"Scott Westerfeld - Succession 1 - The Risen Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westerfeld Scott)

"They're getting heavy, sir," Hendrik warned. Marx switched his view to Hendrik's
perspective for a moment. From her high vantage, a thickening swarm of interceptors
was clearly visible ahead. The bright lines of their long grapples sparkled like a
shattered, drifting spiderweb in the sun.
There were too many.
Of course, there were backups already advancing from the dropsite. If this first wave
of Intelligencers was destroyed, another squadron would be ready, and eventually a
craft or two would get through. But there wasn't time. The rescue mission required
onsite intelligence, and soon. Failure to provide it would certainly end careers, might
even constitute an Error of Blood.
One of these five craft had to make it.
"Tighten up the formation and increase lift," Marx ordered. "Oczar, you stay down."
"Yes, sir," the man answered quietly. Oczar knew what Marx intended for his craft.
The rest of the squadron swept in close to Marx. The four Intelligencers rose together,
jostling through the writhing defenders.
"Time for you to make some noise, Oczar," Marx said. "Extend your sensor posts to
full length and activity."
"Up to a hundred, sir."
Marx looked down as Oczar's craft grew, a spider with twenty splayed legs emerging
suddenly from a seed, a time-lapse of a flower relishing sunlight. The interceptors
around Oczar grew more detailed as his craft became fully active, bathing their shapes
with ultrasonic pulses, microlaser distancing, and millimeter radar.
Already, the dense cloud of interceptors was beginning to react. Like a burst of pollen
caught by a sudden wind, they shifted toward Oczar's craft.
"We're going through blind and silent," Marx said to the other pilots. "Find a gap and
push toward it hard. We'll be cutting main power."
"One tangle, sir," Oczar said. "Two."
"Feel free to defend yourself."
"Yes, sir!"
On Marx's status board, the counterdrones in Oczar's magazine counted down
quickly. The man launched a pair as he confirmed the order, then another a few seconds
later. The interceptors must be all over him. Marx glanced down at Oczar's craft. The
bilateral geometries of its deployed sensor array were starting to twist, burdened by the
thrashing defenders. Through the speakers, Oczar grunted with the effort of keeping his
craft intact.
Marx raised his eyes from the battle and peered forward. The remainder of the
squadron was reaching the densest rank of the interceptor cloud. Oczar's diversion had
thinned it somewhat, but there was still scant space to fit through.
"Pick your hole carefully," Marx said. "Get some speed up. Retraction on my mark.
Five ... four ... three..."
He let the count fade, concentrating on flying his own craft. He had aimed his
Intelligencer toward a gap in the interceptors, but one had drifted into the center of his
path. Marx reversed his rotor and boosted power, driving his craft downward.
The drone loomed closer, lured by the whine of his surging main rotor. He hoped the
extra burst would be enough.
"Retract now!" he ordered. The view blurred and faded as the sensor posts on the ship
furled. In seconds, Marx's vision went dark.
"Cut your main rotors," he commanded.
The small craft would be almost silent now, impelled only by the small,
flywheel-powered stabilizer wing at their rear. It would push them forward until it ran