"Smith, E E Doc - D'alembert 09 - Omicron Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)
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 for cover.
Within twelve hours of its start, the battle for Omicron was over. The major cities were largely piles of rubble; the few survivors in any condition to move walked about in a daze from the harsh bombardment. With the cities had gone the major spaceports and any merchant or civilian vessels that had been moored there. The smaller towns, except where a group of resistors had been blasted out, were mostly intact. The citizenry was panicked; some people fled into open countryside, while others cowered fearfully in their homes, not knowing where to go or what to do. There was no organized resistance force on Omicron worthy of the title.
Assured, finally, that they would meet no formal opposition, the invading force finally landed. The fleet of ships -of a design no one on the planet had ever seen before -touched down on a flat plain in the Long River valley. Curious locals overcame their fear to get a look at the mysterious invaders who had conquered their planet and defied the Empire of Earth.
The hatch doors on the giant ships slid slowly open -and at that moment, life on the planet Omicron was radically changed.
CHAPTER 2
Proposals
Earth was tranquil in the viewscreen, a gibbous blue globe filling almost the entire field of view. The atmosphere seemed like the thinnest of haloes ringing that precious sphere, and little bits of black space, sprinkled with stars, showed in the corners of the screen. Down below, the Pacific Ocean gleamed in afternoon sunlight, enhanced by a few white cloud systems. Along the zone of twilight was the western portion of the North American continent; in the darkness, just barely visible on the horizon, were the bright lights of some of the bigger cities in the Rockies and the midwest.
The image was only a two-dimensional one, but that was quite enough for the two people flying casually above the atmosphere in the Mark Forty Service Special. They were not interested in studying the globe in detail; it merely served as a pleasant visual distraction to complement their more personal activities.
The cabin of the craft was small and intimate: Two acceleration couches with but a few centimeter gap between them, surrounded by a dashboard control panel that more resembled a spaceship's than a groundcar's. The Mark Forty could serve as both, adding to its sophisticated complexity. When it was in flight mode its windows were sealed tight and became, instead, the viewscreen that currently showed the image of Earth as the craft orbited serenely above it.
Helena von Wilmenhorst knew it was against Service regulations to "borrow" a Mark Forty for purely personal reasons. As a ranking officer in the Service of the Empire, though, she was in a position to bend a few rules. She had just spent a hard sixty-hour week working for SOTE's benefit, and she felt entitled to some minor liberties.
On her left, Captain Paul Fortier of Naval Intelligence was uncharacteristically nervous. He was normally an articulate man, but tonight the handsome dark-haired officer was strangely silent; when he did speak, he frequently cleared his throat and made hesitant false starts. His conversation seemed rambling and pointless at times. He refused to look directly into Helena's face, and when she put her arms around his well-muscled shoulders she could tell he was tense, braced as though for combat.
This was not at all like the man she'd grown to know and love. They'd been working together for the past seventeen months, establishing a firm liaison between SOTE and Naval Intelligence. The two organizations had never meshed so smoothly, due in no little part to the extraordinary efforts of these two people. In fact, Helena and Fortier were discovering they meshed well personally as well as professionally.
That was why, after a long, grueling day of administrative work together, Helena had suggested they get away alone-just the two of them soaring peacefully above the atmosphere. Fortier had agreed enthusiastically enough, but as soon as they were alone in the Mark Forty he'd changed from his normally suave, confident self into the bashful, gawky man now beside her.
Helena tried gamely to carry the conversation, but after several disasters she was becoming more and more exasperated with her companion. Finally, able to contain herself no longer, she asked, "Is something the matter, Paul?"
She could see his muscles tense still further. "No. Uh, what makes you think that?"
"I've never seen you so wound up and jumpy. Even when we knew we were going into danger on Dr Loxner's asteroid you were calmer than this."
"Must be more tired than I thought," Fortier muttered. "It has been a long week."
"It's been just as long for me, and I've worked as hard as you have," Helena pointed out. "That doesn't stop me from uttering two complete coherent sentences in a row."
"Sorry." Fortier looked away. "I guess I'm just distracted tonight."
"Maybe you just didn't want my company tonight." Helena leaned forward toward the controls. "We can go back down if you prefer."
