"L. E. Modesitt - Spec-Ops" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

He tapped out his selections on the formulator, then set them on the tray, and carried
the tray to the table where Meralez and Castaneda sat. Castaneda was the butch that
Meralez fronted being.

Castaneda gestured. "Look like shit, deJahn."
 "You, too, Castaneda."

"All of us look like shit, all right?" Meralez laughed. "Good thing nothings up
but surveillance today."

DeJahn liked her laugh. Warm, sort of sexy, not in-your-face.

"You've got a thought-look," Meralez suggested.

After swallowing a mouthful of bagel burrito, deJahn nodded, then took a sip
of coffee, bitter. One thing formulators didn't do well, along with tea and chocolate.

"Well?"

"Was a time when special ops meant guys with guns dropping on chutes into
jungle," replied deJahn. "Some ways, more honest."

"Honest? Strange word, think you?" Meralez brushed back mahogany hair too
short to move.

"Strange?"

"Snuffed is snuffed," replied Meralez. "Back then, it was lead, steel jackets,
osmiridium, metal projectiles at high speed. Now, we're using J-wasps, S-wasps,
scroaches, scowls, biogaters, snators. They're using phonies stuffed with ultra-ex,
semiclones with biopaks. We text envirosave, and they text reclaiming their heritage
and defeating imperialism. Some of us get snuffed, and some of them do. Back a
century, it was the same. Any more honest then than now? Don't think so. Back
then, the officers ordered. The senior ones lived, the junior ones died like techs, and
lots more techs died than now."

For a moment, deJahn considered her words. They were hers, what she
thought, and that was good.

"The senior officers, brass balls and iron tits ... all the same," snorted
Castaneda.

"All the same, what?" A cheerful laugh followed the words.

Castaneda looked up. So did deJahn.

Vielho stood there, then set his tray down and slid into the vacant space
beside Castaneda. "Anytime you're talking balls and tits, Castaneda, got to be worth
listening to." He grinned disarmingly, then took a swallow of his tea.
 So far as deJahn knew, Vielho was the only tech who drank tea. Or what