Archiwum
- Index
- Roberts Nora Miłość na deser 01 Miłość na deser
- Hilari Bell Goblin Wood 01 The Goblin Wood v2
- Giovanni Guareschi [Don Camillo 01] The Little World of Don Camillo (pdf)
- Anthony, Piers Tarot 01 God of Tarot
- Christine Young [Highland 01] Highland Honor (pdf)
- 398. Gerard Cindy Dzikie serca 01 Ni srebro ni złoto
- Carter Ally Dziewczyny z Akademii Gallagera 01 Powiedziałabym ci, że cię kocham ale
- Ciara Lake [Xihirian Shifters 01] Xihirah [Siren Classic] (pdf)
- Janrae Frank Journey of Sacred King 01 My Sister's Keeper
- Sandemo Margit Saga o Królestwie Światła 01 Wielkie Wrota
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- stemplofil.keep.pl
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The pod staggered, legs flailing, ending up against a metal utility
pole, bending it. The Battloid leveled its Gatling and opened fire with a
sound like ripping cloth amplified to the point where it was deafening.
The Zentraedi pod abruptly became an expanding sphere of flame, gas, and
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debris. The Battloid whirled, gun held at high port, looking for more enemies.
All across the city it was the same; as wave after wave of pods
descended or leaped ashore, the Battloids engaged and overcame them using
tactics distilled from SWAT teams and infantry rifle outfits. The battloids
handled themselves like grunt fireteams in fantastic enlargement.
And the Zentraedi learned that the price of Earth, foot for square foot,
promised to be very high indeed.
Rick skimmed along behind Roy, twisting and dodging through the war-torn
maze that was Macross City. SDF-1's bow was hanging like a threatening hammer
above them as tracers drew lines of light through the air, missiles exploded,
and alien blasterbolts hyphened all through the combat zone around the
dimensional fortress.
The side of an apartment building was blown loose and collapsed in
pieces. Rick zigzagged around it, his Veritech still skating along in Guardian
mode as he tried to put together in his mind why that girl Minmei was suddenly
so important to him that he'd go through this for her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In a Veritech y'got every kinda way a pilot can die and just about every kinda
hurt-alert a leg infantry might run into, see: Exceptin' possibly trench foot,
though I wouldn't bet on it.
Anonymous Wolf Team pilot, quoted by Zachary Foxx, Jr., VT: The Men and the
Mecha
More pods grasshoppered into Macross City, all plastron cannon firing.
A damaged pod, hit on descent by SDF-1 missile crews, blazed like a
fiery comet, punching through one building and laying a track of devastation
across the roofs of three more before colliding with a last in an inferno that
sent rubble in thousand-foot arcs.
Nearby, Battloid gunners swung their muzzles from target to target. The
pods were falling back on every front. There was word over the net that some
guy in Vermilion, out of ammo, had actually downed one with a Battloid
roundhouse, and worked it good with the Battloid's feet.
Elsewhere, Minmei ran for her life.
It seemed so easy at first: the diary in her hand, the way back to the
shelters unobstructed... until the pods had dropped into the neighborhood on
every side.
Minmei didn't know where she'd lost the diary; she'd only thought to
save her all-important letter. Now she thought only about living. She raced
through the streets, the long legs flying, midnight sheets of hair flying, as
the pods closed in. Blasts and rockets demolished the buildings around her,
and burning wreckage nearly smashed her flat a dozen times.
But bless them, there were also those fantastic robotlike defenders,
like the one who'd nearly caved in her aunt's restaurant. They were
everywhere, leaping and charging and firing, giving even better than they got.
They were like armored giants, but none of them were around now. And now was
when Minmei needed one.
A Battlepod stomped after her, hooflike feet sinking deep into the
pavement with every step. Minmei understood then that hers was only a little
life, of no significance on the grand scale of things. There were so many
things she'd never done and so little time to reflect on the things she
had-the harshness of it hit her in an instant: the miracle that was life, the
irreplaceability of each moment.
The Battlepod was almost upon her, armorshod hooves pounding the street.
The very vibrations of it threw Minmei headlong, scraping her elbows and hands
and knees, as explosions crashed all around. She was not quite sixteen years
old, but she understood in that moment that war had no eligibility
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requirements.
Gigantic pod feet crashed behind her. Minmei cringed, hands over head,
waiting for death to take her. An enormous hoof descended.
Just then an amplified voice said, "Oh, no, you don't!"
She heard an explosion and a tearing of metal and felt waves of heat
scorching her back. There was a rending of armor and a ground-shaking crash.
Somehow, none of it hurt her.
Minmei gathered her nerve and opened her eyes. The pod had been knocked
back through the air, one leg dangling loose, in flames. She'd been protected
by great metal wings.
It was another example of those things people were calling Robotech,
this time in the metal eagle form they seemed to take on at will. There was
something familiar about this one's voice.
"Take it easy, honey; you're okay," Roy said over external speakers.
"We'll protect you."
Roy turned to Rick. "Take care of the girl! I'll keep the pods off our
backs!"
Minmei struggled to her feet while the skull-and-crossbones machine
reared, mechamorphosing and growing taller and manlike in a way that put her
in mind of some miraculous origami. The second, the red one she recognized
from her aunt's restaurant, stayed in the man-bird mode, objecting, "You can't
handle them alone!" in another voice she remembered.
Roy brought his Gatling up, covering the area. "Don't argue with me!
I'll draw their fire while you get her out of here."
Rick, using controls and mind-imagery, eased the Guardian over,
extending its left hand, until fingers the diameter of telephone poles were
ready to grasp her. He raised the cockpit canopy to call down, "Don't move!
I'm going to pick you up!"
For a damsel in distress, Minmei showed a certain skepticism. "I thought
you were an amateur."
The anthropomorphic hand gently enfolded her; Rick sweated bullets,
concentrating, and knew that he would never try anything like this with a mere
physical-control system. Only Robotechnology allowed such fine discretion.
Minmei had a fleeting feeling that she ought to be wearing a white gown
and wondered if she was to be carried to the top of a skyscraper or dragged
into the middle of a fight with dinosaurs.
In a way, of course, that had already happened. "Huh? Oh, no!" she cried
as the fingers closed around her.
"Trust me; I can do it!" Rick called down to her.
"Do I have to? Ohhhh!"
But the grip, though firm and secure, didn't mangle her or crush her
into jelly or even hurt-at least, not much. Which was just as well, since
there were alien pods releasing flights of missiles high overhead.
"Get outta here, Rick! Fire your jets!" Roy hollered, bringing up his
Gatling and sweeping it back and forth at the incoming missiles, hoping to cut
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