"S. M. Stirling - Draka 01 - Marching Through Georgia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

bucking, vibrating walls of the riveted metal box, packed in their
cocoons of parasail and body harness, strapped about with
personal equipment and weapons like so many deadly slate-grey
Christmas trees. The thin, cold air was full of a smell of oil and
iron, brass and sweat and the black greasepaint that striped the
soldiers' faces; the smell of tools, of a trade, of war. High at the
front of the hold, above the ramp that led to the crew
compartment, a dim red light began to flash.

Centurion Eric von Shrakenberg clicked off the pocket
flashlight, folded the map back into his case and sighed. 0400,
he thought. Ten minutes to drop. Eighty soldiers here in the
transport; as many again in the one behind, and each pulled a
Helot-class glider loaded with heavy equipment and twenty more
troopers.

He was a tall young man, a hundred and eighty centimeters
even without the heavy-soled paratrooper's boots, hard smooth
athlete's muscle rolling on the long bones. Yellow hair and
mustache were cropped close in the Draka military style; new
lines scored down his face on either side of the beak nose,
making him look older than his twenty-four years. He sighed
again, recognizing the futility of worry and the impossibility of
calm.

Some of the old sweats seemed to have it, the ones who'd
carried the banners of the Domination of the Draka from Suez to
Constantinople and east to Samarkand and the borderlands of
China in the last war. And then spent the next twenty years
hammering Turks and Kurds and Arabs into serfs as meek as the
folk of the old African provinces. Senior Decu-rion McWhirter
there, for instance, with the Constantinople Medal and the
Afghan ribbon pinned to his combat fatigues, bald head shining
in the dim lights…

He looked at the watch again. 0405: time was creeping by.
Only two hours since liftoff, if you could believe it.

I'll fret, he thought. Staying calm would drive me crazy .
Christ, I could use a smoke . It would take the edge off; skydiving
was the greatest thing since sex was invented, but combat was
something you never really got used to. You were nervous the
first time; then you met the reality, and it was worse than you'd
feared. And every time after that, the waiting was harder…

Eric had come to believe he would not survive this war many
months ago; his mind believed it, at least. The body never
believed in death, and always feared it. It was odd; he hated the
war and its purposes, but during the fighting, that conflict could
be put aside. Garrison duty was the worst —