"Jeff Kirvin - Unification Chronicles 1 - First Contact I" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kirvin Jeff)

vessel itself is mine. Your past accomplishments mean nothing to me, Major. I will not have
you usurping my authority on this ship.”

Jack wasn’t finished. “The President of the Terran Republic appointed me head of security
for this mission. Before we tunneled into an unknown system, you should have given me the
chance to make sure it would be safe to do so. My duty is to see to it that these people are safe,
and I won’t have you jeopardize that just because you want to play cowboy with ‘your’ ship.”

“We scanned the system,” Chenzokov said at last.

“The probes—” Jack began.

“The probes are fine,” Chenzokov said. “The best Russian technology has to offer. If there
were a threat in this system, we’d know about it.”

Jack took a deep breath, marshaling his strength. “I’m not going to get sucked into a debate
over your pointless nationalistic rivalries. Not again. If you have issues with my being
American, that’s just too bad. I’m the security officer for this mission, and I should have been
notified before tunneling so we could be prepared to defend this vessel against any threats that
your probes may have missed.”

Chenzokov rose from his chair. “ ‘Defend this vessel’? Against what? If anyone is playing
‘cowboy’ here, Major, it’s you. Maybe you see danger everywhere you go; given your record, I
can understand why. But I assure you, my dear Major, we are quite safe here, and if we
weren’t, there’s nothing you and your Marines could do about it.”

Jack stood in silence for a moment, beaten. He raised his head and looked the captain in the
eye. “You have a point, Captain. Maybe I was overreacting.”

Chenzokov nodded, and the bridge crew turned back to their tasks.

“As there are no threats in the area to keep us with the ship,” Jack continued, “I’d like to
take my Marines down in the dropship and scout potential colony sites. We might be able to
see things on the ground that we could miss from orbit.”

“Yes, fine,” the captain waved his hand. “Whatever. It will be a few days until the science
teams will be ready to land. You have until then.”

Jack exited the bridge. No one saw the smile on his face.


* * *


Marine Lieutenant Robyn O’Reilly stood in the cramped Marine briefing room, a
conference room near the drop bays. Like most of the military quarters on the ship, it was
small, poorly ventilated and looked like the afterthought it was. The one thing it had going for
it was the far wall, a floor to ceiling viewscreen similar to, though much smaller than, the one
on the bridge. It gave her an unobstructed view of the planet they now orbited.