"Tanya Huff - Valor 2 - The Better Part of Valor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

scrawled next to it in a script she didn't recognize said, "And your
luggage is in Antares," or a variation thereof.
Shuttle departures were down one level. Unfortunately, SD-31 was
not a shuttle bay. All MidSector and OutSector stations had a squadron
of two-person fighters for station defense plus a few extra bays in case
of fighters arriving without their ships. As no MidSector station had
ever been attacked, their squadrons were on short rotation. There were
few things more disruptive to a sentient society than a squadron of
bored vacuum jockeys.
"Docking bay SD-31."
The map rearranged itself. A second red light appeared. A green line
joined them.
Okay. That was going to take some time.
"Shortest route. Species neutral."
Not significantly shorter.
The MidSector stations had been in place longer than Humans had
been part of the Confederation and over time they'd grown almost
organically.
"Like a tumor," Torin muttered, heading for the nearest transit node.
OutSector stations had been designed for the military after the start of
the war and were a lot more efficient. She hoped that when informed
of her arrival her pilot had kept right on with whatever it was a vj did
when he wasn't flying or fighting with Marine pilots because they
wouldn't be leaving any time soon.
At the node, she wasn't really surprised to find a link had just left.
Given the way her day had been going, she wouldn't have been
surprised to have found the links shut down for unscheduled
maintenance and that she was supposed to cover roughly eight
kilometers of station on foot.
Ours is not to question why.
 A trite saying rapidly on its way to becoming a mantra.
By the time the next link arrived, the platform had become crowded.
A trio of di'Taykan officers at the far end— pink, teal, and lavender
hair—provided a visual aid for anyone who wondered why the Corps
had switched to black uniforms and about forty civilians filled the
space in between, including four representatives of a species Torin
couldn't identify.
There were also a number of Katrien. Hard to count because they
were shorter than many of the other species but easy to spot since
every single one of them appeared to be talking—sometimes to other
Katrien, who were also talking. MidSector was close to their home
system, which explained the numbers.
Torin watched only the occasional broadcast coming out of the Core
but she seemed to remember a Katrien news program announcing that
their Trading Cartel had taken over a significant number of both X-
and Y-axis routes.
When the link finally arrived, Torin took a center seat, plugged her
slate into a data console, and ran "alien ship dead in space," then "ship
of unknown origins," paying a little extra for a secure search.
Nothing. Great, the one time I could use a little help from the media,