"Steve Perry - The Man Who Never Missed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

Khadaji looked around the main room of the pub. It was early, not yet 1600,
but already the place was crowded. Even with local zoning regs relaxed, there
was usually a line of customers outside, waiting for someone to leave in order
to enter. Khadaji always kept a dozen or so places open, for any highly-ranked
officers who might be interested in a toke, poke or drink. Anjue, the doorman,
had studied the holoproj of every uprank over the level of Lojt and if one
showed up, he or she was escorted to the head of the line and inside. Rank, as
always, had its privileges. The troops-of-the-line might gripe, but the
powers-that-be all smiled at Khadaji when they saw him.

The main room, which was octagonal and dimly-lighted, boasted sixty circular
tables with four stools each. The first thing Khadaji had done on buying the
pub was to have the stools and tables bolted securely to the floor. He'd had
thirty people applying for the job of bouncer and their first test was to see
if they could move the furniture. Two men managed to uproot a stool each; one
woman set herself and screamed, then tore the top of a table off its mount.
And thenтАФwell, she was clever. The rest failed. Khadaji had longer bolts
installed and hired the two men and woman who'd proved strongest. If a fight
broke out, nobody was going to be bashing anybody with his furniture; and
before it got too far, Bork, Sleel or Dirisha would be there to stop it. It
was difficult to argue with a man holding you a half-meter off the floor, or a
woman who could break three ribs with a flat punch. There was very little
trouble in the Jade Flower.

"Ho, Emile, how's it hanging?"

Khadaji looked to his right, to see Lojtnant Subru, smoking a flickstick. The
man's dark face was almost hidden behind the cloud of purple-black smoke.

'To the left, Subbie, just like always." He grinned. "How's the ratface job?"

Lojtnant Subru shook his head and exhaled a fragrant blast of flickstick
smoke. The smell of hot cashews surrounded Khadaji. "Busy today, Emile. Word
is there were several skirmishes within fifty klicks of town."

Khadaji raised an eyebrow and tried to look surprised. "Really? Get any of the
Scum?"

The dark soldier nodded. "Body count of fourteen, I heard. They nicked one of
ours in a blastfight, but she's

okay."

Khadaji didn't have to work very hard to suppress his smile. He'd heard this
kind of statistic too many times. "Good for the troops."

"Yeah, we should have the Scum cleaned out pretty soon. Only problem is, I
hear 1C has upped their estimates of the numbers. Even with the ones we've
been cutting down, 1C says there are close to a thousand guerrillas in the