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

Amber shrilled, "Stop it! You'll kill them both!"

Denaro leaned over Jack. He picked him up by the nape of his neck, his
gauntlet still warm and stinking. In the other arm, he carried Jonathan and
the Walker aide's slack face stared unseeingly.

"Leave him," Storm got out. The side of his face was numb, and he tasted
the sweet flat iron of his own blood. "Pepys brought me back to find Colin. I
swear to you I'm going after him."

The visor showed him a blurred reflection of himself, but it was Denaro
who answered, "Too late. We've waited too long." The armor shuddered
and the room shifted. Jack realized he was being carried along, dangling by
his neck as Denaro used him as a shield. "You should not have tried to stop
me."

"Try, hell!" Jack twisted in the gauntlet and brought his boot heels up to
the neck joint with a snap that forced the helmeted head back. Another snap
and the seam began to give way.

Amber put her hands to her mouth, watching Jack retaliate. If there was a
man alive who could fight a suit bare-handed, he was that man. But already
he'd paid a price too dear. She heard the Flexalinks sing in protest as he
kicked up, not once but twice. Denaro rocked back and staggered through
the massive hole in the outside wall.

The Thraks could wait no longer. Their quarry was bolting. Even as Jack
found the vital weak spot in the helmet to suit seal, they swarmed.

Her throat went raw as she shouted them off. Jack slipped to the floor
where he lay, crimson and blistered with laser fire, and the battle armor beat
off a last attacker before turning and running, powering out of her sight with
a speed she would not have believed except that she knew the suits and
what they could do.
 A second later, K'rok was there, the massive and furry Milot
overwhelming her as he buffeted the Thraks into submission with his
bellows. Sarge was there, too, calling for live medics.

Numbly, she stepped aside from the Guard. They'd never catch Denaro.
She shoved aside a Thraks standing wobbling on one chitined leg, not caring
that he crashed to the floor with a clacking and hissing as she went to Jack.

There was blood everywhere. The air stank of it and Jack's hand was
slippery with it when she grasped it. The flesh she pressed was chill and
passive and she looked quickly to see if Jack was still conscious. His eyes
flickered and he moaned as the medics reached them and lifted his body off
the shattered flooring onto a gurney.

His gaze met hers, but she could see he was having difficulty focusing.
She leaned close as the medics locked the gurney into position and began