The Price of Honor Read online

Sky took a quick glance at the quad. None of the four exhibited any emotion.

  “Such an alliance is a threat to humanity’s very existence. Until we have shored up our defenses, until we have developed tactics and weaponry that can defeat the Dictymorphs, then to attract them to human space again is beyond foolhardy—it is suicidal. We cannot let the debacle on Purgamentium be repeated on another human world.

  “The Brotherhood, along with our allies, will not allow that to happen. As of this moment forward, we will use any and all methods to stop the transit of any ship, military or civilian, beyond the H2S.”

  There was a murmur and more than a few shouts from the assembly, echoed by those around Sky in the Second Ministry conference room in Pittsburgh. Sky wondered if she heard that correctly. Surely the ambassador couldn’t mean that they would physically stop any human attempting to cross the Human 2 Sphere, the practical boundary of human space.

  “I repeat. As of this moment, no humans will cross the H2S. From the bottom of my heart, I ask you not to test us on this. You will not like the result.

  “Madame Secretary General, I yield back to you,” he said, marching off the dais and continuing on to exit the hall.

  “Order, order!” the secretary general shouted as voices rose in anger and confusion both.

  The Brotherhood ambassador swept up the rest of his delegation in his wake as he left, the smaller delegations of his allies following suit. Within two minutes, they were gone.

  “Are we at war now?” Yelcy asked, his normally forceful voice subdued.

  Damned good question, Sky thought, as she tried to absorb what had just occurred.

  FS TERESA S. GOLDSTEIN

  Chapter 3

  Hondo

  Hondo stared at a spot on the bulkhead over the battalion commander’s head as the man seemed to contemplate what he’d just been told.

  Just say something!

  Hondo was reasonably sure that he’d done what he could during the battle, but his opinion didn’t matter much. It was up to the CO. If he thought Hondo had screwed up, his career was over at best, and he could potentially be facing brig time at worst. He’d become the platoon commander with Lieutenant Singh and Staff Sergeant Callen KIA, after all, and that made everything that happened after the lieutenant died his responsibility.

  Rumor had it that Lieutenant Wilkes-Jung from Charlie Company was under house arrest in her stateroom for her actions on Krakow. No official word had been passed, and it wasn’t as if the non-rates and NCOs could just take a gander into officer territory to check it out, but if the SNCO mafia said it was true, then it probably was.

  “XO, do you have any questions?” he asked Major Jespers.

  “No, sir. We’ve watched the recordings, and Sergeant McKeever has validated them.”

  “You kept your head on your shoulders, Sergeant,” the CO said, and Hondo felt the first stirrings of relief. “I couldn’t ask for more than that. Before I let you go, though, is there anyone you think deserves a commendation?”

  Hondo broke his posture, glancing first at Captain Ariç, his company commander. Recommending awards up the chain was her prerogative, not a squad leader’s. The captain gave him an almost imperceptible nod, so he looked back at the CO who was waiting for his response.

  “PFC Pickerul, sir. Without her, the Malakh could have taken out more of us.”

  The CO nodded, saying, “Pickerul it is, then.”

  He gave a quick glance to the XO, and Hondo realized that he’d already made that decision. The commanding officer was just testing him. Pickerul was an obvious choice, good for a BC Three, at least. Maybe a Bronze Star. But there was somebody else, and Hondo knew the CO didn’t know the entire story surrounding that.

  “There’s someone else, sir,” Hondo said as the CO raised his eyebrows.

  I knew you weren’t expecting me to say that. You thought Pickerul was it.

  “And who is that?”

  “Gilead Conroy, sir.”

  “Conroy? From the armory?” he asked, clearly puzzled.

  “Yes, sir. Conroy.”

  The CO looked up at the XO, his brow scrunched up.

  He shook his head, then said, “I’m not sure what you’re getting at. I know he suited up, which was quite unusual, but I hardly saw him do anything extraordinary. Can you explain yourself, Sergeant?”

  “Sir, it isn’t that he did something above and beyond what a Marine would do, but he did go above and beyond what a civilian does. He stood alongside Marines in combat, and he did his duty.”

