The Legacy Trilogy - 03 - Star Marines by Ian Douglas

Author:Ian Douglas
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780380818266
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

14

25 MARCH 2314

Near the Stadium North Gate

Marshall Sports Complex,

Relief Distribution Center

1020 hrs, EST

Recruit Private Nal il-En Shra-dach dropped to the deck when the first explosion went off, and was very nearly killed as the queues around him disintegrated. Thousands of people were inside the stadium dome, and suddenly they were all trying to leave at once. A loudhailer voice was booming above the crowd noise, trying to maintain calm and order, but a moment later, the second and third explosions went off, and the stampede of civilians began to take on a life of its own, surging away from the North Gate and rolling back deeper into the stadium.

Rolling to one side, he managed to get his back to a wall—actually the barrier in front of the bleacher section—and to unsling his weapon, an LR-2290 laser rifle, standard Corps issue.

He still wasn’t entirely sure how to use the thing.

Trust your downloads, the voice of Staff Sergeant Wojkowiz said in his head. The knowledge is there. Trust it!

Well and good, but he needed a target first. Right now, all he could see was a thundering, screaming mob trying to flee.

A fundamental fact of biology confronted Nal. Ten thousand years of genetic isolation on Ishtar had resulted in a substantial drift in the genome; everyone in this huge, domed room was taller than he was, and he couldn’t see more than a few meters.

But he could see far enough. Three meters away, Derel was struggling to remain on her feet as panicked civilians crowded past her. She fell, and he heard her scream as she was trampled.

“Make a hole!” Nal bellowed, pushing forward into the mob, wielding the stock of his laser rifle like a paddle. “Make a hole!”

It was unlikely that the crowd understood the ancient military expression, or that they even heard it. By sheer, brute strength and determination, though, Nal shoved, prodded, and beat enough people aside to create a tiny clear space around Derel long enough for her to regain her feet.

“Thanks, Nal!” she gasped.

“Hang on to my shoulder!” he yelled, turning his back on her and swinging his weapon hard. “Come on! This way!”

Perhaps the sight of two Marines, neither more than 150 centimeters tall, charging against the flow of traffic was startling enough to get through the fog of panic spreading through the mob. Civilians moved out of their way, or tried to. A woman clinging to an infant stumbled and fell, shrieking. Nal adjusted his course to push his way in front of her, as Derel helped her up. Several men locked arms and battled the tide to create a human barrier, forcing the rest of the crowd to flow around them.

Together, somehow, they fought the oncoming tide of humanity and managed to regain a measure of relative safety in the lee of the wall. The human barrier dissolved back into the sea.

“Now what?” Derel asked, panting.

“We move up!” Nal replied. He pointed toward a set of steps going up from a break in the wall a few meters to the left.

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