"Michael Sweeney - Virtual Threat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sweeney Michael)

"Then what I had to say is useful?" Pierce asked timidly. The large man smiled
again.
"Of course, any information is helpful." He motioned toward the door. "Now
just you go to the nearest club and have a lay down. Maybe clock out and see a
genedoc."Pierce stared at the large man.
The man frowned. "You do have a club membership, I assume."
Pierce nodded. "Yes, sir. I'm a member of the Red Dragon Club." The large man
sighed inwardly.
"Well, you just stop by the secretary on the way out and she'll fix you up
with a couple of credits on us. How about that?" he gave a wide grin.
Pierce smiled in return. He was relieved. The whole reason he had even bother
to file the report was to try and cop some credits. He was running dry. He
turned and exited, whistling.
With the merchanter gone, the tall brooding man turned. "You know he was just
giving us the act. Right?"
The large man sighed. "Hurato, the man just lost his ship. I think we can be
slightly generous."
The Admiral glowered for a second and slowly cooled down."Do you really think
he was telling the truth?"
Minister Coolidge sat in his seat, facing the closed door. "I believe so, he
had nothing to gain from lying."
Admiral Hurato rubbed his cheek slightly, also staring at the closed door.
"Then things are looking very strange."
The Minister turned slowly in his chair and looked at his colleague. "Yes,
indeed. This is the third such case in as many days. The Solace system is
hardly a ideal location for a military build up. It's more a short cut to the
Ganges Cluster for these ragged merchanters." he glanced idly at his hands.
"And until recently it was just that. But now, it seems the Martian government
is taking an interest in it's remotest fringe sectors."
The Admiral still pondered on the closed door."It makes no sense. The Solace
system borders on our Hirest System. An equally worthless chunk of space. It
doesn't even have any tactical advantage."
The Minister ordered to computer to display a map of the Hirest System and
Martian border. The wall display lit up and the various stars shone in the
slightly darkened room. The Admiral leaned against the opposite wall and
studied the hologram. It showed the Hirest System in red and the Martian
border sector in green. The border ran vertically on the hologram. The
Minister instructed the computer to highlight the defense installations in the
Hirest System. Three yellow, evenly spaced, dots appeared along the red
border. Small script scrolled next to each dot. "It would be easy to take
though. Look, its scarcely defended." The Admiral furrowed his brow. With
reason, the Hirest System borders two unfriendly nations. Unfriendly with each
other especially. he ordered the computer to scroll the image down. A second
border along the top shone in blue.
"The Alliance and the Martian's hate each other. When ever there's a war, they
usually try to go through that sector. Historically speaking, its not really
Union territory. We just sort of claimed it after the last war. It had some
borite mining operations in it. They've long since panned out. Do you think
that the Martians could be readying another war with the Alliance?" The
Minister queried.