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

volunteers, and I'm only takin' th' best of you." It was an assignment he had
feared, but he would take it, and he wanted only the top Knights beside him
when he did.

The knots broke up, mumbling, arguing, and he could hear the drift of
their voices, the same words, the same arguments that had driven him to
the solitude of the Training grounds in the first place.
 He'd heard enough. Anger swelled his bull chest, and when he bellowed
it out, he didn't care who heard or heeded.

"I've had it! You've got a problem, bring it to me! Pepys has th' right to
call an escort. We'll be bringin' him and Commander Storm in, and, by God,
if he's gonna be judged, I want th' commander to be judged open of mind
and free of doubt—not by a bunch of ballless wonders." He stared around
the compound which his bellow had brought to silence.

A young man, his chin clipped by a fresh laser scar, pink and lacy upon
his skin, looked up from his workbench. "Sarge," he began. "We buried the
man with full honors—now he's hauled back, alive and in irons."

Lassaday pointed a blunt finger. " Th' ‘man,' " he repeated, "is your
commander."

"Was," a voice rumbled from the shadowed interior beyond the barracks'
doorway. "Now we've got a walking Milot furball for a commander."

There were shouts of protest including one young, clear voice saying,
"K'rok's all right."

"He's alien!"

"You're kind of strange yourself," the recruit fired back, and the argument
disintegrated into laughter.

Lassaday rubbed the ball of his thumb over his jaw. "Th' Milot's my
commanding officer," he said, "and it's not fitting for me to talk ill of him, for
all that he's part of the Thrakian League and we're Dominion and Triad
here. But K'rok fills a commander's shoes and that's all that's required of
him. You might do well to remember that when a Thraks goes to war, he
takes no prisoners except for th' best—and K'rok's fought his way up
through their ranks as well. And all that's required of you is a shut mouth
and clear head when we meet Emperor Pepys. Jack Storm was a good man
to all of us—the last true Dominion Knight, he is, and he deserves respect."

"Traitor," someone said, but Lassaday's piercing dark stare could not pick
out the voice's owner.

His cheek bulged for a moment as if he chewed out his thoughts before
he spoke. Then, reluctantly, "Some say so. But it's not been proved to me
yet."