"E. E. Doc Smith - D' Alembert 8 - Eclipsing Binaries" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

Boros's eyes widened a little. "That really wasn't my fault. I did everything
expected of
me. . . ."

Lady A raised a hand to silence her. "No one's blaming you for anything. Don't
start
looking for excuses where none are due; it's bad form. No, everything on
Gastonia itself
went as scheduled. You performed admirably. The reason for failure lay
elsewhere."

She settled back in the glowing egg, but her body never fully relaxed. "To be
candid, I
suppose I should admit the fault was mine."

"Oh no," Boros said quickly. "It was purely accidental . . ."

"No." Lady A slammed her left fist on the side of the egg with a force that
echoed
through the quiet room. "If I won't accept that excuse from my inferiors, I
have no right to
lean on it myself. There are no accidents; there's only sloppy planning or
inadequate
execution."

Unexpectedly she stood up and walked a few paces from her egg, staring out at
the
triscreen with her back to Boros. "We've spent the last six months analyzing
the failure,
both from our side and from the reports we've seen in the Empire's records. If
I needed
an excuse, I could blame it on that robot who's now so conveniently destroyed,
for its
failure to make certain Commander Fortier was dead before proceeding with its
plans.
That was the pivotal factor.

"But to be honest, I must look beyond that to the errors in planning that made
such a
mistake not only possible, but fatal to our plans. The fact is, the operation
was over
planned. In trying to be so clever, we outfoxed ourselves. We had the force
and the
resources to make the attack work. If we'd just gone ahead and bulled our way
through,
it would have worked. Instead, we tried too hard for finesse, and it threw us
just enough
off balance to let the Imperial forces recover. We lost a great deal in that
disaster, more