Fire Base (Drop Trooper Book 6), page 25
“He was recruited by the CSF first,” Top explained.
“And since Fleet Intell was keeping an eye on the CSF,” Ogbah said, “and since we’d already brought in Sgt-Major Campbell and she knew him, she approached him about working for us.”
“He’d never wanted to get out to begin with,” Top said. “Plus, he’d be double-dipping salary-wise. He didn’t take much convincing.”
“The artifact being on the very world you wound up on, really was a coincidence,” Ogbah said. “Luck of the draw.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, not sure if I believed him. “Luck.”
“You saw what one of those artifacts can do,” Hachette said, steering the conversation back to the path. “You know what would happen if Zan-Thint sets the Skrela loose inside the Commonwealth. We have to find him and stop him, and the CSF has better sources than we do, as loathe as I am to admit it.”
“You want us to go back to the CSF,” Vicky declared, catching on faster than I had. “You want us to be your spies.”
“For the moment,” Top interjected. “Wade is going to be laid up for at least a couple weeks, maybe longer. And even when he’s up and around, the leg replacement would be obvious to CSF scanners the second they put him through a medical checkup. We need you to get Chief Inspector Dukanovic to trust you until we get a solid line on where Zan-Thint is hiding that last artifact. The minute you have it, we pull you out and you join Wade and the rest of us and take him and his army down once and for all.”
“Get her to trust us!” Vicky repeated. “How the hell are we going to do that?”
“Our people on the ground are salvaging some of the remains of the Skrela creatures and their machinery,” Hachette explained. “You’ll give her those and some carefully-doctored footage from your suit gun cameras to show her what happened. It’ll also show the untimely passing of one Wade Cunningham.”
“God rest his soul,” Top murmured, the corner of her mouth turning up.
“There’s two problems with that,” I pointed out, pieces coming together in my head as I considered the idea. “And the first one is Ruthie Amendola. She’s been sitting there on the Yantar in orbit, watching the Orion launch orbital strikes on Bathala City. Assuming she hasn’t just bugged out back to the CSF base and told them about it already.”
“Ruthie Amendola,” Ogbah told me, smiling almost apologetically, “works for us.”
“The hell you say!” Vicky exclaimed.
“Amazingly enough,” Top pointed out, “most of the veterans who wind up working for the CSF really wanted to stay in the service if given the choice. And when we give them the choice, well….”
Shit. Of course. Top wouldn’t leave something like that to chance and neither would this Colonel Hachette. If Ruthie weren’t playing ball with them, they would have already killed her.
“She’s the one who relayed the signal to us from Cunningham,” Ogbah went on. He cocked his head at me. “And the other problem?”
“The other problem,” I told him, “is that neither of us….” I gestured between Vicky and me. “…is any sort of spy. We were barely able to pass ourselves off as mercenaries to Mama Bindy, and she was just a small-time crime boss. Dukanovic is a professional.”
“And you, Lt. Alvarez,” Hachette countered, “spent your formative years lying to criminals who had no reason to trust you, and managed to stay alive. I don’t doubt your ability to do the same thing now.”
I rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands, hoping once I pulled them away, I’d find out this was all some horrible nightmare. Instead, I saw Vicky smirking at me.
“What?”
“You know what,” she said, nudging my elbow. “I know you think we never should have got out of the Corps. Here’s our chance to get back in and still serve together.”
“And die together,” I added, staring at her in disbelief.
“Would you rather go out doing something important?” she asked me. “Or sit on the porch and drink yourself to death out of boredom?”
And she wouldn’t have asked me the question if she hadn’t already known the answer. I could never lie to Vicky.
“God help us,” I sighed. Top was still smiling and I wanted to punch it right off her face. I didn’t, of course, because she could have killed me with her little finger and not broken a sweat.
“All right.” The words came out like the reading of a last will and testament. “Sign us up.”
WHAT’S NEXT IN THE SERIES?
CONTACT FRONT
KINETIC STRIKE
DANGER CLOSE
DIRECT FIRE
HOME FRONT
FIRE BASE
SHOCK ACTION
Also by Rick Partlow
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About Rick Partlow
RICK PARTLOW is that rarest of species, a native Floridian. Born in Tampa, he attended Florida Southern College and graduated with a degree in History and a commission in the US Army as an Infantry officer.
His lifelong love of science fiction began with Have Space Suit---Will Travel and the other Heinlein juveniles and traveled through Clifford Simak, Asimov, Clarke and on to William Gibson, Walter Jon Williams and Peter F Hamilton. And somewhere, submerged in the worlds of others, Rick began to create his own worlds.
He has written a ton of books in many different series, and his short stories have been included in seven different anthologies.
He currently lives in central Florida with his wife, two children and a willful mutt of a dog. Besides writing and reading science fiction and fantasy, he enjoys outdoor photography, hiking and camping.
www.rickpartlow.com
Rick Partlow, Fire Base (Drop Trooper Book 6)
