"Zahn, Timothy - Cobra 03 - Cobra Bargain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

Justin didn't flinch. "You mean there's no reason to try and change an unfair policy simply because it is policy?"

"Come on, Justin-you teach out there, for heaven's sake. You know how traditions hang on. Especially military traditions."

"I also know that those traditions started back in the Old Dominion of Man,"

Justin countered. "We haven't exactly been noted for blindly adopting their methods in anything else. Why should the military be immune?"

Corwin sighed. Various combinations of Moreau family members had hashed through all this in one form or another dozens of times over the past few years, ever since Justin's youngest daughter had first decided she wanted to follow in her father's Cobra footsteps. Like Justin's father before him... and Corwin was well aware that, for the Moreaus at least, family tradition wasn't something to be treated lightly.

Unfortunately, most of the others on the Council didn't see it that way.

"Military tradition is always particularly hidebound," he told Justin. "You know it, I know it, the worlds know it. It comes of having conservative old people like you at the top running things."

Justin ignored the attempt at levity. "But Jin would be a good Cobra, possibly even a great Cobra-and that's not just my opinion. I've given her the standard screening tests-"

"You've what?" Corwin cut him off, aghast. "Justin-damn it all, you know better than that. Those tests are exclusively for the use of the Academy."

"Spare me the lecture, please. The point is that she scored in the top five percent of the acceptance range. She's better equipped, mentally and emotionally, than ninety-five percent of the people we've accepted."

"Even granting all that," Corwin sighed, "the point remains that she's a woman, and women have never been Cobras."

"Up till now they haven't-"

"Governor!" Thena MiGraw's voice on the intercom cut him off. "There's a man coming-"

And behind Justin the door slammed open and a stranger leaped into the office.

"Destroy the Cobras!" he shrieked.

Corwin froze, the sheer unexpectedness of it holding him in place for those first crucial seconds. The intruder took a few rapid steps into the room, arms waving, raving just short of incomprehensibility. Out of the corner of his eye

Corwin saw that Justin had dropped out of his chair, spinning on his heels into a crouch facing the intruder. "All right, hold it!" the Cobra snapped. His hands were up, the little fingers with their implanted lasers tracking the man.

But if the other heard Justin's command, he ignored it. "The Cobras are the destruction of freedom and liberty," he screamed, taking yet another step toward

Corwin. "They must be destroyed!" His right hand swung in a wide circle toward

Corwin's face and then dipped into his tunic pocket-

And Justin's outstretched fingers spat needles of light directly into his chest.

The man shrieked, an oddly gurgling sound. His knees buckled, slamming him to the floor. With an effort, Corwin shook off his stunned paralysis and jabbed at the intercom. "Thena! Security and a med team, fast."

"Already called them, Governor," she said, her own voice trembling with shock.

Justin had stepped to the intruder's side and knelt down beside him. "Alive?"

Corwin asked, holding his breath as his brother's fingers touched the other's neck.