The Infinity Brigade #1 Stone Cold Read Online Free PDF

them fifty.  Later I spoke with JJ and encouraged him, in the future, to keep his thoughts to himself. I would learn over the course of many years of enduring friendship that this was, at best, a forlorn hope.
    The safety equipment turned out to be a Mark Three sealable breather. It was what the Marines were using for gas masks these days. We were shown how to don the mask and instructed to do so. At this point, the Drills walked out of the classroom and sealed the door hatch.
    A white smoke-like vapor filled the room. I knew from being on the wrong side of the law on several occasions that this was CS gas… chlorobenzylidene malonitrile. It was not lethal but you didn’t want to breathe it. All of a sudden the steak dinner made much more sense. You sadistic bastards , I thought to myself.  I forced myself to carefully hyperventilate. The idea was to get as much clean air into my system as I could because if my guess was right we would be taking our breathers off soon.
    I hate it when I’m right. Of course Jesus had failed to properly seal his mask so he was already choking on the burning fumes. Based on the number of other people gaging I knew he was not alone.
    “Use your hands to push your mask into place” I yelled. “Then exhale as hard as you can to clear the mask.”
    I needn’t have bothered. The next words we heard were “Remove your masks!”
    ***
    I spent the next several days learning what it was to be responsible for more than just myself. I have to say, being the guy in charge is highly overrated.
    We were scheduled for our first live weapons training this week. To get us ready for this august event, we needed to make a trip through medical. The purpose of this visit was to get a basic commlink embedded near the base of our skull and at the same time receive our initial load of combat nanites. These nanites would interface with both our newly implanted commlinks as well as the weapons we would be issued.
    Another, perhaps even more important function of these nanites, was the fact that they were programmed to keep us alive… or at very least revivable… in the case of injury. I was a big fan of this aspect of my new little buddies because as I got to know the soldiers under my nominal command I came to realize it would be a while before I trusted them with live weapons.
    Corporal Ramirez was a prime example of what I was concerned about. The man was a mountain of meat. He was a sure shot with a laser-tag rifle. If Vancouver or Hollywood put out a casting call for a Marine to play Lewis Burwell Puller, a.k.a. ‘Chesty’, in a new holovid… Ramirez would be the guy they cast. But hand the man grenade, even a fake one, and all hell broke loose.
    He dropped the first one after pulling the pin. The second time around he managed to hold onto the grenade… and threw the pin. The third and final time around he managed to throw the grenade with everything he had. The grenade flew in generally the right direction before hitting a rock with so much force that it bounced and rolled most of the way back to the dugout we were throwing from. Had any of these been a live grenade the very least we would have had to deal with was a set of busted eardrums. I needed to make sure my guys and gals had a full load of medical nanites in them if they were going to be around Ramirez.
    As the Acting Officer in Charge of our training platoon it was my responsibility to get each of my soldiers to medical; while at the same time insuring that our platoon fulfilled its various training missions. The Drill Sergeants on the other hand seemed intent on making the situation impossible.
    I was told that I could split my platoon up but that each group would need to have one NCO. Since I only had one sergeant and one corporal that meant I could only have two groups. It seemed simple enough.
    I split the platoon into two squads. Acting Sergeant JJ Hammond took half the recruits which worked out to eight guys and six gals. Corporal