"Steve Gordon - Insectoid 02 - Escape from the Insectoids" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gordon Steve)

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Escape From The Insectoids
Forward
By Steve Gordon. All rights reserved. From the Log of War Admiral
Norman
North, 3 months after Vitalics:
We were caught with our guard down, and humanity paid a terrible price
for
it. We had battled the Insectoids, a race of sentient seven foot tall
insects, to a standstill in twenty years of terrible combat. We had
taken
losses, but our worlds were secure, and most of our people were safe.
And then the politicians, lured by a gullible desire to believe the
overtures of chief negotiator with the Insectoids, the traitor
Mitterand,
agreed to an armistice at Vitalics. There they ambushed and destroyed
almost all of our entire fleet.
Almost all. The small fleet under my command, combined with a task
force
from our junior Alliance partner, the June Directorate, survived, but
was
forced to flee vastly superior numbers of Insectoid battlecruisers and
battleships. Nothing stopped the Insectoids from moving in, occupying
all
our worlds and enslaving our people, putting them to work producing
material for their war machine.
But the Insectoids were smart enough to realize that as long as any of
us
were free that we were still a threat to them, that someday we would
come
back and reclaim what was rightfully ours. They sent many fleets to
hunt
us down, even as we've fled Alliance space into the unknown. We've had
two
brief battles since we left Orotis, on the edge of Alliance space, and
those two battles have cost us three warships (and a badly damaged
fourth
that had to be scuttled), as well as two of our precious merchantmen.
Our efforts to escape are not merely a mindless route; we are moving
with
a purpose, even if our crews do not fully understand or agree with it.
For
we are going to search out the technology of the Chent, the ancient
civilization who may hold the key to helping us defeat the Insectoids.
But
the Insectoids are bent on making sure we don't survive long enough to
make any discoveries, and our most immediate task right now is simple:
escape from the Insectoids.

Chapter 1: The Insectoids Make A Dangerous Enemy