Steven Kent - The Clone Redemption
Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Steven Kent - The Clone Redemption» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: Боевая фантастика, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.
- Название:The Clone Redemption
- Автор:
- Жанр:
- Год:неизвестен
- ISBN:нет данных
- Рейтинг книги:4 / 5. Голосов: 1
-
Избранное:Добавить в избранное
- Отзывы:
-
Ваша оценка:
- 80
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
The Clone Redemption: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация
Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «The Clone Redemption»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.
The Clone Redemption — 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 Clone Redemption», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.
Интервал:
Закладка:
“You want this ship in one piece?” Freeman asked.
“If you have a better idea …” I started.
Freeman pulled a thumb-sized device from his ammunition belt and slid it onto the desk.
Speaking over the interLink, Freeman said, “Look at the floor and don’t look up.” I had just enough time to avert my eyes before his device lit the area so brightly that the floor looked bleached beneath my knee.
The man in the Marine armor pivoted around and reached out with both hands like a drunk groping down a dark alley. He’d looked into the light before the tint shields had formed on his visors, and it temporarily blinded him. A moment later, the sensors in his visors would detect the lumens from Freeman’s lamp, but by then it would be too late.
I looked away from the lamp to keep the tint shields from blocking my vision as I followed Freeman around the Marine and down the corridor. Freeman stopped long enough to place another light to shine at the man from the opposite direction. Now the bastard would be blinded until he groped his way out of the trap.
We ran down the corridor, hugging the walls in case the blinded Marine tried to shoot us. A short way down the corridor, we found stairs leading to the lower decks. I figured we would search together, watching each other’s back. I figured wrong. Starting down the stairs, Freeman said, “Stall him.”
“Stall him?” I asked.
“Keep him busy while I look for the computer.”
As far as I knew, I was the highest-ranking officer in the Enlisted Man’s military. I didn’t take orders from anyone …anyone but Freeman. He knew more about the computer than I did.
“Got any suggestions about how to keep him busy without getting myself killed?” I asked as I watched him disappear down the stairs.
Questions like that could lead to all kinds of smart-ass answers, but Ray Freeman did not have a mind for humor. He said, “Call out if you get trapped,” and vanished down the stairs.
Trapped, I thought to myself. I might have said it out loud as well. The thought resonated. I was on a relatively small ship, a hundred thousand miles from the nearest planet, fighting a Marine in armor my weapons could not penetrate. I was trapped.
The glare died out at the other end of the corridor. The Marine must have found Freeman’s lamps and smashed them, leaving the long hall dark except for the flash of the emergency lights and the glow of his armor.
Hoping to catch the bastard’s attention, I aimed my S9 and fired a few shots in his direction. The fléchettes were meant as a message. Even if they hit him, they would do no harm. But the stupid bastard didn’t even notice the darts when they hit him.
Needing to grab his attention, I stepped into the open, catching the silly bastard by surprise. I fired three shots that hit him square in the face, then jumped down the first flight of stairs and waited for him to chase me.
Mission accomplished.
The Marine came after me; but when he reached the top of the stairs, he stopped. So he had sufficient brain cells to sense a trap, big specking deal. Even monkeys hide when they sense danger. I waited for the bastard to start down the stairs. When he didn’t, I cautiously climbed back up to see what had happened.
Hoping to ambush me, the stupid son of a bitch had waited in an open hatch at the top of the stairs. I spotted him easily enough. The light from his shielded armor glowed like a moon.
“So much for the element of surprise, asshole,” I muttered. Not only did the light from his shields ruin the ambush; it showed his position. He was kneeling. The glow only filled the bottom half of the hatch.
So I waited for him as he waited for me. I had my pistol out and aimed. When he peered out of the doorway to look for me, I shot him in the face. It was a moral victory. My fléchette hit him between the eyes, but it only hurt his pride.
Caught off guard, the Marine tried to spring up, lost his footing, and fell on his ass. He climbed off the floor and returned fire; but by that time, of course, I had jumped back down the stairs.
I needed him to follow me to the bottom deck, so I waited on the landing. If he lost my trail and strayed onto the second deck, he might find Freeman.
Up at the top of the stairs, the glow of his shields diluted the darkness. The squirrelly Marine was in no rush to chase me. He moved cautiously, as if he thought I could actually hurt him. He aimed down the stairs and fired a dozen shots to flush me out of hiding.
Had I still been on that landing, his darts would have passed through my armor as if it weren’t there. The needles themselves would only do minimal damage unless they hit a vital organ, but the poison would leave me numb as it paralyzed my limbs and stopped my heart.
Under his shields, he had the same armor as I and the same smart visor. He could track body heat with his heat-vision lenses if he knew how to use them, but he wasn’t paying attention. I waited until he reached the landing by the second deck, then I drilled several shots into him. The fléchettes did no damage, but they kept the guy on my tail.
I called Freeman over the interLink as I ran to the bottom deck. He did not answer, but I knew he was listening. “Have you found your computer yet?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. We’d only parted ways a minute ago; there was no way he could have found it yet.
“You in trouble?” he asked.
“No, I’m good,” I said. I heard a soft thwack , thwack , thwack , and looked back in time to see the last of the fléchettes bore a wire-thin hole in the landing wall above me. “I’m having a great time keeping our friend off the second deck.”
Freeman did not respond.
“I think I’ll take my new friend for a tour of the bottom deck,” I said.
Freeman did not answer.
My job was to keep the Marine off the second deck so Freeman could search. No problem. The trap I had in mind could only be sprung on the bottom deck.
Trying not to offer myself as a target, I spun and fired a couple of shots to let the bastard know which way I was going.
Having survived being shot in the face multiple times, the Marine had come to realize that I could not harm him. Now he stormed the hall like a bull in a china shop, firing badly aimed fléchettes that skimmed the walls and the ceiling.
I leaped over dead sailors lying in frozen heaps along the floor. When we had blown holes in the hull, we exposed these men to space, with its vacuum conditions and true-zero temperatures. They froze in a flash, dying too quickly to suffocate ; but as the spy ship’s atmosphere leaked, bodies broke open from their own internal pressure.
The hall before me was long and straight, with no place for me to hide. If the Marine had had better training, he would have drilled those fléchettes into my back.
“How are you doing?” I asked Freeman. Only a minute had passed since the last time I asked.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Peachy,” I said.
He did not respond.
The first of the landing bays was just a few yards up the corridor. The door slid open, revealing ten thousand square feet of empty hangar floor without paper, furniture, or bodies. Everything had been sucked out through the jagged thirtyfoot wound in the far wall.
The area was full of shadows, but my night-for-day lenses let me see through the darkness. There was no other way out than the hatch I had just used, so I hid in a corner, squeezed in as best I could, and hoped I could sneak out of the dead end.
The hatch opened, and the glow of shielded armor spilled in. Seconds passed. Then the bastard walked into the landing bay without so much as a glance to the side, marching right past me. If this was what passed as a Marine in the Unified Authority these days, I was glad the clones revolted. No selfrespecting clone Marine would make such a foolish mistake.
Читать дальшеИнтервал:
Закладка:
Похожие книги на «The Clone Redemption»
Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «The Clone Redemption» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.
Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Clone Redemption» 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.