Match Game (Expeditionary Force Book 14) by Craig Alanson

Author:Craig Alanson [Alanson, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2022-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

“You are sure this will work?” I asked, while watching the Maxohlx supply ship climb away from the planet Ardoo, toward jump distance.

“Ugh. Yes, dumdum,” Skippy did a combination shrug with eyeroll at me. “We tested it.”

“We tested it with Valkyrie’s jump drive, and without a crew aboard the Duck. Under very controlled conditions.”

“Well, excuse me if the Maxohlx didn’t volunteer to let us test it under more realistic conditions. There is no reason it shouldn’t work this time. In the test, I even adjusted our jump drive to make it more chaotic than normal, and the Duck still sailed right through without a problem.”

“Sir?” Simms prompted me. “You have a bad feeling about this? Should we cancel-”

“No. I don’t have a bad feeling; I have the same feeling I get every time we do something we’ve never done before.” That wasn’t entirely true. My anxiety about the op was partly, even mostly, due to me sitting in a chair aboard a well-defended warship, while other people took the risk. If I were flying the Duck, I would be less nervous about trying something new. The whole concept of ordering other people to do something I wasn’t doing still felt wrong to me, yet it was my job to do that. The commander is supposed to be in a position to maintain overall situational awareness, to make the force doing the actual fighting more effective. Being in the middle of the shooting is not an appropriate place to exercise command.

I had to trust my people, to do as good as, or better, than I could if I were there with them. Considering that I couldn’t qualify to be a special warfare operator, and at the moment wasn’t current on my rating as a pilot, it was probably for the best that I wasn’t with them, getting in their way.

“It’s just nerves,” I whispered to Simms with a shrug. Then louder, “Skippy, do your thing.”

“Okey-dokey. Countdown continues.”

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