Commandos Read Online Free PDF

attack.
    The streets of the base were often used as testing grounds for new technological wonders and each year there were more of them, so no one was surprised by the curiosity with which Jo studied everything around her. She walked slowly, as if trying to soak up everything happening around her. She threw her rucksack over one shoulder and entered one of the open hangars where technicians and automatics specialists were assembling a prototype of some sort of small airplane capable of flying both in space and in the atmosphere. She noticed a hydrogen engine inside the open chassis. She peeked inside and spotted, next to the navigational console, a new, shiny, state-of-the-art Tela 9645 processor. She stroked the craft’s bonnet and smiled the smile of a small child marvelling at a new toy.
    “Nice one,” she said to one of the constructors. The man turned to her and saluted noticing her rank. “Oh yeah,” he answered. “It’s amazing. One of the
    fastest ever built. It can fly in atmosphere nearly undetectable.”
“Steering?”
“Manual, but supported by an intelligent computer system. It has the best processors available.”
“The cockpit is a bit small.” Jo adroitly jumped inside.
“Two people, three at best. The total weight is most important.”
“Think four would squeeze in if needed?” Jo asked, looking around.
Levi walked into the hangar and noticed the captain. He smiled when he saw Jo so mesmerised by the new plane.
“Jo,” he said when he got closer, “in two hours, we’ll be debriefed by the Defence Council. Get ready.”
“Yes, Sir.” Jo jumped out of the plane and looked back at the technician. “It’s a pretty little thing. Hope I can fly it one day.”
“Which shuttle are you from, Ma’am?”
“The Luna circumterrestrial shuttle. We watch the terrorists from above. Funny, isn’t it?”
“It’s hard to hold out on Earth, with all those terrorists calling the shots.” The technician took off his glasses and tried to wipe them with his stained apron. “It’s not surprising we’ve used our technology to flee to the skies.”
“But how are we to be truly happy up here? Real life is down there, on Earth.” Jo fell into reverie. “I want to see trees, smell grass on the wind…” Behind her, Alec stopped half-way to the plane and listened curiously. “I want to hear children laugh, feel snowflakes on my skin, smell real bread…”
“Hardly anyone bothers to think of those things nowadays,” Alec interrupted her.
Jo turned around and fixed her eyes on his face for long enough to give him a glimpse of hope that she still remembered him. “We mustn’t forget,” she retorted, “we’re commandos and we’re fighting to get all that back. To get back our homes. If you forget that, what’s there to fight for?”
The technician nodded in agreement.
Jo walked away, leaving Alec and Levi deep in thought, pondering whether such a tomorrow was even possible.
For centuries now, terrorism had been enjoying a period of unprecedented success as means of political struggle. The killers now praised as heroes would once have been called criminals, assassins and suicide bombers.
What started with small-scale attacks soon gained pace with more and more daring acts of terror, such as the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon, Beslan and Ossetia. It didn’t take long for the scale of attacks to threaten the largest European metropolises: Moscow, London, Paris and Berlin. At that point, the mechanism was already too advanced and powerful to control. It became increasingly difficult to determine what was and what was not terrorism, who ought to be called a terrorist and who was a freedom fighter. The use of force, violation of law, intimidation and extortion fast became everyday reality. Terrorism became a population-wide issue. The wave had been set in motion. Unstoppable, Levi thought of the early terrorist groups, so eagerly recalled by the later caliphs as terrorist leaders: AlQaeda, Hamas, the