Страница 4 из 70
Across the narrow protected bay which had given Haven its name, brilliant lights, brighter than anything seen on Prince Samual’s World for three centuries, played on Empire House and the hundred-meter-long landing boat the Imperials used to ferry their people from the destroyer in its orbit. Another city block housed a complex of strange machinery the Imperials used to support their base. Pipelines extended into the harbor. Their power plant had warmed Haven’s waters, making fishermen happy with their catches, but outraged at the rapid growth of shipworms and other vermin.
The brilliant lights also played across the hemisphere that was Marine Barracks, but none was reflected from that sheer black surface. Imperial Marine Barracks was protected by what the Navy people called a Langston Field.
MacKi
The landing boats were vulnerable, though. In the short fight around Lechfeld he had damaged one badly and killed several of the Marines aboard — then fire came from the skies, a flaming death that scorched the village and baked half a battalion of Wolves in an instant.
But the Imperials could be hurt. They were only men. If they hadn’t had Marine Barracks …
Wishful thinking, MacKi
The Imperial Navy said the destroyer was also protected by a Langston Field. Even if the rocket hit, there would be no more effect than MacKi
He was awakened by shouts. He had no idea how long he had dozed miserably, hoping to get to a rest room and then to bed before the full effects of all that whiskey did their worst. It could not have been long, he knew, because they were not yet around the bay to Empire House.
It took MacKi
He snatched open the door and tumbled out in a fighting stance, his pistol in his hands for a moment before a heavy cane struck his wrist and sent the big service pistol spi
He hoped Stark was giving a good account of himself. Whatever Hal could do, MacKi
He heard Stark strike again, then a dull sound which he could not recognize. Moments later three men carried his sergeant around the coach. One dangled a sandbag from his fingers and looked to the dim figure of the man with the pistol. “He’s only out for a little while as you ordered, sir. I wish I could say the same for two of my men. They may never get up again.”
“That will do,” the voice from the shadows said. It seemed strangely familiar to MacKi
MacKi
They walked on in silence for the better part of a kilometer, twisting through deserted streets and getting soaked by the rain until they entered a multi-storied building no different from the others they had passed. They descended two flights of stairs in utter darkness before one of the men struck a light and another produced an electric torch, and MacKi
They had to be military, MacKi
At the bottom of the stairs they entered a dank stone tu
He was halted in a wood-paneled hallway. The only light was from the small electric torch of the guard behind him. They stood for several minutes before a door was opened from the inside and bright light spilled out to blind him. Then he was ushered into a large office. Around the walls hung red drapes of rich material, and over the desk was a large painting of King David Second.
Sergeant Stark was draped on a woolsh-hide couch along one wall of the office, his shoulders so broad that nearly half of him was spilled over, one arm dangling to the elaborately patterned carpet. MacKi
Under the copper-edged painting of the king was a rich wood desk, fully two and a half meters by two, its gleaming top bare of papers or any other object, and behind the desk stood Malcolm Dougal, still resembling a rabbit, a nervous smile on his lips as he spoke.
“Welcome, Colonel MacKi