The Face of Betrayal by Andreas Suchanek

Author:Andreas Suchanek [Suchanek, Andreas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Terra, Solare Republik, Interlink Cruiser, Parlids, novel, Suchanek, Space Navy, Admiral, Heliosphere, Starship, Science-Fiction, Coup d etat, Protector, Heliosphäre, Solare Union, Spaceship, series, Hyperion, Solarian Alliance, Solarian Union, Star, Heliosphere 2265, Sci-Fi
ISBN: 9783944652672
Publisher: Greenlight Press (Andreas Suchanek)
Published: 2014-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

*

"Thank you."

"What for?"

"All that research you did?" replied Lieutenant Commander Tess Kensington with a smile. "It really helped push our investigation forward."

As usual, Lieutenant Sarah McCall's cheeks glowed in response to the slightest hint of praise. "Hey, don't mention it. I owed you a favor anyway."

"What do you mean?" Tess scanned the next file. She was beginning to tire of looking at nothing but code all day.

Just minutes before, the first engineer had stormed out of the drive module muttering something about Alpha having 'crossed the line'. Captain Cross had sent Sarah to the module to assist Tess, who had asked her to crack the encryption on a subset of files concealed within a utility library.

"Don't you remember? At the Academy?" Tess gave her a puzzled look. "The thing with Captain Duval?"

Tess snorted with laughter. "For God's sake, I haven't thought about that in years!"

"That moron would have thrown me out of the Academy if you hadn't taken the hit for me." Sarah gave her wink. "He was so into you. You could've had whatever you wanted."

"Ah ray-mem-bear ", Tess replied in her worst faked French accent. "It was an instinctive thing. And luckily you were fast enough on your feet to roll with it."

"I was so homesick – but with hindsight I can see that it was a really dumb mistake. Another student had found this back-door into the system – when I heard about it, all I saw was an opportunity to assign a few extra hours of phase-comms to my account that I could spend talking to my parents."

Tess tried to focus on the fragments of code on the screen in front of her, but she couldn't banish the memory of Captain Duval's needy face. "And he walked in and caught you red-handed! I thought the two of you were having an affair when I turned up. Until he started bawling you out of course!"

Sarah shrugged. "I came that close to calling you out when you told him that it was you who had unlocked the channel. But when he turned bright red and began to trip over his tongue... well..."

"We were lucky that night. And you saved my butt more than a few times. Remember when Captain Hartmann blew his top over the calibration of the sensory array in the tactical simulator?"

Sarah giggled. "It was one dog's breakfast after the next with you. Directing the array at an Academy facility? You could have landed yourself in some serious trouble with that one. Tess Kensington – a spy and eavesdropper in the making. It's the stuff of legends, Tess."

Warming to the topic, Tess and Sarah continued to chat about their antics at the Academy. The conversation was a welcome distraction from the emotional scars and uncertainties of recent events.

"Where has Lorencia got to?" Sarah murmured quietly. "I have to get back to the bridge again soon."

Tess realized with disquiet that the first engineer had now been at Alpha's office for quite some time. A look of concern crossed her face.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.