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

Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33



Prologue
^┬╗
The vehicle was little more than a coracle, thrown to the mercy of solar
winds and planetary gravities. A man stood at the heavily shielded port
watching the heavens pass. Intently, he viewed the planet the vehicle
orbited. It was aswirl with clouds, but he could see the burned off continents
through rifts in the cover. The blue of water and white-blue of cloud
obscured most of the damage, yet he could see streaks of green and brown
coming through. Initial reports from his far-flung organization told him that
there were possibilities here once more. Clean water, grass, seedlings, along
with the ores. The norcite would bring them back, if nothing else.
Resurrection, he thought, and the thought tipped the corners of a weary
smile. The expression smudged out the worry lines.

He was older, his shoulders bowed with fatigue. He wore the plain
jumpsuit of the working class, a miner's suit, the trouser section lined with
pockets both full and empty. Over its drab colors, he wore the deep blue,
long vested overrobe of his office. A rough-hewn cross rested upon his
chest, rising and falling with each breath. His hair, thinning brown strands
across his broad skull, had been thick once and more tinted with auburn
than it was now. Only his eyes remained the same: vigorous, alive, the
deepest of browns, windows to a soul still fiery with conviction.

"Jack would be proud," he voiced aloud. "He's brought a planet back to
life." He'd had to bring an emperor to his knees to do it, but the resurrection
had begun. Colin watched the planet avidly, drinking in its phoenix rebirth
out of ashes.

He was dwarfed by the massive battle armor behind him, its opalescent
Flexalinks catching the light as it shifted nearer. "Should have brought Jack,"
said the armor, its voice sounding forth in magnificent basso profundo
tones.

The man did not take his gaze from the portal. The armor was not
empty, though it should have been, and the voice did not come from a