"Lawrence Watt-Evans - War Surplus 01 - The Cyborg And The Sorcerers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

"Wait, they've got me restrained somehow."

"Fire will be directed toward possible power sources as they are detected. Destruction of power supply
should remove restraining field."

"But the power source may be right near me! I've seen no sign of any major power sources; I think
they're all small portable units."

"No preferable course of action is known to be available."

"You've got less than a minute! Run for cover!" This final yell seemed to register; the invisible hold on him
was gone, and he was up and running. His training in evasion was in control; before the guards could
react, he was past them and out the door, racing down the corridor. Somehow, his normal self managed
to communicate even while suppressed, saying "I'm free; you don't have to shoot up power sources, they
let me go."

The only reply was a screaming roar that drowned out his footsteps on the marble floor; there was a
thunderous booming crash, a vivid flash that was visible through the crack around the door a few feet in
front of him, and the entire building shook around him.

He skidded to a stop, half a meter from the door, waiting for the roar to subside. The sound did not
subside but merely changed form; the initial howl of the ship's approach became the shattering crash of its
impact on the place in less than a second, and that first great explosion had not yet faded when a series of
lesser but still earth-shaking explosions began. The ship was firing its main armament.

There was a roar of falling masonry somewhere behind him, barely audible over the sound of the ship's
weapons; sunlight spilled into the corridor behind him, lighting clouds of drifting dust that he knew must
be powdered stone. He wondered whether any of the people in the Council chamber were still alive.

He also wondered whether he himself would survive; the computer seemed to be getting careless,
shooting closer to him than necessary, and he remembered that it wanted him dead.

He heard a human voice; someone was screaming, sounding like the faint call of a distant bird over the
cacophony of the starship's assault.
He opened the palace door and moved out into the plaza, with the broken zigzag run that he had been
taught for battlefield use.

The square was already strewn with rubble, ranging from marble dust and gravel to a chunk of wall
several meters across that leaned up against the side of the palace. To his left he saw the glint of metal; he
turned and saw his ship lying across a huge heap of debris, its nose thrust up over the ruins of the palace,
its tail resting on the plaza pavement The air rippled around it from the heat of the hull, and the main drive
exhaust was invisible in a fog of vaporized stone. The explosions continued, mostly up around the nose,
as the computer fired off everything from antipersonnel missiles to snark-type blasters.

"Well, here I am; how do you suggest I get aboard, with the ship at that angle?"

"Climb service ladder."

The service ladder, intended for use in space, was, like the rest of the ship, at about a forty degree angle.