Indomitable Read Online Free PDF Page B

treat a Mandrake BC right, and warm her up proper, she’ll get you to your next waypoint in one piece, and boot you out the airlock with your seabag and a smile.
    A two-tone sounded in the colonel’s mastoid implant, at the same time that a tiny vessel emerged from the bowels of the Kearsarge.
    â€œYes.”
    A pleasant, confident-sounding soprano replied. Halvorsen heard the wry humor in her voice. “Colonel, she’s launching now. ETA—seventeen mikes.”
    â€œPerfect timing, First Sergeant. I’m watching Lieutenant Paen’s LAC as we speak.”
    â€œUnderstood, sir. The holotank is queued and the caf is hot.”
    â€œExcellent, Samantha. I’ll be up in ten.”
    Halvorsen chewed his lip as he mentally reviewed his agenda for today’s meeting with Charlie Battalion’s company commanders. Charlie BAT hadn’t operated at the battalion echelon for the past two standard years, largely because of the manpower shortages being felt across the Republic of Aligned Worlds. Too many member worlds kept demanding stronger system pickets and Marine contingents to defend them. The protectorates and countless allies kept screaming about the ever-present threat of piracy and homegrown terrorists. The RAW’s chief rival in this part of the ’verse, the Lusitanian Empire or LE, kept provoking the Republic while carefully avoiding all-out war. The Corps had done its best to cope by spreading its assets across the ’verse.
    We need more time, he thought. Charlie Battalion isn’t ready.
    His company commanders sorted neatly into the “knowns” and “unknowns.” He had high confidence in three of them. Captain Lili Chen and Captain Ffyn Spears were veterans and good friends. Spears had commanded Victor Company before getting seriously wounded on Montana. First Lieutenant Nia Massillon was a newly promoted company CO, and she’d reported for duty with glowing letters of recommendation from several officers he’d personally served with, women and men he would gladly entrust his life to. Then there was Victor Company, which was a virgin-green mess. The company’s overall lack of experience didn’t overly concern him. All boots had to start somewhere. But Victor Company’s CO troubled him deeply. She was a highly decorated maverick who’d blazed in-system to her last post, won her battlefield commission with questionable heroics, and nearly gotten her first command obliterated. Scuttlebutt said First Lieutenant Promise T. Paen was an unbalanced, unbridled, good-as-get-you-killed mustang, and he wanted nothing to do with her.
    Yeah, but BUMED green-lit her for active duty. That counts for something … even though she deployed with forty wolves and returned with over thirty in body bags. She must have a high-and-mighty rabbi somewhere in the hallowed halls of BUPERS. That or we’re desperate for boots.
    Lieutenant Paen was the colonel’s only “known unknown.” Paen had deployed to the planet Montana as a platoon sergeant in Victor Company. She was field-promoted when her captain was killed and Lieutenant Spears—now Captain Spears—was wounded in a confrontation with a mess of pirates. After that, Paen had squared off with a Lusitanian commodore named Samuelson, a light task force of Imperial cruisers, and a full-strength battalion of Imperial shock troops over Montana’s pile of sand. On paper the Lusies should have won and Paen should have surrendered instead of fight it out. Instead, Lieutenant Paen had bled and bluffed her way to a truce at the expense of her command. She’d nearly gotten every one of her Marines killed.
    And now I get to meet the infamous Lieutenant Promise Paen. Perfect.
    The colonel hit the head and doused icy water on his face. He pushed up the sleeve of his blouse, changed his A-patch, and righted his trousers. His short-waist jacket fit squarely across his broad shoulders.