"Elizabeth Moon - Serrano 7 - Against the Odds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moon Elizabeth)

Ph.D., for stimulating discussions of rejuvenation. Ruta Duhon for weekly
doses of sanity even when writing gets wild.

Mistakes and errors are all mine, not theirs.

Note to Readers

Readers familiar with Change of Command will notice a temporal overlap
between the last part of that book, and the first part of this one. Here
the first chapter starts between the mutiny and the second assassination.

Newcomers may wish a bit more background.

The Familias Regnant is a political assembly of great families, now spread
across hundreds of solar systems. Centuries ago, they combined their
individual family militias into the Regular Space Service, which has the


file:///F|/rah/Elizabeth%20Moon/Moon,%20Eliza...%20Legacy%2007%20-%20Against%20The%20Odds.txt (1 of 291) [5/20/03 11:42:01 PM]
 file:///F|/rah/Elizabeth%20Moon/Moon,%20Elizabeth%20-%20The%20Serrano%20Legacy%2007%20-%20Against%20The%20Odds.txt

dual mission of policing the spaceways and defending the Familias from
external attack.

In the previous book, Change of Command, longstanding dissension and
unrest in the R.S.S. came to a head and elements of the Fleet mutinied.

The mutineers first struck at the Fleet training planet, Copper Mountain,
freeing some of the prisoners from a high-security brig on a remote
island. The rest they massacred. Their original plan had included taking
over a weapons research facility, but loyalists managed to prevent that,
at least for the moment. Unfortunately, the mutineers managed to destroy
their transportation: the loyalists are marooned.


CHAPTER ONE

Copper Mountain,

Fleet Weapons Research Facility

A cold wind swept the barren top of Stack Two; Ensign Margiu Pardalt's
eyes ached from squinting into it. Broad daylight now; the wind had long
since swept away the bitter stench of the seaplane fires. Where were the
mutineers? Surely they would land, to snatch the weapons they knew had
been designed here. Had the message she'd tried to send using the old
technology actually reached anyone, or would the mutineers get away with
their whole plan? And when would they come . . . when would they come to
kill her?