Читать книгу The Complete Legacy Trilogy: Star Corps, Battlespace, Star Marines - Ian Douglas, Matthew Taylor - Страница 21

9 OCTOBER 2138

Pacifica

Off the California Coast

1105 hours PT

Garroway grinned at Lynnley. “You know, this would be a lot more fun in zero gravity.”

“You!” she retorted, giving him a gentle punch in the chest. “Aren’t you ever satisfied?”

“Well, if anybody can do it, you can,” he replied. He checked his inner timer. “I guess we’d better be moving.”

“Unless we want to be listed as AWOL, yeah,” she told him. She stroked his arm gently. “It’s been good, being with you like this. Thanks.”

“Real good. I’m … going to miss you.” He shook his head as she rolled out of the bed.

The walls and ceiling of the room showed a view of space—Earth, moon, sun, and thick-scattered stars, slowly circling. The view was an illusion, of course; for one thing, even in space the stars weren’t that bright when the sun was visible.

“I’ll miss you too,” Lynnley said.

“I still don’t want to believe we can’t see each other again. Maybe ever.”

“Don’t say that, John! We don’t know what’s going to happen!”

“Sure we do! I’m on my way to Ishtar, and you’re going to Sirius. I checked a star map download. We’ll be farther away from one another than if one of us stayed on Earth!”

She shrugged. “That doesn’t make any difference, does it? Even one light-year is too far to think about.”

“Well, you know what I mean. We’re going in two different directions. And I’d hoped we’d get deployed together.”

“Damn it, we both know how unrealistic that idea was, John. The needs of the Corps—”

“Come first. I know. But I don’t have to like it.” He balled his fists, squeezing tight. “Shit.” He got out of the bed and began picking up his clothes. He and Lynnley had been fuck buddies off and on for a couple of years now … nothing serious, but she was fun to be with and therapeutic to vent at and fantastic recreation in bed. He’d thought of her as his closest friend and somehow never even considered the possibility that they would end up in different duty stations.

“Simulation off!” he called, addressing the room. The view of space vanished, replaced by empty walls that seemed to echo his loneliness.

“Look,” she told him, “we’re both getting star duty, right? And we’re both going about eight light-years. There’s still a good chance we’ll be tracking each other subjectively when we get back.”

“I guess so.” She meant that their subjective times ought to match pretty closely. Since they were both heading eight light-years out, they’d be spending about the same times at the same percentage of c and aging at about the same subjective rate.

But he didn’t believe it. Things never worked out that neatly in real life, especially where the Corps was concerned. If he ever saw her again, one of them might well be years older than the other.

He sighed as he started pulling on his uniform. How much did that matter, really? They both knew they would be taking other sex partners. With the future so uncertain, there was no sense in meaningless promises to wait for one another. It wasn’t like they shared a long-term contract.

“I think,” he said slowly, sealing the front of his khaki shirt, “I’m just feeling a bit cut off. Like I’ll never be able to come home again.”

“I know. Everything, everyone, we leave here is going to be twenty years older when we see them again. At least. My parents aren’t happy about it, but at least they understand. And they’ll only be in their sixties when I get back.”

“I just don’t understand my mother,” he said. “How can she consider going back to that … man?”

“Like I told you once before, you can’t protect her. You can’t live her life. She has to make her own decisions.”

“But I keep wondering if she’s going back to him because of me. Because I’m going to Ishtar.”

“That’s still her issue, right? You have to do what’s right for you.”

“But I don’t know what that is. Not anymore. And I feel … guilty. She wasn’t happy when I saw her yesterday. About my going to Ishtar, I mean.”

“I think you’re giving yourself a lot more power over your mother than you really have. You’ve been around before when she’s left, and she’s always gone back, right? What made you think this time would be any different?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. You ready?”

Dressed now in her khakis, she pulled on her uniform cap and tugged it straight. “Ready and all systems go,” she told him. “You feel ready for lunch?”

He brightened, with an effort. “You bet.” If they only had a few more hours together, he was determined to enjoy them, instead of brooding about the might-have-beens and the never-would-bes.

