"Timothy Zahn - Angelmass" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

suicide missions. But always before they'd been military men, who had known what they were
getting into and had had the best possible chance of getting out alive. Not a civilian with barely eight

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Angelmass

weeks of training.

Especially not a civilian who'd been lied to straight from square one about what his contribution was
expected to be. "He may get lucky," he said.

Telthorst eyed him thoughtfully for a moment. "Perhaps. I'd like a copy of that Lorelei data pulse."

Lleshi caught Campbell's eye, nodded. Wordlessly, the other stepped over to Telthorst and handed
him a data cyl. "Thank you," the Adjutor said, getting to his feet. "If you need me, Commodore, I'll
be in my stateroom."

He went to the bridge lift platform; paused there. "By the way, you'll want to do a complete survey
of this system," he added over his shoulder. "As long as we have to leave a functioning catapult here
anyway, we might as well see if there's anything worth coming back for."

"Thank you," Lleshi said. "I am familiar with standing orders."

"Good." For a moment Telthorst let his gaze drift leisurely around the balcony, as if to remind them
all who was ultimately in charge of this operation. Then, without another word, he disappeared down
the lift plate shaft to the lower command deck and left.

Bastards, Lleshi thought after him. Carved-ice bastards, every one of them. He turned back to his
console, keyed for an engineering status report. Work on the kick pod catapult was already
underway, with an estimated completion time of five days.

At which point they would be able to send word back to the Pax that Kosta's drop had been
successful. And the Empyrean would be on its slow, leisurely way to defeat.

"Tell engineering that as soon as the kick pod is away they're to put triple shifts on the main catapult
construction," he instructed the comm officer. "I want it ready in four months."

"Yes, sir."

With a grimace, Lleshi keyed for a copy of the Lorelei data pulse. To be trapped out here for four
months, only marginally in touch with what was going on with his task force, was going to be an
unpleasant exercise in patience. But for the moment, at least, he possessed information that no one
else in the Pax had. Plus five days to decide how much of that information would go out with the
kick pod.

Settling himself in his seat in the ship's slowly returning gravity, he began to read.



The timer pinged quietly, and Kosta looked up from his reading. The twelve hours Lleshi had