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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