Archiwum
- Index
- Chalker Jack L W Świecie Studni 5 Zmierzch przy Studni Dusz (pdf)
- Ian Rankin [Jack Harvey 03] Blood Hunt (v4.0) (pdf)
- Jack L. Chalker Watchers at the Well 03 Gods at the Well of Souls
- James Fenimore Cooper Jack Tier, Volume 2
- Chalker Jack L W Świecie Studni 3 Poszukiwanie (pdf)
- Jack L. Chalker Dancing Gods 3 Vengance of the Dance
- Jack L. Chalker Three Kings 3 Kaspars Box
- Jack Vance The Gray Prince
- Jack London Tales of the Klondike
- Jack Kerouac On the Road
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- stemplofil.keep.pl
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operational. That meant that Rick, Max, Miriya, and the rest would be out at
the very spearhead of the attack. Not something to dwell on.
In his heart, he wished Minmei well, and then he led Skull Team out.
She looked up to the camera and raised her mike on cue as the cone of
spotlight shone down on her. In the control room, her image was on all the
screens from many angles.
Life is only what we choose to make it,
Let us take it,
Let us be free
Rick hit his ship's boosters. The blue vortices of its drives burned and
shrieked. The armored VTs left trails of light, leaping into the dark.
Conventional VT teams came after.
Breetai's tri-thrusters, pods, and other mecha prepared to follow.
Gloval and the Zentraedi had wisely agreed not to mingle their forces; in the
heat of battle, human pilots would have a difficult time reading alien unit
markings and telling friend from foe. Even the hastily added RDF insignia on
the tri's and pods might not be spotted in time.
In the command station of his flagship, Breetai stood with arms folded
across his broad chest, a characteristic pose, staring up at a projecbeam. As
he had admitted so long ago, hers was a voice to wring emotion from any heart.
Perhaps the course to this moment had been set when he first heard it.
A tech relayed word. "My lord, this transmission is being picked up by
Dolza's ships."
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He nodded, watching and listening to Minmei.
We can find the glory we all dream of,
and with our love,
We can win!
His flagship trembled as its engines came up to full power. The front
ranks of the armada moved forward at half speed, picking up velocity slowly.
The SDF-1, in Attack mode, was accelerating along in the thick of them, its
back thrusters blazing, a fantastic armored marionette of war.
Still engulfing Earth, below them, the Grand Fleet lay in orbit,
seemingly paralyzed.
The human-Zentraedi alliance swooped down at it.
"What's that on our monitors?" growled one of Dolza's communications
officers, his voice harsh and guttural.
His subordinate could barely tear his attention away from the song to
answer. Such distraction when a superior was asking questions would have drawn
quick, terrible punishment at any other time, but they were both hypnotized by
Minmei.
If we must fight or face defeat,
We must stand tall and not retreat.
The subordinate shook himself a little and answered. "I don't know, sir,
but we're receiving it on all frequencies."
Then they both watched in fascination, ignoring the flashing of
indicators and the beeps of comtones.
"We're within firing range," Vanessa said tightly. "No counterattack
detected."
"It's working!" Exedore cried, watching the battle at Gloval's side.
"This is it," Gloval said calmly. "All ships, open fire."
In that first gargantuan volley, the attacking force's main problem was
not to hit its own fightercraft or have its cannon salvos destroy its own
missiles in flight. But the Zentraedi were used to that sort of problem, and
fire control had been carefully integrated with the SDF-1's systems.
It was an impact almost as damaging as the Grand Cannon's; millions of
Zentraedi, gaping at Minmei's performance, died in moments.
Alarms were going off. The few Grand Fleet officers who could force
their attention away from the screens could get no response from their troops
short of physically attacking them.
As many of the Grand Fleet crews were beginning to notice the alarms,
though, Minmei paused in her song; the band vamped in the background. A tall,
dark figure stepped out into the spotlight with her.
Lynn-Kyle wore a look of burning intensity, his long, straight black
hair swirling around him, taking her hand. "Minmei-"
"Yes, Kyle; I know," she recited her line. "You've come to say
good-bye."
"Yes."
Minmei wasn't exactly sure where the lines had come from; everything was
so hurried, so improvised. Weren't they from one of the movies the two had
done together? But Kyle was putting more into them than he had ever managed on
screen. He had seen her run off after Rick. What was going through his mind?
No matter. He took her into his arms. She turned her face up to his. The
camera cut from a two-shot of their bodies pressed against each other to a
close-up of along, passionate kiss, Kyle no longer acting.
In the Grand Fleet, alien warriors groaned and made nauseated sounds.
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"How can they do that?" "Most disgusting thing I ever-"
And yet there was something about it that kept them from looking away,
an appalled captivation. It should be added that among the female units like
the Quadronos, there was more absorption and less repulsion than among the
males.
But all through the orbiting fleet, moans and growls and other reactions
to the kiss turned into shrieks of dismay and pain as the alliance's volley
cut through the enemy ships, holing them, blowing them to nothingness.
Rick watched the kiss on a display screen and thought, not unkindly,
Farewell Minmei.
Then, "Let's get 'em!" he snarled over the tac net.
Someone must have managed to cut off the Minmei transmission from at
least some of the Grand Fleet's mecha. There were plenty of effective ships,
more than plenty.
The Skull Team's armored VTs bore in at the enemy, releasing barrages of
missiles, fighting their way through Grand Fleet pod and tri-thruster
defensive screens. Quadrono powered armor came at the VTs, too, less effective
now that Miriya no longer led them. Miriya avoided engaging those.
VTs shifted configuration according to the needs of the moment; Battloid
and Guardian and Veritech modes were intermingled. Pods and tri-thrusters
mixed it up with them and opened fire. Space was one big killing ground.
The armored VTs were faster and more maneuverable than anything else in
the battle as well as being more heavily armed. They pierced the enemy
formations, ripping a hole for the rest of the attack force to exploit.
Skull Team seemed to be everywhere, unhittable and unavoidable. Many,
many Zentraedi saw their Jolly Roger insignia-the skull and crossbones-and
died instants later. The heavy autocannon buzz-sawed; the missiles streamed,
leaving boiling trails. But for every enemy downed, three more dove in to try
to seal the gap.
It's love's battle we must win.
We will win.
We can win!
The range was close now. Around the bowl in which Minmei performed, the
ship's mecha opened up. The Destroid cannon in particular put out staggering
volumes of fire. Every battery the ship mounted-except for the monster main
gun, whose energy demands might have damaged the SDF-1-was working overtime.
The Grand Fleet's losses in the first moments of the battle were awful,
but its numbers still gave it a vast edge, and some of the enemy ships were
returning fire. The SDF-1 and the armada dreadnoughts forged on, blazing away
in all directions. Enemy mecha were starting to get through to the alliance
capital vessels now, despite the best efforts of the VTs and the armada's
pods, tri-thrusters, and powered armor.
But slowly, seemingly by inches, the allied force drew closer to Dolza's
headquarters.
Max and Miriya were like avenging angels, beyond any mortal power to
resist or stop. Faced with the redtrimmed armored VT or the blue, all any
enemy pilot could do was resign himself to death.
Rick had part of his commo and guidance equipment tuned for signals of
life on Earth, especially from Alaska Base. If there was any sign of life...
A light cruiser was trying to break past the VTs for a go at the SDF-1.
He went in at it, letting go a torrent of mixed ordnance, aiming for the vital
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