"Charles Ingrid - The Sand Wars 06 - Challenge Met" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ingrid Charles)

he knew how Denaro would react to a frontal attack.

Amber screamed then, as if realizing what she saw.

Gauntlet fire turned the dark air orange. Jack tumbled past it, just out of
range, feeling the heat of it whistle by. At Denaro's feet, he crouched,
grasped a dagger of jagged glass and stabbed upward, toward a chink in the
Flexalink coverage, not where the back of the knee was, but where he knew
it would be as Denaro power vaulted to avoid his attack.
 The dagger skittered in his hand, made a screeing noise as it connected,
then slipped inward. It was torn out of his grasp as the jump carried Denaro
away. Jack immediately twisted backward, but he was too late, betrayed by
his own body, as the other kicked out.

The heavy boot caught him a glancing blow to the chest—but even an
angled blow from a suit was enough to drive him across the room where a
wall stopped him the hard way. Jack let himself slide downward, forcing
muscles that were convulsed in pain to relax.

Denaro came to ground, and set Jonathan aside. "Don't do this,
Commander," he said. There was an edge of pain in his voice. He reached
down and pulled the glass dagger out, its edges crimson.

Jack rolled over into a ball, legs under him, gathering himself. He looked
up and met the charcoal screen of the visor, knowing a human gaze lay
behind it.

"I can't let you do this."

"You can't stop me. I'm suited and you—you're not."

"That's where you're wrong. If you'd stayed in the Knights long enough,
you'd have learned your weaknesses."

The gauntlet fired, but Jack had leapt already, inside and under it.
Jonathan's flaccid bulk protected him from a second spray.

"I thought," Denaro said, and an aggrieved pant interrupted his words, "I
thought you knew who the real enemy was."

"Never doubt it," Jack answered, just as he launched himself, and Amber
screamed, "Don't shoot!"

He never knew if she'd meant it for Denaro, or for the hard-bodied aliens
that suddenly filled the ruined lab and room. The reek of their excitement
filled his nostrils even as the beam caught him twisting and brought him
down. The warrior Thraks smelled like hot brass and he hated it worse than
the smell of death which washed over him as the floor caught him up with
ungentle force.