"Joe Haldeman - The Forever War (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

"The last two weeks of your training will consist of constructing exactly that kind of a base, on
darkside. There you will be totally isolated from Miami Base: no communication, no medical
evacuation, no resupply. Sometime before the two weeks are up, your defense facilities will be
evaluated in an attack by guided drones. They will be armed."
They had spent all that money on us just to kill us in training?
'[HE FOREVER WAR
13
"All of the permanent personnel here on Charon are combat veterans. Thus, all of us are forty to
fifty years of age. Butlthinkwecankeepupwithyou. Twoofuswill be with you at all times and will
accompany you at least as far as Stargate. They are Captain Sherman Stott, your company commander,
and Sergeant Octavio Corte~ your first sergeant. Gentlemen?"
Two men in the front row stood easily and turned to face us. Captain Stott was a little smaller
than the major, but cut from the same mold: face hard and smooth as porcelain, cynical half-smile,
a precise centimeter of beard framing a large chin, looking thirty at the most. He wore a large,
gunpowder-type pistol on his hip.
Sergeant Cortez was another story, a horror story. His head was shaved and the wrong shape,
flattened out on one side, where a large piece of skull had obviously been taken out. His face was
very dark and seamed with wrinkles and scars. Half his left ear was missing, and his eyes were as
expressive as buttons on a machine. He had a moustache-and-beard combination that looked like a
skinny white caterpillar taking a lap around his mouth. On anybody else, his schoolboy smile might
look pleasant, but he was about the ugliest, meanest-looking creature I'd ever seen. Still, if you
didn't look at his head and considered the lower six feet or so, he could have posed as the
"after" advertisement for a body-building spa. Neither Stott nor Cortez wore any ribbons. Cortez
had a small pocket-laser suspended in a magnetic rig, sideways, under his left armpit. It had
wooden grips that were worn smooth.
"Now, before I turn you over to the tender mercies of these two gentlemen, let me caution you
again:
"Two months ago there was not a living soul on this planet, just some leftover equipment from the


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expedition of 1991. A working force of forty-five men struggled for a month to erect this base.
Twenty-four of them, more than half, died in the construction of it. This is the most dangerous
planet men have ever tried to live on, but the places you'll be going will be this bad and worse.
Your cadre will try to keep you alive for the next month. Listen to them
and follow their example; all of them have survived
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Joe Haldeman

here much longer than you'll have to. Captain?" The captain stood up as the major went out the
door.
"Tench-hut!" The last syllable was like an explosion and we all jerked to our feet.
"Now I'm only gonna say this once so you better listen," he growled. "We are in a combat situation
here, and in a combat situation there is only one penalty for disobedience or insubordination." He
jerked the pistol from his hip and held it by the barrel, like a club. "This is an Army model 1911
automatic pistol, caliber .45, and it is a primitive but effective weapon. The Sergeant and I are
authorized to use our weapons to kill to enforce discipline. Don't make us do it because we will.
We will." He put the pistol back. The holster snap made a loud crack in the dead quiet.