood anywhere."
The woman knelt beside him and glanced at the corpse. "You're right," she said. "A curious phenomenon. We'll have to mention that in our report when we get back; perhaps the experts can make something of it. Maybe their wounds cauterize better than ours, or maybe they don't have a circulatory system the way humans do."
She stood up again. "It's pointless for us to speculate, since neither of us is an expert on comparative anatomy. And while it's true that any information we gather is important at this stage, I think we'd do better looking for military rather than scientific data. If this does become an all-out war, there'll be plenty of corpses for the scientists to dissect later."
She was probably right, Jules conceded as he himself straightened up and continued on his search. Nevertheless, the curious part of his mind that was always turning over strange facts and oddly shaped pieces of information refused to let go of this particular tidbit. Something was tickling his brain, telling him that this might be an important clue to the secret of the aliens. If only he knew how to interpret it correctly. But when no instant enlightenment came he filed the fact in the back of his mind, to let his subconscious play with it at its leisure.
A few minutes later he came to one cubicle near the center of the building that felt important. There was no particular factor he could point to; the cubicle may have been slightly larger than most of the others, the desk of a richer looking wood, the chair a bit bigger, but in themselves those were trivial concerns. Something about the arrangement of the office, though, gave him the firm impression that someone of importance had been stationed here. He called Lady A over to see how she would react to it.
Her instincts corroborated his own. "I think we should do some serious looking in here," she agreed. "Tatiana, if you don't have something else important right now, come and try some of these things."
The albino woman came over and began sifting through the papers on top of the desk. During even the brief time she'd had to study so far, her computer-assisted memory had enabled her to attain a reasonable level of proficiency with the alien language, so she could skim rapidly through the papers, putting aside ones that were of an obviously trivial nature.
As she was glancing over the material, a handful of alien soldiers burst into the building from outside. Jules didn't know whether they came from the ships or whether they'd circled back from the fracas at the slave camp, but they had to be dealt with if Tatiana was to continue her work. He and Lady A fought furiously for the next several minutes while Tatiana tried to ignore them and continue reading. By the time the aliens were eliminated and the other two returned to her side, Tatiana was looking very excited.
"I think I've found something," she said, holding up a series of cards. "It's a list of some sort with several columns, and it goes on for pages. There's a string of names in the first column, with serial numbers and a string of classification figures in the others."
"It could just be a personnel roster," Lady A said.
Tatiana shook her head. "I don't think so. See this symbol? It's a unit of weight. I don't know exactly how it compares to kilos, but according to the instruction manuals we found earlier one of those walking towers weighs about seven of these units. Whatever these things are on the list, they weigh between a couple dozen and several hundred of those units. Here's a few over a thousand. Those would have to be pretty heavy soldiers.