Star Marines. Ian Douglas

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СКАЧАТЬ They’d been suited up for the better part of nine hours, now, ever since they’d prepped for the IMAC launch at zero-dark-thirty that morning, Zulu. The Marine CAS was a flexible and remarkably versatile instrument. It had its own water supply, and a ready cache of combat rations, which, of course, the more inventive Marines stocked with candy bars and other gedunk. It had attachments to let you piss and shit, too … all the comforts of home.

      Well, most of them. The trouble was, after a few hours sealed in the thing, the best filtering and air scrubbing cyclers in the world couldn’t keep up with the canned stink of excrement and sweat. They said you got used to it after a while. Once, Garroway had been on a training exercise where he’d donned a CAS and kept it donned for fifty-three hours. “They” were wrong.

      “Man, I don’t see why we have to stay suited up either, Gunny!” Sergeant Roderick Franks said. “This stink ain’t never comin’ out!”

      “Don’t worry, Roddy,” Chrome told him. “You couldn’t get a date, anyway.”

      “Says you. Anyway, we all know the brass is just jerking us around.”

      “Jack in and ice it, people,” Garroway said. “The word is we’re on another op. We stay in the cans until the Man says otherwise. Ooh-rah?”

      “Ooh-rah!” several Marines chorused back … but not many, and not with a lot of enthusiasm. Morale was not good.

      Lieutenant Wilkie had passed the word coming down from higher up on the chain of command. The RST had been ordered both to stay suited up and to remain on board the dust-off autie, which had been swallowed whole a few hours ago by the transport Preble. Now they were going somewhere in one hell of a hurry. Two point five Gs was about max for a Patriot-class transport.

      That told Garroway that they wanted the Marines ready to go at an instant’s notice. Unfortunately, no one had yet bothered to tell any of them what the hell was going on.

      But maybe that was about to change. Wilkie had just passed the word that there would be a noumenal briefing in five more minutes. About damned time, he thought fiercely. Marines never liked operating in the dark … at least, not the kind of political-situational darkness that even Mk.XC night-vision equipment simply could not penetrate.

      The minutes dragged past. Then the noumenal link alert flashed on. Garroway took his seat, making the connections with his armor gauntlets on his seat.

      Lieutenant Wilkie’s virtual image appeared in the window that opened in his mind. The face looked a lot like Wilkie’s real face, Garroway thought, but had obviously been aged a bit, to give it a more experienced and commanding presence. Garroway didn’t like playing that sort of game with the noumenon, though he knew a lot of officers who did.

      “Texten up, people,” Wilkie said. “We have new orders. Approximately four hours ago, an alien spacecraft entered our solar system and destroyed several of our ships, including a Titan-class High Guard cruiser. It then proceeded to accelerate several small asteroids on new courses, apparently in an attempt to bombard the Earth.

      “A few moments ago, the alien changed its position, moving to a point less than eight hundred thousand kilometers from the Preble. At that point, the High Guard heavy laser arrays took it under fire, and appear to have disabled it. We have been ordered to board the alien, and destroy it.”

      Garroway textened, reserving judgment, but waiting for the proverbial second shoe to drop. Clearly there was a lot that Wilkie wasn’t saying … though whether that was because he was withholding information from the entexted personnel, or because no one had bothered to tell him the whole story, there was no way of knowing.

      The biggest question was … what could thirty-two Marines do against an alien warship capable of flinging asteroids at the Earth? It sounded like it must be one of the fabled Hunters of the Dawn … something like the two-kilometer-wide Singer discovered three centuries ago on Europa, or the Hunter ship that had come through at Sirius … and those things were huge.

      The only way a handful of Marines could take out something that big was …

      “In order to effect the target’s destruction,” Wilkie’s image went on, “the RST is being issued all available K-94 packs on board the Preble. I need five volunteers to actually deliver the weapons into the enemy spacecraft.”

      That was the other boot.

      Five Marines were being asked to commit suicide.

      And the rest almost certainly would die with them.

      5

       12 FEBRUARY 2314

       Assault Detachment Alpha

      On Board Commodore Edward Preble

       Outbound from Mars

       1412 hrs, local

      “I want to volunteer, sir.”

      The face of Lieutenant Wilkie’s icon didn’t change expression. “Request denied.”

      “The hell it is. You wanted volunteers. I’m volunteering.”

      “Gunny … I don’t think you understand. I can’t let you go out there.”

      Garroway was startled by that. “Huh? What do you mean? Sir, we’re all going on this op.”

      “You’re not. I want you to stay on board the Preble.”

      “Fuck that! Do you think I’m going to watch my boys and girls vaporize themselves from a safe distance? No way! Sir.”

      “Gunny … your uncle is on board the Preble.”

      That stopped him for a moment. “My … uncle?”

      “General Clinton Garroway, yes. He came aboard at Phobos, when they evacuated the high-ranking brass.”

      Garroway gave a mental shrug. “Doesn’t change anything, Lieutenant. I am going on this op. With my people.”

      He felt Wilkie hesitate. “If you buy it in there …”

      “C’mon, Lieutenant. Uncle Clint didn’t order you to pull me off of this run, did he?” The very idea was ludicrous. Both Garroways were Marines. Both knew what that meant. “Are you telling me you discussed it with him, and he said no?”

      “No. Of course not. But regulations—”

      “If I know the General,” Garroway said, interrupting, “he’s going to be looking for an excuse to come along with us. If you want to quote regs at someone, talk to him. This is your op to lead, sir, not a goddamn general’s!”

      “Roger that, Gunny.” He felt the lieutenant’s mental sigh. “Okay. Forget what I said. You’re on the op.”

      “Affirmative, sir. But what I wanted to say is … I want one of the boom-packs.”

      “Denied.”

      “Sir, СКАЧАТЬ