Master Sergeant by Mel Odom

Author:Mel Odom [Odom, Mel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Military
ISBN: 9780062284426
Amazon: B00FJ37BJ6
Barnesnoble: B00FJ37BJ6
Goodreads: 22206722
Publisher: Voyager
Published: 2015-01-27T05:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

Brig

Charlie Company

Fort York

0713 Hours Zulu Time

Sage occupied a private cell and sat on a cot screwed into the wall. Besides the bed, and that term was both doubtful and generous, the cell contained a toilet and a sink.

After he’d been locked up, Sage had stripped down to his skivvies, turned off his mind, lain down, and slept, allowing all the fatigue to catch up with him in a rush that pulled him into blackness. This time he wasn’t a witness to Terracina’s recurring death and the ambush. Delivering the body to Velesko Kos hadn’t changed anything, but at least Sage felt as though he’d put the man and the corp on notice. He slept soundly for six hours, then awoke, bathed himself as best as he could in the sink, dressed, and waited.

Last night’s interaction with the corps would hurry things along. Sage figured he’d more than likely be booted out on the first dropship flaring into the heavens, then Gated to the front line or back to his training assignment. Maybe if the Terran Alliance hadn’t been at war, the confrontation with Velesko Kos would have ended what remained of his career.

If there had been a chance that he would get booted out of the military, he thought he might not have pushed the situation so aggressively. Even as he considered that, though, he knew he’d had no choice. Terracina’s death was unacceptable. Especially when Sage knew who was responsible. What he’d done had to be done. Someone had to take a more deliberate stand than the diplomatic liaisons would.

Sage hadn’t become a soldier so that good men could die at the hands of murderers and thieves hiding behind corp protection. He could not abide that. If he was unable to prevent those deaths, then he would up the cost of such actions.

Other soldiers slept in the cells around him. The combined stench of boozy breath and body odor mixed with the scent of chemical cleaners and artificial fragrance to become a foul fog that had been present to a lesser degree in the barracks.

The brig was old fashioned, constructed of prefab blocks dropped from low-orbit cargo ships. The pieces had been towed into their present configurations, then snapped together. In some areas, the joints hadn’t fit quite smoothly. Plascrete covered seams that had allowed the jungle to wriggle in.

A soldier came by with a backpack flamethrower and spat fire over the delicate tendrils that had crawled in overnight. Scorch marks showed the process had been done time and time again. The soldier entered one of the cells, hosed a patch of growth, and endured the curses of a female soldier still in the throes of hangover.

Breakfast arrived a short time later, wheeled in on a cart with squeaking wheels.

Sage accepted and ate the unappetizing fare: toast and soymeal and some kind of processed protein-sub, and drank the weak tea.

Then he waited.

1137 Hours Zulu Time

Two military policemen arrived just as Sage was beginning to think he was going to have lunch in the brig before he heard anything from the brass.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.