"Tom Kratman - Carerra 2 - Carnifex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kratman Tom)

- Prologue

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 - Prologue




WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE
(Anno Condita -23 through 462):
In the year 2037 a robotic interstellar probe, the Cristobal Colon, driven by lightsail, disappeared
enroute to Alpha Centauri. Three year later it returned, under automated guidance, through the same rift
in space into which it had disappeared. The Colon brought with it wonderful news of another Earth-like
planet, orbiting another star. Moreover, implicit in its disappearance and return was the news that here,
finally, was a relatively cheap means to colonize another planet.
The first colonization effort was an utter disaster, with the ship, the Cheng Ho, breaking down into
ethnic and religious strife that annihilated almost every crewman and colonist aboard her. Thereafter,
rather than risk further bloodshed by mixing colonies, the colonization effort would be run by regional
groups such as NAFTA, the European Union, the Organization of African Unity, MERCOSUR, the
Russian Empire and the Chinese Hegemony. Each of these groups were given colonization rights to
specific areas on the new world, which was named—with a stunning lack of originality—"Terra Nova"
or something in another tongue that meant the same thing. Most groups elected to establish national
colonies within their respective mandates, some of them under United Nations' "guidance."
With the removal from Earth of substantial numbers of the most difficult portions of the populations of
Earth's various nations, the power and influence of transnational organizations such as the UN and EU
increased dramatically. With the increase of transnational power, often enough expressed in corruption,
even more of Earth's more difficult, ethnocentric, and traditionalist population volunteered to leave. Still
others were deported forcibly. Within not much more than a century and a quarter, and much less in
many cases, nations had ceased to have much meaning or importance on Earth. On the other hand, and
over about the same time scale, nations had become pre-eminent on Terra Nova. Moreover, because of
the way the surface of the new world had been divided, these nations tended to reflect— if sometimes
only generally—the nations of Old Earth.
Warfare was endemic, beginning with the wars of liberation by many of the weaker colonies to throw
off the yoke of Earth's United Nations.
In this environment Patrick Hennessey was born, grew to manhood, and became a soldier. As a soldier,
he married, oh, very well.
Hennessey's wife, Linda—a native of the Republic of Balboa, was killed, along with their three children,
in a massive terrorist attack on Hennessey's native land, the Federated States of Columbia. The same
attack likewise killed Hennessey's uncle, the head of his extended and rather wealthy family. As his
dying testament, Uncle Bob changed his will to leave Hennessey with control over the entire corpus of
his wealth.
Half mad with grief, Hennessey, living in Balboa, ruthlessly provoked and then mercilessly gunned
down six local supporters of the terrorists. In retaliation, and with astonishing bad judgment, the terrorist
organization, the Salafi Ikhwan, attacked Balboa, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, including many