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

remember?"
"So?"
"So for four decades, Sergeant, Rumplestiltskin
stared unblinking at the ground or the sky or the sun,
knowing his entire species had been wiped out in the
wink of an eye by an alien race they were going to
enslave. Fly, he's suffered enough; don't trap him
inside that corporeal bottle."
My hands started shaking as I inserted a jerry-
rigged pair of chopsticks into the holes to press the
levers, simulating a Fred hand.
Arlene put her hand on my shoulder. "You want I
should do it?"
I shook my head firmly. "No, A.S., didn't you read
Old Yeller when you were a little girl?"
"No, I was too busy reading Voyage to the Mush-
room Planet and The Star Beast."
"When your dog has to die, Arlene, you've got to
shoot him yourself. You can't get someone else to
shoot Old Yeller for you."
I pressed the lever, completing the connection. As
usual, we saw nothing. That was the part that both-
ered me the most: as destructive as this neutron beam
was, you'd think you would see something, for God's
sake! A blue light, a lightning bolt, fire and
brimstone—something. But the beam was as invisible
as X-rays in the dentist's office, and as quiet; all I
heard was a single click, and suddenly there was a
huge hole through Rumplestiltskin's chest. Within
three or four seconds, its body was boiling, the flesh
vaporizing instantly wherever the beam touched.
I slowly burned away the entire torso. The Fred ray
was a gigantic eraser—everywhere I pointed, flesh
simply vanished. A minute after turning on the beam,
I clicked it off; nothing remained of the Fred but an
invisible mist of organic molecules in a hot ionized
plasma state. My guess was the interrogation was
pretty permanently over.
"Okay, kiddo," I said to A.S.; "let's go Newbie
hunting."
We suited up for combat, and for the first time in
God knows how long, I found myself getting the
shakes. Somehow, I'd thought the Freds would have
burned all the fear out of me, leaving nothing but a
cold husk of sociopathy. Not true. At the thought of
going up against whatever it was that plowed the
Freds into the dirt on their own home turf, my hands
trembled so much I couldn't even StiKro my boots on
tight.
"Stay here and keep the engine running," I told