Read Online The False Admiral by Sean Danker - Free Book Online

Besides, whatever she’d given me had sapped my energy, and not in a good way.
    I did what I could over the com to help them find their way through the dark ship; or rather, I helped Nils. Salmagard was silent, and Deilani would run herself ragged before asking me for anything. At least they were all in shape.
    â€œIt’s going to be ugly,” Nils said of the recycler he was working to extract from an escape craft. “I don’t have any tools. Do you know where I can find some?”
    â€œTremma’s maintenance supply. But where that is, I don’t know. Just break whatever you have to. Stuff on the inside of a Ganraen EC can’t be all that sturdy. And if you can get that running in a timely fashion, you should see about a combiner.”
    â€œReally, sir?”
    â€œUnless you want the last thing you ever eat to be field rations.” The food produced by a molecular protein combiner was never anything to get excited about, but it was still a step up from field rations.
    â€œYou really think this is it, sir?” Nils sounded shaken. He still wasn’t over the exploding shuttle. My hearing was still a little dull too.
    Until a few weeks ago these trainees must have believed that they were going to war. The conflict with Ganrae hadn’t been going one way or the other too decisively. Things had been leaning in the Empire’s favor, but it hadn’t been such a one-sided conflict that the Empire would be feeling invincible.
    Maybe Nils had thought that nothing would happen to him on the
Julian
. That was reasonable, and the cease-fire had come abruptly with the destruction of the space station that served asthe center of the Ganraen Commonwealth’s government. He must’ve felt even safer knowing the fighting was over.
    But now he had no choice but to think about his own mortality, a subject that his service training had probably glossed over.
    â€œIt’s not outside the realm of possibility,” I told him.
    â€œYes, sir.”
    Even in my suit, I could feel the temperature dropping. It wouldn’t be long before our EV suits were the only things keeping us from freezing.
    Salmagard returned, her grav cart stacked with survival packs. Enough to hold us for a while, even without a combiner. The meals in the packs came in numerous varieties, but the selection wasn’t infinite. I did some quick mental math, and decided we’d be sick of all of them depressingly soon. Though when it came to rations like this, imperial ones were probably the best you could ask for.
    I hoped Nils had the technical prowess to get a combiner running. We’d also need protein gel for it—and that would need to be kept at a certain temperature. Well, that would be easy. We could just leave it in the corridor and thaw it as needed. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d eaten food from a combiner. Ages ago.
    I was too spoiled, and I needed to get over myself. I was going to be eating that sort of humble food three meals a day for the foreseeable future, and that was only if I lived through this.
    Salmagard finished unloading her cart.
    â€œPrivate,” I said, and she went to parade rest. I looked down at my bound wrist. “You know I can’t actually put you at ease.”
    â€œYou’re saying it would be wrong for me to follow your orders, sir?”
    That surprised me. Her voice was perfectly even. I almost couldn’t tell she was joking. She
was
joking, right? She had to be.
    So she did have a sense of humor.
    â€œYou’re sure?” I asked. “You might be better off on Deilani’s good side. I don’t have much to offer you.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œThank you.” I cleared my throat. “Lieutenant?” I said into the com.
    â€œYes?” Deilani sounded a little out of breath. She was trying to compensate for not having a clue where she was going by running the whole way. Her pride couldn’t be