Read Online Con-Red: Recourse by Max Feinstein - Free Book Online

formed along the rounded rear of the craft.  It quickly grew deeper and wider just before the entire rear opened up in either direction, as the alloy structure dematerialized.  Once the opening was large enough a ramp extended out and from this ramp jumped down two other soldiers, Gunnery Sergeant Katherine ‘Cat’ Questok and Sergeant Hovnik ‘Broke’ Zawelak, followed by a large cargo container.  The container dropped almost a meter before slowing itself down and softly settling onto the snow covered ground.
    Behind the drop container hurried four army combat engineers, following the two heavily armed Marines that preceded the container.  All of the marines seemed to carry themselves noticeably different than the engineers and even though one could not see their faces behind the helmets they wore, an aura of experience and confidence filled the air.  One of these marines was different from the others, however.  This particular marine commanded the full respect and loyalty of the others.  He also had a small hatchet etched into the side of his combat helmet.
    Lt. Colonel Duntan “Chief” Slaige landed in the packed snow with a half crouch just behind the four combat engineers.  He quickly moved out of the way and made room for the rest of his team to drop in behind him.  With his sophisticated heads up display, Chief didn’t even have to look around to make sure Echo team was where they were supposed to be.  Having done this many times before the entire team deployed throughout the immediate area without a single word from Captain Malory ‘Stripes’ Porter, their actual CO.  She jumped down closely beside him and quickly moved off through the snow to oversee her team.
    With the help of the overlaid map of the outcropping being projected in from of his eyes, Duntan was able to monitor every member of the team.  With just a quick thought he was able to change the entire HUD to display whatever he wished.  Another thought and the map disappeared just as soon as he got the information he needed.  As he expected from these elite troopers, everyone was where they should be, a testament to the fact that they had been doing this repetitive task for almost five hours now.  At this point he had actually been with Echo Team for over two weeks, ever since choosing to participate with them in their mountain exercises.  It had actually started off as a personal outing to get away from the rather mundane life as the Commanding Officer of 2 nd Battalion, 603 rd Marine Special Operations Regiment and now he was cut off from his entire Battalion by some sort of planetary communications blackout.
    To Duntan Slaige, a man of over thirty years within the Corp, this was just another challenge.  He had learned long ago that one should not obsess over the things that could not be fully control controlled, but instead to focus on those that he could, such as the current mission at hand.  Even seemingly routine missions such as this had tremendous purpose and posed certain risks in wartime conditions, such as they all found themselves in now.  Every member of the team knew that without completion of this task, fighting whoever had attacked them would be almost impossible as the United Planets Federation military forces were spread throughout this continent of Telfor and relied on a solid communication network to function properly.  Without communications, each unit was on their own and could no longer coordinate any defensive or offense operations.  It was not to say that each unit was not a competent fighting force by themselves, but they were much more effective when cooperating with other support units such as artillery and air support.
    The Colonel noted the difference between his Marine Corp and the UPF Army forces with a hint of smugness.  Marines were a completely different breed of soldier and had been for centuries now.  They all trained to fight on their own from the start because their missions often found