"David Weber - Honor 04 - Field of Dishonor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

FIELD OF DISHONOR
David Weber
[16 dec 2001—scanned by an anonymous saint]
[18 dec 2001—reformatted for #bookz]
"It is always a bad thing when political matters are allowed to affect ... the
planning of
operations."
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel 160 Ante-Diaspora (1943 C.E.)
PROLOGUE
It was very quiet in the huge, dimly lit room. The Advanced Tactical Training
Course's main lecture
hall boasted the second largest holo tank of the Royal Manticoran Navy, and
the rising, amphitheaterlike
seats facing the tank seated over two thousand at full capacity. At the
moment, thirty-seven people,
headed by Admiral Sir Lucien Cortez, Fifth Space Lord, and Vice Admiral The
Honorable Alyce
Cordwainer, the RMN's Judge Advocate General, sat in those seats and watched
the tank intently.
The image of a tall, strong- faced woman floated in it, sitting erect and
square-shouldered yet calmly
in her chair, hands folded on the tabletop before her beside the white beret
of a starship's commander. The
golden planets of a senior- grade captain gleamed on the collar of her space-
black tunic, and she wore no
expression at all as she faced the HD camera squarely.
"And what, precisely, happened after the task group's final course change,
Captain Harrington?" The
voice came from off-camera, and a blood-red caption in the holo tank
identified the speaker as
Commodore Vincent Capra, head of the board of inquiry whose recommendations
had brought the
audience here.
"The enemy altered course to pursue us, Sir." Captain Harrington's soprano was
surprisingly soft and
sweet for a woman of her size, but it was also cool, almost remote.
"And the tactical situation?' Capra pressed.
"The task group was under heavy fire, Sir," she replied in that same,
impersonal tone. "I believe Circe
was destroyed almost as we altered course. Agamemnon was destroyed
approximately five minutes after
course change, and several of our other units suffered both damage and
casualties."
"Would you call the situation desperate, Captain? "
"I would call it... serious, Sir," Harrington responded after a moments
thought.
There was a brief silence, as if her invisible questioner were waiting for her
to say something more.
But her detached calm was impregnable, and Commodore Capra sighed.
"Very well, Captain Harrington. The situation was 'serious,' the enemy had