• Пожаловаться

David Drake: The Forlorn Hope

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «David Drake: The Forlorn Hope» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию). В некоторых случаях присутствует краткое содержание. категория: Фантастика и фэнтези / на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале. Библиотека «Либ Кат» — LibCat.ru создана для любителей полистать хорошую книжку и предлагает широкий выбор жанров:

любовные романы фантастика и фэнтези приключения детективы и триллеры эротика документальные научные юмористические анекдоты о бизнесе проза детские сказки о религиии новинки православные старинные про компьютеры программирование на английском домоводство поэзия

Выбрав категорию по душе Вы сможете найти действительно стоящие книги и насладиться погружением в мир воображения, прочувствовать переживания героев или узнать для себя что-то новое, совершить внутреннее открытие. Подробная информация для ознакомления по текущему запросу представлена ниже:

David Drake The Forlorn Hope

The Forlorn Hope: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «The Forlorn Hope»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

David Drake: другие книги автора


Кто написал The Forlorn Hope? Узнайте фамилию, как зовут автора книги и список всех его произведений по сериям.

The Forlorn Hope — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «The Forlorn Hope», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

"Now that's a friendly way to treat a guest, is it?" the Lieutenant said. His face still smiled, but his lips were drawn as hard as his teeth. "Now, Hummel's in the OC, so we're going to be alone till the All Clear sounds. And Iknow you like men, baby, because Isaw you last night with one of the zoomies from theKatynForest. That's what light amplifiers are for, right? Now, I'm a man, and just to prove it-"

Ben Mehdi lowered Powers' hand toward his fly with the same ease with which he had disarmed her. The little blonde spit in his eye.

The bombing had both blown trash onto the shelter roof and studded the beryllium mesh with needles of glass shrapnel which conducted light. Within, the effect turned the blue ambience into mottled shadows and points as bright as jewels by contrast. Iris Powers' upturned face was bestial and hideous as a result. The Lieutenant's face, as he slapped the woman with the full strength of his open hand, was as horrible with no lighting to augment it.

Power's head bounced against the dug-out wall. She lolled back, stunned. Her eyes were glassy. The outline of long, strong fingers was already swelling up in red on her cheek. The light flickered again from the east as the starship rolled out for its second pass.

"I tell you, bitch!" the Lieutenant shouted. "I'm going to do you a favor. I'm going to show you just how good it can be with a man so you won't have to-"

The end flaps shook with the sonic boom and the entrance of Sergeant Johanna Hummel.

The Lieutenant jumped as if the non-com were one of the second stick of bombs herself. In some ways, he might have preferred that to what he got. Jo Hummel hit the floor feet first, but she let her momentum carry her onto the occupied bunk. The point of her left shoulder took ben Mehdi in the middle of the back. He slammed forward again, pinned against the earthen wall as easily as he had pinned Powers an instant before. The blonde trooper flopped sideways when the Lieutenant released her.

It sounded as if the sky were tearing apart. A sun-bright streak glared through the filter of the roof.

"Close quarters, Lieutenant," said Sergeant Hummel. She was wheezing with rage and the distance she had run, but her words were loud enough to be distinct even against the background."Fucking close quarters, hey?"

Hummel was as tall as the Lieutenant, with the same blocky, powerful torso. She had felled men larger than herself with sucker punches, but in any simple test of strength, ben Mehdi could have bested her. They were both in excellent physical condition. However, all other things being equal, a male's greater percentage of muscle to total weight would have told.

All other things were not equal. Hummel s gun was socketed in the Lieutenant's right ear.

"Sergeant," snapped ben Mehdi, "watch what you're doing! I won't tell you twice!"

"Real cramped in here, ain't it?" Sergeant Hummel said. She twisted her weapon to force ben Mehdi's head back against the dirt. The steel barrel shroud had been dented. The corner of it tore a ragged gash in the officer's ear. His mouth, open to shout another order, instead passed a high-pitched whimper.

In a voice as close to gentle as the surrounding noise permitted, Sergeant Hummel said, "Bunny? Are you all right?"

Trooper Powers sat up again, levering herself with a hand on the back wall. Hussein ben Mehdi's weight still anchored her thigh to the bunk. She braced her free foot to tug herself away. The handprint on her cheek was a flag.

