The Complete Heritage Trilogy: Semper Mars, Luna Marine, Europa Strike. Ian Douglas

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СКАЧАТЬ an impossible march, six hundred miles across the Sahara Desert in something just over six weeks. We’ve only got four hundred miles to cross, and we have a Mars cat to do it with instead of O’Bannon’s camels. I think we’ll be able to do a bit better than he did!”

      “So how long is it going to take us, Major?” Corporal Hayes asked.

      Garroway took a deep breath. He’d had two answers ready, a short one based on the assumption that everyone would be able to travel inside the captured Mars cat, and a longer one calculated on the need for some to ride—or walk—outside. If only six or eight had volunteered, it would have been possible to make the trip to Mars Prime in less than two days.

      But that, of course, would have raised rather serious additional difficulties; taking on the UN contingent that was probably stationed at Candor Chasma with eight Marines would have been chancy at best.

      “If we’re lucky,” he told them, “we’ll be able to complete the trip in about a week. Since we’ll be facing extreme conditions, however, and uncertain terrain, I’m planning on the march taking at least two weeks, and quite possibly more.”

      “Major, you can’t seriously be considering this,” Vandemeer said.

      “You two will be safe enough here,” he told them. “The UN soldiers in the cat were supposed to report in every so often. When they don’t report in tonight, someone will be on the way to check up on the place. When they get here, you’ll be able to tell them, quite truthfully, that you wanted nothing to do with this scheme.”

      “We’ll tell them where you’re going!”

      “Go ahead. They’ll know as soon as they find out we’re gone.” He grinned. “Even with us following the Mars cat’s tracks all the way to Mars Prime…well, it’s a damn big desert!”

      “Damn it, Major!” Kettering said. “You could be starting a war!”

      “Those people have already started it, Doctor,” Garroway said, nodding toward the airlock and the bodies of the UN troops now lying on the cold Martian sand. “All we’re going to do is finish it.”

      FIFTEEN

      MONDAY, 28 MAY: 0705 HOURS GMT

      PRA Flight 81

       60,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean 1605 hours Tokyo time

      According to the data displayed on the seatback screen, the Pacific Rim Airlines Amagiri transport was nearly at its maximum altitude of sixty thousand feet. The countdown readout in the corner showed 30…29…28…

      Kaitlin double-checked her seat restraints, then gripped the handrests firmly, not from terror but from excitement. She’d never flown a suborbital before, and this one—one of the Lockheed Ballistic 2020s, better known to the businessmen who flew them as Yankee Bullets—was just about to drop from the Amagiri and boost for space.

      Space. She was excited by the idea, more excited than she’d thought she would be. Star Rakers employed on intercontinental runs typically cruised at 100,000 to 150,000 feet, but suborbitals actually grazed the arbitrary boundary of space—264,000 feet, or fifty miles. People who’d crossed that boundary were entitled to wear astronaut wings; PRA handed out gold-plated wings as souvenirs, she knew, as a promotion, to everyone who’d ridden one of their sub-Os. They could afford to, of course. She shuddered to think what her AmEx bill would look like next month, but it was worth it!

      The countdown reached zero, and, for a few precious seconds, Kaitlin felt the elevator-descent sensation of free fall as the delta-winged sub-0 fell from beneath the broad, twin-fuselaged wing of the Amagiri transport.

      The rocket boost, when it came, surprised her by being so gentle. The acceleration built steadily, though, until she was pressed deep into her seat. What a ride! She remembered her father’s v-mail description of the exhilaration he’d felt during his boost into orbit last year. “Like a real kick in the pants,” he’d told her.

      I know what you mean now, Dad.

      The boost dragged on until she almost wondered if the pilot had made a mistake and was going to take them into orbit after all, but then she began to feel lighter and lighter and then…nothing. The engines cut out, and she was weightless. The screen readout on the seatback in front of her showed altitude in both miles and kilometers. They were passing forty miles, now, and still rising higher with every passing moment.

      Though it might have been fun, she thought, to float about the cabin, she was glad for the seat restraints. She was also suddenly very glad for the tridemerin patch on her left arm as she heard the unmistakable sounds of someone across the aisle being sick. Pacific Rim attendants had offered the antispacesickness patches to all the passengers, requiring all who refused the medicine to thumbprint a waiver; apparently at least one of her fellow passengers had availed himself of the waiver option…and was now availing himself of his complimentary comfort bag.

      Fifty miles…fifty-one! She was in space! There were no windows in the sub-O’s passenger section, but a repeater screen at the front of the cabin showed a nose-camera view of the sky ahead, black above and black below, separated by a curved band of glorious blue radiance. The Bullet was passing the terminator now, plunging into night. She grinned suddenly. She’d actually made it past the magic fifty-mile barrier before Yukio! He’d be so jealous if he knew. It’d be good for him!

      Now for Uncle Walt. She’d not wanted to transmit on one of the Japanese e-nets, not and run the risk of having her call intercepted. The suborbital, though, had a direct feed to a comsat, and the channel ought to be secure. Checking her wrist-top, she did a quick conversion in her head. With the eight-hour time difference, it would be about twelve-twenty at night at Camp Pendleton. She didn’t want to wake him…but she didn’t feel like hanging on to this message by herself for another eight or nine hours either. Tuning her wrist-top to the seatback screen in front of her, she pinged his home account. All right! He was in and hooked up. She transmitted a connection request…and in a few seconds was looking at the worry lines and prematurely receding hairline of one of her oldest friends.

      Colonel Walter Fox broke into a huge grin when he saw her. “Kaitlin! So good to see you! How’re you doing? What’re you doing? Where are you?”

      “That last is the easiest to answer, Uncle Walt,” she said with a mirror grin. “I’m at, oh, about fifty-five miles up over the Pacific right now.”

      He whistled. “Flying high in more ways than one, aren’t you, Chicklet?” he said, using his own mangled version of her Japanese nickname. “Those suborbs don’t come cheap.”

      “Well, it…seemed important to get back to port right away. Listen, Uncle Walt,” she said quickly, before he started asking questions. “I got a message from, ah, a mutual friend. I’d like to transmit it to you now.”

      He nodded and said nothing while the message was being transferred from Kaitlin’s wrist-top to the suborb’s communications relay to a communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit and then to a downlink station at Camp Pendleton and finally to Fox’s wrist-top. He stared at his display, raised his left eyebrow, then studied the screen some more.

      “Did our…mutual friend transmit this to you in the clear?” he asked.

      She shook her head. “No.” Walter Fox knew all about the Garroways’ penchant for codes. There was no need for her to be more specific, especially over a channel СКАЧАТЬ