"David Weber - Honor 09 - Ashes of Victory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

and first to exit a small craft, and she knew who she would see well before
the tall, broad-shouldered man in the impeccable black-and-gold of an RMN
admiral caught the grab bar and swung himself from the tube's weightlessness
into the gallery's one standard gravity.

Bosun's pipes twittered -- the old-fashioned, lung-powered kind, out of
deference to the traditionalists among the Elysian Space Navy's personnel --
and the admiral came to attention and saluted Farnese's executive officer,
standing at the head of the side party. Despite sixty years of naval service,
the admiral was unable to conceal his surprise, and Honor could hardly blame
him. Indeed, she felt an urchinlike grin threatening the disciplined facade of
her own expression at the sight. She'd deliberately failed to mention her
exec's identity during the com exchanges which had established her ships' bona
fides for the Trevor's Star defensive forces. The Earl of White Haven deserved
some surprises, after all, and the last thing he could possibly have expected
to see aboard this ship was a side party headed by a man in the dress uniform
of the People's Navy.

***
Hamish Alexander made his expression blank once more as the side party's
senior officer returned his salute. A Peep? Here? He knew he'd given away his
astonishment, but he doubted anyone could have faulted him for it. Not under
the circumstances.

His eyes swept the rainbow confusion of the ranks beyond the Peep as the
bosun's pipes continued to squeal, and another surprise flickered through him.
That visual cacophony had never been designed for color coordination, and for
just an instant, the assault on his optic nerve kept him from understanding
what he was seeing. But realization dawned almost instantly, and he felt
himself mentally nodding in approval. Whatever else Hades might have lacked,
it had obviously possessed fabric extruders, and someone had made good use of
them. The people in that bay gallery wore the uniforms of the militaries in
which they had served before the Peeps dumped them in the PRH's "inescapable"
prison, and if the confusion of colors and braid and headgear was more
visually chaotic than the neatly ordered military mind might have preferred,
so what? Many of the navies and planetary combat forces those uniforms
belonged to hadn't existed in well over half a T-century. They had gone down
to bitter defeat -- often clawing and defiant to the end, but still defeat --
before the juggernaut of the People's Republic, and again, so what? The people
wearing them had won the right to resurrect them, and Hamish Alexander rather
suspected that it would be . . . unwise for anyone to question their
tailoring.

The pipes died at last, and he lowered his hand from the band of his beret.

"Permission to come aboard, Sir?" he asked formally, and the Peep nodded.

"Permission granted, Admiral White Haven," he replied, and stepped back with a
courteous welcoming gesture.