Gods of war sentenced to.., p.1
Gods of War (Sentenced to War Book 9), page 1
Copyrighted Material
Gods of War 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
Epilogue
Glossary
Nations, Independent Worlds, and Political Entities Within the Congress of Humanity
Cast of Characters
Acknowledgments
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1
“This is gonna be righteous, Gunny,” Corporal Ethereal Randigold said as the sailor strapped her in. “Don’t forget to close your face shield, glub, glub!”
The sailor pressed the hatch closure button, and the corporal winked at Rev just before the capsule closed.
Gunnery Sergeant Reverent Pelletier, Pegasus Union Marine Corps, just rolled his eyes.
“That woman would think wrestling a starving tiger would be fun,” he muttered.
No shit, Sherlock.
Rev would face a Naxli warrior in combat—and he’d done so more times than he could count—without hesitation. He was in control in that situation, relying on his own skills as a Marine.
This . . .
He took a deep breath. For the next four-plus hours, Rev would be just a tool in a toolbox, relying on someone else to get that toolbox down on their target planet. He was merely a product to deliver, without any control over the delivery.
“Who the hell’s bright idea was this?”
“Yeah, it’s that R & D part that bothers me.”
“That’s because I wasn’t sitting in this trash can, ready to be thrown out.”
Rev was tempted to take up the offer of whatever his medinanos could give him. Go off to lala land, wake up when he was on the planet. But if he was about to meet his end, he wanted to go out aware of what was happening.
“Just give me the joke. I know you’ve been waiting for the opportunity to spring it on me.”
Punch had a habit of telling jokes that pertained to whatever was going on at the moment. But they hadn’t been talking about karnans . . .
Oh, I just said trash.
“OK, what is the difference between a karnan and a trash can?”
Rev didn’t even try to suppress the groan. But as much as he put down his battle buddy’s jokes, he did sort of like them.
“Gunnery Sergeant Pelletier?” one of the yellowshirt sailors asked as he moved into Rev’s view, looming over him.
“That’s me.”
“OK, I’m going to secure you for the insert. If you can move your weapon across your chest, I need to add this auxiliary strap.”
Rev shifted Pashu across his chest. His IBHU was only one of the reasons he wasn’t comfortable with this new insert method. It wasn’t designed for an IBHU Marine. Heck, even the karnans, as big as they are, were still within the capsule’s parameters.
The sailor reached into the capsule and with sure motions, first secured Pashu in place, attached an extension to the normal harness, then clicked it into the holders.
“Try and move your weapon,” the sailor said.
“My IBHU,” Rev said under his breath, but he tried to shift her.
“Pretty tight,” he said.
Rev wasn’t sure why he’d even needed the additional restraints. He had extensive support webbing throughout his body, and he was used to his IBHU’s mass. As tight as he’d be with the capsule sealed up, he figured he’d be able to handle Pashu throughout the insertion process. The fact that the engineers thought he needed something extra was a little disconcerting. What did they know that he didn’t?
“Good to go, then.” He started to reach for the closure button. “May the Mother guide—”
“You’re sure this is going to release me when, you know . . . ?” Rev asked, interrupting the sailor.
“Nope, not sure.”
“WHAT?”
The sailor laughed. “We didn’t make these things. Never used them before. We’re just following the instructions. But the restraining strap, we made that in our shop. I can promise you that if everything else works, then that strap will release you.”
Which didn’t give Rev a warm and fuzzy.
“So, as I was saying, may the Mother guide you to your destination.”
Before Rev could respond with anything else, the sailor pressed the button, and the capsule closed with a soft hiss.
He checked the limited readout. There wasn’t much there. Just a green LED that indicated he was sealed up.
Rev had inserted in a Personal Insertion Sphere-31 “pisser” before, and he’d not been a fan. But at least in that, he could monitor more of what was happening. With this capsule, he was flying blind.
“Pelletier, sealed and ready for insert,” he reported.
“About time. All we need now is Tsao,” Lieutenant Kjell, his platoon commander passed back.
