"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Alliances" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

peg leg, and start calling you matey?”
“You forget, Captain, that you are talking to your superior.”
She let out a large sigh and let her shoulders relax. “No, I haven’t, sir. But frankly,
you’re not acting like my superior here. You’re acting like a little boy who just found
out that there’s gold at the end of the rainbow.”
“And you, Captain, should take this assignment more seriously.”
“I would,” she said, “if you had a reliable source. And if you were pursuing
something that was possible. They’re sending you-me, actually-on some kind of wild
goose chase.”
“I’ve heard enough about this universal translator to believe it’s something we have
to investigate.”
“Then have someone bring it here,” she said. “What’s to stop someone from
bringing the technology to us?”
“The Hacrim say that these creatures don’t want to sell it.”
This mission was getting worse and worse. “Then why would you want me to go to
this place?”
“To see if the rumors are true,” Galland said.
“They aren’t,” Roz said.
“Then find out.”
“Through the Cactus Corridor. Into uncharted space. Breaking God knows how
many regulations to track down a rumor?”
“You’re an explorer, Captain.”
“I’m a military officer, Admiral. I’m supposed to be patrolling a sector, not going on
fantasy vacations in your stead.”
“You’re being insubordinate, Captain.”
“And you’re not acting like my superior officer, Admiral.” Roz picked up the pad
and looked at it one last time.
There was a lot of information missing from that route. The section of space after
the Cactus Corridor was empty- completely black. Then there was the pulsating
planet, and nothing else.
Space was never empty and it never had nothing there. Especially over distances that
vast.
“Let me remind you, Captain, who saved your butt-”
“Yeah,” Roz said. “In an incident that happened in the Cactus Corridor. No offense,
Admiral, but I really don’t want to take my ship back there.”
“You won’t be, Roz,” Galland said, lowering his voice. “You’ll be taking a
prototype vessel. A small one. One that can handle the prickly nature of that nebula.”
“And the Ba-am-as?” she asked.
“You let me worry about the Ba-am-as.”
“No offense, sir, but I’m the one whose going to be taking a prototype ship through
the Cactus Corridor, heavily mined and guarded by the Ba-am-as, into space that
isn’t properly charted, in search of something that’s scientifically impossible. I
respectfully and forcefully decline.”
Admiral Galland let out a small sigh. “Roz, I don’t think you’re in the position to
argue-”
“Admiral,” she said, putting her hands on his desk and leaning close. “Let me ask
you a few questions.”
He raised his dark eyes to hers. She thought she caught in them an expression of
wary amusement. She didn’t like that at all.
“Fire, Captain.” Back to captain, then, were they? None of that too-familiar Roz crap