Star Marines. Ian DouglasЧитать онлайн книгу.
am hereby authorizing full implementation of the RST, and transferring command to 1MIEU. If you can stop that monster, Clint … do it! We’re counting on you. All of us.”
And the image blinked out, replaced by the words TRANSMISSION ENDS, and the globe-and-anchor logo of the U.S. Marine Corps.
Garroway opened his eyes, staring up at the green-painted overhead. Stop that monster? Gods … how? That thing was a mile long, tossed black holes as missiles, and—if the data recovered at Sirius was correct—capable of blowing up a sun.
They’d be damned lucky if any of them simply survived the next couple of hours.
We Who Are
Asteroid Belt
0658 hrs, GMT
The huntership didn’t need to proceed all the way in-system to the primary target within 2420-544, a typical rocky, life-infested world three-quarters covered by water, and enveloped in an atmosphere consisting of nitrogen, oxygen, and various trace gases. We Who Are were never hasty, and never took unnecessary risks. Judging from the explosion of increased radio traffic now beginning to ripple out from the principle technological centers of this civilization, the dominant species here was aware of the Hunters’ presence, and were in the process of responding. From the Huntership’s vantage point, they’d just thrust a stick into a hive of swarming, stinging fliers. Until this Species 2824’s technology—in particular their military capability—could be fully assessed, caution was warranted.
But closing with the infested planet was not necessary. Most solar systems contained the leftover debris of their formation, and this one was no exception. Between the orbits of the fourth and fifth planets, especially, a number of asteroids, ranging from gravel to objects the size of mountains to fair-sized worldlets hundreds of standard units across, drifted in their individual orbits about the local star. It would only be necessary to capture a few of these and sling them into new orbits, targeting the infested worlds. How the primitives dealt with the situation would tell We Who Are much about their technical and military capabilities.
Intelligent civilizations, the group mind of We Who Are had concluded, were pernicious, like life itself popping up everywhere and anywhere, given the least bit of provocation. The majority, actually, were atechnic and harmless; some were actively useful in the greater scheme of things, candidates for patterning and inclusion within the college of minds comprising We Who Are. These, the far-ranging cultivators of We Who Are watched, tended, and occasionally weeded with clarity and dispassion.
A few, however, developed material technology early in their careers. As had the original progenitors of We Who Are a billion years in the remote past, these swiftly mastered primitive chemical energy-producing systems, nuclear power and nanotechnology, and finally the ultimate mysteries of quantum energy and the zero-point field. For such civilizations, anything was possible, including, inevitably, a direct challenge to the existence of We Who Are.
A billion years in the past, the Progenitors had survived a hostile and highly competitive world through the simple expedient of eliminating all possible rivals. It was a lesson in Darwinian realities that became virtually hard-wired into the species, a basic assumption of how the universe worked that, even when they began redesigning their own existence, they did not examine or question.
Any species, any civilization, any organism, any idea that posed a threat to the survival of We Who Are would be eliminated, immediately and by the most efficient and expeditious manner possible.
With some situations, it was necessary to induce the local star to go nova. That was definitely a last-resort option, however. Habitable planets were rare enough, and useful enough, that it was wasteful to reduce one to a seared and airless cinder. That option was reserved for alien civilizations that had advanced too far for a simple bombardment to be effective.
For most nascent technic civilizations, however, a few high-velocity asteroids slammed into the crust eliminated the pests without rendering the world permanently uninhabitable. Members of the species that survived the actual impacts—even those individuals belonging to space-faring cultures stranded on other worlds, tended to eliminate themselves in short order as they fought over dwindling resources, or died as their technological infrastructures—always so precariously in the balance!—failed.
That approach would certainly be adequate in the case of the infestation in the planetary system of 2420-544. We Who Are adjusted the vector of the huntership, closing with a likely asteroid. …
Assault Detachment Alpha
Eos Chasma,
Mars
1523 hrs, local
“Here they come!”
Garroway looked up into the deep ultramarine of the Martian sky. A trio of bright stars shone almost directly overhead, slowly growing brighter.
Two hundred meters away, the Special Forces troopers had already set out landing beacons, which pulsed brightly at both optical and infrared wavelengths. They would guide the shuttles down to the LZ.
“Assault Detachment Alpha, this is Navy Sierra One-one,” a voice said over Garroway’s headphones. “You boys are cleared for first dust-off. Stand ready.”
“Ah, roger that, Sierra One-one,” Wilkie replied over the same channel. “We’re ready.”
The voice of the shuttle pilot sounded tight and dry. What the hell was happening, anyway? Every one was stressed to the nines about something, and no one had bothered to tell the grunts what it was they had to worry about.
Typical. In fact, chances were that those Navy pilots up there didn’t know either, that they were simply reacting to the sudden avalanche of worry and stress from higher up the chain of command, like everyone else.
Wilkie was right. They would be told when they needed to know. But it griped him all the same.
One of the stars separated from formation with the other two, swiftly growing brighter, then resolving into an AUT-84 Cambria-class transport, all knobby modules, outriggers, and sponsons behind a bulky, insect-faced command module. A bright landing light shone from beneath the nose, and red and green running lights winked to port, starboard, and astern. Tiltjet thrusters were angled for a vertical touchdown, stirring up a swirling storm of dust and sand as the shuttle deployed its landing gear and gentled itself toward the ground. The landing was eerily silent, of course. The thin pretense that masqueraded as the Martian atmosphere wasn’t thick enough to carry sound.
The AUT—Armored Utility Transport, and called an “autie” for short—touched down with a slight bounce, the cargo ramp in its belly already deploying.
“Okay, Marines!” Wilkie yelled over the command channel. “Double file, and haul ass! Hut! Hut! Hut!”
The twin columns of Marines jogged ponderously down a slight rise, passing through the cloud of yellow dust still billowing around the utility craft, then up the ramp and into the darkened troop bay.
A Navy chief in a lightweight pressure suit and bubble helmet waved them on. “Let’s go, Leathernecks!” he called. “We’re on the meter, here! Drop your loads and grab a chair!”
The double row of seats along either side of the troop bay were specially designed to accommodate Mark XLIV CAS-clad Marines. Garroway hit the release for his backpack with its Shrike-C dummies, and passed it forward with the stream of other CAS packs. He found a seat and settled into it, feeling the automatic grabbers take hold, anchoring him in place. As his gauntlet came into contact with a pad on the armrest, he felt the mental connection with the shuttle’s AI, and the flow of data between it and his suit. A moment later, a window opened in his mind, giving him a clear view of the Martian landscape outside. The Special Forces were gathered in small knots well clear of the LZ, watching.
The