"Charles Ingrid - The Sand Wars 04 - Alien Salute" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ingrid Charles)

berserkers now. The unease it filled him with he could do without. He
squinted through the tinted face plate at the alien sun. Strange worlds,
strange people, and even stranger enemies. Right now he'd rather wade
through a nest of Thraks then try to find his way through the rumors
surrounding the Milots and their berserkers.

There was no denying the rumors though. The Milots, who had
summoned Dominion forces to fight for them against the ThraksтАФthose
same low-tech Milots who ran the repair centers and provided the war
backupтАФwere as despicable and treacherous as the Thraks whom Storm
had enlisted to wipe out. And there were too many stories about altered
suitsтАж suits that swallowed a man up and spawned instead some kind of
lizard-beastman who was a fighting automaton, a berserker. Rumor had it
the Milots were putting eggs into the suits, and the heat and sweat of the
suit wearer hatched those eggs and then the parasitic creature devoured its
host and burst forthтАФ

He told himself that the Milots had a strange sense of humor. What
Bilosky thought he'd seen, whatever every trooper who repeated the gossip
thought they were talking about, was probably a prank played at a local
tavern. Knights always took a certain amount of ribbing from the locals,
until they were seen in action, waging the "Pure" war.

Ahead of him, the dunes wavered, sending up a spray of sand. His
intercom burst into sound.

"Thraks at two o'clock, lieutenant!"

Storm set his mouth in a grim smile. Now here was an enemy he could
deal with. He eyed his gauges to make sure all his systems were ready, and
swung about.

Thraks were insects, in the same way jackals were primates or ordinary
sow bugs were crustaceans. They were equally at home upright or on all
fours, due to the sloping of their backs. Jack took his stand and watched
them boil up out of the sand from underground nests and launch
themselves in a four-footed wave until they got close enough to stand up
and take fire. Thraks were vicious and dedicated to a single purposeтАж at
least, fighting Thraks were. Diplomatic Thraks, so he had heard, were as
vicious in a far more insidious way.

He cocked his finger, setting off a burst of fire from his glove weapons
that slowed the wave. The line of Thraks wavered and swung away, even as
they stood up and slung their rifles around from their backs.

On Milot, they had the slight advantage, having gotten there first and
having begun their despicable planet transforming. Even a slight advantage
to the Thraks was disastrous to the Dominion. Milot was already as good as
lost. Battalions had been wiped out, forced into the deserts, to make as
graceful a retreat as possible. Inflict as many casualties as they could, then