They left the room, stepping out onto the hotel concourse. Pacifica was a small city erected on pylons off the southern California coast, halfway between San Diego and San Clemente Island, a high-tech enclave devoted to shopping, restaurants, and myriad exotica of entertainment. Two days after their graduation from boot camp, they were in the middle of a glorious seventy-two—three whole, blessed days of liberty. They’d already been to the Europa Diver, paying two newdollars apiece to take turns steering a submarine through the deep, dark mystery of Europa’s world-ocean, all simulated, of course, to avoid the speed-of-light time lag. After that they’d checked into the pay-by-hour room suite and entertained themselves with one another.

Now it was time to find a place to eat. The restaurant concourse was that way, toward the mall shops and the sub-O landing port. White-metal arches reached high overhead, admitting a wash of UV-filtered sunlight and the embrace of a gentle blue sky.

In another forty-eight hours he would be vaulting into that sky, on his way to the Derna at L-4.

And after that …

“What do you do,” he wondered aloud, “when you know you’re not going to see Earth again for twenty years?”

“You are gloomy today, aren’t you? We won’t—”

“I know, I know,” he interrupted her. “Our subjective time will only be four years or so, depending on how long we’re on Ishtar … and most of that time we’ll be asleep. From our point of view, we could be right back here a few months from now. But all of this …” He waved his hand, taking in the sweep of the Pacifica concourse. “All of this will be twenty years older or more.”

“Pacifica’s been here for forty-something years already. Why wouldn’t it be here in another twenty?”

“It’s not Pacifica. You know what I mean. All of these people … it’s like we won’t fit in anymore.”

“Take a look at yourself, John. We’re Marines. We don’t fit in now.”

Her words, lightly spoken, startled him. She was right. In all that crowded concourse, Garroway could see three others in Marine uniforms, and a couple of Navy men in black. The rest, whether in casual dress, business suits, or nude, were civilians.

Their uniforms set them apart, of course, but he also knew it was more than the uniform.

And now he knew what was bothering him.

It was as though he’d already left on his twenty-year deployment, as if he no longer belonged to the Earth.

It was a strange and lonely feeling.

Hab 3, Deck 1, IST Derna

Orbital Construction Facility 1, L-4

1240 hours Zulu

Keep thinking about the money, she told herself with grim determination. Keep thinking about the money … and the papers you’re going to publish … and winning the chair of the American Xenocultural Foundation. …

Traci Hanson lay halfway out of the hot and claustrophobic embrace of her hab cell, flat on her back on the sleep pad, eyes tightly shut as the technicians on either side of her made the final connections. She hated the prodding, the handling, as if she were a naked slab of meat.

Which, of course, in a technical sense she was. The idea was to preserve her for the next ten years, to feed and water her while her implants slowed her brain activity to something just this side of death.

IV tubes had been threaded into both of her arms as well as in her carotid artery beneath the angle of her jaw. A catheter had been inserted into her bladder. She knew her implant was supposed to block all feelings of hunger, despite the fact that she’d had no solid food for a week, but her stomach was rumbling nonetheless. She was uncomfortable, sweaty, ill-tempered, she hadn’t had a decent shower since she’d come aboard the Derna, and now these … these people were sticking more tubes and needles into her.

“Relax, Dr. Hanson,” one of the cybehibe techs told her. “This’ll just take a moment. Next thing you know, you’ll be at Ishtar.”

“‘Relax.’ Easy for you to say,” she grumped. She opened her eyes and turned her head as far as the tube in her throat would let her. The hab deck was still crowded with Marines, most of them busily cleaning or working with weapons and other articles of personal equipment. “You have to go through this with every one of those people?”

“Sure do,” the tech told her. “That’s why it takes so long to work through the list. There’s only about thirty of us, and we have twelve or thirteen hundred people to prep this way.”

She noticed that her blood was flowing through the tubes in her wrists, and the thought made her a little queasy, despite the suppressant effect of her implant.

“How are you feeling?”

“Okay, I guess,” she said. “Uncomfortable. The pain in my arms is going away, a little.”

“Good.”

“It feels like this damned mattress pad is melting, though. It feels wet, and kind of squishy. Am I sweating that much?”

