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

hiding in the dark in wait for fat, easy targets like the supply shuttles.

Alarms sounded as sensor arrays on the warships tracked objects rising from the Moon’s
surface toward the convoy. The armed shuttles of Stark’s tiny Navy lunged at the convoy, even
as the warship escorts moved to intercept the threat. New stars winked into life against the
blackness, as fire and counterfire blazed between the combatants.

Around Stark, the watchstanders in the command center in the American headquarters
complex on the lunar surface worked quietly and efficiently, organizing and feeding
information to the huge displays dominating the room. Colored symbols crawled across those
displays like geometric insects; red for enemy, blue for friendly. Threat symbology,
representing weapons, darted around the larger shapes, which marked warships and shuttles,
the spacecraft seeming slow and cumbersome compared with the flight of their weapons. Stark
had to remind himself that those spacecraft could move at speeds measured in miles per
second, a concept almost too alien for a ground soldier to grasp.

“Commander Stark?” One of the watchstanders highlighted text scrolling in one corner of
the big headquarters display. “We’re picking up communications from the warships on the
common merchant frequency.”

Stark squinted to read the words. “Charlie Foxtrot Bravo Two? What’s that mean?”

“It’s from the Convoy Tactical Signals Code, sir. I guess they haven’t changed it. The signal
means ‘All convoy units remain in formation.’ The warships have repeated the message several
times.”

Stark looked back at the display, where vectors for the supply shuttles continued to shoot
off in various directions. “It doesn’t look like the convoy is paying much attention.”

“No, sir. The warships sound kinda upset.”

“According to Chief Wiseman, they shouldn’t have expected anything else. It’s exactly what
she told us would happen.”

Weapons burst, creating expanding clusters of heat and debris, while the dueling warships
tossed out countermeasures designed to fool radar, infrared, and any other means of targeting
them. Stark’s search systems lost contact with the fleeing supply shuttles, their vectors fading
into estimated tracks as a sector of the forever-night over the Moon grew temporarily opaque
to ground-based sensors.

Despite their overwhelming advantage in firepower, the escorting warships hung back,
forming a defensive shield for the now-scattered convoy, content to hurl volleys whenever one
of Stark’s armed shuttles swung toward them.

“Chief Wiseman,” Stark called his fleet commander. In response to his communication, a
window automatically opened in one corner of Stark’s display, showing the face of Chief Petty
Officer Wiseman on the command deck of her armed shuttle. “What’re those warships doing?”

“Exactly what I expected them to do. They’re protecting those supply shuttles. The
warships don’t know exactly where all the convoy shuttles are anymore, but they’re trying to