"Walter Jon Williams - Dread Empire's Fall 03 - Conventions of War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

The police traveled in pairs in a place like Riverside. These two were Terran, but Sula didnтАЩt know if
she could trust that fact to help her. They might not care who their orders came from, so long as their
own position remained intact. TheyтАЩd subjected people to the arbitrary justice that was a feature of the
old regime, and the NaxidsтАЩ orders might not seem any different.

Nor were these two the sort to build confidence. As Sula watched from the window, one ear cocked for
the sound of the announcer on the video, she saw one of the cops collect some graft from the lottery
seller on the corner, and the other help himself to some spiced fry bread from a vendor.

Choke on it,she thought at him, and withdrew into the apartment before they could see her.

The executions went on. SulaтАЩs stylus jotted names and numbers as she busied herself with calculation.
Lieutenant Captain Hong had led Action Group Blanche, which was composed of eleven action teams,
each of three Terrans, plus his own headquarters group of six, with his extra servants, runners, and a
communications tech. Action Group Blanche therefore had thirty-nine personnel. There were four other
action groups, one each for the Cree, Daimong, Torminel, and Lai-own species, and though Sula hadnтАЩt
met any of their members, she assumed they were organized the same way as Action Group Blanche, so
that EshruqтАЩs whole command would have constituted 195 members, plus his own headquarters group.

Those identified as members of the action groupsтАФтАЬrebel anarchists and saboteurs,тАЭ as the Naxids
called them, as opposed to the mere тАЬrebelsтАЭ of Pahn-koтАЩs administrationтАФamounted to only 175. Ten,
the announcers said, had been killed while resisting arrest, or in HongтАЩs luckless engagement on the
Axtattle Parkway.

Three moreтАФSulaтАЩs own Action Team 491тАФwere supposed to have died in an explosion in their
apartment at Grandview, a booby trap that Sula had set off to catch the security forces she knew were
closing in. The story of their deaths was pure propagandaтАФunless by some miraculous coincidence the
Naxids actuallyhad found three burned Terran bodies in the wreckageтАФbut Sula supposed she might
wring some advantage in being officially dead.

But even counting Action Team 491, that added up to only 180. This left at least some of the loyalists
unaccounted for, and as she added her columns of figures, Sula saw they were all Torminel.

Relief eased her taut-strung nerves. She and her team werenтАЩt entirely alone: there were at least some

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 Williams, Walter Jon - [DEF 03] - Conventions of War

other Fleet personnel out there, armed and presumably ready to make the Naxids pay for the capital.
Torminel mightlook like fat-bottomed plush toys come to life, but that was only until you saw their
fangs. They were a species that Sula would rather have on her side than not.

The problem was, she had no means of contacting them. There were backup communications protocols,
but these were the very procedures the Naxids had used to capture most of her comrades. Sula didnтАЩt
dare use them, and she presumed the Torminel wouldnтАЩt dare either.

Nor could she communicate with any of her superiors. They were all off-planet, and none of the action
teams were provided with appropriate transmitters. Hong had such a transmitter, but it had probably
been captured along with him.