Enot17: переводы

→“I was going to say a sheet, but—” The general was interrupted by Somo’s frantic voice from the comm.

→“There’s a Ghost on board, general.” Sarah advanced to the monitors showing the ship’s interior. She moved to a diagram of the upper deck, scanning the maze of halls and corridors.

→“Ghost,” Sarah blurted. That’s it, she thought. Of course that’s it . . .

→“What’s wrong? You’re white as a—”

→The Hyperion had broken out of subwarp now and was cruising near the outer Fringe. General Mengsk, satisfied that they were safe for the time being, turned to Sarah. An immediate concern showed on his face.

→The mental disturbance Sarah had felt when the dropship landed had increased now to the point where she could no longer push it to the back of her mind. She struggled to figure out just what the disturbance was, knowing that she should know, but she just couldn’t remember. It was like forgetting a word she had just spoken.

→Somo could not see where the blast had come from; the end of the hall was still empty, but he had an undeniable feeling that whoever or whatever the unseen foe may be, he was going to be the next to die. He stepped backward and into the compartment where the trap had been set for the marines, sealing the hatchway door even as he heard another cha-chink sound. He waited there, inside the compartment, and he believed he could actually feel a physical presence on the other side of the door. The feeling was brief, but it was strong. A moment later the feeling was gone.

→There was a second booming sound, almost like that of a miniature shock cannon. The private was lifted off of the deck by the blast. When he fell onto his back a microtick later, there was a steaming concavity where his chest had once been.

→“Are you gonna help clean up this mess or—” The rebel’s sentence was cut off by a cha-chink sound, a noise any experienced soldier would immediately recognize as a C-10 canister rifle being cocked. There was a boom then, thunderous and deafening in the confined space. The private arched forward, rocking onto the toes of his boots. His mouth hung open as he dropped the marine and fell forward. Somo stared in shock: even from his vantage point farther down the hallway, he could see the gaping hole in the private’s back. There was another cocking sound. Somo, ignoring the ringing in his ears, strained to see, because he could swear that the sound he just heard came from the empty space at the end of the hall, but there was no one there. Another private, standing between Somo and the hallway’s opposite end, was rushing toward his fallen comrade.

→One of the other privates had gripped a fallen marine under the arms and was attempting to drag him away. He looked up at Somo in irritation.

→Somo looked at the carnage around him, shaking his head, trying to convince himself that these were the men who were responsible for the death of his family. But as he stared down into the lifeless faces he saw only people; people who had simply been caught up in fervor and circumstance. He stood there for a long time, even after the medics arrived and carried away one of the wounded from the hallway. He stood and wondered how long this would go on, and whether or not he would live to see the end of it.

→The battle in the hallway was over. Doctor Flanx, as well as the ten marines who had boarded the Hyperion, lay dead on the floor. Pollock, who had seemed enraged, shouted at Somo and the two remaining rebels in the compartment to clean the mess up, then stormed off down the hallway. Inside the compartment, two rebels lay still. In the hallway, two more rebels, one on each side, had fallen. The remaining soldiers approached the compartment, stepping over the marines and looking down at the bodies in a dazed, almost somnambulant manner. Somebody asked for section G-6 to be opened and called for a medic.

→“Thank you for keeping me apprised of the situation, Nav,” the colonel responded hotly. It’s okay, let them subwarp, the colonel thought. Once they’d received the anonymous transmission, they had followed the Confederate protocol that had been dictated to them just an interval earlier—and it was a good thing they did. The colonel thought he might still make general out of this whole mess yet.

→“Sir, the enemy craft has engaged subwarp,” the Nav offered.

→With that, the transmission ended. There was a rippling wave that surrounded the Hyperion’s bridge for the briefest moment before the vessel disappeared completely.

→“Colonel Duke, this is General Arcturus Mengsk, leader of the Sons of Korhal. When you run back to your masters, tell them that free men still live in Confederate space. Tell them that we are learning their secrets, and that their avarice will be their undoing. Tell them that twilight has settled upon their regime and the changing of the guard is close at hand; and tell them Arcturus Mengsk sends his regards.”

→Through the lookout, the colonel could now see the bridge of the Hyperion, inching forward on their port side. To the left of the colonel’s command seat, a vidscreen crackled to life and on it, the composed figure of a man in rebel outfitting began to speak.

→Colonel Duke was staring at an update screen, showing a top-down, wire-frame view of the Norad II, with damaged or compromised areas shown in red. There were four large red areas on the Norad’s port side, four breaches that would take months to repair.

→Somo rolled to his left, narrowly avoiding a barrage of deadly fire from the hallway. The marines flanking the hatchway had resorted to thrusting their gauss rifles into the room and shooting blindly. Pollock, who had taken a position against the wall and near the hatchway, grabbed the gauss rifle with his bare hands the next time the barrel was poked into the room, and yanked. Somo, on the opposite side of the compartment, caught a glimpse of the dumbfounded marine in the hallway as his weapon was ripped from his hands. In a different situation, the look on that marine’s face would have been comical. But here it simply conveyed shock and defeat. The marine stood with his hands waving in the air; he hit a button to raise his helmet visor and began shouting: “I’m unarmed! I’m unarm—” the marine then stepped just enough in front of the doorway so that Pollock could get a clean shot. The lieutenant unloaded a full burst into the man, then proceeded into the hall, where he fired a second burst, point-blank, into the remaining marine crouched near the hatchway.

→“Comm, lower transmission screen and contact Norad II.”