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

farm on Dorman’s Stand and volunteer for the army in the first place. He
had little enough memory left of his family and home planet.

“Amen,” answered Daku and they drained their glasses.

“Ever see a Thrakian sand planet?” Daku asked casually.

Jack had. He’d been there on Milos, fighting, while the Thraks
terraformed the planet into a vastness of dunes, sands to be filled with their
eggs for hatching. But he couldn’t answer without giving himself away. He
took a long draught of beer before answering, “No.”

“I have. Dorman’s Stand, one of the last to go under. It’d eat away at
you, tell you that. A dead planet now, for all that it’s a nursery to Thraks.”

His home. His family. His fields and orchards, ground to dust and sand.
His hand clenched around his beer glass, and to distract himself, Jack
watched the amber-haired blonde at the bar shrug off a potential customer.
Her gaze flickered briefly over Jack. He cleared his throat, hoping that Daku
hadn’t noticed. He checked his watch as his drinking companion began to
slip his card into the table slot to order another round of drinks. He held up
his palm. “That’s enough for me. I want to get back.”

Daku looked up. He smiled pleasantly. “But there’s no need to worry,
Jack. You won’t be going back. I’ve been sent to turn you back into the clay
we are all made of. Dust to dust.”

He looked into a needle-nosed palm laser. Jack reacted before he knew he
was going to react. He dropped down, kicked the table up into Daku’s teeth,
and rolled out of the way of the spray of fire. The blonde at the bar
screamed and tables rang as they overturned, the area clearing as customers
hit the deck.
 As Jack dove into a shadowy corner and skidded into a crouch, Daku got
to his feet. Blood poured from his upper lip. The palm laser shook.

“You won’t get out of here. It’s not my job to let you go.”

Jack ducked as laser fire crisped the booth behind his head. He kissed the
floor as sprinklers went on and a fine mist drifted down in response to the
assault. He could hear Daku move to another position.

The blonde crawled over to Jack and slipped him a handgun. “What
would you do without me?”

“Live alone,” he said. “Now find a corner and stay the hell out of the
way.”

She gave him a pout and crawled past him as ordered.

“I suppose you won’t tell me who hired you.” Jack paused and calculated