  “As all of you did.”

  Shit, he’s not getting my point. Focus, Hondo!

  He took a breath, then tried another tack. “Sir, you need to know something. Gilead has wanted to be a Marine all his life, only he never made the cut. He was never good enough. Even now, with the draft, he can’t enlist because he’s in a vital civilian billet. He’s stuck working for us, but never being one of us. Never being good enough to be one of us.”

  “But he’s serving a vital billet, as you say. And if he wasn’t good enough to make the cut before, then he’s serving the Federation the best he can as an armor tech.”

  “Maybe, sir. But with the draft, he’d make the cut now. More than that, without even going to boot, without ITC, he pulled his weight. He stood by us when the shi . . . uh, when everything was going down, sir. And for my squad and me, that’s what counts. He’s got what it takes, sir,” he said, his voice rising with passion.

  The CO took a long, hard look at him.

  Oh, fuck. I’m standing here lecturing a lieutenant colonel. You freaking idiot!

  “Sergeant Major, what do you think?” the CO asked.

  “Well, sir, I be thinking that it’s what’s in a man’s heart that counts. If Conroy’s got the drive to be a Marine, and if Sergeant McKeever be vouching for him, then I’d be partial to letting him try.”

  The CO sat for a moment while he contemplated what had been said before asking Hondo, “How old is he?”

  “Twenty-five, sir, well under the cut-off.”

  “XO, do I even have the authority for that?”

  “Technically, no. That would be the director of Manpower. But if you put in the request, it should be a rubber stamp all the way up.”

  “And Conroy really wants this?” he asked Hondo.

  “Yes, sir. He’s said it enough times.”

  “Sergeant Major, get him in to see me. If he tells me he wants it, then let’s make it happen. Anything else, Sergeant McKeever? Anyone else you need to champion?”

  “No, sir. That’s it.”

  “Thank God for small favors. If that’s all, you’re dismissed.”

  Hondo came to attention, did a recruit depot about-face, and marched out of the office. Half a dozen Marines were waiting in the passageway, and they all jumped up as he made his appearance.

  “How was it?” Staff Sergeant Anderson from Bravo asked.

  “No big thing, Staff Sergeant. He just wanted to get my take on things.”

  Hondo marched down the passage to the ladder leading out of officer country feeling good. Pickerul deserved an award, and Conroy deserved a chance at becoming a Marine.

  That son-of-a-bitch better not have been bullshitting us all this time about wanting it, he told himself as he made his way to berthing to give him the news. Nah, he does. And if somehow he doesn’t, the rest of us will make sure he goes anyway. Ooh-rah, Recruit Conroy!

  AEGIS 2

  Chapter 4

  Hondo

  “Get us another round, Poolee!” Pickerul shouted, already feeling quite good and planning on feeling even more so.

  Gilead Conroy, with his orders to report to the recruit depot on Tarawa, jumped up, a huge smile on his face, ready to do her bidding. He didn’t care that Pickerul was four years younger than he was, that as a poolee, he was lower than dirt to the three dozen Marines who’d shown up at his farewell party. He also didn’t seem to care that he was paying for the open bar. He was going to be a Mari
ne.

  Hondo needn’t have been concerned about his really wanting to be a Marine. The tech had lit up like the casinos on New Macau when he’d been given the news. Within two weeks, the orders had come in. It was a done deal. Now, he just had to get though boot camp, and he’d be one of the few.

  He had his work cut out for him. With only two weeks of poolee training, run by Wolf, there’d been no time to whip him into shape. The Egg’s blistering hot temperatures had something to do with that, but still, physical fitness was not Conroy’s strong suit.

  “Think he’ll make it?” Cara Riordan asked Hondo, as she watched Condor run to the keg.

  “Yeah, I think he will,” he told his fellow squad leader. “He may be a little soft, but he’s got some steel in him.”

  “Steel? I don’t think so,” she said with a soft laugh.

  “No, not physically, but mentally. He might get recycled, but he’ll stick with it.” He took a sip of his beer, then asked, “So, what scoop do you have on the new lieutenant?”

