Brigends (The Final War Series Book 1) by Russell Krone Read Free Book Online Page B

wiping engine grease off his meaty hands with a rag. It was the perfect interruption.
    “Morning, Chief,“ he greeted his friend. “Where have you been? Annoying Tullia again?”
    The cantankerous Russian freed a guttural hum from his chest and stuffed the soiled cloth in his back overalls pocket. “Nyet. She been annoying me,” he said with an overemphasis on the oy in the word annoying. “I tell her I made 321-peto design long before she was tickle in papka’s trousers. She no like me saying it.”
    Tullia Pitu, the ships engineer, was not a woman to antagonize even on a good day, but Minsk enjoyed the aggravated reactions he got from her. It wasn’t something that required a lot of effort. They were both assertive personalities and used to getting their ways.
    He lifted the pot and poured Adi’s hot, acidic coffee directly on his dirty hand. He didn’t flinch as the scalding liquid cleaned the blackened calluses. “Commander, most repairs done.”
    The Bandit may have been a fusion-powered airship, but she also had plenty of moving metal parts to maintain. Although he had once been a master ship designer in his younger days, Minsk wasn’t above getting dirty when called upon.
    “I’m not in charge anymore,” she corrected him.
    “Good. It about time you get off ass and work again,” Minsk chided Emil, without any insinuation of humor.
    “I don’t know, Chief. I’m thinking of taking a holiday. I’ve accrued enough sick days to do it, don’t you think?”
    “Nyet. Girl here drive me mad. No good to let her be in charge.”
    Adi wasn’t offended by the honest misogyny. She shrugged it off with a smile and a crude hand gesture.
    “Tell me, Chief, while you’re cavorting with Tullia in the engine room, who’s flying the ship?” she asked with a side-glance.
    “Cob.”
    “Anton is manning the conn?” Emil asked, raising a surprised eyebrow.
    “Much has changed since you’ve been away,” she reminded him.
    “Apparently.”
    “Don’t worry. He can handle it.”
    Emil snatched Adi’s mug and downed the last gulp. Waiting for the burning sensation to pass, he handed it back to her. “Okay. Remind me how to get to the bridge.”
    While she put away the mug, he stood, relieved that he didn’t have to answer her questions. But, knowing her as well as he did, he knew she would return to the subject sooner or later.
    When they walked out of the galley, he patted his old friend on the shoulder. “Don’t let Tullia push you around, Chief.”
    Minsk growled then laughed.
     
    “General on the bridge!” Cob announced, popping to attention.
    Emil stepped inside to the symphony of workstations relaying data streams. The mix of warm metallic deck plates with the fumes of overloaded circuits, somehow reminded him of his childhood home in Aiud. There was always the aroma of his mother's fresh baked bread cooling in the kitchen and the sound of his sister, Stephania, practicing a concerto on her violin in the front room.
    “As you were,” he greeted the crew. He was home — the only one he had left.
    He inspected the perimeter of the bridge, returning the admiration of his soldiers, some of whom he didn’t recognize. The crewmen he knew by name beamed as he went by, some with happy tears. The replacements he didn’t know looked on him as a living legend.
    After completing a lap around the oblong shaped compartment, he stopped at the conn-chair. Cob stepped aside to relinquish control.
    Emil placed his hands on the young man’s shoulders. “It’s a hard thing to give up isn’t it, Lieutenant?”
    “What’s that, sir?”
    “The allure of command.”
    “I guess so,” he snickered, looking more like a kid playing soldier than the real thing.
    Emil gave him a playful pat on the cheek. “Status, Mr. Cob.”
    “We’re on course for New York, as ordered. Arrival in thirty. Most of the systems are online and in the green.”
    “Most?”
    “Yes, sir. The dust storm damaged two drive shafts, the