“No. It’s supposed to do that. Think about it. For the next ten years, you’re going to be lying here, breathing, eating, drinking, eliminating, filtering your blood, all through these IV tubes. Medical nano and the AI doctor built into these walls are going to be monitoring and handling all of your body functions. The one thing these machines can’t do is safely turn you over every couple of hours for ten years. Can you imagine the problems you’d have with bedsores if you just laid on your ass for that long? By the time you’re asleep, the pad will have turned into a kind of gel bath. It’ll support you gently, just like you were in a pool of water … and the gel gives the medical nano access to your back so it can rebuild skin cells and keep your circulation going, keep your blood from pooling, y’know?”

“It feels … like I’m sinking.” Thoughts of drowning tugged at her mind. She wasn’t thinking clearly, and she was having trouble formulating the questions she wanted to ask. “Will … I dream?”

“Maybe a little, when you’re going under, and when you’re coming out. The AI doc will be initiating REM sleep as it takes you down. But most of the time? No.”

One of the other techs laughed. “I know I wouldn’t care to have to deal with a decade’s worth of dreams,” she said, “especially knowing I couldn’t wake up!”

“I … think the Ahannu sergeant is Cydonia at the Institute. Ahannu Buckner is a real bastard. Manipulative. Make me rich …”

“I’m sure that’s true, Doctor. Would you mind counting backward from a hundred for me?”

“Counting … backward? Sure. Saves power. But what about the Hunters of the Dawn? They won’t have to wait in line, not with PanTerra. A hunnerd … ninety … uh, no … ninety-seven. Eight … nine … Ishtar. It’s beautiful there, I understand. …”

“You’ll be able to see that for yourself, Doctor, very, very soon now.”

Hab 3, Deck 1, IST Derna

Orbital Construction Facility 1, L-4

1405 hours Zulu

The surface of the world of Ishtar blurred beneath the hurtling Dragonfly, jagged mountains and upthrust volcanic outcroppings among gentler rivers of gleaming ice. This was Ishtar’s anti-Marduk side, the hemisphere held in the grip of perpetual winter as the moon circled its primary in tidal lock-step.

But the ice was thinning, the land greening. New Sumer lay just beyond the curve of the red-purple horizon up ahead, another hundred kilometers or so. …

“Black Dragons,” Warhurst announced over the tactical net, using the assault force’s new call sign. “Stand by … three minutes.”

One by one the other dragons responded. Six Dragonfly reentry vehicles, laden with APC landers, hugged the terrain as they swung into the final approach, skimming scant meters above the boulders and ice whipping past below. Abruptly, rocks and ice gave way to open water, and the sextet of deadly black skimmers howled over the sea, raising rooster tails of spray in their sonic-boom footprints.

Ahead, just visible now, the black, conical mountain designated Objective Krakatoa lifted slowly above the horizon. Following plans logged with their onboard AIs, the shrieking aerospacecraft began weaving back and forth, spreading out to make themselves harder targets to hit.

Forty kilometers from the target the sky exploded in dazzling, blue-white radiance. Dragonfly Three, touched by that nova heat, melted away in an instant. Dragonfly Five, jolted by the blast’s shock wave, lost control and struck the water in a cartwheeling spray of foam and metallic debris.

Damn, he thought. Not again!

It just wasn’t working. …

And then the mountain was rising to meet them, vast and black and ominous. Dragons One and Two flared nose-high, dumping forward velocity, then hovering briefly above flash-blasted rock and cinder, before releasing their saucer-shaped payloads—“personnel deployment packages” in mil-speak. Dragons Four and Six howled low overhead, reaching farther up the mountain slope before settling with their PDPs.

Each saucer lander, cradled in the gap behind the Dragonfly’s bulging nose and intakes and the tail-boom mounted rear plasma thrusters, carried a section of twenty-five Marines and their equipment—two to a fifty-man platoon. The Marines, strapped into wire-basket shock frames, were jolted hard back and forth within their harnesses as the saucers plowed into the burned-over side of the mountain.

Then the pilot AIs released the harnesses and cracked open the side hatchways, and the Marines spilled out into the dim red twilight of Ishtar.

Warhurst followed, though his proper post was the HQ command center in Dragon One’s lander. They’d already lost, and there was no sense in continuing. …

“End program,” he called, and in a flicker of blurred motion the towering mountain, the red and purple sky, the charging Marines, all vanished, and he was again in the simulation couch in his office on Deck One, Hab Three, of the IST Derna.

