Kraken by Eric S. Brown

Author:Eric S. Brown [Brown, Eric S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severed Press
Published: 2016-02-13T23:00:00+00:00

It had taken half an hour to get back onboard the Rogue. Cordova didn’t mind the time. The navy was very much about the concept of hurry up and wait. What he did mind was how Spraker had treated him. They had known each for a long time and all of a sudden Spraker was acting like he was suddenly so superior. He wouldn’t have guessed that rank, certainly not a mere acting one, would go to Spraker’s head so quickly. Cordova knew Spraker well enough to know from how he had acted, Spraker had come close to relieving him of command, maybe even having thrown into the brig. Well, Spraker could go frag himself. His plan was crap. And all that junk about the squids was crap too. There was no way on God’s blue Earth that a shoal of squids, mutated or not, was the level of threat Spraker was acting like it was. If something had happened to the main body of DESRON 22, it was because Surface Community Captain Marcus was an idiot. How the man had ever gotten his rank was beyond Cordova’s understanding. He knew Spraker felt the same about him and Cordova couldn’t blame him for it. Marcus was a pencil pusher and a desk jockey at best. He didn’t understand what real service was like. The fact that he was a coward in Cordova’s opinion only added to the level of damage someone like Marcus could do with the rank he held.

Cordova passed on Spraker’s orders to his crew and they set about welding the exterior doors closed and all that other rubbish. Whether it would help or not if the squids got onboard the Rogue, Cordova didn’t care. He had no intentions of the letting the shoal anywhere near his ship. That wasn’t how the navy was supposed to fight. The Rogue had torpedoes and deck guns for a reason and he planned to use them against the squids as soon as the creatures gave him the chance.

Spraker could talk a good game, sure. He knew, too, that Spraker wasn’t a coward even if he was acting like one now. Cordova shook his head and wondered had happened to the Spraker he knew. This new one sucked hardcore. He half expected Spraker to come aboard the Rogue to make sure the orders he had given had been carried out.

“That bad, huh?” Selena asked as she entered Cordova’s office and saw not only the expression he wore but the open bottle of Rum on his desk.

“That bad,” he confirmed. “Spraker’s a jerk now like the rest of the brass.”

“I thought the two of you were close,” Selena said as she moved to take a seat on the edge of Cordova’s desk. Any other CO would’ve busted her for such behavior but not him. The two of them had shared more than a few inappropriately intimate meetings. Cordova wondered if her knees had healed up from the last one but decided now wasn’t the time to check up on them with Spraker breathing down his neck.

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.