"Mike Moscoe - The Price of Peace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moscoe Mike)

suite keeps dropping off line. The cable routing on this ship would drive a spider mad."
"That's why warships are full of redundancies," Izzy said. Her overworked maintenance chief
didn't look very con-vinced.
The exec's face was also a cool mask, telling her nothing. He was a troubling unknown. His
file said he was solid, but something had gone out of him a month ago. His kid brother
disappeared just before he was to testify before a senate committee investigating corporate
connection to the enemy during the recent war. Tom had been an up-and-coming corporate
man. Now he was long gone, or sleeping with the fish
4 тАв Mike Moscoe
or whatever happened to hard-charging company men who knew too much of the wrong
things. Stan had gotten quiet and withdrawn.
The leadership books said everyone had a right to grieve. Today, nobody had a right to
mess up Izzy's battle plan. She glanced at her wrist unit. "We go to battle stations in three
minutes. Let's make it a day to remember."
"Unknown in main battery range," Sensors reported.
"Are they armed?" Izzy snapped, staring hard at the main screen, as if her eyeballs might
see something Patton's sensors had missed. The unknown was getting awfully closeтАФ and
not saying a damn thing.
"Stern sensors are down again, ma'am. I'm doing the best I can with the bow suite."
Lieutenant Commander Igor McVinty waved a dark hand at the dozen screens on his board
with straight lines across them. And Izzy cursed the spare parts shortage for the
forty-eleventh time this cruise. Damn budget-cutters.
Suddenly Igor's lines became dancing squiggles. "Skunk powering up main battery. His
passive sensors are humming now." He shook his head. "Commander, that skunk is making
music like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She's a warship."
"Society or Unity?" the XO shot back. Officially, Unity was as dead as Shakespeare, to
quote Izzy's old boss. But what they said back on Earth and what a lone cruiser found far out
on the rim of human space weren't always the same.
Igor tapped his board. Red lines appeared right on top of the yellow ones that skittered over
his screens. "I make it a Daring-class Unity light cruiser."
Izzy eyed Igor's board. Yep, a damn Daring.
Every mother's son of which was supposed to be scrap!
So much for the fine points of peace treaties.
"Communications here, Captain. We're being hailed."
"Comm, give me audio. No visual output on these transmissions." Izzy could fake the
outside of the Patton. There
THE PRICE OF PEACE тАв 5
was no way to fake the bridge of a Navy cruiser with its crew at battle stations.
"Yes ma'am," answered communications.
We're ready. It's show time!
"Howdy, stranger," Izzy drawled. "This is Betsy Corbel, skipper of the Pride of Portland.
What'cha want?" Betsy Corbel did captain the Pride of Portland... on the other side of
human space.
A window opened on the main screen; an unshaven face stared out with a smile just one
degree shy of a sneer. Then it went to puzzlement. "Your picture ain't coming through."
"Lost our bridge camera a month back," Izzy assured him. "Haven't had the money to
replace it."
"Oh." The man on screen looked none too happy about that. But with a shrug, he went on.
"There're pirates around here. We'll escort you. Keep you safe. For a slight fee."
Izzy expanded the picture of the man to fill the entire main screen. That gave her a good look