Star Corps - Ian Douglas

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up a text readout and scrolled down through the last few moments. Yeah, there it was. A Confederation liaison officer had asked about the possibility of a multinational task force. There’d been a lot of speculation about that in the netfeeds over the past few months.

      “Even so,” Haslett went on, “New Sumer Base is a multinational expedition. Euro-Union, Japan, Russia, the Brazilian Empire, Kingdom of Allah, the People’s Hegemony, they all have science teams and contact specialists on Ishtar or in orbit. And every other nation with interests in the Llalande system wants a piece of the action. Whether we make this a multinational task force or not, we can expect at least four other nations to launch expeditions of their own within the next year or so.

      “The latest word from the National Security Council is that there will be two expeditionary forces sent. The idea will be to get the American relief force to Ishtar as quickly as possible, which means assembling, training, and launching it within the next few months. Meanwhile, a second contingent, probably Army Special Forces, will be assembled to accompany any multinational force sent to Llalande, both as backup for the MEU and to safeguard American interests with the multinationals.

      “This dual-force strategy has a number of advantages. Perhaps most important, the second force will be able to take direction from the first during its approach and alter its strategy to conform with the situation on the ground. And, of course, we’ll also have the advantage of already being in control of key targets and bases when the multinationals arrive.”

      Ramsey sighed. Politics and politicians, they never changed. Was Washington more afraid of the rebellion spreading among the Ahannu or of the possibility of Chinese or Brazilians gaining control of Ishtar’s ancient, jungle-smothered secrets?

      Well, it didn’t matter much, really. As usual, the Marines would be going in first.

      Burning curiosity—and some fear—gnawed at him, though. As yet, no one had told him or the other members of his constellation why they were being summarily redeployed to Earth, but his private suspicions were validated when a laser comm message to Osiris had directed him and the other members of his constellation to link in for Haslett’s Pentagon briefing.

      Ever since he’d been called into General Cassidy’s office at Prime three days ago, Ramsey assumed that the mysterious new orders would involve the Llalande crisis. Nothing else he could think of could possibly justify the expense of loading an entire Marine administrative constellation on board an antimatter-drive packet and shipping them back to Earth on an expensive, high-speed trajectory. Marines—even Marine colonels and their staffs—rarely rated such first-class service. Interplanetary packets, with their antimatter drives capable of maintaining a one-g acceleration for their entire transit, cut the flight time between Earth and Mars from months to five days, but even now, a century after their first deployment, they were hellishly expensive to operate.

      What else could it be? As always, there were a few dozen hot spots and minor wars scattered across the face of the Earth. The recent Confederation intervention in Egypt had been much in the news of late; Marines had landed in Giza a couple of days ago to seize vital archeological sites from the hands of Mahdi religious fanatics. There was still the threat of a major political break with the Kingdom of Allah, even the possibility of war, but they wouldn’t ship twelve Marines back from Mars just for that.

      Same for the unrest in the American Southwest. There’d been rumblings in the states of Sonora and Chihuahua for years now, the possibility of civil unrest, even civil war. But again, there were plenty of Marines and other UFR forces on hand to deal with that.

      Besides, there was the Famsit Two requirement, which suggested a long deployment off-Earth, the sort of deployment that would destroy marriage contracts and long-term relationships. The Corps had begun classifying men and women with family-situation ratings shortly after the UN War, when they’d begun assigning personnel to out-Solar duty in the thin, cold reaches beyond the orbit of Mars.

      The Outwatch had been created as a joint UFR/U.S./Confederation military force with the awesome responsibility of patrolling the asteroid belt and the Jovian system. The destruction of Chicago in 2042 during a French warship’s unsuccessful attempt to drop a small asteroid on the central United States had alerted the entire world to the threat of small powers being able to nudge large rocks into Earth-intercepting orbits that would wreak incalculable havoc when they struck. No fewer than twelve large vessels were kept in solar orbit within the belt or beyond, tracking and intercepting all spacecraft that might rendezvous with a planetoid in order to alter its course … and they’d been given the responsibility for watching over Confederation interests on Europa, with the Singer excavations, as well.

      With the beginning of large scale mining operations within the Belt, the Outwatch’s personnel needs had sky-rocketed. There were plans to increase the Navy-Marine presence in the Belt to twenty ships within the next five years, and there would be a desperate need for Famsit One and Two personnel to man them.

      But even that wouldn’t justify bringing constellation Delta Sierra 219 to Earth. Outwatch assignment needs were ongoing and long-term, typically lasting a couple of years. Any emergency need to fill an out-Solar billet could be taken care of by screening new Marines coming out of Camp Lejeune.

      Which left the Ishtar crisis.

      Everyone in the constellation felt the same sharp curiosity, sharing scuttlebutt and speculation with urgent fervor. Ricia and Chris DeHavilland had both already told him that they thought 219 was being tapped for command of the Ishtar relief force.

      It was a pretty good bet. Delta Sierra 219 had a lot of experience under its communal belt, including command of a regiment in the Philippine Pirate War six years ago. That was before Ramsey had come aboard, but he’d downloaded all of the sims and data stores, all but experiencing directly that savage guerrilla conflict at sea and in the jungles of Luzon. They’d also done plenty of air inserts and during the past eight months on Mars had trained with the new combat suits in an extraterrestrial environment.

      It was only beginning to sink in for Ramsey now. He was going to be offered a chance to go to the stars. The stars …

      And with a regimental command, no less. He would be in charge of the Marine air-ground components of the MEU, probably under a general’s overall mission command. That was the sort of plum assignment that came along once in a Marine’s career, and it could well open the door to a general’s stars in his future.

      “Final selections for the expeditionary command staffs are being made now,” Haslett was saying. “We should have the command teams by the end of next week. The selection boards are still reviewing the records of several general officers for Mission Command. In the meantime, all Earthside Marine Corps evolutions for Operation Spirit of Humankind will fall under the command of Major General Gabriowski.” Haslett looked off to the side. “General? Would you care to add anything?”

      General Dwight Gabriowski walked across the stage to the podium, a stout, muscular man with a bullet-smooth head and a Marine DI’s scowl. Gabriowski. That clinched it, then. He was the man who’d ordered DS 219 back to Earth.

      “Thank you, General Haslett,” Gabriowski said. “I don’t have much to say … except that I consider it an honor that the Marine Corps has again been called upon to lead the way. We’ve been hearing a lot lately about the Corp’s redundancy … again … and it’s a pleasure to be able to prove that we have as important a role in safeguarding our national interests, wherever they might lie, in the twenty-second century as in the twenty-first, or the twentieth, or the nineteenth. I want to add that …”

      “Oh, Goddess, give me strength,” Ricia said from the couch next to Ramsey’s.

      “Politics as usual,” Ramsey said. These days, it seemed that the Corps spent as much money and attention on public relations—on the delicate job of persuading each President and each session of Congress that the Marine Corps was not the anachronism its enemies claimed. “You’d think that after Garroway’s March—”

      Gabriowski was still talking. “By the end of the month, we will be able to begin building the MEU from volunteer candidates

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