"David Weber - Honor Harrington Universe - 02 - The Shadow Of Saganami" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

Dahak series:

Mutineers' Moon
The Armageddon Inheritance
Heirs of Empire
Empire From the Ashes(MegaBook)

Standalone:

Path of the Fury
The Apocalypse Troll
The Excalibur Alternative

with Steve White:
Insurrection
Crusade
In Death Ground
The Shiva Option

with John Ringo:
March Upcountry
March to the Sea
March to the Stars

with Eric Flint:
1633




Х Chapter One

Admiral of the Red Lady Dame Honor Harrington, Steadholder and Duchess Harrington, sat beside Vice Admiral of the Red Dame Beatrice McDermott, Baroness Alb, and watched silently as the comfortable amphitheater seating of the huge holographic simulator filled up. It was an orderly audience. It was also quite a bit smaller than it would have been a few years earlier. There were fewer non-Manticoran uniforms out there, as well, and the vast majority of the foreign ones which remained were the blue-on-blue of the Grayson Space Navy. Several of the Star KingdomТs smaller allies had cut back sharply on the midshipmen they sent to Saganami Island, and there were no Erewhonese uniforms at all. Dame Honor managedЧsomehowЧto maintain her serene expression as she remembered the tight-faced midshipmen who had withdrawn from their classes in a body when their government denounced its long-standing alliance with the Star Kingdom of Manticore.

She didnТt blame the young men and women, many of whom had been her students during her own time on the Island, despite her personal sense of betrayal. Nor could she really blame their government. Part of her wished she could, but Dame Honor believed in being honest with herself, and it had not been Erewhon which betrayed the Star KingdomТs trust. It had been ManticoreТs own government.

She watched the final midshipman take his place with a -military precision fit to satisfy even a Saganami Marine. Then Dame Beatrice rose from the chair beside hers and walked with brisk yet measured strides to the traditional podium.

УAttttenЧSHUN!Ф

Command Sergeant Major SullivanТs harsh voice filled even the vastness of the simulator with a projection the finest opera singer would have been hard-pressed to match, and a perfectly synchronized, thunderous У Bang!Ф answered as eleven thousand brilliantly polished boots slammed together in instant response. Fifty-five hundred midshipmen and midshipwomen came to attention, eyes front, shoulders square, spines ramrod straight, thumbs on trouser seams, and she looked back at them unblinkingly.

They were graduating early. Not as early as some of their predecessors had before Eighth FleetТs decisive offensive under Earl White Haven. But much earlier than their immediate predecessors had, now that Eighth FleetТs triumph had been thrown away like so much garbage. And they were headed not to the deployments of peacetime midshipman cruises, but directly into the cauldron of a new war.

A losing war, Dame Beatrice thought harshly, wondering how many of those youthful faces would die in the next few desperate months. How many of the minds behind those faces truly understood the monumental betrayal which was about to send them straight into the furnace?

She gazed at them, a master swordsmith contemplating the burnished brightness of her new-forged blades, searching for hidden flaws under the glittering sharpness. Wondering if their whetted steel was equal to the hurricane of combat which awaited them even as she prepared their final tempering.

УStand easy, Ladies and Gentlemen.Ф