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

communications points around the landing field. Though Stark had never been inside a tank,
he’d viewed the outside world many times from the inside of an Armored Personnel Carrier,
and the smooth scrolling past of the barren landscape was just like that from an outside viewer
on an APC. “My orders say to deploy my tanks around this field,” Lamont continued.

“I’ve never seen such orders!”

“Well, then, you oughta check with the landing field controller.”

“This is the landing field controller!”

“Then you must have a copy of our orders.”

“There are no such orders on file. Who issued them?”

“They came from your boss.”

“My—?” The controller hesitated as Lamont’s tanks and the infantry moved closer to the
edges of the landing field. “What’s the Landing Authority Authorization Order Code?”

“The Landing Authority Authorization Order Code?”

“Yes. The LAAOC.”

“Uh, lemme see. Where is that?”

“In the order header! If you military people don’t stop moving immediately I’ll… I’ll tell our
security forces to stop you!”

“Hey, hey, calm down.”

Stark looked over at Reynolds, who was smiling in admiration despite the tension in her
eyes. “Lamont can stall like nobody’s business,” Stark noted. “But he’s pushing it, Vic. We
need to shoot first or that infantry might get chewed up by the landing field defenses.”

“You’re right, especially with our troops marching in close order so nobody’ll think they’re
attacking until it’s too late. Do we tell Lamont to open fire?”

“I don’t want to do that, Vic. The guy on the scene should have the discretion to decide.
That’s what we always said should happen, right?”

“It’s hard to argue with that. We all got micromanaged too many times by people sitting a
hundred klicks from the front. It’s awfully tempting to try to run everything from here.” She
waved one hand around the headquarters command center, filled with displays and
communications terminals from which officers had once tried to do just that. “This gear makes
it real easy to think you’re right there on the scene.”

“Yeah. Only you’re not, so you don’t really know what’s going down like the people who
are there. We don’t want to give dumb orders which kill people and lose battles. Which is what
the officers we replaced used to do. But Lamont’s too cocky. He’s having too much fun playing