"Ian Douglas - Inheritance Trilogy 1 - Star Strike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglas Ian)

For over five hundred years, Perseus had overseen the routine operation of the asteroid starship and her
refugee passengers, monitoring drive systems and power plant, life support and cybe-hibe stasis
capsules. The ship, christened Argo, had fled distant Earth a few years after the devastating attack on
that world by the Xul; her destination was another galaxy entirely, M-31, in Andromeda, something over
two million light-years distant.

The voyage as planned would take almost 2.3 million years objective, but on board the clocks would
record the passage of barely thirty years. ArgoтАЩs sleeping passengers, for the most part, were members
of EarthтАЩs political and economic elite. Many were representatives of the governments of the United
States and of the American Union whoтАЩd felt HumankindтАЩs only hope of survival lay in avoiding all-out
war with the technologically advanced Xul, in escaping the enemyтАЩs notice, in fleeing to another galaxy
entirely and beginning anew.

Their decision proved to be a supreme exercise in wishful thinking. The Xul sentry engaged Perseus as
the sentient program was still shifting to full operational mode. It had time to engage a single emergency
comm channel before the Xul group-mind overwhelmed it in an electronic cascade of incoming data.

Parts of Perseus were hijacked by the alien operating system; others were wiped away, or simply stored
for later exploration.

And within the Argo-planetoidтАЩs heart, fifty thousand human minds cried out as one as they were
patterned and replicated by the intruder. Moments later, the asteroidтАЩs immense kinetic energy was
instantly transformed into heat and light, bathing the Xul Sentry in the actinic glare of a tiny nova.

By the Xul way of thinking, the asteroid starship represented both a threat and unfinished business.

Neither could be tolerated.

1
0407.1102

Green 1, 1-1 Bravo
Alighan
0340/38:22 hours, local time

The Specters descended over the Southern Sea, slicing north through turbulent air, their hulls
phase-shifted so that they were not entirely within the embrace of normal space. Shifted, they were all but
invisible to radar, and little more than shadows to human eyes, shadows flickering across a star-clotted
night.

On board Specter One-one Bravo, Gunnery Sergeant Charel Ramsey sat huddled pauldron-to-pauldron
with the Marines locked in to either side of him. The squad bay was red lit and crowded, a narrow space
barely large enough to accommodate a platoon of forty-eight Marines in full Mark 660 assault battlesuits.
He tried once again to access the tacnet, and bit off a curse when all that showed within the open
mindwindow was static. They were going in blind, hot and blind, and he didnтАЩt like the feeling. If the
Muzzies got twitchy and started painting their southern sky with plasma bolts or A.M. needlers,
phase-shifting would not protect them in the least.

тАЬTheyтАЩre holding off on the drones,тАЭ Master Sergeant Adellen said over the tac channel, almost as if she
were reading his mind. Likely she was as nervous as the rest of the Marines in the SpecterтАЩs belly. She