Fortier reacted quickly. He reached out and grabbed her left hand, holding it tightly and not letting it complete its intended action. "No. I want very much to be with you. It's just . . . I'm very nervous, that's all. I've never done this before."
"Never done what? You've flown with me before, dozens of times. All those trips between Earth and Luna Base together . . ."
"I've never proposed marriage before." Fortier's voice was scratchy as the words tumbled from his mouth.
Helena stopped, dumbstruck for a full thirty seconds. When she finally could speak again, all she could say was "Paul?" in a voice that did not sound at all like her own.
"Paul." Helena swiveled her seat more to face him and cupped her right hand over his mouth, silencing his outburst. "Do you mean to say you're proposing to me now?"
Fortier took a deep breath, and Helena took her hand away from his mouth again. "That's what I thought I was doing," the captain said.
Helena laughed and reached across to ruffle his hair. "Idiot! You haven't asked me a thing yet." Her movement in freefall caused her to spin slightly in the cabin, and she quickly had to stop ruffling his hair and grab at the dashboard to steady herself again.
Looking flustered, Fortier said, "Oh. In that case, Duchess Helena Kirsten von Wilmenhorst, would you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?"
Helena's laughter stopped. Prying her left hand out of Fortier's rigid grip, she lifted both hands to cup his handsome face and looked straight into his brown eyes. "After all the time we've spent together, after all we've come to mean to each other, did you honestly expect me to say anything but yes?"
Fortier gulped and averted his eyes. "Well, but you're a duchess and heir to all of Sector Four. You may even end up running SOTE when your father retires. I'm just a commoner and an ordinary officer. I have no fortune, nothing in particular I can offer you . . ."
"Hold it right there, tovarishch," Helena said, a spark of mock anger in her eyes. "First of all, the Stanley Doctrine gives commoners as much right to marry duchesses as anyone else, in case you've forgotten your grade school history. Second, I don't need a fortune; I've already got one. Third, there is nothing ordinary about you. You are one of the most charming, intelligent, handsome, dedicated, talented, and wonderful men I know. You are a prize catch, and tonight I think I'm the luckiest lady in the Galaxy. The answer to your question, Captain, is a resounding yes, yes, yes!"
She pulled his face closer to her own and the two spent a long time in a passionate kiss, Helena's waist-length black hair slowly drifting in the air currents as her new fiancй's hands slid around her back. For the rest of their several Earth orbits there was nothing nervous or awkward about Paul Fortier's behavior at all.
***
Even hours later, when the Mark Forty had been brought back to its hangar near the Hall of State for Sector Four in Miami and the two lovers had reluctantly gone their separate ways for the night, Helena still felt as though she were in orbit. She'd been in love before, several times, but it had never worked out the way she'd always expected. In the case of Jules d'Alembert, the problem of coming from worlds with seriously different gravities had made the prospect of marriage impossible. In another case, the man had not been as serious about her as she'd been about him. Another man turned out to be merely a golddigger -a fact she'd learned just in time to prevent her making a costly mistake. Lately, the couple of times she'd gotten deeply involved she found herself having to make career decisions-and in both cases, the men came out second best to her position with SOTE. She'd almost begun to despair of ever finding the right person for her, and had poured most of her energies into her work for the last few years. In Paul Fortier, though, she felt she'd found the perfect match. He was a few years older than she was, mature, athletic, and very intelligent. His career also matched well with hers; they were both only too aware of the exigencies of intelligence work. Both were fiercely dedicated to the welfare of the Empire, giving them another point of shared concern.
It was true, as he himself had pointed out, that they came from different social backgrounds. Helena was from the upper levels of the aristocracy; she'd spent all her life in the glitter and glamour of the top classes, and had been raised almost as a sister to Edna Stanley, the current Empress. Fortier was from a family with a naval tradition-sturdy middle-class stock without titles or pretensions. There was bound to be some conflict in their chosen lifestyles-but given the similarity of their interests and careers, that could probably be reduced to a minimum. She was sure an intelligent person could adjust to a step upwards in society much more easily than a step downwards.