Rev could hear the accusatory tone from the karnan. The rest of the troopers had been quickly sealed up into their capsules. It was only the IBHU Marines that needed the extra assistance.
It’s not like we had a choice in the matter. And we’ve still got half an hour before insert.
More so than with any of the other hyperaugments, there was a strong degree of rivalry between the Manifest Destiny Sphere karnans and the Union IBHUs. The karnans might be physically stronger, but Rev—along with the rest of the IBHUs—looked to their success against the karnans during the past war as proof of the IBHU’s superiority.
Two minutes later, Sergeant Tsao was sealed up. The platoon was ready to go. Now was the wait—the unbearable, mind-numbing wait. Rev had to occupy his mind with something or he’d go crazy. Music, a holovid . . .
“You got any more jokes for me?”
Rev started to laugh at the brag, but then he realized that Punch might not be exaggerating. Who knows how many jokes he’d stored in his crystal brain, both those he’d downloaded and those he’d come up with on his own?
“I don’t think we’ve got time for all million of them now, but why don’t you start?”
“Other than one is a Navy plane and the other flies it, I don’t know. What?”
Damn. If that’s a sample of what he’s got for me over the next four hours, maybe I shoulda just asked him for some music instead.
The capsule gave a lurch that threw Rev against the front . . . hard. He understood now why the Juniper Systems engineers had wanted his IBHU secured. Banging around and smashing into his PAL-HX as the capsule was jerked back and forth could have damaged the projector bell or the missile launcher rail.
Even inside his combat suit, Rev was taking a beating as he was pushed and pulled against the inside of his PAL. Punch had anti-inflammatories working overtime to combat the blows as well as the antiemetics that kept Rev from filling the capsule with what remained of his pre-landing meal.
Rev didn’t think he’d ever wish he was in a pisser, but those were a ride in the park compared to this.
The capsule lurched again, and Rev let out a groan, then swore vengeance against the engineers who thought this would be a good way to get Marines down onto a planet. Pulling off their limbs would be a good start, but it wasn’t enough. With the buffeting, though, he couldn’t keep his mind on what other form of torture he was going inflict on them.
In front of his face, the same unblinking green light let him know that his capsule still had its hull integrity, but nothing else. By the rough ride, he knew he was in the planet’s atmosphere, but where? And was he slowing down? He didn’t know.
The only positive was that if he hit the planet at full speed, he’d never know it. Splat, and it would all be over.
It wasn’t as horrible a thought as it was while he’d been in the relative calm of the approach. At least he’d be done with the unrelenting turbulence.
Finally, another light popped up beside the green one—a flashing red light, each flash two seconds apart.
“This is it, buddy,” Rev muttered.
“That’s the plan.”
Rev made sure his feet were in place, then he pushed back into this harness. The red light switched to one flash every second, and Rev involuntarily held his breath as he strained with his legs.
Crap!
Rev let out the air in his lungs as the foam filled the capsule, pinning him in place. A moment later, Thor’s hammer hit him, and a roar filled the capsule as the airbrakes deployed. Rev started grunting as he performed his AGSM, and he fought to remain conscious. The force was unrelenting as the capsule was jerked back and forth to add to the tremendous Gs that fought to take him to oblivion.
Mother protect me!
There was a final mule kick that almost knocked him out, and then the pressure was suddenly gone. Gravity gave him an up and down, but that was shifting as his capsule rotated. The foam started to dissipate, and the two LEDs shined green.
He was down. Hopefully, all the rest of the platoon had landed in one piece as well. Down and unnoticed.
Rev wasn’t sure how the Naxli might have missed thirty-nine capsules plummeting to the surface, but the brass had seemed pretty confident about their ability to insert without being detected. How much of that, though, was because the civilians at Juniper Systems had assured them of the fact?
It wasn’t as if civilian corporations ever exaggerated a system’s capabilities.
No, never.
The third LED came to life, a slowly flashing yellow.
“This is it, buddy. Let’s see where we are.”
A faint white line appeared running up and down in front of him. He oriented on that, ready to move. The line flashed five times, and then the entire front of the capsule split apart, and dark water rushed in.
