"Charles Ingrid - The Sand Wars 05 - Return Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ingrid Charles)

double doors shut again and, passing through one of the diagnostic rooms,
paused, then pocketed one of the new probes racked there, thinking Bogie
could use some fine tuning.
 He had almost made it back to the entry when a voice stopped him in his
tracks.

"I just headed up a memorial service for you, commander. I didn't
believe the rumors."

Hair prickled on the back of Jack's neck. He'd half-expected to meet
someone in the shops—he'd hoped they'd be Thraks or Sergeant Lassaday.
Thraks he'd kill cheerfully and Lassaday, with a bit of explanation and
persuasion, could be expected to let his commander pass.

But the voice was young, strong, and clear—and he turned to face a man
who was everything Jack might have been, had he not been betrayed.
Rawlins stood in a corridor entrance, the dim light shining off hair that was
silver-blond, eyes the intense blue of bottomless pools watching him in
accusation, whole and unscarred of limb and soul. Jack was a soiled
mirror-image of the young man, his own hair muddied, his blue eyes
lightened, grayed by truth rather than innocence, he liked to think. He'd
always found it difficult to face Rawlins, and this meeting was no less
painful.

"Rawlins. Seeing ghosts?"

"Sir." The officer shifted weight easily, then said, "It is you. I thought so,
but I hoped—from the back—I could have been mistaken."

Jack studied the distance between them, gauging not only how quickly
he could get to Rawlins, but to see if the blanking shield would cover them
both. His calculation was uncertain. In any case, he could not afford to stand
here and attempt to repair the damage done to Rawlins' idealism. "I'm going
out the door, Rawlins, and you will not have seen or talked to me."

"Is that an order, sir?"

Jack shook his head. "No. A request, one that will benefit you perhaps
even more than it will me."

The jawline tightened. Rawlins looked pale in the twilight illumination.
His eyes glittered. "Then it's true. You've gone AWOL."

"Nothing is ever exactly as it seems." He took a half-step back, toward the
door.

Reflexively, Rawlins' hand went toward the weapon he carried. Jack
stopped.

"Tell me what is true, then."