  As the platoon’s senior sergeant, she’d been acting platoon sergeant, and she had access to more than Hondo had. That, plus the fact that one of the admin staff at headquarters battalion had a crush on her, gave her an inside leg on getting the intel.

  Cara looked around at the others, then leaned in to quietly say, “Not much. Only two years in the trenches, then the Academy. No combat experience. Graduated high in both the Academy and NTC.”

  Hondo grimaced. The Academy was generally for the hard-chargers, the ones with stars in their eyes. That could be a detriment. If they were so intent on climbing the ladder to the top, then they tended to take risks in order to cover themselves with glory. All of the Academy officers were intelligent, but some were plain stupid as well. The recently departed Lieutenant Wilkes-Jung wasn’t a ring-knocker, but he had that succeed-at-all-costs attitude, and that had cost the lives of eight good Marines on Krakow.

  “Well, we’ll just have to see. Any word on a new platoon sergeant?”

  “Nothing yet, so you’re still stuck with me.”

  Hondo just rolled his eyes. It might be better if Cara stayed in the billet. They may be back in garrison, but they’d be back in the mix before long, and having both a new platoon commander and a new platoon sergeant at the same time could pose a problem.

  Conroy came back with two pitchers, and Antman called out, “Hey, Poolee, how much do you make as an armor tech?”

  Conroy hesitated, then said, “About Fifty kay.”

  “Do you know how much a recruit gets paid? Four-point-three kay. So, you better have something saved up.”

  There were hoots and hollers, and Conroy stepped up to bat with, “I’ve got more than enough saved up, and I’ll have plenty of places to spend it on Tarawa, not like you poor sucks here on the Egg.”

  “Oh, now he’s done it,” Cara said.

  “Oh, you think so? You think Tarawa’s going to be a fucking vacation? You’re going to boot camp, Poolee. You ain’t going out in town in your free time because there’s no fucking free time there!”

  Several foam cups flew through the air to hit the poolee, two still containing beer.

  “Alcohol abuse,” someone dutifully shouted as the beer spilled on the deck.

  Conroy stared at Antman, then said, “In the one afternoon I’ll have off after graduating, there’ll be more places to spend my money on within a hundred meters of the main gate than here on the Asshole of the Federation.”

  “Not a bad burn,” Hondo told Cara.

  “That’s if you make it, Poolee,” Antman said, but Hondo could see he knew he’d been beaten. Several of the others pounded Conroy on the back, and Pickerul even stood to bump elbows.

  “Not entirely true. Almost, but not entirely,” Cara said.

  “Close enough for government work.”

  Aegis 2, “The Egg,” had earned the nickname of Asshole of the Federation. A valuable source of rare earths and other minerals, the planet was barely terraformed, had horribly hot weather, and an almost complete lack of social amenities. Other than the mining conglomerates scattered around the planet, the Federation governor’s office and the 13th Marines were the major sources of employment here in the capital. There were a few dives and shops clustered around the camp selling 15-credit beer and souvenirs, but most of their time was spent on base where the beer and cider were cold and cost five credits.

  “Hey, Corporal Takimora, take note of the poolee. I’ll want just as much to drink next week,” Sergeant Falt Wiscombe shouted, lifting his now-full cup.

  Wolf put his arms around his fellow team leader and said, “Sure you want to take that promotion? Leave us and all that? I’m sure you can still turn down sergeant and stay with us.”

  “Fucking-A right I’m taking it. Get rid of all you losers,” he said, pulling Wolf into a headlock and rubbing his friend’s head with his knuckles.

  “That’s right. You’re going to need a new team leader with Taki gone,” Cara said to Hondo. “Have they told you who’s coming in?”

  He shrugged. With Takimora making sergeant and no squad leader openings in the platoon, he was being transferred to Bravo Company’s Third Platoon. The corporal had the makings of a good NCO, but Hondo had never bonded with him as he had with Wolf and Ling. First Sergeant Nordstrand had promised him another corporal to take over the team, but as of yet, no one had been designated by name.

