The Complete Legacy Trilogy: Star Corps, Battlespace, Star Marines. Ian Douglas

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СКАЧАТЬ the Builders had created an instantaneous communication network linking thousands of worlds. Most of the screens at the Martian Builders site were dead, evidence that their empire, like so many others, had fallen to the Hunters of the Dawn.

      Of the rest, a handful had been identified with nearby stars, and, as the new antimatter-torch technology gave humankind a means of approaching near-light speed, three of those worlds—Chiron, Hathor, and Ishtar—had been visited. The first two were dead worlds, the detritus of a war of interstellar extinction fought half a million years before; Ishtar, however …

      “Bastard!” Carleton snapped.

      “What’s the matter, Carleton?” Nichole asked. “Your books showing a loss for the quarter?”

      Carleton whirled. “What are you doing here?”

      “Hey, I just came in out of the cold.”

      The irony was lost on the PanTerra agent. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

      “Why not? Free access …” One of the absolute rules of ICLI’s stewardship of the FTL comm links was that access to the Builder technology was never to be restricted to any person or group, for any purpose. It was a rule more often honored in the breach than in fact.

      “We’re not going to have access in another few moments,” he said, apparently trying to steer the conversation away from PanTerra business. “Those idiots!”

      “Blaming the home office for your own stupidity isn’t going to cut it,” she told him. “Anyway, PanTerra has no business exploiting the natives or their technology.”

      “That, Doctor, is not your decision. C’mon, let’s get to the transport.”

      He brushed past her and out onto the pyramid steps, followed by his assistants. Nichole hesitated a moment, staring at the Eye, then turned and followed them.

      That Eye had provided humans with their first glimpse of living An a century ago, when Dr. Alexander himself had entered the Cave of Wonders on Mars and seen for the first time the arrayed viewscreens providing two-way real-time links with a thousand worlds. Studies of the sky—the slow-moving stars and a spectroscopic analysis of the distant red sun glimpsed through the open, west-facing opening of the chamber—had identified the site as a world of Llalande 21185, and a relatively easy goal for one of Earth’s early interstellar attempts. The chances for profound scientific and historical investigation and discovery had been staggering.

      But so too, unfortunately, had been the opportunity for corporate greed. Nichole hated Carleton, hated the whole idea of having PanTerra and a consortium of other corporate and government business interests present on this expedition … but as Carleton had so bluntly pointed out, that had not been her decision. The Lima Accord of 2125 had promised the right of corporate entities to trade with the Ahannu, in order to define, create, and realize new markets and products, and to provide diplomatic and cultural ties between the two races.

      Who could have foreseen that their interference would have caused a damned war?

      At the truncated peak of the Pyramid of the Eye, a T-40 Starhauler rested on massive landing jacks, its cargo ramp down. A line of Marines was trying to maintain order in the crowd attempting to board the transport. “Take it easy, people!” one Marine bellowed over an amplified suit speaker. “There’s room enough for all of you! Take your time, and take your turn!”

      “Move along! Move along!” another Marine called from the top of the transport’s ramp. “Plenty of room. Don’t panic.”

      Plenty of room … but the Marines weren’t coming, not on this trip. The T-40 had been detailed to haul the last of the Legation compound’s civilian population up to the Emissary, in orbit five hundred kilometers above Ishtar.

      Nichole took her place in line and filed up the ramp, just behind Carleton and his assistants. The Starhauler had been designed as a transatmospheric cargo carrier, not a people mover, but its capacious cargo bay could hold thirty people or so in claustrophobic discomfort.

      Nearly two hundred civilians had already been transported to the Emissary on previous trips. About 150 remained, most milling about outside the Marine guard perimeter waiting to board a shuttle, but they were fast running out of time, just moments ahead of the Destiny Faction’s attack on the compound.

      A Marine at the edge of the waiting crowd took her name, checked his implant data, and said, “There you are, Dr. Moore! Where’ve you been, anyway? You’re on top priority.”

      “I’d just as soon wait my—”

      The Marine cut her off. “Key admin personnel and people with expert knowledge of Annie customs and language have immediate clearance to orbit, ma’am. Come on through.”

      He ushered her through the Marine barricade as the crowd grumbled and surged forward. A real nasty scene in the works, she decided … and decided, too, that she didn’t envy those Marines their job.

      She stood in line beneath the thrust of the transport’s stub wing but had not yet reached the ramp when someone screamed and pointed.

      People around her stopped talking, and several wandered out of line, walking toward the north parapet of the pyramid. In the west, the peak of the conical mountain known as An-Kur—“God Mountain”—was … glowing.

      “What the hell?” Carleton said, turning on the ramp ahead of her to stare back at the sight.

      “It’s a volcano!” a young media rep shouted.

      It was no volcano, that much was obvious. To Nichole, it looked as though the top of that far-off mountain had just peeled itself open, and now a pinpoint of light brighter than the local sun, brighter even than Earth’s sun seen from Earth, was shining out of the cavity within.

      The blue-white thread of light snapped on abruptly, connecting the mountain peak with the sky at a ten-degree angle from the vertical, a beam so bright that Nichole covered her eyes as more of the watching civilians screamed or yelled.

      An instant later a soundless flash blossomed in the deep green of the sky.

      Long seconds passed, breathless, and then the shockwave from the mountain reached them, a dull, thundering rumble and a gust of heavy, heat-scorched air. The flash in the sky had faded to a scattering of starlike embers, slowly fading.

      Only then did the enormity of what had just happened sink in. “Goddess!” she cried. “They’ve destroyed the Emissary!”

      And then the panic set in atop the Pyramid of the Eye.

      7

       22 JUNE 2138

       Briefing Room 401

       White House Subbasement, Level D

       Washington, D.C., Earth

       1425 hours ET

      “They’re coming in over the walls now!” the Marine cried, his eyes wide and staring. He couldn’t have been older than twenty. “They’re inside the compound СКАЧАТЬ