Left Behind (Ghosts Of War Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the war, there will be no quarter. Alive, dead or whatever is in between, you will be destroyed. The humans aboard the habitats orbiting Charon get rid of your comrades, we just canceled your friends around Pluto. You're all that remains of an abomination. Enjoy your last minutes. Scatena out.»
    ***
    Anuchin listened to all the conversation between the enemy ships, his young face pale with fear.
    «It's just crazy. All this people has been dead for what? Decades? And they still are going for each other's throats. This is madness.»
    «No son, it is not. This is what the last war left to us. Nothing but pain and hate. I can understand Scatena and all the other poor bastards aboard the “Roma”. And I can even try to understand what drives the Chinese hive mind. They don't know anything but the war.»
     
     

XIV
    The missiles had traveled in parallel routes, arching gracefully their routes to compensate the light pull of the gravity well of Charon. At the start of final approach, they parted ways for the first time and both activated their warheads. At five hundred kilotons each, their load was more than enough to cancel any sign of the Chinese presence around the Pluto main satellite.
    ***
    On the main deck of the “Roma” a new sound echoed. Three notes in progression, each a half tone higher than the previous.
    «All hands, final configuration. Let's gain some extra speed.»
    The voice of Scatena was more human, colored by the expectation of the battle. His crew was more active now, each member keying commands on their consoles.
    «Storage modules deployed, Sir.»
    «Rear missiles bay deployed, Sir.»
    «External fuel tanks deployed, Sir.»
    «Safety pods, one to four, deployed.»
    Like a snake emerging from its old skin the ship was speeding up from a little cloud of modules, gaining more and more with the mass loss.
    «Crew quarters detached, Sir.»
    The commander paced the main deck with long strides, approaching his own battle station.
    «Sick bay detached, Sir.»
    There was a last block to get loose. Long range sensors and communications station. An extreme measure for a warship, intended only for desperate measures. It was up to Scatena to decide if gaining those last few hundred kilos.
    ***
    «Mikhail, we have an incoming transmission from the Euros.»
    «Get it, the bastard want to have a last laugh.»
    Static. A lot of clicks, then the voice.
    «“Zel’dovich”, this is the last message from EUSS “Roma”. Please record it and have it placed to the European Fleet Command.»
    «What do you mean, you sick monster? We're gonna die here, all of us. There will be no ship to carry out your last babbling.»
    «It is my duty, my last duty, to use the power I have to destroy the enemies of my country. Our central expert system have analyzed the transmissions between your ship and the habitat orbiting Charon. There's a distinct choice that you're communicating with a human and the information you get from him are consistent with what we know about them.»
    «Are you gonna save us?»
    «Yes. I'm transmitting the self-destruction order to our missiles.»
    For a while Scatena quit speaking, the joy of the Russians was overwhelming.
    «They will not die today, nor will you. And there will be no further war between Russia and European Union, at least not for my actions here. But your decision to help them is a mistake, you should realize that.»
    «What? There are about one thousand people on that habitats.»
    «There are about one thousand things. You don't know what you will find there. I've seen what POW became at the hands of the Chinese collective. What you will find there will plague your dreams until death. Horror is the right word to describe it.»
    «Scatena, come on. They are POW, not monsters. We can help them, their countries will help them to get back to a normal life.»
    The European commander laughed again, a dry sound creepier than a dark night. Then shut down the communication.  
     

XV
    With the