The Cresperian Alliance Read Online Free PDF Page A

tumbled boulders and wild seas this time of year. He felt himself tense up when they were told the area would be bombed if they weren't out of there within the specified time. Then came the announcement from Colonel Chadwick, the Space Marines commander, and also commander of Operation Cavalry. “This is one hairy-ass ape of a mission. I'm giving any of you a chance to bow out if you like. If you wish to withdraw, leave now."
    Everyone sat tight, including him. For a chance to rescue some aliens he'd damn near cut his own throat. This would be something to tell his grandkids about, if he lived to have grandchildren.
    "All right. Questions?"
    His own lieutenant stood up. Hank Anderson, he thought his name was. “Hand” for short. Damn! Scary when you don't know the names of the men in your own unit and you're going out to do or die with them. He felt pretty sure the other men must be feeling much the same as he did.
    "Sir. Platoon White Horse commander, sir. Sir, are you allowed to tell us the story here? I mean, the Brits are supposed to be allies, I thought. What have they been doing to the aliens?"
    "That part is classified, Anderson. I don't know myself. Intelligence information; you know how compartmentalized that is. I can tell you that the powers that be in the country have refused to cooperate with us on the matter of the aliens. They've promised and promised to allow us access to them but never have. Unofficially, the aliens have also been mistreated but again, I can't tell you more because I don't know. They are also being forced to provide... services... for high ranking members of the government, or so we believe. Just keep the mission objectives in sight. Number one, protect our own Cresperian, Sira here, at all costs. Number two, bring the three Cresperians being held in that compound out at all costs. In both cases, their lives are much more important than ours. And both are to be done within the specified time from the moment of drop."
    Anderson nodded and sat down, looking grimmer than he had previously.
    "And now,” Chadwick added, “I'm going to let one of our own Cresperians speak before we get back to the specifics of Operation White Horse."
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Chapter 3
    "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.” Sira smiled at the group as she took the podium. “My name is Sira Whitman. I am a Cresperian, an alien from outer space. A BEM, if you will. For those of you who don't read science fiction, BEM is the classic acronym for Bug Eyed Monster. As you may notice, I don't quite fit the description."
    Bangler laughed along with everyone else.
    "If she's an alien, I want to marry one,” Corporal Jan Wersky, in the seat beside him, whispered. He was a big ugly blond man of Polish ancestry, fiercely loyal to his friends and a force to be reckoned with to his enemies. He would be carrying the heavy machine gun for Bangler's squad.
    "Here's what we look like in our natural form, so to speak,” Sira said, pointing unnecessarily at the big screen overhead. It flashed into color and held an image that at first looked like a tall, scaled four armed lizard being with a flat face instead of a snout, set in a pyramidal head. Then the scene was zoomed in and Bangler could see that what he'd taken for hide or scales was instead a pelt of short sleek hair colored as lime green as the little garden lizards he'd seen all his life. Strangely, up close the being didn't look nearly as scary to him. The big bifurcated oval green eyes exuded intelligence, wisdom, and experience. “That is, or was, my opposite number in a family triad, the male. His name was Cntlinith. He... did not survive.” She paused momentarily, perhaps remembering him, he thought. “All three of the sexes look much alike and I doubt any of you could tell the difference, so don't try. But if you ever have occasion to learn Cresperian, you'll find that the suffixes on our names denote our genders. However, relative to the task at hand, I