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

and covered her, watching her through my snap-up
rifle scope. She ran under the ship, finally having to
crouch and skitter sideways for the last couple score
meters; this close to the ship, the underside looked
like a building overhang where it rose away from the
cup-shaped LZ.
"Jesus," she muttered. "Sergeant Fly, get your butt
up here and eyeball this thing."
"What is it?" I asked, trotting toward her position
at port-arms.
"I'd rather you saw it for yourself without precon-
ceptions." She sounded tense and excited, and I
double-timed the pace.
By the time I approached, I was panting. Jeez, what
adding another stripe does to a Marine's physical
fitness! Arlene didn't look tense; her RK-150 hung off
her back totally casual. She was staring at something
underneath the ship, where you'd have to crawl on
your hands and knees to see it. She shone a pencil-
light on the thing; it looked like a body of some sort,
or was once .. . but definitely not a Fred.
"Hold my rifle," I said, handing it to her. "I'm
going under and take a look."
She eyed the overhanging ship uneasily. "You sure
this thing isn't going to roll over on you?"
"If'n it do, li'l lady," I said, doing my Gunny
Goforth imitation, "we-all gwan be inna heap'a trou-
bles." The ship overhung us even where we stood,
stretching a good fifty meters beyond us; if it chose to
roll over, we'd be squashed like a bug on a bullet
anyway, no matter where we stood.
But I sure didn't like crawling under the thing; I
could feel the mass of immensity over my back; I got
about ten meters in when I experienced a rush of
utter, total panic. I'd never felt claustrophobic before!
Why then? The ship felt like an upside-down moun-
tain balanced on its peak, ready to topple over and
crush me. I froze, unable to move, while waves of
panic battered me. The only thing that kept me from
turning around and crab-crawling back out of there
was the fact that Arlene was staring at me, and I
would rather die than have her think a sergeant in the
Marine Corps was a screaming coward.
After a minute, the panic subsided into gripping
anxiety; it was still horrible, but now bearable. "Are
you all right?" Arlene called from behind me.
"Y-yeah, just trying to f-figure out what the thing is.
Gotta git a lit... get a little closer." I forced myself
to crawl until I was as close as I could get. I set up my
Sure Fire flashlight-lantern to illuminate the body