Rev felt a moment of panic as the water spun the capsule around. He fought against the harness holding him in place, cursing the sailor who’d told him it would release him . . . but it did. It snapped off, releasing him. He kicked free of the capsule, and the weight of his PAL-HX quickly took him down into the dark.
Rev had excellent night vision, one of his many augments, but he activated the infrared torch on his helmet. There was nothing to see in the water as he sank, though. He tried to flail his arm and Pashu to keep himself upright, but his IBHU wasn’t a good flipper, and her weight turned him on his side.
He sank for another ten seconds before he hit the bottom. It took him a moment to get to his feet and look around. There was nothing in sight of his beam’s reach.
“Activate display. Personnel option.”
Immediately, thirty-eight icons appeared on his face shield display. They looked to be scattered over four hundred meters along the bottom of the ocean floor. Several were still descending.
“Well, I can’t believe it, but we’re down, Punch. All of us.”
“But when everything’s going according to plan, then you can be sure the shit’s about to hit the fan.”
“A realist. Well, there’s the lieutenant. Let’s get going.”
Other icons started converging on the lieutenant, who was acting as the assembly point.
And Rev felt good. Surprisingly good. He hadn’t been in control at any time over the last four hours. But now, with the mission about to start, he was in his element. Even thirty meters below the ocean’s surface.
There was an old Marine hymn from back on Earth that went,
We fight our country's battles
In the air, on land, and sea;
Well, they’d come from space and the atmosphere. Now they were in the sea, soon to be on land. It was time to prove those words true.
2
Rev walked in measured steps along the ocean floor, each step raising a cloud of mud before the light current swept it away. Visibility wasn’t great—possibly twenty meters, but he had eight of his fellow troopers in his sight as they trudged—or swam—along.
One of the swimmers was five meters over his head. Corporal (Scout 2) Til König, a Tau Ceti Ranger, was light enough to use the buoyancy compensator and propulsion pack. Capable of fifteen knots, the corporal nevertheless had to maintain the same pace as the heavier IBHU Marines and karnans. Their mass was too much for the IPP-42 propulsion module to do much good, and their insertion capsules were too small for anything larger, so the IBHUs, karnans, and the two Jackhammer teams were walking along the bottom. Strolling, was more like it.
There wasn’t even much to see. The water contained amino acids but no real life. The entire situation was more than weird, and Rev was having a hard time getting into his war face. His warrior self had barely stirred.
Come on, Reverent. This is still a combat mission. Keep that in mind.
At least he had full visibility of the platoon on his display. Intel had thought that the Naxli wouldn’t be able to jam underwater, and with the Union SEALs’ hydrocommunications kits, he could monitor everyone’s positions and talk to them, if necessary.
That probably wouldn’t last once they emerged from the ocean at their objective, though. But they’d simply shift to the tried-and-true hand-and-arm signals if that was the case.
“Have we passed the thermocline yet?” he asked Punch.
The local thermocline was acting in their favor at the moment. Rev hoped that once they passed it as they moved closer to the shore, they’d still have their comms—and that they’d still be undetected. Surprise was paramount for the mission.
And surprise could be lost if they made a mistake or if any of the three assault platoons kicked off their attack before the others.
Rev glanced at the timer counting down. They had three hours, fifteen minutes, and twenty-two seconds to initiate their assault. Plenty of time, unless something unexpected cropped up. And Rev had been in this business long enough to know that something unexpected always cropped up.
He glanced up at König, who was gliding easily above his head. He wanted to ping the Ranger and ask if he was above the thermocline, but then he shrugged off the question. He’d find out soon enough.
Instead, he pulled up a topo. If it was accurate, then about two hundred meters ahead, the ocean floor would start rising. So far, the undersea topo had been right on, revealing this easy route to the objective. That, in and of itself, was pretty amazing to him. This was a previously undiscovered planet, and the three platoons of First Assault Company were the first humans to set foot on it. Yet whatever scanners the tiny scout craft had aboard when the pilot reached the planet had been able to map the seafloor.
