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

“But maybe, maybe, a few of you will have what it takes to be Marines.” Turning, he addressed one of
the assistants—the evil-grinning one. “Sergeant Corrolly!”

“Yes, Drill Instructor Warhurst!”

“We need to find out what these worms are really made of. Let’s take them on a little run before
breakfast!”

The evil grin grew wider. “Yes, Drill Instructor!”

“Move out!”

“Aye, aye, Drill Instructor!” The assistant DI turned to face the waiting survivors of the morning’s muster.
“You heard the Drill Instructor! Recruit platoon…lef’ face! For’ard, harch! And…double time! Hut!
Hut! Hut!…”

Garroway began to hut.

And within twenty minutes, as he dragged screaming leg muscles through the fine, clinging, ankle-deep
sand of the Martian desert, he was wondering if he was going to be up for this after all.

What the hell had he been thinking when he’d volunteered?…

2
0407.1102

Green 1
Meneh, Alighan
0512/38:20 hours, local time

Ramsey kicked off, his 660-ABS armor amplifying his push and sending him in a low, flat trajectory
across bubbling ground. Maneuvers like this always carried a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t
risk. Jump too high and your hang time made you an ideal target; jump too low and flat and a
miscalculation could slam you into an obstacle.

He came down next to a ferrocrete wall, his momentum carrying him into the half-collapsed structure with
force enough to bring more of it down on top of him, but he was unhurt. A quick check around—he was
a kilometer from the city’s central plaza. All around him, the skeletal frameworks of skyscrapers rose like
a ragged forest, a clean, modern city reduced in minutes to ruin and chaos. Some of the damage was due
to the Marine bombardment, certainly, and to the firefight raging now through the enemy capital, but
much, too, had been self-inflicted by Muzzie nano-D.

In fact, Ramsey’s biggest tactical concern at the moment were the nano-D clouds, which were highlighted
by his helmet display as ugly purple masses drifting low across the battlefield. Where they touched the
ground or surviving fragments of building, rock, earth, and ferrocrete began dissolving in moments, as the
submicroscopic disassemblers in the death clouds began pulling atom from atom and letting it all melt into
a boiling and homogenous gray paste.
Where the cloud hit counter-nano, sparks flashed and snapped in miniature displays of lightning.
Nano-D, much of it, possessed intelligence enough to attempt to avoid most countermeasures; victory