  Hondo took a moment to gaze out over the Marines. A month ago, they’d been thrust into combat. They’d lost friends, but they’d kicked ass against a prepared opponent. Now they were sending one of their own—Conroy had earned that designation—off to Tarawa. They were happy, he realized. Sitting in the E-Club on the Asshole of the Federation, fighting Grubs on Purgamentium, or simply getting through recruit training on Tarawa, all of it melded into the blood and steel that made up the Corps.

  There was little doubt in Hondo’s mind that soon, he’d be going into combat with them again, and this time he wanted to be prepared. They had a new lieutenant, and it was the NCO and SNCOs’ job to train him. It was Hondo’s job to train his squad. They had to be ready for whatever was thrown at them, be it the Grubs or, if things kept going on the way they were, the Brotherhood alliance. That sucked when the Grubs were a real threat, but Hondo had no control over that.

  The new lieutenant was arriving the day after tomorrow, and Cara had already turned in the training plan for the week. They were going out into the field to snap him in, and Hondo had a feeling the platoon wasn’t going to come up for air for a long, long time.

  That left tonight and tomorrow. He emptied his stein, snagged one of Conroy’s half-emptied pitchers, and asked Cara, “Buy you a beer, Acting Platoon Sergeant Riordan?”

  EARTH

  Chapter 5

  Skylar

  The Klethos warrior rose from the shallow gully and charged the Dictymorph from the flank, managing to drive its pike deep into the creature’s side. The massive beast reared up and twisted to face its tormentor, its pseudopods coming together to emit a powerful light tendril that dropped the Klethos to the ground.

  By rearing up, however, it exposed its underside, and three soldiers let loose with their flamethrowers, the sticky fuel adhering to it while it burned at close to 1100 C°. More tendrils of light reached out, but incoherently, not targeting Marines nor Klethos as the Dictymorph writhed its death dance.

  As if attracted by the soldier’s flame throwers, tendrils of light zigzagged and splashed the three Marines, outlining their PICS in a white-blue glow. One soldier managed to bolt to the side, breaking contact, but the other two seemed ensnared while the light broke through their PICS’ shielding. It didn’t take long. Within a few moments, the Marines were lost.

  Sky didn’t see the two soldiers die—she turned away at the last second, but the murmurs from the people in the conference room told the story. She’d been glued to her seat for over 12 hours now, not being able to do anything about the disaster on K-932, but unable
to leave. That would seem too much like abandoning the Confederation legion that had joined the Klethos in battling the Dictymorphs on the planet.

  It wasn’t going well. The Klethos had held, despite significant casualties, against the first wave of invaders, and when the legion arrived to reinforce them, the alliance had begun to gain the upper hand. Then another wave of Dictymorphs arrived, turning the tables, and now, the legionnaires were on the run. Fewer than a thousand of them and perhaps a hundred Klethos were left on the planet to oppose an equal number of the enemy.

  This was the first time the Dictymorphs had added new fighters, reinforcing a fight, but then again, it seemed that they were revealing something new for every fight. According to their Klethos liaison quad, the Dictymorphs hadn’t changed their tactics during their long conflict with them. Enter the humans, with their reliance on tactics, and the Dictymorphs were replying in kind, adjusting to a more coordinated form of warfare.

  “Any news on the standoff in IA200?” she asked Commander Throckmorton.

  The commander had been awake longer than Sky, and he turned a haggard face to her and said, “Nothing. The task force is dead-in-space, waiting for orders.”

  “What do you think they’re going to do? I mean, those legionnaires won’t last much longer.”

  “I don’t have a fucking clue,” the exhausted commander said, then added, “Sorry about the language, ma’am.”

  She could see the commander was dead on his feet, and she didn’t care if he threw in a fuck or two. What she did care about was whether the task force, six ships and over 9,000 Marines, would be allowed to proceed and rescue anyone who managed to survive long enough for them to get there.

  And that number was rapidly dwindling.

  What stood in the way was a Brotherhood task force. The Federation ships were mostly transports, while the Brotherhood task force was formed around a dreadnaught. If it came to a fight, the Federation ships wouldn’t stand much of a chance.

  She also realized that they couldn’t risk those 9,000 Marines to that dreadnaught.