"Charles Ingrid - The Sand Wars 01 - Solar Kill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ingrid Charles)

Chapter 1

Being a Knight didn’t necessarily mean he’d been promised Camelot—but where in the hell was the transport? What
had happened to recall? Jack fought the maddening impulse to scratch inside his armor, as sweat dripped down, and
the contacts attached to his bare torso itched impossibly. To scratch now, the way he was hooked up, he’d blow
himself away.
Damn. Where was that signal? They couldn’t have been forgotten, could they? If the pullout had happened, they
would have been picked up ... wouldn’t they?
As sweat trickled down his forehead, he looked around.
Sand. They had been dropped in a vast sea-gulf of sand. Everywhere beige and brown and pink dunes rose and fell
with a life of their own.
This was what Thrakians did to a living world. And the Knights, in their suits of battle armor, trained and honed to
fight a “Pure” war destroying only the enemy, not the environment, were all that stood between this planet of Milos
and his own home world lined up next in a crescent of destruction that led all the way back to the heart of the Thrakian
League. Jack had been galvanized to be here to keep the Thrakian menace from his own homestead.
They’d been lucky here on Milos, so far. Only one of the continents had gone under ... still, it was one too many as far
as the lieutenant was concerned. The Dominion Forces were losing the Sand Wars. And he was losing his own private
struggle with his faith in his superior officers. They’d been dropped into nowhere five days ago and had been given
the most succinct of orders, gotten a pithy confirmation that morning and nothing since. Routine, he’d been told.
Strictly a routine mop-up. You didn’t treat Knights that way—not the elite of the infantrymen, the fastest, smartest and
most honorable fighters ever trained to wage war.
Jack moved inside the battle suit. The Flexalinks meshed imperceptibly, the holograph that played over him sent the
message to the suit and, in turn, the right arm flexed. Only that flex, transmitted and stepped up, could have turned
over an armored car. He sucked a dry lip in dismay over the reflex, then turned his face inside the helmet to read the
display.
The display bathed his face plate in a rosy color and his eyesight flickered briefly to the rearview camera display,
checking to see which of the troops ranged at his back. The compass wasn’t lying to him. “Five clicks. Sarge, have
they got us walking in circles?” His suit crest winked in the sun as he looked to his next in command.
“No, sir.” Sarge made a husky noise at the back of his throat. Sarge wore the Ivanhoe crest—a noncommittal comment
on what he thought of his lineage and his home world, but it made no difference to Storm. A man who came into the
Knights might come from any walk of life and the only criteria was whether he was good enough to use a suit. If he
was, and he survived basic training, his past became a sealed record, if that was the way the man wanted it.
Jack wondered if the sergeant was chewing again, even though it was against regulations. His mouth watered. He
could do with a bit of gum or stim himself. The sand made him thirsty. He waved his arm. “All right, everybody spread
out. Advance in a line. If the Thraks are here, that’ll flush ‘em. Keep alert. Watch your rear displays and your flanks.”
The com line crackled as Bilosky’s voice came over in sheer panic. “Red field! Lieutenant, I’m showing a tracking red
field!”
Storm swiveled his head to the sound, cursed at the obstruction of the face plate, and re-turned a fraction more slowly
so that his cameras could follow the motion, “Check your gauges again, Bilosky. It’s a malfunction. And calm down.”
The last in a deadly quiet.
Bilosky’s panic stammered to a halt. “Yes, sir.” Then, “Goddammit. Storm—those Milots have pilfered my suit! Every
one of my gauges is screwed. I’m showing a red field because I’m running on empty!”
Storm bit his tongue. He chinned the emergency lever at the bottom of the face plate, shutting down the holograph
field. Then he pulled his arm out of the sleeve quickly and thumbed the com line switches on his chest patch so that he
could talk to Bilosky privately. Without power or action to translate, his suit stumbled to a halt. The Flexalinks shone
opalescent in the sun.
“How far can you get?”
Not listening, Bilosky swore again. “Goddamn Milots. Here I am fighting their fracking war for them, and they’re
pirating my supplies—I ought to—“
“Bilosky!”