"Charles Ingrid - The Sand Wars 02 - Lasertown Blues" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ingrid Charles)

He had to make the Guard. It was his only way to survive in the Triad
system without going back to being a free mercenary. And it was where he
had to be to ask the questions he needed to ask. It was the place he had to
be to hunt down Winton and find out the truth about the Sand Wars. It was
the best way he could curry favor and win aid for his plans to revitalize
Claron. His hand balled into a fist. He would find the answers he wanted. Or
die trying. And he didn’t forget that he nearly had, less than an hour ago.
He pushed his way to the rack with the other volunteers.

The white armor hung there, catching the rays of the sun, and projecting
the reflection with an aura of its own. It was a little sleeker than the newer
models, the Flexalinks were of a different alloy, and the helmet hanging on
the meathook above it had more face plate. It also carried repaired crimps
and, on the chest, a duller paint hid the insignia he’d painted there… oh,
some twenty years ago. When he wasn’t much younger physically than he
was now.

Jack grabbed a gauntlet and pulled the suit closer.

*Hi, boss.*

The sentience within the suit greeted him, and Jack let out his breath in a
ragged sigh. Whatever tests the armor had undergone, the microscopic
being determinedly regenerating itself inside Jack’s suit still lived.

He wasn’t sure how he greeted that knowledge. The nightmare of Milos
haunted him every time he wore the suit… but it had become a drug he
couldn’t do without when making war. The Milots had salted the suits of the
Knights with a parasite. It infested the men who wore the suits on a
long-term basis, and eventually cannibalized them, and then finally burst
out of the shell of the armor itself—a full blown, lizard berserker warrior
unafraid of death. The Milots had thought the berserkers could save them
when the Knights could not. They’d been wrong on all counts.
 And they’d created part of the nightmare which had led the Dominion to
abandon their troops on Milos. The infected men and suits had been
scourged, by leaving them to the Thraks. Only a minor effort to pick up the
troops had been made, to save face, and with the knowledge that the pullout
was doomed to be stopped by the Thrakian warships ringing the planet.
Whoever had calculated that eventuality had been dead right—except for
one troopship which had made it through, even though it was vitally
damaged.

Jack knew only that the parasite wasn’t in him. Amber sensed it, could
single out the growing soul. It was in the suit. But when he wore the suit, it
enhanced his already considerable abilities. It invaded him. It made him
invincible.

And he needed that to extract the revenge he sought.