Jethro 6 Snippet 3

Still in chapter 1:

Colonel Josh Lyon tried to be patient as he listened without saying anything as the newly elected governor raged at him over the drop test. She was quite testy, and he could understand it in theory.

"Ma'am, we did inform all parties. We secured the site; it is a military reservation site. We've done exercises like this one before," he said patiently once she'd stopped to inhale. Mars as well as the junior officers had informed all authorities since it was considered RMT, Realistic Military Training that included explosions, booms and other things that would normally alarm the public.

Apparently the local sheriff's office hadn't paid attention or the left hand and right hand hadn't connected. He'd thought Sheriff Uday would have known better. Mars was still looking into whether she was new or just wanted a platform to complain to the media.

"I don't care! I'm done! We've been getting calls all damn night! This is the last time you do this sort of shit on my frackin' planet!"

The Colonel scowled. "Ma'am..."

"And I don't care if you call your boss or whoever!" she snarled. "Wait, who is your boss? You are a colonel, I should be saying this to a general right?"

"At the moment ma'am I'm the head of both the Cadre and the Special Operations community."

"So, who is your boss?" she demanded.

"That would be Admiral Irons. He personally signed off on this test. Your government gave us carte blanche to hold military exercises on military owned or leased land. This was one such exercise. It was a Realistic Military Training Exercise and we informed the Sheriff and all parties."

Silently the colonel's A.I. Mars gave him a heads up of the test. Everything had worked out nicely; only 10 percent of the drop had drifted off target. They'd all still landed within the 3 kilometer drop zone however.

Not bad for generation 4 pods. He decided to not bother with pushing for the gen 5 model at the moment. The ones they had were safe enough.

"Admiral Irons?" the woman finally asked.

"Yes ma'am. I report directly to him."

"You... there is no general?"

"Not at this time ma'am. I work in parallel with General Forth and General 1010111 but they have their own duties with their own commands. SpecOps is all me," he said, trying hard not to smile.

"Well, I don't give a damn! I've never had this sort of situation before, and I don't intend to have it happen again!"

"Very well ma'am. I'll inform the admiral. We'll have to make other arrangements."

"And don't threaten me with pulling your people! I don't care and you know that's an empty threat!" she snarled.

"I wouldn't dream of threatening you ma'am. I will ask that you give me the request to not hold drop tests on the planet though. The admiral will want it."

"I'll get it to you within the hour," she said and then hung up on him.

He snorted and shook his head. "Fun," he sighed. "Why'd I take this job again?"

"Because someone had to," Mars replied.

"Oh, yeah, that," the colonel replied with a sigh.

"Personally? I'd much rather be out with the troops at this moment rather than dealing with... crap like that," he growled. Mars nodded.

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Ensign Sahib 'Lordy' Kapish saw the drop come in and began to open up. There were Marine units in the area, SAM units who had been brought in for the exercise. Delta platoon had to get through them, land, and then they had a random timed window before Charlie platoon engaged them.

He had been surprised by how accurate the KEW strike had been. Of course it had been a clear night and the squids had done it several times before at this point. He couldn't help but wonder what strings Feathersnake had pulled to get them to be a tad more accurate for him though.

It might be petty, but then again, so was Feathersnake. He didn't envy Jethro for having to put up with his sorry ass. He shied away from wondering if he'd been that bad all of less than six months prior.

Feathersnake had yet to earn his spurs or a nickname. Credits were on Feather duster, duster, or dusty. The ensign was trying to put his finger on the scales though, which just meant those interested in naming him were going to be rather particularly vicious about the final name. A name was a badge of honor, something to be endured after a big screw up or some attribute you had, not something you chose for yourself.

The Cadre had exploded in ranks since the first 2 classes. Now they had a new class of candidates every 3 months. They were up to 50 candidates every quarter, but the recruits had to pass muster. It was a very hard act to follow, especially with Jethro leading the way.

The best were crossover personnel from the Raiders and Recon Marines like Jethro, but they were few and far between. So were those of the blood, but one or two would occasionally pop up on Mars radar for recruitment.

The Army's Delta and powered armor units were starting to send their own people in, much to their chagrin at losing them.

The Cadre was up to 400 strong, arranged in 5 platoons. Captain Sinclair led Alpha platoon. The last platoon was known as Echo, which was made up of support personnel, trainers, and the rawest of the recruits.

He didn't envy any of them. They were going to have to sit on the sidelines while the rest of the Cadre got to invade Horath sometime in the not so distant future.

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Jethro listened as Ensign Feathersnake began to bark orders even before the last pod had landed. He was amused, keeping quiet as he listened to the officer lay out what he wanted.

As top kick it was his job to implement the here and now orders while the officer focused on what was to come. Feathersnake wasn't having any of it; he set the perimeter and even began queuing up targets for the individual squads to focus on.

He didn't wait for Charlie Company to come to them though, something Jethro heartily approved of. He didn't linger on the drop site, once he had his bearings and the mission outline he gave the execute order and they moved out.

