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

The lieutenant was smiling, his eyes as light as she'd ever seen them.
"Is it true you called General Morris a bastard?"


Torin stowed her bag in the enclosure over her seat and took a look
around the military compartment.
Forward, a pair of officers sat on opposite sides of the aisle. The
Human artillery captain had already slid his slate into the shuttle's
system and, from the corner of screen Torin could see, had accessed
the hospitality file—although it wouldn't dispense his drink until they
were in Susumi space. Her seat on full recline, it appeared that the
di'Taykan major had gone to sleep.
Torin wondered if she'd already made the captain an offer and was
resting up. And if that's why the captain was drinking.
In the aft end of the compartment, half a dozen privates and a
corporal were settling in. According to their travel docs—available to
sergeants and above from the shuttle's manifest—the corporal from
Crayzk Company's engineering platoon was heading Coreward on
course and the six privates were on their way back to Ventris Station to
be mustered out.
She had the NCO compartment to herself.
As the shuttle pulled away from the station, the walls separating the
sections opaqued. Although the center aisle remained open along the
length of the compartment, it was easy enough to maintain the illusion
of privacy between the ranks—an illusion Torin was all in favor of.
She as little wanted to be responsible to the officers as she wanted to
be responsible for the junior ranks.
Half an hour later, the shuttle folded into Susumi space. Since little
changed from trip to trip, they'd be spending only eight to fourteen
hours inside, emerging four light-years away at MidSector at the same
time they left. Torin pulled a pouch of beer from her alcohol allotment
and settled back to watch the last three episodes of StarCops, one of
the few Human produced vids she hated to miss.
But neither Detective Berton's attempt to find the smugglers
bringing the highly addictive di'Taykan vritran into Human space nor
Detective Canter's search to find the murderer of a Krai diplomat could
hold her attention. She might as well have been watching H'san opera.
When the third episode featured a government official throwing his
weight around, she thumbed it off and glared at her reflection on the
screen.
If General Morris wanted a recon team to investigate an unknown
alien spacecraft, the Corps had plenty of teams he could choose from.
Torin didn't know whether he wanted her to replace the staff sergeant
from an established unit or to be a part of a team he'd built from
scratch, but either way she didn't much care for the idea. It was
inefficient. And bordered on stupid.
 She could do the job. She understood that as a member of the Corps,
she was expected to pick up and move on as the Corps saw fit. And she
took full responsibility for the actions that had lodged her in the
memory of a two star general.