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

The question was whether the landings would be enough. Alighan was a heavily populated world in the
Theocracy of Islam, with over two billion people in the ocean-girdled worldтАЩs teeming cities. The Marine
assault force codenamed Green 1 consisted of the four companies of the 55th Marine Aerospace
Regimental Strikeforce, a total of 580 men and womenтАжagainst an entire world.

True, they were exceptionally well armed and armored men and women, and they seemedтАФfor the
moment at leastтАФto have kept the element of surprise. Even so, fewer than six hundred Marines against
a population of two billionтАж

Impossible.

Ridiculously impossible.

But the United Star Marines, once the United States Marines, specialized in the impossible, as they and
their predecessors had done for the past eleven hundred years.

Alighan. The name was derived from the Arabic term for тАЬGod is Guardian,тАЭ and the name suited the
place. The system of five rocky planets orbiting a K0 star was strategically positioned along the New
Dubai trade route, a channel for ninety percent of the interstellar shipping between the Heart Worlds and
the Theocracy. Control Alighan, and you controlled access to the Islamic stateтАжor to the Heart Worlds,
depending on which way your battlefleet was headed. Scuttlebutt had it that the Terran Military
Command wanted Alighan as an advance base for deeper strikes into Theocratic space.

The key, of course, was the planetary starport, Al Meneh, тАЬThe Port,тАЭ which doubled as the system
capital. The battle-ops plan called for the Marines to seize and hold the starport. Within a standard
dayтАФtwo at the mostтАФthe Navy transports would arrive from Kresgan, bringing with them the ArmyтАЩs
104th Planetary Assault Division, the 43rd Heavy Armored Division, and elements of the 153rd Star
Artillery Brigade and the 19th Interstellar Logistical Support Group.

And the Marines, those whoтАЩd survived, would be off to their next planethead.

Five hundred planetary assault Marines against two billion Muslim fanaticsтАж.

Ramsey shook his head, a gesture unseen within the massive helmet of his 660-ABS. In fact, the vast
majority of the local population would not be fanatics. Most of the population down there would be
ordinary folks who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, especially by their own government.

But experience gained so far in the present warтАФand in other wars fought against the Theocracy and
similar governments over the past eleven centuriesтАФtaught that the ones who did fight would do so with
all their heart and soul, with no thought of quarter, and with no mind for the usual rules of war.

They would fight to the death, and they would take as many Marines with them as they could.

So far as the Marines of the 55th MARS were concerned, they would be happy to help the Muzzies find
their longed-for medieval paradise.

Without going with them.

USMC Recruit Training Center
Noctis Labyrinthus, Mars