HelgaPotacki: переводы

→The bombardment from the Auroran destroyers had not struck the habble directly, but enough of the energy had transferred through the Spirestone to dislodge a significant amount of masonry used to buttress and repair the Spire’s roof. There were screams and the scent of smoke on the air. That was terrifying. If an enemy was lurking, he could be fought—but if smoke began to fill the habble or its tunnels, it could kill every one of his men without a blade being drawn or a gauntlet discharged.

→They descended a spiral ramp that led from the shipyard to Habble Morning, fighting against confused traffic heading in the opposite direction. The habble was in chaos.

→The engineer’s ongoing curses faded into the background as Grimm began to trot forward, and his men came with him.

→“I believe the phrase you used was ‘jumped-up wollypog’? If you are too valuable to show proper deference and courtesy to my XO, you are certainly too valuable to risk in a firefight with Auroran Marines, Journeyman. That’s how it is.”

→An incredulous, absolutely acidic epithet split the air.

→“You stay.”

→“Aye, Captain?”

→“Mister Journeyman,” Grimm called, without turning his head.

→“Aye, Captain,” Creedy said, and immediately turned to begin walking backward, speaking in terse tones to the first of the crewmen behind them.

→“Mister Creedy, pass the word to the officers, if you please. Make sure every single one of them understands our goal and that I expect it to be met regardless of what happens to the officers or myself. They are to inform the men in their squad the same way.”

→How many, Grimm wondered, would still be alive when the sun set?

→Kettle had found most of them in a remarkably short time— eighty-seven men, only nine short of her full complement. It seemed they had all been together, and rather nearby, to place their bets on that duel.

→Grimm looked over his shoulder and saw his crew following him, some of them still buckling their swords and gauntlets into place.

→Grimm started walking toward the gangplank. “Industry and determination, Mister Kettle, can transform the difficult into the routine,” Grimm said. “We can assume they’ll move from the ventilation tunnels into the side tunnels, and from there proceed to their objectives. There are a number of possible targets for them to assault within Habble Morning, and they may try for the shipyards as well. Our mission is to keep them bottled up in the side tunnels. We needn’t hunt them down—I daresay our own Marines will be happy to do it once they return.”

→Kettle whistled through his teeth. “The mouths to those tunnels aren’t but maybe four feet by four, and right on the side of the Spire. No ledges or nothing, Captain. Hell of a difficult target for a Marine flying a parasail.”

→“Precisely. They’ll get as many of their Marines into the tunnels as they can and set them about the business of weakening Albion from within.”

→“The ventilation tunnels?”

→“Perhaps,” Grimm said. “But even there, they’d have a real fight on their hands to get in. I believe they’ll go in another way.”

→A fair question. The enterprising inhabitants of Habble Landing had spent a generation investing in wearing a hole in the Spirestone outer wall of their habble, and then constructed an airship port of their own, out of wood, on the exterior wall of their level of the Spire. Where before there had been only two entrances to Spire Albion, the roof and the base, there were now three. Transport times of goods throughout the many habbles of Spire Albion could be cut in half, and the craftsmen and merchants of the Spire had been swift to take advantage of such an opportunity—and now Landing possessed nearly as much wealth as Morning.

→“Where, then?” Creedy asked. “Do you think they’re headed for Landing?”