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

“If the port’s closed down, how do you expect to get in? They’re going to know you’re coming and blow you right out
of the sky.”
“No.” Marciane took his shot glass and sipped the Tantalos whiskey. It fired his throat. He grinned. “I’ve got a plan.”
Storm sat back in his chair. He considered the privateer. “Can I listen without obligation?”
“Yes. You’re not going anywhere unless we jettison you. But if you come with us, you can make some credits, and
start getting some answers.”
Gazes locked and then Storm said lowly, “What makes you think I want to ask questions?”
“You have a planet blasted away under you, and you’re not curious as to why? You don’t want those renegades
hauled up for doing it?” Marciane shook his head. “I know what kind of training the Knights went through. I don’t
know if that’s your dad’s suit, or where you inherited it from, but I know you have certain kinds of beliefs, and what
happened on Claron violated most of them. What if you find out those were Thrakian ships? Or union ships, softening
up the sector.”
“What if I do?”
“Then you get the answers and you do what has to be done to stop them. Right? So here’s what we do—my sources
tell me the strikers have taken over the port, and most of them don’t know anything about running it. So, in about three
hours, they’re going to have a real emergency on their hands.”
Storm watched as Marciane refilled both shot glasses. “What kind of an emergency?”
“The Montreal is about to have a radiation spill, and we’ll be coming in hot, real hot. They’ll have to clear the docks
and put on their rad suits and follow emergency procedures straight down the line. Most of them won’t know shit
about what they’re doing, but they’ll be too scared to think about what it is I’m doing.”
“And after we’ve docked?”
“We come out firing. We’ll take out most of the strikers there, because that’s where they’re concentrated. They’ve had
a stranglehold on shipments for over a month now.”
A slow smile played over the edge of Storm’s mouth. “And I can guess who’s first off the ship, laying down a spray of
laser fire.”
“Can you now? Well, who’s better equipped to do it than you? And, you’ll be well paid in Dominion credits for doing
it. Is it a deal?”
Jack took a deep breath. It was, after all, what he’d been trained to do. He held up his corresponding shot glass. “For
now.”
Marciane had a good crew. The suit was fully charged by the time Jack climbed back into it and sealed it up. As he
began to connect the sensors, he braced himself. The Montreal was already going down “hot,” spewing radioactivity
as she went, skewing awkwardly through the sky. Marciane had an iron fist on the controls, walking a fine line
between having a highly responsive ship, and a genuinely out of control vehicle. The radioactivity was genuine
enough though, not enough to threaten anyone, just alert the scanning equipment at Washington Two’s spaceport.
He sensed the suit come to life around him, embracing him, for one suffocating moment. Storm took a deep breath,
pounding the fear out of himself. He’d made it this far, hadn’t he?
And he wondered if he could find someone to strip the suit down and flush it out, because it held this stale, brackish
scent that was really the smell of his own fear sweated out of his pores and into those of the armor. He felt the lasers
come up to power. His wrist tingled, telling him he was now armed and ready.
He’d patched in the Montreal’s frequency and now heard Marciane calmly telling Washington Two that he didn’t care
if the spaceport was under restriction, he had an emergency and unless they wanted him to “spill” all over their main
city structures, they’d better have an emergency dock opened for him, along with enough manpower to dampen him
down once he landed. And he wanted the local hospitals notified to take him and his crew in for rad care once the ship
had been shut down.
He’d done his job well. On the open circuitry coming back from Washington Two, Storm recognized the voice of
inexperience and raw terror, nearly overriden by the klaxon of the port sensors in the background, bellowing out the
radiation crisis.
Marciane didn’t have to ask twice. With a thin smile of satisfaction, he put his ship on automatic pilot, suited up, and
pulled his own laser rifle out of storage. His men equipped themselves similarly and met him in the corridor near the
main lock.