"John G. Hemry - Stark's War 3 - Stark's Crusade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hemry John G)

“Why didn’t they?”

“They were trying to save their passengers.”

Dr. Asad stood silent for a moment. “They did that. I’ll get them out, Sergeant Stark. I’ll
take real good care of them. Promise.”

“Thanks. Do you need anything else? More people, more equipment, more transport?”

“Have you got anything coming to pick up the soldiers who can walk?”

Stark checked his command display before answering. “Sure do. There’s some more APCs
on the way. Should be here in a few minutes.”

“Then we’re fine. Everybody who needs help has got it.”

“Guess there’s nothing else I can do here, then. Good job handling the wounded. You and
your people. Tell ‘em thanks for me and all the other grunts.”

Another impossible suited shrug from Asad. “That’s our job. But I’ll tell my people. It never
hurts to know you’re appreciated.”

Stark moved slowly back to his APC, turning to look once more at the wrecked shuttle as
he reached his transport. Gutierrez. And your whole damn crew. Thanks for saving those soldiers.
I’ll make sure you’re not forgotten. He pulled himself into the APC, sealing the hatch then
strapping in, moving with the weariness of great age or great responsibility.



A briefing room big enough to accommodate the official planning hierarchy had no trouble
holding Stark’s small group for their postmortem of the operation. Sergeant Tanaka had
explained the old routine to Stark before she’d died in the failed raid on Stark’s headquarters.
Generals would be holding down the best seats, flanked by senior planners, backed up by
assistant planners, supported by junior planners. Standing against the wall would be the action
officers who would do any actual work if such was required. Before each officer at the main
table a display would offer instant access to any portion of the massive operation plan being
developed; annexes, appendices, annexes to appendices, subsections, sub-subsections, and the
ever-popular attachments to any and everything. “They tried to print out one of the oplans
once,” Tanaka had offered. “Some general insisted on it. But headquarters ran out of paper
before the print job finished.”
 “Were you short on paper?” Stark had asked.

“Heck, no. We had a lot of paper. Reams and reams. Just not enough to print out an oplan.
I hear oplans used to be a little shorter, back before they went paperless. Now everybody just
copies the last one onto their hard drive and adds on to it. There’s probably stuff in there about
fighting the Brits during the Revolution. Who’d know? Nobody can read the things anymore,
and I don’t think anybody tries.”

Stark shook off the memory of Tanaka, one more face and name gone from this world, and
focused back on the present, gesturing toward the image of Lexington Sector floating slightly