The United Federation Marine Corps' Grub Wars Trilogy by Jonathan Brazee

Author:Jonathan Brazee [Brazee, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Semper Fi Press
Published: 2018-02-20T05:00:00+00:00

EARTH

Chapter 22

Skylar

“They recovered them,” Keyshon said, looking at his PA.

“Recovered who?” Sky asked, her mind preoccupied as they walked down Rue Lysander to the Swiss embassy.

“The Marines. The ones who took out the Temperance.”

It took a moment for what he was saying to register. The Temperance was the Brotherhood frigate that had attacked the Zrínyi. The fate of the Marines who’d somehow managed to cripple the ship had been unknown for the last two days, something that had had taken over the undernet in a viral wave.

Sky had been preoccupied with her new mission, and had barely followed the story. Even now, after being told, she didn’t feel a sense of relief, only wondered how the news would affect the upcoming meeting.

What’s wrong with me? Those were incredibly brave Marines, Federation citizens.

She should feel something more, but to her, the stakes were higher than ten Marines. She had to focus on the overall situation.

Still, her lack of compassion bothered her. She briefly wondered where the Skylar she’d known all her life had gone.

“Do we know how many of them were killed? The Brotherhood?” she asked Keyshon, glad he’d arrived from Pittsburgh yesterday to assist.

“From the ship being lost? Not many, by all accounts. It looks like most of the crew and the reaming soldiers were able to evacuate. They lost more in trying to take the Zrínyi.”

The actual damage to the Temperance had seemed minimal to her as a civilian. Although spinning out of control, it had remained intact for ten hours, according to the briefing she’d received yesterday, before the stress of the unconstrained propulsion broke the ship apart. It still boggled her mind that a military ship could be destroyed by a simple fusion torch.

“What’s been the buzz from the Brotherhood nets?”

“As you could expect. The ten Marines were saboteurs, nothing more, who killed peace-loving Brotherhood citizens.”

“Peace-loving my ass,” Sky said bitterly. “They’re the sons of slime fired on the Zrínyi.”

“Ma’am . . .” Keyshon said in an almost-but-not-quite-scolding tone.

Sky raised her hand to forestall any more and said, “I know, I know. I’ve got to play nice. No accusation, no incriminations. I can’t mention the Lore system.”

Keyshon nodded, and the two kept walking. Sky shouldn’t bring up the attack on the Zrínyi, unless the bishop mentioned it, and even if he did, she had to move beyond that to the larger issue. Somehow, she had to convince the bishop that the Klethos threat was real and not a political ploy. The inherent problem with that was that if she convinced them that the Klethos were a threat, then that would buttress their claim that the UAM was playing with fire by cooperating with the Klethos in the first place.

She’d spent the morning with the best minds in the Federation, trying to come up with the best tack to take. At one point, the First Ministry vice-minister had threatened to take over, but this was a Second Ministry responsibility, one that the minister was not going to simply hand over to the First.

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