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

“Now remember ... we’ve got the element of surprise for split seconds, and then we’ve got to have made a big enough
dent in their ranks to decimate and demoralize them. Got it?”
The strikebusters nodded back.
“All right. Let’s kick ass.”
In the hangar, Storm heard him and thinned his lips. The ship rocked as it settled into a bay. There was a clangor as a
“can-opener” popped the hangar doors.
Storm turned around, walking through a wall of non-rad foam, appearing out of the suds like a merciless monster, his
laser laying down a spray of death that caught the radiation workers in total astonishment.
Within eight minutes, one of the toughest all planet strikes in the history of the Dominion had been busted and shut
down.

Chapter 4


Jack forgot to warn them about his sleeping light, and so he nearly killed Tubs when Tubs came to wake him.
Smashed against the inner door of the sleeping bay’s wall, the privateer huffed and puffed under his forearm lock, his
face turning a very pale gray, as he gulped for breath, his feet dangling a good six inches above the floor. Then, as
Jack awakened and relaxed a little, the privateer slouched under his hold and caught his breath.
“Holy sh-shit, Storm!” He coughed as Jack let him drop back to his feet, and he rubbed his crimson neck. “You coulda
killed me.”
“I think that was the idea.” Storm smiled apologetically. “I don’t sleep well.”
“Right.” Tubs shrugged several times, and tried to recapture his air of bravado. Whatever confidence he’d developed
in the fighter had just gone out the window. Marciane was right—this man was a killing weapon. He swallowed, hard.
“What is it you wanted?”
“Ah, th’ captain sent me down. He said you wanted to see the approach corridor for Malthen. And ... the bulletin
board’s got the latest on Claron. Over twenty-eight thousand dead, with no idea of who’s responsible.”
That brought Storm abruptly from his half-sleeping state to wide awake. He remembered suddenly just who he was and
where he’d come from, and what had been done to him to get him there. The battle armor shadowed his mind for a
moment, like a tall soldier looming over him, and he broke off in mid-shudder. “I’m right behind you,” he said to Tubs,
who hadn’t seemed to notice his break in character, and who moved away from him and through the sleeping curtain
after giving a nervous jerk of his head.
Barefoot, Storm padded after the man. He’d adjusted quickly to being back in space, back in action—one of the
advantages of having a body twenty years younger than his mind. After his performance as a strikebreaker, though,
the crew of the Montreal had left him strictly alone. They’d never seen anything like the awesome firepower of the
battle armor. Only Marciane could talk to him without strain in the ensuing days while they returned to the Triad.
Storm had never been to Malthen. One of the three dominating planets called the Triad that made up the Dominion, it
was nearly legendary in its wealth and technology. The Emperor himself resided on Malthen, though it was axiomatic
that no one person could actually rule a galactic empire. It was easier to set a few boundaries and spend most of the
time deciding not to rule. Planets tended to take care of themselves. Running a continent took a fair amount of ability,
let alone a planet or a series of them. Even the unions backed off on planetary government. It was enough to muster
people.
The Emperor mostly reviewed his computer findings and ruled now and then on whether a planet was free labor or
union, and decided if there was an enemy worth fighting on an interplanetary level—the Thrakians had been a
spectacular example, one the old Emperor’s biography would never live down. The Emperor as a ruler was inaccessible
except through the layers and layers of bureaucracy comprising the banking and computer information systems of
Malthen.
Still and all, Jack knew that meeting the privateers had cut years off his search. The privateers worked for the level of
government that did more than sift through information and requests; it acted, though its actions were not beyond
review. But finding anybody on Malthen who could do more than channel information was fortune he did not dare
turn down or ignore. He might never have such an opportunity again.