United we kill, p.1
United We Kill, page 1
part #10 of Sentenced to War Series
Copyrighted Material
United We Kill Copyright © 2022 by Variant Publications
Book design and layout copyright © 2022 by JN Chaney
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.
www.jnchaney.com
www.jonathanbrazee.com
1st Edition
CONTENTS
Don’t Miss Out
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Glossary
Nations, Independent Worlds, and Political Entities Within the Congress of Humanity
Cast of Characters
Acknowledgments
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1
“Nothing different so far,” Kelly O’Donnel said. “Just like a normal deployment.”
“What did you expect?” Gunnery Sergeant Reverent Pelletier, Perseus Union Marine Corps, asked. “We’re on a Union ship.”
“I know,” the staff sergeant said. “But I expected something . . . well, not this. Different.”
“This” was playing Knock On with several of the company’s Marine and Frisian SNCOs. As a gunny, Rev could lounge in the chief’s mess, but with Kelly, Tomiko, Bob, Hussein, and Yancey too junior for that, they holed up in the ship’s library, anxious to kill some time while staying out of the junior troopers’ hair.
Their mission could be one of the most notable in the history of humankind, but Kelly was right in her assessment. So far, other than the speech given to them by the Perseus Union Director Prime himself at the Anastasia spaceport, this could be any other deployment.
“There’s a clicker on the bridge,” Tomiko said before removing two cards and putting them face-down in front of Hussein. He immediately put two of his in front of her. Tomiko picked them up and gave them a quick glance. Rev caught the slightest tic in the corner of her mouth.
You don’t like them, do you, Miko?
His fiancée sometimes wore her heart on her sleeve. Good for him, but bad for her skill at cards.
“Do you know that for sure, Miko?” Kelly asked. “Have you put eyeballs on it? You know what they tell you. If you don’t see it with your little eyes, then don’t say it with your big mouth.”
Tomiko shrugged. “No, I didn’t see it with my own eyes while I’m down here in the hold. But why would they lie to us?”
The rest of the players laughed at that, and Tomiko frowned. All of them had been in uniform long enough to understand the ways of the military, especially as members of a joint unit—in this case, the First Human Expeditionary Brigade. Humanity might be unified in the fight against the Naxli, but it hadn’t been too long ago that humans were fighting humans, and distrust remained rampant.
Rev didn’t think the Union brass would go out of their way to lie to the Marines, but they would lie if they thought it could earn them an advantage in the eternal game of thrones against the other human governments. That was a certainty.
Yancey surrendered three cards to Bob, and the Frisian picked three to surrender back. Not as recently as the war with the Manifest Destiny Sphere, the Frisians and the Union had been in a conflict of their own. It hadn’t devolved into all-out war, and now the two nations were welded at the hip. That didn’t mean, however, that the two nations shared everything. This wasn’t the wholesale embracing of the CoH’s Pax Humanity Initiative, but more of a marriage of necessity.
The natural human competitiveness kept some tensions high, which made the brigade unique. As a military force, the troopers had to trust each other, no matter their nationality. With Bob, who was a friend, that wasn’t such a reach. But Rev had MDS karnans in his platoon, and he had to trust the hyper-augments as much as he trusted Union Marines.
And now, they were heading into the unknown, to work with the aliens they didn’t even know existed only six months before. They were going to be a long way from home. Even with the battalion being heavily Marine Corps, there were still troopers from other nations, and they had to fight as one or they’d fail.
And with the stakes as they were, failure wasn’t an option.
“Rev?” Tomiko asked, breaking into his wandering thoughts.
“What?”
“Are you exchanging?”
Rev looked around the table. Everyone was waiting on him.
“Sorry. Got lost in my thoughts.”
He looked at his cards. “What should I discard and to who?” he muttered under his breath.
Punch, his embedded AI, said.
“No, no. We don’t play with our battle buddies.”
Rev ignored him. They’d had this conversation before. Many times before. And Rev was tempted, to be sure. He wasn’t the best Knock On player in the galaxy, and he continually lost to the others here. It would be so good to wipe the smirk off of Yancey’s face when he won, but using his AI to calculate odds was something they just didn’t do.
In the end, he pulled a single card, the Three of Destiny, and slapped it down with some force in front of Kelly.
