No Honor in Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

closed, but lights on the control panel showed green.  It wasn't locked from the inside, contrary to standing regulations.  Siobhan's face tightened as anger began to bubble up from within.  Patience wasn't one of her virtues, and this morning, it had vanished entirely.  She breathed in deeply before touching the keypad, her nostrils filling with the acrid tang of lubricants, reactor coolant and recycled station air.  Kicking ass was a bad way to start a new command.
    The airlock opened with the weary groan of lousy maintenance.  Just inside, a Petty Officer Second Class, his service dress tunic unbuttoned, beret casually tucked under a shoulder strap, sat in a cheap chair, balancing on its back legs, reading something no doubt pornographic.  His erection was painfully visible under tight uniform trousers.
    At the noise, his head swivelled towards the gangway, a look of annoyance crossing his features.  Then, his brain caught up with what his eyes saw and he struggled to rise, overbalancing on the chair.  He fell backwards with a clatter, head striking the bulkhead with a dull thud while the reader went flying across the airlock, landing at Dunmoore's feet.
    After a few stunned moments, he managed to untangle his thick limbs and awkwardly got to his feet, still dazed, struggling to regain some semblance of dignity.  Fury tightened Commander Dunmoore's features.  Her nostrils flared whitely as she stepped aboard her ship and saluted towards the bow, where in the days of wet navies, the national flag used to fly.  Then, she turned her attention to the Petty Officer, examining him from head to toes with blazing, contemptuous eyes.  He was a short, stocky man, with a red face covered by a fine tracery of broken veins.  Small, piggish eyes framed a thick, oft broken nose beneath a mop of dark, greasy hair.
    Bleary-eyed, dishevelled and unshaven, his breath and body odour were distinctly stale.  The dark blue tunic had seen better days and bore evidence of food and drink stains.  He was the sorriest picture of a non-commissioned officer Siobhan Dunmoore had ever seen.
    She locked eyes with the PO and read the emotions passing through them.  His initial annoyance had been replaced by fear but that was, in turn, giving way to a sly craftiness.   Siobhan came to the instinctive conclusion that the man was a bully.  Maybe even a coward, but definitely someone to watch.  A good ship shone through her non-commissioned officers and the Stingray was looking shabbier by the second.
    "Commander Dunmoore.  Permission to come aboard?"
    "Sir?" He attempted a smile, which faded the moment it appeared, killed by Siobhan's contemptuous stare.
    "You are?"
    "Petty Officer Second Class Zavaleta, sir.  Bosun's mate."
    "Tell me, Petty Officer Zavaleta, do you usually look like a bag of shit or is today a special occasion?"  Siobhan kept her voice deliberately low.  Zavaleta seemed to lean towards her, as if to better understand her words.  The slyness gave way to fear again at the lack of emotion in her voice.
    "Sir?"  He glanced down at his tunic and, fingers trembling, hastily buttoned it up.  Then, he put his beret on and came to attention again.
    "Pick up your bloody reader, PO Zavaleta."
    "Aye, aye, sir."
    Straightening up again, eyes narrowed in an unconscious display of rancour, Zavaleta truculently held out the reader, its screen gray and scuffed.  "Palm print, please, sir."
    Dunmoore placed her hand on the cool screen, but not without a twinge of revulsion at what it had shown moments earlier.  "Commander Siobhan Dunmoore, Captain, CSS Stingray ."
    The reader flashed as it acknowledged her identity.
    "Permission to come aboard granted, sir," Zavaleta replied, his tone taking on more than a hint of nauseating oiliness.  A bully, then.  Someone who would have thrived under Commander Forenza.
    Not under me, boyo.  Nor, if I you continue like this, will you keep those stripes for very long.
    "Thank you," Dunmoore