"David Feintuch - Seafort 03 - Prisoner's Hope" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feintuch David)

"Aye aye, sir." Midshipman or Captain, there was no other possible reply to a
direct order.
Admiral Tremaine's choleric face shook with wrath. "You see the insolence I had
to put up with, when he had Portia! HeтАФ"

"Before you stole her from him." De Mamay's acid reply sliced through Tremaine's
diatribe.

"Stole her? What are you saying?" Before DC Marnay could answer, Tremaine rushed
on. "The facts are clear from Portia's Log, which you reviewed when I docked. I
had to threaten to hang him before he'd transfer to Challenged'

Better had he done so. Many would live who now were lost.

De Maraay said nothing.

Tremaine's voice took on a wheedling tone, "Recall or no, you're the Admiral in
theater. Those bloody aliens of Seafort's may strike at any time. You need a
commander groundside as well as aloft, and Admiralty didn't appoint my
replacement. As Admiral Commanding, you could reconfirm me until my tour's up.
Or try me yourself, for that matter,"

"Yes, I could well do that." De Marnay swung his chair, fingers tapping at the
edge of his desk,

I closed my eyes, my jaw throbbing with the effort to hold it shut. My commander
had ordered me to be silent, and silent I would be. In any event, nothing I said
could prevent Admiral De Marnay from reinstating Tremaine, the man who'd taken
my Portia. His own U.N.S, Challenger had been disabled by the huge goldfish-
shaped aliens that I'd discovered three years before on my first interstellar
voyage. Tremaine transferred his flag, leaving me, as well as the aged and
infirm passengers and the young transpops he loathed, drifting on Challenger^
deep in interstellar space, unable to Fuse.

After he fled, the fish had come again. We'd been testing the fusion drive, and
they seemed to sense the N-waves on which our ships traveled the void between
stars. Over and again, they'd Defused alongside Challenger to hurl their acid
tentacles at our hull.

I took a sharp breath, realized I was clammy under my stiff jacket.

"After all, Admiralty is far from the scene, eh, Georges? They don't knowтАФw

Admiral De Marnay said, "I could reinstate you, Mr. Tremaine. But I won't."

Tremaine said slowly, "You'd believe that**тАФhe spat out the wordsтАФ"that trannie
Captain over me?"

"I believe the evidence in the Log, and in your conduct, sir." De Mamay's tone