"James Doohan - Flight Engineer Volume 2 - The Privateer-" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doohan James)

Peter nodded thoughtfully. It would be rough, the Consortium wasn’t inclined to coddle the miners they’d all but
enslaved. But there would be perfectly reasonable conditions for a covert military operation.
“You want to put a spy post there?” he guessed.
Scaragoglu shook his head.
“We have every sophisticated spy device known to man deployed in that block of Mollie space. They’re
extremely efficient and damn near undetectable. There’s nothing that could be learned from this base that they
wouldn’t find out just as well as a human operator. Less, actually, since this field is in proximity to a spinning
neutron star. It’s far enough away from the hutch that hard radiation shouldn’t be a significant problem, but close
enough that it will play merry hell with sensors. Ours as well as the enemy’s.” His lips quirked in a smile. “Think
bigger.”
Bigger, Raeder thought. Rescue mission? His mind went to the missing WACCI crews and maybe even some of
the Speed officers from the Dauntless. Naw, we’re looking at a permanent base. In Mollie space. The hutch was too
small for a ship like the Invincible. So it must be for . . .
“You mean to harry the enemy. You need a base for a small squadron to launch on hit-and-run missions.” Raeder
looked away from the holo to meet Scaragoglu’s approving eyes.
“Not unlike the privateers in the ancient Caribbean,” the general confirmed. “You’d harry their shipping. Interrupt
their supply lines and in general wreak havoc on their morale. These are damned suspicious people, Commander.
Not knowing how ships that lack interstellar capability are showing up to destroy their supply lines is going to make
them even more paranoid. You’ll make it look like their pirate allies. I’d just love to drive a wedge between the evil
and the insane.”
Raeder grinned. It was an appealing thought. Then his face sobered.
“And my place in this mission, sir?”
“You’d be in command.” The Marine general’s eyes sparked, but his dark face was unreadable.
“Why me, sir?” Raeder asked. The obvious and unattractive answer was that he was exceedingly expendable. He
didn’t particularly relish the idea of being a human sacrifice. They hadn’t yet talked about how he and his people
would be evacuated. Maybe after the Dauntless thing he thinks I’m too gung ho to even ask sensible questions and
won’t notice we’re as likely to be recalled as a plasma beam once it’s fired.
“Because you’re the only hero I happen to have on tap at the moment,” Scaragoglu said dryly. “You’ve proven
you can think fast in a tough situation. That you’re willing to take risks without being overly concerned with
intangibles like, ‘Will the admiral approve?’ ” He smiled thinly. “But I don’t think you’re going to throw your life
away. Or anyone else’s for that matter. And I need a cool, clear-headed leader who can think on his feet, not a
berserker. I think that makes you my man.”
“I’m not cleared to fly a Speed,” Raeder said. Might as well be up front about it.
“I’m aware of that, Commander.” Scaragoglu glanced over at Captain Sjarhir.
The captain had gone so still that Peter had almost forgotten him.
“I mentioned it to the general earlier, Commander,” he now said.
Peter nodded. Glad I mentioned it then, he thought.
“However, thanks to an innovation by my second, Lieutenant Cynthia Robbins, I now can fly. Without the
slightest difficulty.”
The general frowned and looked at Sjarhir, who shrugged.
“Unfortunately, we’ve never heard of this invention and therefore it hasn’t been approved for use by Space
Command, and therefore might as well not exist,” Scaragoglu said, giving Peter a cautionary look. “Which means
you are not cleared to fly for the foreseeable future. I would describe that as a slight difficulty.”
“The patent has been submitted, sir. And since it works I’m sure it will be approved. We’re likely to lose too
many highly trained pilots otherwise.” Read expensive, Peter thought. Expensively trained pilots. Space Command is
going to be screaming for something like this and soon. “Therefore you might say it would merely be a formality to
give me permission to fly a Speed, sir.”
For the first time in years Scaragoglu felt his chin loosen preparatory to dropping. The brass of the man! Clearly it
wouldn’t be an easy ride having a muntu like this under his command, but it certainly wouldn’t be boring.
He leaned forward and gave Raeder a steely eye.