"ab Hugh, Dafydd & Linaweaver, Brad - Doom 04 - Endgame 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (ab Hugh Dafydd)

We held each other tight the night before landing,
Arlene's beautiful high-and-tight pressed hard against
my blue-shaven chin, as Corps as we could possibly be
for our last day—but still needing the warmth of that
one human who made it all worthwhile, even the end.
And believe it or not, we actually slept well: we had no
doubts or nagging fears because we knew we were
going out in a blaze of Marine Corps glory the next
morning!
Tomorrow came, and Fredworld loomed before us
on the for'ard TV monitor. Assuming no color correc-
tion, it was mostly brown with straight black lines
crisscrossing it at odd angles, with no visible conti-
nents, water, or weather, but tons of gunk orbiting
around it, sparkling in the sunlight every now and
again. Jagged red streaks might indicate intense vol-
canic activity. .. . "Oh joy," I said when Arlene
suggested the possibility.
"We should stay on aboard the ship," said Sears
and Roebuck, as if we had rehearsed anything but for
the last eight weeks.
"Strap down," I commanded. "The atmosphere is
getting thick enough to measure. We might be in for
some heavy buffeting, according to the timeline."
The Fred computer was no liar. We were shaken
around something fierce, and I got seasick almost
immediately. I didn't blow, but I sure felt as green as
Sears and Roebuck looked. Even Arlene wasn't com-
fortable, and she never gets motion sick.
We hadn't bothered to strap down the captain's
body, and he was bounced right out of his chair. Oh
well, I sure as hell wasn't about to unstrap to go fetch
him. His corpse bucked around the bridge, dropping
artichoke leaves in its wake as if leaving a trail for us
to follow. I hoped he "felt" every blow, the worthless
bastard, however dead aliens "feel" anything!
All of a sudden, I heard God's own crash of
trumpets and drums, and the ship wrenched so
abruptly, so violently, that I think I passed out; I
blinked back to awareness sometime later—don't
know how long—and immediately felt a head-
splitting agony, like some Fred or Fred monster was
repeatedly jamming its claw into my skull! The sear-
ing pain lasted only four or five seconds, then it was
gone, but it was another few heartbeats before color
rushed back into my vision. I hadn't even realized I
was seeing in black and white until the view colorized
again.
Every muscle in my body ached, like two mornings
after the world's toughest workout. My stomach