She smiled warmly. It would be fun teaching her Paul the intricate ins and outs of protocol, the complex patterns of formal etiquette in aristocratic society. She imagined the first few dinner parties they would attend, and hoped he'd be up to making inane conversations with empty-headed countesses and half-drunk earls. She thought of the splendid reception she'd have to throw to announce their engagement-and that thought reminded her she'd have to tell her father.
She checked her ringwatch and discovered it was three in the morning, Miami time. Even with the long hours her father kept as Head of the Service of the Empire, he would probably be asleep by now. There would be plenty of time to tell him the wonderful news in the morning. She didn't think he'd raise any objections; after all, it was he who'd encouraged her to get more closely acquainted with Paul Fortier in the first place by assigning her to work with him as liaison between SOTE and NI.
She could not later remember her drive home from Headquarters to her apartment. Her head was so in the clouds from this surprising development that her surroundings were just a blur. She'd had enough presence of mind to hook her car's controls into the traffic computer network, rather than trying to drive on her own; in her present euphoric state, she didn't want to risk an accident. She merely sat back in her seat and spent the time in pleasant reverie.
As befit a lady of her rank, Helena lived in a penthouse suite at one of Miami's most exclusive hotels. She had four, large, well-appointed rooms, maid service at her call any hour of the day, closets filled with the latest fashions, a large and timely library of bookreels, and the latest in automated conveniences. Her kitchen could handle banquets for twenty; the other three rooms had their own characteristic periods, yet each contained touches of the others so that twentieth century "modern", Aesthetic Movement Japonica, and Deco each were clearly followed and still tastefully blended-the perfect setting for gracious entertaining.
It was everything a lady of leisure could wish. The trouble was, as she lamented to her father repeatedly, she was anything but a lady of leisure. Between the grueling demands of the Service and the obligatory social demands of the Imperial Court, she was almost never able to enjoy her suite. All she usually ever did here was sleep-and she frequently skipped that; her busy workload often demanded she grab mere catnaps on the couch in her office.
Helena left her groundcar nestled in its underground parking slot, still walking lightly on air from the delight of this evening. The day's fatigue was washed away. She resolved to get out of her work clothes; as attractive as the champagne tuxedo-pleated jumpsuit was, it had been a long exciting day. Helena looked forward to a hot whirlpool bath and a chance to lie down on her eyelet-covered flotation-bed. She wasn't sure she'd be able to sleep at all, but she owed herself the opportunity to try. At least lying down might stop the giddy spinning of her head.
She took her private elevator tube to the penthouse and pressed her hand to the keyplate. The computer scanned her handprint and recognized it as acceptable, so the door opened and she stepped from the brightly lit hallway into her darkened reception room.
Because of the headiness of that evening, perhaps she could be forgiven the few instants of bewilderment before knowing definitely that something was wrong. She stood frozen in the doorway for a moment, her instincts giving her a message that her mind was still not prepared to accept. There was a strange feeling of disorientation, as though she'd suddenly entered a world where everything was forty-five degrees from perpendicular.
Then realization came to her. The light had not come on when she entered the room. The computer had been programmed to turn lights on immediately upon her passing through the doorway. Yet if the computer were simply malfunctioning it wouldn't have opened the door for her at all. Someone must have tampered with it.
Even though Helena was not really a field agent, she'd trained at the Service Academy and the instructions they'd given her served her in good stead. She sized up the situation instantly. She was standing in the doorway to a darkened room with a bright light behind her. That made her a silhouette, an easy target for anyone inside the room. If she tried to back quickly out of the room, she would remain a target for several seconds before she could be out of the line of sight. Her best bet would be to go forward, into the darkness.
Helena dove to her right where she knew there would be a smooth patch of carpet. Once she left the doorway, the door slid silently shut behind her, enveloping the room in almost total blackness. She landed on her right shoulder and rolled until her back was against the wall. She scrambled to a crouching position, subconsciously comparing her own clumsy efforts to the smooth, fluid motion the d'Alemberts would use for the same maneuver. Her right hand reached to her belt for the ministunner she always carried there.
From the darkness at the center of the room, where Helena knew the large couch was, a woman's voice said, "A rather melodramatic entrance, don't you think?"
"Who are you!" It took every gram of control for Helena to keep her voice steady.
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