Hummel made a sound at the back of her throat like millstones rubbing. She stood, gripping the unresisting lieutenant by the shoulder and raising him with her. She held her gun by the pistol grip, the butt cradled in the crook of her right elbow. Her index finger was on the trigger. The muzzle moved with ben Mehdi's head, anticipating each of the man's cautious attempts to duck away. Outside, the bombs were sailing in with calliope shrieks. This run, there were no high-altitude pops as clusters separated.

"What's the matter, Lieutenant?" Hummel rasped. "Worried maybe my gun's pointing a little close to you, what with all of us shoe-horned into this little dug-out? Don't you worry, sir. I've killed lots of people, but I never killed one when, Ididn't mean to." She spun ben Mehdi and gave him a hard shove.

The Lieutenant sagged against the dirt coaming. His breath made the end flap tremble. He turned his head fearfully. Hummel's gun was no longer touching his ear, but the tiny hole in its muzzle was aimed to take out his left pupil without touching the surrounding sclera.

The earth shuddered and a bomb went off with a muffled roar.

"Since the accommodations don't suit you, Lieutenant," the Sergeant said, "maybe you'd better leave, don't you think? You'd be best off at theOperationsCenter. And I think you ought to start now."

Three more bombs detonated. Two were below ground. The third hit something heavy and metallic. It rang like a bell even before the shattering explosion.

"Jo, Allah!" the Lieutenant pleaded."Notnow – not during incoming!"

Debris from the first bomb, pebbles and the heavier clods, pattered on the shelter roof. Hummel smiled and gripped the shroud of her weapon to emphasize rather than to steady it. "This stick's armor piercing," she said. "Just keep your head down and you'll be fine. Oh-and don't step on anything left over from the first pass, hey? But that's the sort of chance we gotta take when there's someplace we need to go."

Ben Mehdi tensed. Behind the Sergeant, Powers was pulling on her boots with apparently total concentration. The ground shook under the impact of more bombs.

"Your choice," said Hummel. Her index finger tightened.

Hussein ben Mehdi bolted from the dug-out, into the haze of dust and combustion gases. His car had dripped a bright streak of blood onto his shoulder.

Sergeant Hummel waited only until she was sure that the Lieutenant would not burst back in behind the muzzle of his grenade launcher. Then she whirled, tossing the gun onto her own bunk to free both hands. She clasped Powers. The blonde woman began to sob in a mixture of relief and fury. "There, there, Bunny," the Sergeant said, stroking the other woman's silky hair. "There, there."


****

When the fusillade of fragmentation bombs sputtered away, Lieutenant Waldstejn rose and started to climb out of the shelter. Colonel Fasolini grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him back down. "What the hell's your hurry?" the mercenary asked. "We've got a long afternoon ahead of us. They aren't done, not by a long shot."

The Lieutenant settled back on his haunches uncertainly.

Albrecht Waldstejn had a commission as a result of the two years of law school he had completed before being conscripted. His posting as a supply officer of a garrison battalion resulted from negative attributes rather than a demonstrated genius for administration, however. Waldstejn's parents had been forceful enough in opposing Federal war policies that the couple was taken into preventative detention. Their deaths were almost certainly the transport accident the government claimed-but the government still thought it wise to put the son under military discipline. After the four-week curriculum to which officer training had been reduced, the young man had been shunted into a slot where he was unlikely to cause trouble.

Waldstejn's initial mistake with the 522nd was to reorganize the mess his predecessor had left. The young officer broke for fraud all three of his underlings, including the quartermaster sergeant who had run the section while previous supply officers drank themselves insensible.

That left Waldstejn with no non-commissioned officers, two privates dumped on his need because nobody else in the battalion wanted them, and the smouldering hatred of his commanding officer. Major Lichtenstein had been receiving his rake-off on goods sold illegally from the battalion stores in the past.

Читать дальше

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «The Forlorn Hope»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «The Forlorn Hope» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё не прочитанные произведения.


David Drake: A Grand Tour
A Grand Tour
David Drake
David Drake: Killer
Killer
David Drake
David Drake: Conqueror
Conqueror
David Drake
David Drake: Tyrant
Tyrant
David Drake
David Drake: Balefires
Balefires
David Drake
David Drake: The Chosen
The Chosen
David Drake
Отзывы о книге «The Forlorn Hope»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Forlorn Hope» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.