"William H. Keith Jr. - Warstrider 03 - Jackers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Keith jr William H)

generators and rigged with hab modules and a makeshift
hangar deck. Airlocks grown through the hull gave access
to vacuum; Tarazed carried as payload eighty-two
warflyers, the equivalent of an Imperial carrier wing aboard
one of their big dragonships.
Those three vessels, plus Eagle, were all that New
America had been able to spare for the Athenan
expedition. The rest of their space forces, including those
being rushed in from other Confederation systems, were
being organized against the probability - no, the certainty -
of an eventual Imperial attack against the Frontier.
Raids like this one, directed against Imperial
shipbuilding facilties across the Shichihju, were an
important source of new ships for the nascent rebellion.
And possibly, Dev thought as he plunged toward the
glittering constellation of lights that marked the Imperial
ships and facilities orbiting Daikoku, just possibly such
raids would buy the Confederation another desperately
needed resource: time.

Chusa Randin Bradley Lloyd was the senior Hegemonic
Guard officer aboard the huge and sprawling orbital
complex of habitats and nanofactories called Daikokukichi
by the Imperials, but which most of the Hegemony
personnel simply referred to as "the Yards." As he floated
onto the main control deck and pulled himself hand over
hand toward the link pods lining one bulkhead, he thought
again about Tanemura and his fat toad of a flunky and bit
off a sharp curse.
Lloyd had only two superior officers on the station, both
of them Imperials. Taisa Tanemura was the base
commander, while Chusa Kobo was CO of the facility's
marine contingent. Under their direction, Lloyd was in
charge of all of the base technical facilities, including both
the sizable civilian population and the orbital defense
lasers.
Senior he might have been, but he'd been having
trouble lately applying that seniority in any meaningful
fashion. Morale among the gaijin both in orbit and on the
planet's surface was low, so low that Lloyd had had to
seriously consider the threat of mutiny. Discipline among
the petty officers and lower-ranking commissioned officers
was almost nonexistent. Why work hard, why obey orders,
when the Imperials seemed only to care about the color of
your skin and the cant of your eyes?
Right now, Lloyd's temper was frayed short by the
attitude of his commanding officers, both of whom
subscribed to the theory that, in the field at any rate,
Hegemony officers were required to defer to all Imperial
officers, regardless of rank. Two days ago, Lloyd had