This is kind of a weird book. We’re in the far future where Earth has colonized various planets and those planets have created their own military forces for the most part. Then the aliens began attacking and humanity had to start concentrating on defending several planets at a time. Sergeant Paxton Alejo is a Legion of Humanity Marine, but he’s no ordinary Marine. He’s got himself through several, four in fact, very hard and difficult operator training courses where most Marines don’t make it through one such course. He’s earned the nickname “Q B” or Quad-Bod since he made it through those demanding courses and now he’s fighting for his life.
The Tucanans are the aliens taking over human planets at an alarming rate. Sometimes they land enforce and completely overwhelm any local military forces. The “Tucs” know how to fight and fight well. They look like giant Earth centipedes. They were armored and very hard to kill. Right now, Sergeant Alejo was with a small contingent of Boracay militiamen who were actually just young guys who were rounded up and given a weapon to fight the Tucs. They had very little training but Sgt. Alejo didn’t have the time to get them up to speed. Right now this small unit was about to get overrun so he told them to start hightailing it to the rear.
Sgt. Alejo had a strong sense of duty. He knew these militiamen weren’t well trained but his duty was to fight the Tucs and help this planet stave off this Tucanan Horde. He also thought there was a point when you fled the field of battle so you could fight another day. But, he was going to make sure his troops were recovered at the RP one way or another. Sgt. Alejo hadn’t counted on a large than expected attack by more Tucs just when his troops and he were about to be picked up. Someone had to stay and cover to the last man. That someone turned out to be Sgt. Patton Alejo. He was killed in action (KIA) saving the lives of several Boracay militiamen.
Now here’s where the story begins. Sgt. Alejo awakes in a military hospital but not the kind he was familiar with. There was something different going on and he wasn’t sure what. He was on a hospital bed and wired up to some machines, but he could see clearly and his head was a little fuzzy. His eyesight finally cleared so he could look around. He spotted a certificate standing on his nightstand. As he read it, he found that he had been awarded the Cross of Honor which was one of the highest honors awarded to League of Humanity military. Then he read in fine print the words, “awarded posthumously”! How could this be? He was alive, wasn’t he?
Shortly, a woman in a dark suit along with a doctor arrived. The doctor began checking some of the readings on a monitor attached to Pax’s bed. He was mumbling to himself and eventually said everything was looking good. Then the woman in the black suit identified herself as a lawyer and went on to state that Sergeant Paxton Alejo, LoH Marine was dead and buried in Cape Town Cemetery of Heroes. He didn’t believe any of what she was saying because he was definitely alive and he knew quite clearly who he was and that was not dead! Then she asked if he had heard of Necromancy. He said he had but that was a long time ago and nothing came of it since it costs way too much to reanimate anything from dead. Well, according to this lawyer, that program or one similar was not operating and Paxton was a part of it. He had been resurrected because of his extensive military skills and there were a lot of other Marines mostly that had gone through the same process. But now they were legally know by a designator. Pax was now AS04999! The lawyer explained that since he was dead, he had no legal rights and was not considered a person any longer.
So now you’ll find out that Sergeant Paxton Alejo is still going to be an LoH Marine and he was going to be in a unit comprised of other LoH Marines but his unit members were from every military known to man. The one common thing among them was that they were all highly skilled special operators and that they had all been killed in action and now brought back to life. They weren’t prisoners, but due to the secrecy required about the program, they were not going to be allowed to mix with the general population. They couldn’t even contact any family members they might have left behind. They were now considered military weapons or tools to be used in humanities fight against the Tucanan. That’s all they were going to do until they died again. And then the process might or might not start all over again.
As you can imagine, this is a strange concept. How or why would a military member that had been killed in action, want to return to that same deadly situation after getting a new lease on life? Well, these military people were hight dedicated to their service and duty. Most, like Paxton, had sworn an oath to defend humanity and he considered that oath still binding. Yet, to be considered as a non-living person with no rights wasn’t something that would go over very well with him or his fellow Marines. In this book, you’ll be reading about Sergeant Alejo as he meets up with those like him who become known as the Undead Marines. They don’t know who controls their lives because so far only enlisted Marines are being resurrected, no officers. Yet, their leadership is going to be young Lieutenants and Captains which they call “Freshies”. Even the 31st Maintenance Group , which was his new unit, was commanded by a full Colonel, while a Marine, was also a Freshie.
There are more battles to come, but how does one go through battle knowing that you might or might not die. It wasn’t up to them if they were resurrected, but some unknown person and maybe not even a doctor. Additionally, was their condition of being resurrected changing anything about them. How many times could they go through this process and at what costs? A lot of questions that don’t get answered in this book. I don’t know how this is all going to turn out, but I’ll be reading, book 2, “Proof of Concept” coming available on 28 July 2024.