"Mary Ann Steele - Warrior Woman - The Forge of a Legend" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Mary Ann)

Captain sought to master the anger inseparable from the fierce delight
engendered by the victory.

His joy outweighing his wrath, Sean wordlessly squeezed Morgan's shoulder,
prompting that exhausted warrior to smile with manifest satisfaction at his
first cousin.

Behind the five swordsmen whose prowess at wielding those gleaming blades in
hand-to-hand combat exceeded that of any of their subordinates, two other
members of Signe's core staff now appeared. Theo and Jassy took no time out in
which to gloat over the magnitude of the victory. The two veteran combatants
detached massive electronic handweapons from slings at their waists, pulled
off goggles equipped with imagers for aiming the bulky devices, and issued
orders to the men and women threading their way through piles of dead,
searching for any survivors: friends or foes. The victory culminating a bitter
revolt spanning a decade of Earthyears produced no tumultuous rejoicing. The
victors stoically set about the nerve-wrenching task of clearing the final
battleground.

An hour later, two husky Gaean corpsmen strode by their captain bearing the
last of the fallen. Indifferently tailored slate blue uniforms clinging damply
to perspiring bodies exuded a pungent aroma, offering Theo tangible evidence
that the adjustment of the fabric had long since failed. Bleak gray eyes
followed the pair hustling the black-garbed corpse towards its destination:
the refrigerated antechamber where it would lie waiting its turn in a
crematorium direly overworked of late.

We ought to hold a brief mass memorial for the Columbian dead , the
scholar-turned-warrior reflected, struck of a sudden with overwhelming
conviction. Those Third Corpsmen fought with fanatical valor until the last
man fell. If they granted no mercy, neither did they beg for any. I'll see
that they aren't simply incinerated like non-recyclable offal.

A mind contemplative by nature stilled the impulse prompting an active,
compact body to hasten down the deck defiled by rusty smears, and join in the
work of clearing barricades from passageways in the habitat below. The
historian in Theo objected, demanding that this moment not pass without
comment by an intellect schooled to analyze the significance of epochal
changes in human affairs.

Staring unseeing into the distant reaches of the cavernous corridor, the
veteran officer recalled the twenty-hour span constituting all the warning of
imminent attack afforded the horrified civil leaders of the citizenry
scattered over thirty-nine inhabited planetoids within the Gaean Group. A
student of logic applauded the prodigies of organization achieved on Main
World after Sigurd and his Council of Ministers deduced that a peace-loving
society--one possessing no means of retreat and little of offense--faced
invasion by a heavily armed force led by a Columbian military careerist. That
enemy, bent on conquest, the Gaean leaders accurately judged to be motivated
by a compelling lust for power allied to elemental greed.