“Ooh, he’s being aggressive,” Tomiko said with a laugh. “He must be sure of himself.
Kelly stared at the card before her for a moment, then selected one of her own, and with much less force, placed it in front of Rev. They both picked up their new cards. Rev felt a little flutter. Kelly had surrendered the Nine of Life, and that gave him a carnival. Not an amazing hand, but a darn good one. They were playing twenty, so this was the final hand. If Rev could pull this off, and if Yancey didn’t take seconds, he could finally win a game.
“Reveal,” Bob said, throwing down six of his cards.
Rev smiled. Bob’s ladder was a weak hand, one that Rev had beat.
Kelly just grimaced and put her hand down face first. “This game sucks hind tit.”
Yancey was next. Rev had him beat, but he needed Hussein, Bob, or Tomiko to knock him down to thirds.
“Reveal, Hus-man,” he said, getting a little excited.
Hussein had a double nest, which wasn’t good enough, but Bob had a ladder, and that was better than Yancey’s. And that meant . . .
Rev slapped down his red sweep. “Read them and weep, suckers,” he said, making a show of switching his wristcomp to receive. “I love me some staff sergeant money!”
He turned to Tomiko and said, “Make it official, Miko.”
She scowled, then revealed a . . .
“What?” Rev said as he saw her picket sweep. “But—”
“But you saw this?” she asked as she looked straight at him, pointed at her mouth, and made the corner of it tic. “Oh, so sorry you got confused.”
She made a bigger show of turning her wristcomp to receive. “Pay the lady!”
Rev’s mouth dropped open. His dear, somewhat naïve fiancée had played him?
Un-fricking-believable.
“Oh, shut up, Punch,” Rev subvocalized as he switched his wristcomp to send and transferred over ten credits.
“That’s the latest word. As soon as we have anything more, I’ll let you know. Captain, out.”
“That sure didn’t tell us much,” Rev said.
First Lieutenant Lilly Marble, a Tau Ceti Ranger and Rev’s platoon commander, just grunted.
The battalion was heavily Marine, even more than the Second Combined Assault Battalion had been, but there were still representatives from the other militaries. While not taking issue with the lieutenant as a soldier or the Rangers as a unit, Rev had hoped the battalion would have been all Perseus Union Marines and Navy corpsmen. It would have made things easier.
Even with Rev’s experiences in the Home Guard and the Combined Assault Battalion, Rev was a Marine, and he was used to the Marine way. S
Rev waited to see if the lieutenant had something to add. When she didn’t, Rev asked, “Do you have any theories as to the delay?”
Their ride had been scheduled to arrive at their as yet unknown Uauii base forty hours ago. That had been changed, and they’d been “cutting spherical cubes in space” for the last fifty-plus hours, to use the naval slang. In other words, they were going nowhere and taking time to do that.
The lieutenant shrugged, then said, “You heard the CO. You know as much as I do.”
It had taken the ship’s CO a long time to address the crew and embarked battalion, and when she did, she’d given them nothing concrete. Maybe she was in the dark just as much as the rest of them were.
“Some of the troopers think our mission is getting canceled.”
The lieutenant gave another grunt.
“The clickers don’t trust us,” Rev said, trying to draw his platoon commander out.
“We don’t know what’s happening. But in the Rangers, we say not to fret over what you don’t know. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Rev resisted rolling his eyes. It was probably good advice, but he wanted to know what was going on. He hated being in the dark. Not knowing kept him from being able to plan what he was going to do next.
Tomiko sometimes accused him of being more than a little anal retentive, and there was probably some truth to that. He didn’t like not being in control. But planning ahead for every possible contingency was one of the reasons he was still alive and kicking when so many of his fellow Marines were no longer around.
“Do you have any orders, ma’am? Anything you want done while we wait?”
“How are we with the Ranger Handbook?”
Rev’s heart fell. The Ranger Handbook was essentially a full basic training course on Tau Ceti Ranger history, tactics, and procedures. The lieutenant had directed that the entire platoon take the virtual course.
It wasn’t that the course was bad. But Rev had been a Marine Raider when he first was conscripted, and he had pride in the Raiders and thought they were better than the Rangers.