The simulated attack had failed the moment he’d lost a third of his assault team to Krakatoa’s searing, antimatter-powered beam.

“You should have continued the assault, Martin,” Major Anderson’s voice said over his link. “You might have learned something.”

“I really don’t care to get killed again, Major,” he said. “Neither do my people. That sort of thing can’t be good for morale.”

Actually, he was more concerned with his troops picking up careless habits than about poor morale. Losing your life in a VR simulation like this one was no worse than losing a game sim, but Warhurst wondered if too much reliance on painless simulations led to Marines taking chances on the battlefields of the real world … chances that could leave them dead and jeopardize a critical mission.

“So what happened?” Colonel Ramsey asked over the link.

“Same as before, Colonel. We lost two of the Dragonflies going in. We can’t take that whole damned mountain with only a hundred Marines.”

“Mmm. And we won’t have the resources to use human wave tactics. The troops or the equipment.”

“No, sir,” Warhurst replied. Colonel Ramsey wasn’t serious about human wave tactics, of course. Marine tactical doctrine emphasized finesse rather than brute force. Ramsey was gently pointing out that this particular tactical problem was not one that could be solved by throwing more troops at it.

“Recommendations?”

“Hard to make any, sir, since we don’t really know what to expect. But if these worst-case scenarios prove out, then we’re screwed. We need to hit Objective Krakatoa with at least two full companies to be sure of getting through with one.”

The only information they had about the An planetary defense weapon had been based on the account FTL-transmitted by a young Marine at the New Sumer compound moments before it was overrun by the An rebel forces. They knew that the An facility, hidden in the mountain they called An-Kur, could shoot down a spacecraft in orbit, and that it could shift the aim of the beam by as much as ten degrees out of the vertical to aim at a specific target.

Could that beam be aimed at a target hugging the surface of Ishtar only a few kilometers away, as well as claw starships out of orbit? No one knew. Was the beam generated, as most analyses suggested, by matter-antimatter interaction? Pure conjecture, based on the fact that no one knew of another energy source with the same star-hot output. Was there a recycle time on the beam, meaning a force could slip in after it fired once, while it was still recharging? No one knew. So far as anyone on Earth was aware, the An-Kur beam had fired exactly once. Hell, there was a possibility that the thing was a one-shot weapon, like the old X-ray laser technique that used the detonation of a nuclear weapon to generate the needed X rays, destroying the gun as it fired. The Marines might get to Objective Krakatoa and find nothing left there but a ten-year-old glass-bottomed crater.

But they couldn’t count on that, not with so much riding on the question.

Damn it all! How the hell was he supposed to train himself and his company for an assault when next to nothing was known about the target?

Warhurst’s stomach rumbled, and he realized again how hungry he was. He didn’t notice it when he was in sim, but once he was back in the real world, he wanted to eat, and he didn’t care what his implants told him he was supposed to feel. This fasting business, he thought, was strictly for the religious fanatics. The thought made him smile, though. He was going to get to see the An in person, which was more than most of Earth’s fanatics could hope for, whether they were with the Human Dignity League or the Anist Creators Church.

He just wished he didn’t have to starve to do it.

Warhurst covered his face with his hands, thinking. “Okay,” he said at last. “If I only have one company, that’s all I have. The best approach we’ve tried was Scenario Five. We only lost one Dragonfly that way. Splitting up over the horizon and angling in from all directions is bound to scatter the enemy’s defenses somewhat and may keep our casualties down. The only other possible approach is to land farther out and make the approach on foot.”

“Which runs up against the time problem,” Anderson put in.

“Agreed.”

“I’d throw in a tactical reserve if we had one,” Ramsey said, thoughtful. “But we’re stretched way too thin as it is. Trying to invade a whole damned planet with twelve hundred Marines … it’s like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket. We just don’t have the assets to spare, in personnel or in logistical transport.”

“Don’t I know it. I’ve been thinking about this lots, Colonel. If my people don’t take Krakatoa, we’re pretty much screwed no matter what … unless the whole thing is a paper tiger anyway. And I’m not betting the farm on that possibility.”

“Nor am I, Martin. Nor am I. Doesn’t make sense to turn a mountain into a gun that’s only good for one shot.”

“Unless, of course, they have lots of mountains around New Sumer, each with its own superpopgun,” Anderson said.

