Sergeant Paxton “Pax” Alejo is out on a sniper mission. He’s the spotter for his sniper team member PFC Rachel Josiah. They are out after a terrorist which is something different than they are used to doing. Human’s have for some unknow reason, probably for money, have turned traitor and are inclusion with the alien Tucanans. They have been informing the Tucanans about human troop movements and one was the cause for the recent destruction of the Undead Marines home base. Intel was working fast and furious to find and eliminate these traitors.
Pax didn’t mind doing his mision. That’s what he was trained to do, but he hadn’t been in a position to actually kill another human in a long time. Still was in no position to question his orders so he did his job to the best of his ability. And on this particular mission, his sniper team was to take out a high value target (HVT) from a distance. Pax’s AI built into his binoculars could give him percentage confirmation on whether the person he was looking at was indeed their HVT, Pax wasn’t get a lot of real solid looks. They had also been on this mission for days, laying wait for their target to show. Finally, Pax saw something different arriving at a small house under observation. The person that got out of the vehicle appeared to be a woman. She went into the house and then came back out just a moment later. Pax believed this was his HVT even though he was dressed as a woman. So he told the PFC to take the shot which she did. The Pax noted another male accompaning who he thought was the target, but he quickly realized they had switch closes and disguises. So, he told the PFC to shot the male standing next to what he had thought was his HVT.
Once both targets were down, they hightailed it back to thier safe house and waited a couple of days before getting picked up and taken back to their base camp. Intel had confirmed that the second male they shot was indeed their HVT. Pax was a little uncomfortable with the fact that they had shot someone else also, but that person was associated with terrorist and traitors so he/she was one and got what he/she deserved.
Back at the company area, he met up with Staff Sergeant Link who had just gone through his fourth reanimation. Pax was concerned about the effects of repeated reanimation on their brains. It was known that it was slightly detremental each time it was done although significant work had been done to less this side-effect. Staff Sergeant Link just happened to be the only Marine who had been brought back four times so Pax and others were interested in how he was functioning and feeling. Pax was relieved when Link appeared to be fully recovered and functioning like before. Pax realized that he had been reanimated three times so he was just one behind Link and wasn’t looking to die again.
So on to the next mission. They were ordered to *Luck Gold Station* which pleased the Undead Marines. They hadn’t been to a planet or a real station in quite awhile. They were going in as a routine shipping company moving cargo from their ship, the *Calico Mistress*, to the station just like any other shipping company. Once they made thier delivery they were told to return in a couple of hours to pick up something for their ship. Delighted that they had some free time to explore the station, Pax and his best friend, Olivia did just that.
They eventually left *Lucky Gold Station* and got some insight on their next real mission. It was to go after traitors/terrorist again. This time they were going as Norco Security contractors which were usually considered merceanries, but were plenty full on the planet they were targeting. They even changed to a different ship, the *MMSS Wunderbar III* to further their disguise and fit in with the routine scenario for the planet. They were to attack and secure a factory/warehouse facility on the planet that was thought to be a stonghold for human terrorist. Most of the Undead Marines couldn’t handle the idea that humans would turn on their own and side with the Tucanans for any reason. But, they thought money was the most obviouse reason.
The raid went pretty much according to plan. Once the terrorist found out they were out gunned, most started to surrender. Pax and the other Undead Marines had a chance to check out some of the stuff stored in this warehouse. Whatever the Tucanans were paying these traitors, it was good money because the goods stored here were high quality, very expensive stuff. But, Pax had an encounter with one group of captured terrorist and when Pax mentioned they were headed for a minewipe usually done on traitors, one of they guys started yelling that he wasn’t a traitor nor a terrorist, but just a smuggler doing a job. Pax didn’t really buy his story, but he kept repeating the same thing over and so do many others of their captives. They didn’t seem to understand why they were being thought of as terrorist or traitors.
Still, they wrapped up this mission and got back aboard the *Calico Mistress*. He couldn’t sleep very well knowing that he might have accused some innocent people of doing something far worse than they thought they were doing. They were criminals, no doubt about that, but were they really terrorist/traitors and did they deserve to be summarily mindwiped? Pax didn’t know so he went to his Captain to see if she would discuss it with him.
What follows puts Sergeant Pax Alejo in something of a difficult situation. He didn’t mind killing Tucanans, they were the alien enemy, but he wasn’t so sure about any humans who were supposed to be in league with them. He knew that military intelligence had failed more than once to provide good or even reliable mission intel. What if they had gotten this wrong the last time? It wasn’t the military’s job to arrest smugglers and they couldn’t go about shooting civilians who were just involved in criminal activities. This really bother Pax and his Captain seemed to have the same reservations, but she told him to keep it to himself and she’d try to get more on this from higher HQ.
So Pax continued on with his mission which fortunately involves fighting more Tucanans and not humans. Pax even gets shot by a clerk Tucanan and he doesn’t know if he’s ever going to live that down. It would be just like his fellow Undead Marines to rib him forever for this careless mistake when he shouldn’t have even been in the situation that got him killed.
Ok, so this is turning into a pretty good series, but the Undead Marines supposedly only have eight lives. Pax is about half way there now so he’s going to be worried. More missions will come in book 4, “Marine Corpse”, now avialabe on Amazon.