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

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СКАЧАТЬ bodily needs so they can concentrate on what one of the demonstration organizers here called, and I quote, ‘A group mind experience that will shake the very walls of reality.’ And I have to tell you, Kate, that the atmosphere here is like nothing I’ve—”

      “Screen mute,” President LaSalle said, and the reporter’s voice fell silent. “You see, General, what we’re up against. The political repercussions of further delay in this project could be devastating.”

      General King nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

      “This whole thing is wildly out of hand. All of the different religious factions are at each other’s throats, either hailing the An as gods or attacking them as demons. And everyone who isn’t working to start a new round of religious wars is marching or demonstrating for a crusade to free the slaves on Ishtar. And in addition to all of that, we have the second relief mission being assembled at L-5. They’re breathing down our necks right now. So … tell me again, in words that I can understand … why the new delay?”

      General King glanced at Ramsey before answering, then across the table at Admiral Vincent Hartman, who would be commanding the naval assets of the mission. “Madam President … the cybernetic hibernation personnel on board the Derna are just running too far behind sched. They can only put people into hibernation so fast, you know. And more Marines keep arriving, making for extremely crowded conditions. It’s … well, it’s pretty chaotic up there.”

      Which was something of an understatement, Ramsey thought, even though King hadn’t yet been physically on board the ship. Things were chaotic. With crowding, heat, and tempers all rising, there’d been four fights on the lower decks already, and it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt or threw a punch that could not be ignored or downplayed by the officers.

      “What can be done to speed things up?” General Gabriowski said. He looked at the President. “If things slip much further, the Europeans and Brazilians will beat us to Ishtar. Then they’ll dictate to us how things are played.”

      “Unacceptable,” LaSalle said. She looked at Ramsey. “Colonel? The bottleneck seems to be in your backyard. What do you propose?”

      “Madam President—” He stopped, suddenly uncomfortable. There was something that could be done, but he’d been putting off suggesting it. It would be hard on the men, especially the newer ones.

      “Go on, Colonel,” Gabriowski told him.

      “Yes, sir. Madam President, there are still about four hundred Marines on Earth, waiting for passage up to L-4. One reason they’re not moving faster is that the D-480s—the personnel transfer shuttles we’ve been using—can only carry thirty people at a time, and they have a long turnaround time on the ground.”

      “You can’t blame the Navy for that,” Vice Admiral Cardegriff put in. Cardegriff was the Navy’s representative on the Joint Chiefs, and a senior member of the National Security Council. His word hauled a lot of mass.

      “No, sir. The Navy’s been doing all that’s expected, and a hell of a lot more. But we might be able to speed things significantly by putting the Marines straight into cybehibe on the ground and shipping them up as cargo.”

      “As cargo, Colonel?” President LaSalle said. “That seems a bit … indelicate.”

      “Marines aren’t exactly what you would call ‘delicate,’ ma’am. I’ve been looking at this for a while now, wondering if we’d need to go this way. With more technicians and more room on the ground, we can pop out people into hibernation a lot faster than we can at L-4. They’ve been on their diets now for several days already and getting the preliminary nano injections, so we can start processing them through pretty quick. Best of all, they can be loaded straight into their cells on the Derna once they stop the hab rotation. Zero g’ll make things a hell of a lot easier. And they won’t be using consumables—water and air, mostly—if they’re hibernating.”

      “You don’t sound happy about it, Colonel.”

      “No, Madam President. I’m not. Most of those four hundred Marines are fresh out of recruit training. I was hoping to start them on simulation combat training once they reached the Derna and were waiting to be dropped into hibe. Besides, it’s kind of a dirty trick to pull on them, shipping them up like slabs of frozen meat. I imagine a lot of them are looking forward to the flight up, and now they’re going to miss it.”

      “I’ll remind you, Colonel,” Gabriowski said, “that this is the Corps we’re talking about, not a travel agency. These people didn’t sign on for a scenic tour.”

      “No, sir.”

      “How fast can you do it?”

      Ramsey already had the figures stored in his implant. “Here’s the data,” he told them. “The short story is that we can have them all aboard within the next five days. If we wait for the D-480s, it’ll be another nine days before they’re all aboard, and it will be at least two weeks after that before the last of them are in cybehibe.”

      “I don’t think we have much choice,” the President said. “Do you?”

      “No, ma’am.”

      “Then do it. Do what you have to to get the Derna under way within the next week. That’s October sixteenth at the latest. At the latest. Am I clear?”

      “Clear, ma’am.”

      “Very well. Keep me informed of further developments.” And the President of the United Federal Republic vanished from the conference room.

      “Dismissed, gentlemen,” Admiral Cardegriff said. And the fiction of the conference room faded from Ramsey’s awareness.

      He was back on board the Derna, lying back in his VR couch.

      His people weren’t going to like this. Not the section leaders who needed to see to it that everyone was up to speed on the training sims. Not the logistics personnel, who were looking forward to the use of a few hundred more backs to help shift cargo into Derna’s holds. And not the men and women themselves, who were going to be taken by surprise by this change. Marines were creatures of habit that never liked unexpected change.

      How in all of the hells of the Corps was he going to break this to them?

      14

      INTERLUDE

       16 OCTOBER 2138 TO 24 JUNE 2148

      IST Derna

       En route to Llalande 21185 IID

      Launch …

      The trio of starships, IST Derna and the two cargo ships ISC Regulus and ISC Algol, drifted at L-4 well clear of the building docks and the Vesuvius AM complex. Because AM-enhanced fusion torch exhaust consisted of very high-energy particles, their torches would not be lit until they were well clear of heavily trafficked regions of the inner Solar system. Instead, each was attached to one of the new Cerberus-class tugs, massive, blocky-looking nuclear-chemical workhorses with fifty million kilograms of thrust apiece.

      Derna’s СКАЧАТЬ