Semper Mars

Semper Mars
Ian Douglas

The Marines have landed on Mars to guard the unearthed secrets of an ancient and dangerous alien race: Ourselves.The Year is 2040.Scientists have discovered something astonishing in the subterranean ruins of a sprawling Martian city: startling evidence of an alternative history that threatens to split humanity into opposing factions and plunge the Earth into chaos and war. The USMC – a branch of a military considered, until just recently, to be obsolete – has dispatched the Marine Mars Expeditionary Force, a thirty-man weapons platoon, to the Red Planet to protect American civilians and interest with lethal force if necessary.Because great powers are willing to devastate a world in order to keep an ancient secret buried. Because something that was hidden in the Martian dust for half a million years has just been unearthed . . . something that calls into question every belief that forms the delicate foundation of civilization . . .Something inexplicably human.

Semper Mars:

Book One of

the Heritage Trilogy

Ian Douglas

Contents

Map

Prologue

“Christ, CJ! You can’t let them do this to us!”

One

This wasn’t the first time the Marines had ventured into…

Two

“How’s it working now?” Garroway asked, slipping into the seat…

Three

Kaitlin Garroway took the second-floor door out of Herb Simon…

Four

Sergeant Gary Bledsoe, USMC, stood at his sandbag-encircled post on…

Five

“Snakebite, this is Basket. Excalibur. I say again, Excalibur.”

Six

“All right, people!” Colonel Lloyd bellowed. “Listen up! We got…

Seven

Kaitlin Garroway peered out the cabin window at a sky…

Eight

“I never thought I’d see the day,” Garroway said, “when…

Nine

The last pale glow of the sunset had long since…

Ten

It was just past midnight, the time of the day…

Eleven

Most of the Marines in the barracks area were asleep.

Twelve

“I talked to Doc Casey,” Garroway told the others at…

Thirteen

“So, you got your lines down?” Garroway asked. It was…

Fourteen

It had been eight days since Kaitlin had seen Yukio,…

Fifteen

According to the data displayed on the seatback screen, the…

Sixteen

It was, Garroway thought, one of the oddest-looking marches in…

Seventeen

Mark Garroway watched his daughter’s face on the Mars cat’s…

Eighteen

The president looked a lot older now than he had…

Nineteen

The Star Eagle Michael E. Thornton, a single-stage-to-orbit SCRAMjet transport,…

Twenty

“So,” Mark Garroway said in what he’d intended to be…