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

He squeezed in beside Tubs in the com room. As the privateer sat down in front of his screens, there was room for the
three of them again, Marciane and he standing shoulder to shoulder, though he was a good deal taller than the
captain.
The captain smiled. “Sleep well?”
As Jack answered politely, he saw Tubs shiver, and he repressed a smile. “Yes, thank you. Tubs says we’re in the
Malthen corridor.”
“Yes. Bring up the bulletin board, Tubs.”
“Yes, sir.” His thick fingers played the keys that he knew so well, he’d worn the texturized coating off half of their
faces.
Jack fought for composure before turning to read the com screen. There, squeezed in among elections, bounties, union
warnings, draft notices, tax bulletins, was the brief blurb on Claron. It was now officially being declared off-limits
because of the burn-off and an investigative committee was being formed to review the incident and make
recommendations. He found his right hand clenched tightly as he thought of the verdant planet reduced to a char, and
made an effort to relax his fist.
Marciane made a cynical noise as the bulletin board switched off. “They’ll be years on that one. All right. Tubs. Bring
up the duplicate of your screen.”
Tubs did nothing other than what he was ordered to, but as he did what the captain said, he felt a strange twist that
this stranger, this piece of space junk they’d rescued, would be treated like royalty on board the Montreal. Maybe
Short-Jump was right, and Marciane knew something they didn’t. The salt-and-pepper captain who ran a tight ship
held something close to hero worship for this guy. Tubs felt bewildered, and a little betrayed. He knew Storm had been
handsomely cut in on their strikebusting pay. He licked his lips. “Coming up now.”
Storm took a moment to recognize anything on the circular gridmap coming up, then the blips fell slowly into place. He
stabbed a finger at an unfamiliar shape moving at the edge of the template. “What’s that?”
“Identify, Tubs.”
The man squirmed in his chair to see what it was they were looking at, then looked back to his own screen. “That’s a
warship, captain.”
“One of ours?”
“No, sir. Thrakian.”
Storm tensed. Marciane couldn’t help but feel it, as they nearly rubbed shoulders. His gaze narrowed.
The older man’s voice said smoothly, “They’re allowed to patrol the outer corridor ... that’s been part of the treaty for
the last fifteen years.”
He knew then that Marciane had caught him on part of his background. The captain had been slyly questioning him
and Storm had avoided most of it, but he couldn’t avoid this—the violent reaction to the presence of the Thraks. He
said smoothly, “Old prejudices die hard,” and then caught the reflection of himself on the com screen—high
cheekbones, smooth, tanned skin, a young face—a face which would never have had to consider fighting Thraks. He
added, “My father hated Thraks,” and hoped he’d covered himself.
“Most of us country boys did the fighting,”
Marciane said. “Just to keep ‘em out of the corridor, and the bureaucrats sue for peace and hand ‘em the right. I can’t
get used to it myself. Your father wasn’t wrong in his feelings. It’s still a jolt to see them there.” He looked at Tubs and
cleared his throat. “All right, shut it down. I’m going forward for a drink, care to join me?” Tubs’ expression squeezed
tight as he realized the offer was extended to Storm, not to him. He returned to hunching over his screens and
well-worn keyboards.
The galley was deserted. In the artificial day and night of the ship, Storm couldn’t tell if he should feel tired or fully
rested. He just, simply, was. He eased himself into a chair, his knees too high and jutting into the table top. He still
wore his ranger trousers and one of Marciane’s men had loaned him a spare jump-shirt. He watched as Marciane
pulled out the Tantalos whiskey bottle from a sealed niche and splashed the liquid into a cracked but clean plastic
mug. Courtesy dictated that he wait until the second mug was likewise filled before he hefted his.
He watched Marciane over the rim of the cup, barely doing more than wetting his lips with the whiskey, though just
inhaling the fumes affected him for a split second.
The captain drank deeply and made a satisfied sound. He rocked back in the second chair, and put his boot heels up