Mutiny Read Online Free Page A

Commander Forrice were alone in his quarters, I wouldn't have answered you."
    "Just how much of a problem is discipline with so little to do?" continued Cole.
    "I'm just in charge of Security, and I keep busy," replied Sharon. "I'd suggest you discuss the matter with the Captain or Commander Podok."
    "I suppose I'll get around to it," said Cole, breaking the connection. He turned to Forrice. "What's going on beside the drug use? Any same-species or even interspecies fraternization?"
    "No."
    "There will be," said Cole. "If I know that it's a meaningless job and I've been onboard for maybe three hours, don't you think the crew knows it? They probably feel safer here than in their own hometowns—and these aren't earnest and idealistic young warriors. Fujiama tells me that most of them have caused problems wherever they came from. That implies a certain disregard of discipline under far more dangerous conditions than we're facing here."
    "It makes sense," agreed Forrice.
    "You don't seem too concerned."
    "Out here on the Rim it really doesn't make a bit of difference. The only person who has to stay sane and sober is the pilot, and he's locked into so many computer circuits I don't think he could go crazy even if he tried."
    "I can't tell you how comforting I find that," said Cole.
    "Were you always this cynical?"
    "Only since I was old enough to talk. Let's go see the bridge."
    Forrice ordered the door to open. Then his computer started gently calling his name.
    "There's a message coming in," he said apologetically.
    "No problem," said Cole. "I'll find my way."
    "Top level, any airlift. All the corridors lead to it."
    Cole stepped out into the hall, found the nearest airlift, ordered it to ascend, stepped off at the top level, and found himself in a wide corridor. There were a number of closed doors, and he began walking past them until he came to a large open area filled with impressive viewscreens. In a transparent pod attached high on the wall was the Bdxeni pilot, a bullet-shaped being with insectoid features, curled into a fetal position, multifaceted eyes wide open and unblinking, with six shining cables connecting his head to a navigational computer hidden inside the bulkhead.
    A human gunnery officer sat at her station, idly watching a series of alien paintings that passed across her computer screen. The Officer on Deck, a tall young man with a shock of black hair, immediately confronted Cole.
    "Name and rank, sir?" he said.
    "Commander Wilson Cole. I'm the Teddy R's new Second Officer."
    The man saluted. "Lieutenant Vladimir Sokolov, sir. I'm pleased to meet you, sir."
    "Then relax and stop calling me 'sir,'" said Cole.
    "That would be unwise, sir," said Sokolov.
    "I suppose there's a reason?"
    "The reason will be returning to the bridge any second, sir."
    As Sokolov spoke, a Polonoi female entered the bridge, and Cole was forced to admire, as he had on previous occasions, the engineering that went into her.
    The Polonoi were humanoid and bipedal, averaging about five feet in height. Males and females alike were burly and muscular, and were covered with a soft down, top to bottom.
    But those were normal Polonoi, like the gunnery sergeant he'd met earlier. Many of the Polonoi in the military, such as Podok, were members of a genetically engineered warrior caste. They boasted orange and purple stripes, not unlike a miscolored tiger, and were more muscular than their normal brethren, able to respond faster physically to any dangerous situation.
    What made the warrior caste really unique, observed Cole, was that their eating and breathing orifices, their sexual organs, and all their soft vulnerable surfaces had been engineered onto their backs. They were created to triumph or die; for a warrior Polonoi to turn his back on an enemy was to present that enemy with all his vulnerable spots. The warrior Polonoi's face possessed large eyes that could see exceptionally well at night and far into the infrared, a speaking orifice,