For Jethro it was an interesting experience. He cloaked and followed his droids as they moved out along the left flank, watching the rest of the Cadre keep up.

The unit had changed a great deal since the early days. Robots had been added to their ranks. As he watched a Cadre suit stopped and took out a snooping drone as it crested the horizon. The suit was tagged with Crash's icon. He flicked his ears and moved on.

None of the suits jumped or exposed themselves. They all knew the drill, keep an eye out for firing lane traps and for any cover. Also traps. Charlie Company wanted to come out on top and Delta had a lot to prove.

The suits were powered by fusion still, not antimatter as their forbearers had. Even though the federation was coming into a surplus of antimatter fuel the powers that be had no intention of switching back. Antimatter was nice but it was limited in supply and hard to supply in the field. Fusion power allowed the suits to scavenge for fuel in the field if necessary.

It did mean they ran low on fuel faster, and their power budget was a third of the antimatter but the tradeoff was considered worth it at the time. They didn't want to get caught out of power ever again.

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Letanga set up an oversight hide and began to scan the area. It didn't take him long to find the first targets and begin to relay them to his droid and then from there to the squad.

He focused on his sector first, clearing it to the horizon and then he went back to scan it again, this time for hides for enemy spotters and snipers.

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Jethro 6 Snippet 2

Still in Chapter 1...

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Letanga felt the inertial dampeners kick slightly as the petals of his retard gear opened. The pod spun crazily before the gears engaged and it stopped.

"I hate that part," he muttered as the pod drifted.

"Straighten up and fly right!" a familiar voice growled. He noted two pods drifting near each other. They were about 100 meters apart but Jethro was right to call them out. "Maintain separation protocols," Jethro growled, making the Neo Leopard check his own air space around him.

The closest pod was Ox, he was slightly behind and above the sniper though, about 300 meters out so they were all good. It still paid to keep an eye peeled though. A bit of turbulent air from a passing pod could ruin two Cadre member's day entirely too easily.

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Rachel Miller saw the streaks in the sky and gasped. She and her friends were out hiking the Echelon trail since it was such a beautiful clear night. You really had to go out, away from the town and away from the light pollution to really enjoy things these days. Even the sky had it though, with the stations and ships all over the sky.

Still, some places had better views than others.

"Did a station explode?" Apu demanded.

"I don't know. I think we need to call it in," she said, getting her cell phone out and making a call.

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Rachel was surprised when there was a flash of light and then the plain over 10 kilometers away exploded in fountains of debris.

She yelped and then started to get hysterical on the phone with the sheriff's office, insisting that something had crashed. Other hikers got their phones out and began to record the event and or call the media or family.

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Ensign Feathersnake grinned as the simulated KEW strike was complete. Right on target, pretty close to the bull's eye. He'd have to see the recordings to be sure. If they got it right it meant they'd done a better job than Ensign Kapish had, which would give him the bragging rights. Not bad he thought with an unseen grin.

He wasn't thrilled with the ten percent casualties from the simulated SAMS though. It was going to play merry hell with his planning, opening up dangerous holes in his ranks. He decided to take everyone in hand and started to kick out drones and gather sensor data with his A.I.

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"What the hell?" Sheriff Uday demanded as calls began to come in. Some were saying a station had blown up, another was insisting it was some sort of invasion that the military had missed.

She looked out the window from her office near the center of town and saw a faint glow on the horizon. "Okay, so, whatever they are seeing it's real," she said as her deputies around her rose to their feet to look as well. "We best be dealing with it," she said as she turned and began to issue orders.

One of the first things was to call the government in for backup. Whatever was going on they were going to need planetary LEO help soon enough, especially when the media got wind of it and turned the town into a 3 ring circus.

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Jethro 6 Drop Commando Snippet 1

Sitrep:
Okay, I've been a bit lax, wound up in family affairs and writing the next book SpecOps. The 3 remaining betas got J6 back to me earlier this week and I sent it off to Rea.

So, we should be seeing it back sometime next week and I goofed on not posting the cover and snippets.
In my defense the cover was finished a few days ago. Chris 'Mechmaster' Smith by UK buddy got on me about the dropship I made. (I actually made 3) It wasn't that great and he said he'd make me a better one.
Boy did he! So, that is what you see below:

Nice huh? The markings are borrowed from my Shield Liger. (yeah, I'm lazy)

Anyway, on to the snippet!

Chapter 1

Antigua

Warrant Officer Jethro McClintock watched the time tick down as Bast went through his drop pod's last minute pre-flight checks. She was doing them so fast that he just saw a scroll of data flowing on his internal HUD.

The black Neopanther knew better than to even think about stretching or having an itch. He was trapped in the confines of the drop pod with padding and inertial dampeners all around him. The drop was to be his last test before the upcoming mission.

Antigua was quite beautiful below him. He could see it as if his feet and the pod were not there thanks to the camera feed to his augmented vision.

"Can we get on with this?" Corporal Darr "Hare' Phillips demanded.