And this was a Marine-centric battalion, not a Ranger-based battalion. Rev had asked Master Sergeant Olyn about the course, and the top had said it wouldn’t hurt. Besides, idle hands on a ship usually resulted in fights and problems.
“About a third of the way through.”
“Then, I think it’s a good time to get through the rest.”
“Aye-aye, ma’am.”
Rev got up to leave the lieutenant’s tiny stateroom when the platoon commander said, “Don’t get stressed, Gunny. We’ll find out soon enough what’s going on. And if our mission is scrubbed, then that will just give us more training time. Soon enough, we’ll be hooking and jabbing with the Naxli, so the better we’re prepared, the better we’ll perform.”
Rev nodded and started to return to the platoon berthing spaces. The platoon commander was right, of course. But that didn’t make it any more palatable. All they could do now was keep the troopers occupied while they waited for some sort of decision to be made.
They didn’t have that long to wait to find out what was happening. Three hours after the ship’s CO passed the message, and while the troopers were all following the Ranger Handbook chapter on ambush patrols, Rev’s wristcomp buzzed.
He read the message, then waved Yancey over.
“I’m getting summoned to the officer’s mess.”
Yancey raised his eyebrows and asked, “Do you think we’re finally gonna find out what’s up?”
“That, or he’s just going to tell us to stay patient. You know Os. Even if there’s nothing to say, they’ve got to take the time to say it. You’re in charge here. First call for chow’s in another thirty-five minutes, so get the platoon out of here in thirty. If I’m not back by then, get them back here for our time slot.”
The good thing about being on a troopship was that there was a big galley, which doubled up during non-chow hours as a space where the platoon or even a company could gather for classes or briefs. And the ship could run the entire crew and a full battalion of Marines through chow in two seatings. Alpha Company had the second seating today, so they had to vacate the galley before chow started and then return for the second sitting.
“Got it,” Yancey said. “Hopefully, you’ll find something out.”
Rev headed back to officers’ country. He’d downplayed the summons to Yancey, but he was excited, nonetheless.
“What do you think it might be?” he asked Punch.
“You’re no fun.”
“Ha-fucking-ha. You’re so funny.”
Punch’s snark level had been rising over the last six months. Rev was happy that his battle buddy was becoming more human, but sometimes, he missed the old, uncomplicated Punch.
“Duly noted.”
“Rev! Wait up!”
He turned to see Bob jogging over.
“I see you got the same message,” the Frisian said.
“So, I’m not getting promoted to commandant?”
“What the hell are you talking about,” Bob asked.
“Ah, nothing. Just something stupid.”
Rev tuned Punch out. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any idea on what it’s about?”
“Hopefully, we’re back on track for the clicker base,” Bob said.
“Yeah. I’d like to get this show on the road, not just sit here in a holding pattern.”
The PUNS Wessex was a huge ship, as big as some battle cruisers, and it took several minutes for the two platoon sergeants to reach officers’ country, then another minute to make their way to Captain San Denis’s stateroom. The four platoon commanders and the XO were already there. It took another few minutes for the first sergeant, the company gunny, and the other two platoon sergeants to arrive.
Staterooms on a Calgary-class ship were larger than usual, but still, with twelve people, it was a tight fit. Someone needed a shower as well, and the stateroom’s blower was working overtime to keep the temperature down.
“That smell isn’t me, is it?” Rev asked Punch, resisting the urge to lift his organic arm and sniff the armpit.
“Is that everyone?” the company commander asked as he looked around, counting heads.
“That’s everyone, sir,” the first sergeant said.
Captain San Denis was one of the new IBHU Marines. He’d lost a hand on Oris, and with the push for more IBHUs, that evidently had qualified him for the program.
Rev wasn’t sure what he felt about that. The captain had only lost a hand, but to be fitted for his IBHU, they’d amputated most of the forearm to accept the B version of the IBHU, which was a shorter model of the weapon that attached at the elbow instead of the shoulder as Rev’s did.
But that wasn’t Rev’s call. All he knew was that the captain was his commander.
“I just left the ship’s CO’s stateroom,” the captain said.
That immediately captured everyone’s attention.
“We are not proceeding to the clicker base.”
“Shit,” SFC Finnegar, the Third Platoon sergeant, muttered. “I knew it.”