“Lovely thought,” Ramsey told her. “I’ll recommend you for command of the World Pessimists Legion.”

“No thanks. I probably wouldn’t like that.”

“Fortunately,” Ramsey said, “there’s no indication of more than one planetary defense element. We have to start somewhere, and the Chiefs of Staff are starting this one with the assumption that we have one target—An-Kur—and that the An aren’t going to be too eager to point that devastating a weapon at anything below their own horizon. Tell you what. We go with Scenario Five. I’ll cut back on the first ground assault at New Sumer by … make it two Dragonflies. That’s one more platoon. We’ll treat Black Dragon as a reinforced company of four platoons. How’s that sound?”

“Best we can do, I guess,” Warhurst agreed. “Thank you, sir.”

“Not a problem. It’s my job to make your life and career a living hell. How’m I doing?”

“Quite well, actually. I’m impressed.”

“Glad to know we’re all doing what we’re best at. Okay, Major Anderson and I have to split for a senior staff meeting. Do you need anything more from us?”

“A steak would be nice, Colonel. Rare. With onions.”

“You’ll have to wait twenty years for that, Captain, but I’m sure it can be arranged when we get back home. Talk to you later.”

And the voices in his head were gone.

So … not as good as he’d hoped, but better than he’d feared. Hitting Krakatoa with eight Dragonflies instead of six was a little better, anyway. The worst part of the whole situation was the fact that his company included so many relatively inexperienced men and women, the newbies coming out of the past month’s crop at Parris Island. The assault on An-Kur was not something he wanted to throw unseasoned people into, not if the idea was to keep down casualties.

But Captain Warhurst was a Marine. He made do with what he was given. Or with what he could steal …

Stomach still growling, he linked into Cassius in order to begin working on a rewritten TO&E for the Black Dragon assault.

Hab 3, Deck 1, IST Derna

Orbital Construction Facility 1, L-4

1430 hours Zulu

The virtual meeting space had the look and feel of a large, Earthside conference room, complete with chairs, American flag, and a floor-to-ceiling viewall currently set for the GlobalNet Evening news. In the virtual reality unfolding within his mind, Colonel Ramsey leaned back in one of the glider chairs at the table, watching the broadcast with the dozen or so other people in the room.

“Yes, Kate,” an earnest-looking reporter said, staring into the pickup. “Here at New York City’s Liberty Plaza, enthusiasm is building for the imminent launch of Operation Spirit of Humankind, the relief expedition to the world of Ishtar. Folks have been gathering here for the past twenty-four hours to show their solidarity with the American forces who will be departing our Solar system soon, bound for the world of another star.”

At the reporter’s back a vast throng of demonstrators carrying torches sang beneath the reflected glare of floater lights. Liberty Plaza was a broad, sweeping esplanade built fifty years earlier to raise the Statue of Liberty above the slowly encroaching waters of the Upper Bay. The plaza was filled now with demonstrators, picked up by a far-flung array of hovering cameras as scene followed scene. Batteries of powerful, ground-mounted searchlights beamed the reflective floaters a hundred meters up, which scattered a frosty, blue-white radiance across a veritable sea of singing, chanting, swaying people. In the distance, across the bay, the vast and translucent city dome of lower Manhattan shone like an enormous, iridescent pearl in the ghostly glow, as arc lights sent slender needles of white radiance vertically into the night sky.

“Let my people go! Let my people go! Let my people go! …” The background chanting rose and fell, a muted thunder of thousands of voices. An enormous projection screen had been raised at the foot of Lady Liberty, high enough to reach above her waist, displaying a view of the Derna floating free at L-4 against a background dusting of stars.

“Satellites counting the crowd here tell us over sixty thousand people have come to Liberty Plaza tonight to witness the historic departure of the first MIEU, scheduled for some forty hours from now,” the reporter was saying. “I don’t think these camera images can ever possibly convey the sense of excitement and purpose and sheer dedication displayed here in what must be one of the biggest and grandest parties ever thrown in the Greater New York City area. I’m told that deliveries of food to Liberty Plaza exceed 150 tons in the past twenty-four hours alone, delivered by air, by hovercraft, by tunnel. At that, most of the people I’ve talked to aren’t eating and aren’t sleeping. They’ve set their implants to take care of their 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?