The Complete Legacy Trilogy: Star Corps, Battlespace, Star Marines
In the future, earth's warriors have conquered the heavens. But on a distant world, humanity is in chains…This bundle includes the complete Legacy Trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Ian Douglas.Many millennia ago, the human race was enslaved by the An – a fearsome alien people whose cruel empire once spanned the galaxies, until they were defeated and consigned to oblivion. But a research mission to the planet Ishtar has made a terrifying – and fatal – discovery: the Ahanu, ancestors of the former masters, live on, far from the reach of Earth – born weapons and technology … and tens of thousands of captive human souls still bow to their iron will.Now Earth's Interstellar Marine Expeditionary Unit must undertake a rescue operation as improbable as it is essential to humankind's future, embarking on a ten-year voyage to a hostile world to face an entrenched enemy driven by dreams of past glory and intent once more on domination. For those who, for countless generations, have known nothing but toil and subjugation must be granted, at all costs, the precious gift entitled to all of their star-traveling kind: freedom!Includes: Star Corps, Battlespace and Star Marines
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Ian Douglas
The Legacy Trilogy Books 1–3
Table of Contents
STAR CORPS
BOOK ONE OF THE LEGACY TRILOGY
IAN DOUGLAS
Table of Contents
EIGHT LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME
“All is quiet on the perimeter, Captain,” Aiken said. “Sounds like the Frogs’re pretty riled up in the ’ville, though. Do you think they’ll attack us?”
“It could happen,” Pearson replied. “The ambassador still hasn’t answered Geremelet’s ultimatum.”
“They’re not talking about … surrendering, are they?”
“Not that I’ve heard, Master Sergeant. Don’t worry, it won’t come to that.”
“Yeah. The Marines never surrender.”
“That’s what they say. Keep a sharp watch.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Aiken turned and looked into the southern sky, where the first stars were beginning to appear. Eight light-years from home had not much altered the familiar constellations, though the dome of the sky was strangely canted against the cardinal directions. There was a bright star, however, in the otherwise dim and unremarkable constellation Scutum, not far from the white beacon of Fomalhaut.
Sol. Earth’s sun. As always, the sight of that star sent a shiver down Aiken’s spine. So far away, in both space and time.
Eight point three light-years. Help from home could not possibly arrive in time …
Prologue
12 MAY 2138
Firebase Frog
New Summer
Ishtar, Llalande 21185 IID
72:26 hours Local Time
Master Sergeant Gene Aiken leaned against the sandbag barricade and stared out across the Saimi-Id River. Smoke rose from a half-dozen buildings, staining the pale green of the early evening sky. Marduk, vast and swollen, aglow with deep-swirling bands and storms in orange-amber light, hung immense and sullen, as ever just above the western horizon. The gas giant’s slender crescent bowed up and away from the horizon where the red sun had just set; its night side glowed with dull red heat as flickering pinpoints, like twinkling stars, marked the pulse and strobe of continent-size lightning storms deep within that seething atmosphere.
The microimplants in Aiken’s eyes turned brooding red dusk to full light, while his battle helmet’s tactical feed displayed ranges, angles, and compass bearing superimposed on his view, as well as flagging thermal and movement targets in shifting boxes and cursor brackets.
The sergeant studied Marduk’s blood-glow for a moment, then looked away. At his back, with a shrill whine of servomotors, the sentry tower’s turret swiveled and depressed, matching the movements of his head.
He could hear the chanting and the drumming, off to the east, as the crowds gathered at the Pyramid of the Eye. It was, he thought, going to be a very long night indeed.
“How’s it going, Master Sergeant?”
Aiken didn’t turn, not when he was linked in with the sentry. His battle feed had warned him of Captain Pearson’s approach.
“All quiet on the perimeter, Captain,” he replied. “Sounds like the Frogs’re pretty riled up down in the ’ville, though.”
“Word just came through from the embassy compound,” Pearson said. “The rebel abos have seized control in a hundred villages. The ‘High Emperor of the Gods’ is calling for calm and understanding from his people.” The way he said it, the title was a sneer.
Abos, abs, aborigines; Frogs, or Froggers. All were terms for the dominant species of Ishtar … ways of dehumanizing them.
Which was a damned interesting idea when you realized how not human the Ahannu were.
“Do you think they’ll attack us?”
“It could happen. The ambassador still hasn’t answered Geremelet’s ultimatum.”
A gossamer flitted in the ruby light, twisting and shifting, a delicate ribbon of iridescence. Aiken lifted the muzzle of his 2120 and caught the frail creature, watching it quiver against the hard black plastic of the weapon’s barrel in bursts of rainbow color. Other gossamers danced and jittered in the gathering darkness, delicate sparkles of bioluminescence.
“They’re not talking about … surrendering, are they?”
“Not that I’ve heard, Master Sergeant. Don’t worry. It won’t come to that.”
“Yeah. The Marines never surrender.”
“That’s what they say. Keep a sharp watch. There’ve been reports of frogger slaves trying to gain entrance at some of the other bases. They might be human, but we can’t trust them.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The Ahannu slaves, descendants of humans taken from Earth millennia ago, gave Aiken the creeps. No way was he letting them through his part of the perimeter.
“Good man. Give a yell if you need help.”
“You don’t need to worry about that, sir.” He hesitated, looking up at the vast and seething globe of Marduk. “Hey, Captain?”
“What?”
“Some of the guys were having a friendly argument the other night. Is Ishtar a planet or a freakin’ moon?”
