"Bud Sparhawk - Bright Red Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sparhawk Bud)

of glittering fragments that spun into emptiness, leaving no trace, no hint, of what had so provoked them.

After much debate over the wisdom of such an attempt, we again tried to contact them. The idea of
another space-spanning civilization held too much promise to ignore. It took years before we found them,
but find them we did.

That is, we assume that someone found them, for a fleet of their ships suddenly appeared near Jeaux II
and attacked every sign of human presence: ships, orbiting stations, ground-based settlements—anything
that wasn't of natural origin. The military tried to defend themselves while the civilian ships fled in every
direction.

This was a strategic mistake. Since they'd backtracked one of our ships to Jeaux, that meant that they
could—and probably would—follow every ship who escaped. Every destination system was now at risk.

Thanks to the brief warning, most of the settled systems managed to mobilize to meet the Shardies
attack. The initial losses were great. We had to fall back from system after system, engaged in a running
battle with something we do not understand.

We've tried to figure out why they attack with such ferocity, why there hasn't been an attempt at contact,
and why they won't respond to our calls. We fail at every attempt to understand them.

Neither have we deduced anything of their technology from the damaged ships we've managed to
recover. Hulls, engines, and controls appear to be nothing but dirty glass. We suspect this is the analog of
our silicon-based technology, but can't be sure. Researchers have been working hard, I'm told, but I
have yet to hear of anything useful come of it.

Nor can we figure out what sort of creatures we're fighting. That one word, that one utterance from a
lone observer on Jeaux, was all we had to go on.

What we do know for certain is that either the Shardies will be destroyed, or we will be. Humanity has
lost too much, too many, for compromise. It is clear that there can be no middle ground.

The trip to the site of the single communications burst was uneventful. We didn't expect to encounter
resistance.. The Shardies don't settle on the planets they take from us. No, they just wipe them clean of
humanity and then move on. We knew there had to be Shardie gleaners surveying the planet, trying to
find some fresh meat, or, what was worse, breeding stock. With a little luck, we'd find that the Shardies
had beaten us to them.

The location was a hill, close by a half-destroyed farming complex whose tower leaned precariously
toward the north. Wirh luck, we'd find whoever made the call nearby. First place to check were the
buildings, or what remained of them.

We went straight in. Better to find whatever sign we could quickly—time was running out. A sweep of
the barn was negative, as were the remains of the silo, and the outbuildings. The house was a different
matter. We found some opened jars, preserves mostly. The footprints we found outside were small—a
child's, perhaps, or a small woman. The tracks led up the hill and into the woods.

I sent the outriders wide to cover while Hunter followed the tracks. Could be a trap, so I waited, senses
alert for any indication of a problem.