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

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