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

"She's yours, Vandover—but only after Jack is off-planet. Whatever you do
with her, I want nothing traced back to either of us. Understood?"

Vandover fought to contain the fierce heat lancing him. "A wise decision.
She is, after all, a common criminal."

"Common is the last word I'd apply to her." The emperor shrugged.
"Report to me when he's awakened." He spun back to his console, listening
once again, fingers tapping out judgments, decisions, and notes on the
keypad balanced across one thigh.

Vandover bowed himself out of the room. He wondered what Jack Storm
was remembering now.



Sand blighted the horizon. As Jack exited staging, a rust and beige swath
of hell met his eyes wherever he looked. Equipment racks swayed in the hot
summer wind. He let out a pungent curse and the Milot techs working on
the repair line looked up, bestial faces wrinkling and looking away. Solder
popped and he could smell the flush from armor on the far racks. Only the
Milot working lead stayed at attention as Jack walked over.

"I know it's hot," he said to the massive alien. "But you've got to keep
dust out of the circuitry. You're supposed to be under the domes." Canopy
sheeting overhead snapped in the wind. Its shade striped across the Milot's
face.

"Lieutenant," the Milot said, his voice rumbling from a cavernous chest.
"If you want to take a patrol out today, we must be working wherever we
can. Dust is the least of your problems." And the being waved a probe at the
barren horizon where transport ships were supposed to be fielded.

"My concern," snapped Jack, "is the welfare of my men. I don't want to
hear that the suits aren't being repaired properly or aren't fully powered up.
I don't want to hear that any of your crew is siphoning off supplies."

The Milot grunted. His piglike gaze flicked away and returned. "And I
suppose you be believing we grow berserkers out of your men, too. You'll
have your rack ready when you are, Lieutenant." He spat into the dust at
their feet. "And all you have to worry about will be sand."

In his sleep, memory comes together in a violent clash with dream. He
remembers why it is he hates Thraks and sand and doesn't trust Milots.
What it is like to fight long after the suits run low on power, and some of
them grind to a halt, too heavy for a man to move on his own, leaving the
wearers to die a horrible death, entombed in the battle armor. He tastes the
bitter seeds of defeat again, abandoned by superior officers who have
decided to cut their losses on Milos. He knows that his emperor, Regis, has
been manipulated into this decision by his treacherous nephew Pepys, and