"Dafydd ab Hugh, Brad Linaweawer DOOM: Endgame (english)" - читать интересную книгу автора

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
lurched; we were at zero-g again. What the hell? 1
looked to my side, where I could just see a portal: the
planet loomed below us, barely moving, drifting
slowly up to greet us. I didn't hear the engines
humming. Were we in freefall? What gave?
Arlene and Sears and Roebuck started thrashing
around, finally coming around to consciousness
again. I had no idea what had happened or how we
appeared to be landing without engines—the only
ones who might have known were the Klave, and they
weren't talking. Arlene started looking around, com-
ing to the same conclusions I had a couple of minutes
earlier; we looked questions at each other, then I
shrugged and she narrowed her eyes. I didn't care, so
long as we made dirtside—but Arlene would stew
over how we had landed for days and days until she
figured it out, unless Sears and Roebuck decided to
get a whole hell of a lot more garrulous than they had
been to date. Unless her serene contemplation were
cut short by Fred rays and machine guns.
For the moment, at least—a long moment—we ran
silently and at peace, probably our last moment of
calm before the firestorm of combat. Then, with a
groaning thump that sounded as if the entire Fred
ship were tearing in half along the major axis, we
jerked to a stop on some sort of runway. We had
arrived on Fredworld, shaken but not stirred.
Quickly, I got my troops unstrapped, and we hus-
tled along to our stations, just in case the Fred fooled
us by cutting their way inside without waiting for the
doors to open. Nothing happened, and we waited out
the landing sequencer. Then, seventy-five minutes
after landing and right on schedule, the cargo door
began to roll open, excruciatingly slowly, making a
noise like all the Fred monsters in the world scream-
ing in unison. We braced for the impact of the first
shock troops.
We waited; we waited; nothing came; nothing
pounded, rattled, or thumped up the gangway. We sat
alone, each in our assigned spots, ready for action that
never came, the war never fought.
I held my breath as long as I could. Then, about
fifteen after we should have seen the first swarms of
Freds up the gangway, overrunning our first "defen-
sive" position (designed to be overridden, I add), I