Jethro snorted as there was the sound of a collection of groans over the platoon net.

"What? What'd I miss?" Hare demanded.

"You won the lotto pool," Staff Sergeant Ethyl 'Calle' Caillier growled, clearly amused at the situation.

"I did what?"

"Betting on who would complain first," Calle replied dryly, clearly disgusted.

"What?!?" Hare demanded.

"Easy money," Corporal Qu 'Quark' Higgins said over the net with a loud derisive snort. "First round of beers are on you and those who bet on Crash," he said. "I'll check my little black book later," the Neochimp said.

"Hey, wait a minute; I didn't even know this shit was going on!" Hare growled.

"Tough luck for you buddy," Quark replied as a few of the other Cadre members snickered at Hare's discomfort. Hare had a stuttery voice and had nearly earned the nickname Yellow. He did whatever was asked of him but not without a lot of complaining and bitching in a fearful voice about certain dangerous tasks.

"Can it," Ensign Feathersnake snapped over the net. "Clear the net," he growled as the countdown entered the last minute. "Checks are green or I'll have someone's ass," he growled.

That wasn't technically how to do the check. Jethro checked behind the Ensign anyway. "All clear," he said since he was the platoon's acting top kick.

"It'd better be," the ensign said. "I don't need or want another abort," he growled.

Bast silently fed him an up to date weather report as well as air traffic in the designated exercise area. This was the platoon's first drop on an actual planet; all others had been performed on one of Antigua's moons. This was their final qualification drop. He could have served as grading officer, by now he could do a drop asleep, but the Colonel had asked him to hand hold the noob ensign until he was sure the ensign could handle the job.

Easier said than done, Jethro thought as everything checked out. Feathersnake was an arrogant pain in the ass who thought he knew everything. He constantly tried to flex his muscles and still had problems with having so many warrants in 'his' platoon. The young man had never commanded a unit before. Technically the slot should have gone to at least a jig or full lieutenant. Unfortunately, the Cadre was a bit shy on officers.

Most people didn't understand that the Cadre were operators. They drew their people from all of the branches of the military, primarily though from the Marines and lately, Army. The Ensign had come up through the academy before taking the SEAL course on Agnosta two years ago. He'd graduated, gone through the special weapons training courses before he'd been tapped to join the Cadre.

All without ever hearing a shot fired in anger. That didn't build confidence in certain people. But he'd come highly recommended. Jethro wasn't fully up to speed on all of the details, but he'd heard a little scuttlebutt courtesy of his cousin Warrant Letanga that there had been some pressure from the SpecOps community to open up a slot for 'qualified naval personnel'. The Cadre was critically short on officers, so somehow he'd been selected.

Someone had made the case that the Cadre had 'too many Indians and not enough chiefs'. Which was bullshit. There were plenty of warrant officers in the Cadre. Just about every Cadre member could have taken a warrant. It would have been a tad confusing, but they could work it out.

"Ten seconds," Bast reminded him, getting him refocused on the here and now.

He instinctively tried to flick his ears but his helmet wouldn't allow it. Bast, living in his implants saw the nerve impulses and smiled anyway.

Bast, or Bastet as her full name was, was a smart A.I. that was one part software and one part hardware of an extraordinary nature. Jethro was a descendant of an original Cadre member. As such he had certain abilities he'd thought were natural or at least, engineered like the rest of his species.

That hadn't been the complete story. Bast, or, at least a version of her had slept in artificial DNA packets in his body, and the body of his ancestors. She had been passed on like a hidden sleeping legacy, forgotten until Jethro had recovered his ancestor's armor and the corps had restored it.

Admiral Irons had helped to waken her fully. Jethro had watched Bast grow from a kitten to an adult, playing host and father all in one. They were bonded, and in combat fought as one on a level only another Cadre member could fully understand and appreciate.

Jethro was one of the 'blood', one of the members of the Cadre like his cousin Letanga who had the gene packets and abilities. They had formed the core, the 'Cadre within the Cadre' that had established, or, as some called it, re-established the Cadre.

"Four, three, two, one... punch it!" a tech said over the net.

He felt a slight kick and then the inertial dampeners in his suit and in the pod kicked in. Then the ride got interesting as he plummeted to the planet.

So far they had lost only 1 drop pod in an exercise. The fatality had well and truly sucked. It was just one of those things though; no one could have predicted a damn flock of geese would get in the way at that moment.

He flexed his hands slightly and watched the view as it began to heat up. He looked up and around and then remembered his duties and checked on the rest of the platoon. He had just enough time to note everyone was okay and on target before the plasma field surrounded his pod and he encountered LOS, Loss Of Signal.

Two minutes might be an eternity in such a situation but he just kept an eye on the stats and the plasma field. They couldn't see anything as the pod re-entered the planet's atmosphere.

It would have been nice to have been launched from Roy Boehm or one of their other dedicated transports but the ships were in the yard getting last minute updates. The pod launch had come from a military station and they hadn't had the kick of an actual drop, something he'd pointed out but had been overruled about.

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