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

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СКАЧАТЬ derived and trained unit, one without close family ties to home. By the time they return to Earth, everyone they know will have aged twenty years at least, while they will have aged only months … depending on the rho-delta-tau and the efficiency of the onboard hibertechnic equipment.

      “Gentlemen … ladies … Madam President … there is an old saying in the Corps, one dating from the first half of the twentieth century. ‘Send in the Marines.’ That saying was a reflection of the Corps’ flexibility and hitting power in situations where it just didn’t pay to declare war and send in the entire army, but where military might or the threat of an all-out war was necessary to achieve the President’s goals, whatever they might be.

      “The Marine Interstellar Expeditionary Unit will have the training and the hardware necessary to rescue our mission in the Llalande system. If we’re too late for a rescue, well, they can secure our property there, show the folks back home that we at least goddamn tried, and if necessary send a message to the Ahannu that humans don’t take kindly to being pushed around.

      “I would like to add that some eighty of the people on Ishtar are Marines serving with the Terran research mission there. The Corps does not forget its own. If the decision is made to abandon those brave men and women out there, then I am prepared to immediately tender my resignation as Commandant of the Marine Corps. A number of my staff and other senior Corps officers are prepared to take the same steps. That, Madam President, is all I have to say at this time.”

      “Well spoken,” Billingsworth said. “Madam President, I must agree with General Colby. Operation Spirit of Humankind must go on, whatever the cost in dollars or lives. We lose too much if we let the Ahannu scare us off.”

      “This council is not a democracy,” the President said, her voice cold. “There will be no vote. The decision rests entirely with me.”

      “Ah, and with Congress, Madam President,” the Secretary of Human Affairs said. “We can’t forget Congress. They’re paying the bill, after all, and have the responsibility to declare war.”

      “You needn’t remind me, Tom,” she told him. “And you needn’t worry. Congress will declare war when I ask them to. They’re the ones whipping up all of these anti-An resolutions lately, remember. It’s good political capital for the folks back home.”

      “An interesting public relations problem there, Madam President,” Haslett said. “We declare war, but it will be ten years before our strike force reaches the target. Do you think Congress, or the public, will still be interested in fighting this war in 2148? A decade is a long time in politics and in the public’s memory.”

      “Frankly, General Haslett,” the President said, “that will be my successor’s problem, not mine.” She chuckled. “I plan to win my second term in ’forty, retire with dignity in ’forty-four, and be safely ensconced as an elder statesperson teaching metapolitical law on the WorldNet by the time our people even get to the Llalande system.”

      “But that also means, Madam President, that your successor, or the next Congress, might not want to continue paying for a war that we started. Our troops could find themselves eight light-years from home with no hope of further reinforcements or supply.”

      “Then the Joint Chiefs and the Federal Military Command will just have to see to it that we win with the one expeditionary force, won’t they?”

      Haslett nodded but felt deep reservations. This unexpected Ahannu god-weapon that could shoot starships from the Ishtaran sky … it was disturbing, even frightening. If the transport Derna was destroyed while the Marines were on the ground, they would have no way home, no matter what provisions Earthside Command made in advance. And Haslett was politician enough to know that the public wasn’t likely to support another expensive mission to Llalande to rescue the first two, no matter how up in arms they were at the moment over the Ahannu’s human slaves.

      General Haslett glanced across the table at Colby and wondered what the Marine commandant was thinking.

       The Mall

       Washington, D.C., Earth

       1840 hours ET

      Secretary of State David Randolph Billingsworth rarely visited what he thought of as the tourist city. The special government service maglev subway generally whisked him straight from the underlevels of the White House–Executive Building complex to the station less than a block from his suburban Bethesda home, so his only glimpses of downtown Washington were through the odd window or on the big wallscreen in his office. The coded message that had come through on his cerebralink’s priority comm channel had been as explicit as it had been terse, however. He’d checked a robot floater out of the Executive Office motor pool and ridden six blocks to the Fourteenth Street entrance of the Mall Dome, right next to the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

      The Dome, actually a long, narrow ellipsoidal geodesic, stretched from the foot of Capitol Hill almost to the base of the Washington Monument, arching high above the historic Washington Mall. The largest freestanding geodesic in the world when it was built in 2069, it was widely praised as a modern wonder of the world … and equally vilified as a monumental eyesore in the City of Monuments.

      Billingsworth had no feeling about it one way or another. It was possible for him to get anywhere within the government office warrens by maglev, from the Pentagon to the Capitol Building to Central Intelligence at Langley to the White House, so he never needed to go up on the surface and actually see the thing. But he had to admit it was rather pleasant … a cool escape from the heat and humidity of midsummer D.C., with late afternoon sunlight filtering through the transparencies to the west, from behind the slender dark spike of the Washington Monument.

      He took a seat on a park bench next to a riot of forsythia. Tourists strolled or hurried past on the walkway or slid silently along on the glidepath. A naked couple snuggled on a blanket on a hillock nearby. A young woman—a congressional aide, perhaps—jogged past with a determined gait, her head completely enclosed in a sensory overlay helm, wearing nothing else but a sports bra and shoes. Near the Mall entryway, a gaggle of teenagers resplendent in iridescent Ahannu scale tattoos and shaven heads were passing out pro-An vidfliers to any who would take them.

      No one seemed to recognize him, and that was good. He’d considered wearing an overlay helm himself … but that would have broadcast his ID out to anyone else with the requisite electronics and an unhealthy curiosity. Besides, people knew the President … but how many knew what the SecState looked like or even what his name was?

      “Mr. Billingsworth?”

      He turned. Allyn Buckner sat down on the other end of the bench and casually pretended to read a newsheet. He was wearing a conservative green and violet smartsuit and dark data visor.

      “Buckner. Why’d you drag me out here?”

      “Security, of course. I can’t very well come to your office, or even your home, not without my presence being noted on a dozen e-logs. Nor could you visit me unnoticed. And hotel rooms, restaurants, and places like that all have so many electronics nowadays there’s no way to guarantee a private conversation.”

      Billingsworth took another long look at the people passing by. This hardly seemed private … and even an open park had more than its fair share of police surveillance floaters, security scanners, and even roving news pickups.

      But Buckner had a point about other possible meeting places. Public establishments were entirely too public, while offices and government buildings were heavily СКАЧАТЬ