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

Raeder’s rather simple fix for the damaged antihydrogen bottle?”
“I’m not an engineer by training, Admiral,” Montoya answered quietly. “As for Chief Casey, I cannot say.
Perhaps it was the heat of the moment. But, of course, the flight deck had taken a direct and catastrophic hit. It was a
shunt from a Speed’s engine that Commander Raeder used to empty the damaged bottle. Such an item would have
been unavailable to Chief Casey, even if he had thought of using one.”
“Have that checked,” Grettirson said, and an aide in the audience spoke a reminder into a wrist filo.
The interrogation of Captain Montoya went on and on, and Raeder cringed mentally. If this is how he’s handling
people who behaved like a perfect textbook scenario of responsible and heroic behavior, what’s he going to say to
me?
As if he didn’t know.
His own captain, Knott, had torn a nice long strip off Raeder for, as he had put it, “Going off to perform one of the
most harebrained pieces of showboating I’ve ever seen in my entire career!”
At last the board was finished with Captain Montoya, which is to say that Admiral Grettirson had vented as much
spleen as he possibly could on her innocent head.
Paddy Casey, the Dauntless’s red-haired and, at the moment, furiously red-faced, engineering chief was called.
He lumbered up to the table, a solid six foot slab of heavy-world muscle, and sat, fixing the admiral with a glare
that should have dissolved the strong, weak and electroweak forces maintaining the integrity of his atomic structure.
He folded his big hands before him, the knuckles white from the pressure of his grip.
Grettirson glowered back, but without nearly the conviction, making the staring contest a hollow gesture. The
Chief didn’t remain on the stand long, perhaps because every one of his quiet, polite answers sounded threatening
somehow. And it was well known that Paddy was an impulsive man with a long and sorry history of physically
attacking senior officers.
Something to keep in mind, given that the admiral was far less fair to Montoya than he might have been, Peter
thought.
Fortunately for Grettirson, Paddy was deeply in love with Lieutenant Cynthia Robbins and was determined to get
into officers’ school so as to pursue their relationship. Otherwise the rule-bound Robbins would be forever beyond
his grasp.

“You—did—what?” Grettirson enunciated carefully.
“I jury-rigged a magnetic bleed from a Speed’s acceleration system and brought it over to the Dauntless in one of
her abandoned lifeboats,” Peter said matter-of-factly.
“You abandoned your post in the middle of a battle?” the admiral asked slowly, in genuine horror.
“I made certain that I had people in position to take over for me,” Raeder assured him.
“You are the senior officer in charge of the Main Deck, Commander! No one can cover for you!” A blood vessel
in Grettirson’s temple writhed. He glared over Peter’s head at the audience behind him. “I shall have to ask Captain
Knott why you were not put on report.” He lowered his gaze to meet Peter’s. “You may step down, Commander. But
you haven’t heard the last of this, I assure you.”
Raeder nodded and rose, giving a quick glance over the other members of the board. Gretsky and Trudeau looked
at him in disgusted disbelief, Anderson looked disappointed. But Scaragoglu . . . Scaragoglu looked interested.
Peter walked stiffly back to his seat, feeling the Marine general’s eyes boring into his back. This is not a guy I
want to take an interest in my career, he thought. Avert! Avert!
Captain Knott came in for his own share of sharp questioning and blame, as did Squadron Leader Sutton and the
captains of the Diefenbaker and the MacKenzie. But at last it was over and the board chairman made his summing-up
speech. He ended it with remarks made directly to Commander Peter Raeder.
“Recommended for the Stellar Cross, indeed,” he sneered, giving Captain Knott a dismissive glance. “If you had
gotten yourself killed, we’d very likely have presented your family with some posthumous decoration. As it is, I shall
recommend that you be given a reprimand for the record and be reassigned planetside to a desk. And consider
yourself lucky that it’s not worse. Because you, Commander, are a standing menace to discipline and order!”
With that he rose, banged the gavel on its plaque and led the rest of the board out of the room.
Aides rose from the audience and followed them, while Peter and the rest of the defendants, for that’s what it had