Machine World (Undying Mercenaries Book 4) by B. V. Larson Page B

Imperial warships. To do so not only meant your own destruction but very likely would result in the destruction of your entire species.
    I found myself commiserating with some of those old-time European generals. This must have been how it had felt for them when they met enemy troops who didn’t line up in colorful costumes and fire their guns all at once. There was no sense of honor or reticence in these aliens. They meant to kill us all. They didn’t care about our contracts, our revival machines or the consequences of their actions. They meant to kick our collective asses anyway they could.
    To me, the fact the enemy had destroyed Pegasus indicated that we were engaged with the squids. These guys might not have spines, but they had balls. They didn’t care two hoots about Imperial might or the threat of eventual annihilation. This was war of a different caliber entirely. All-out war. A total war.
    Taking a deep breath, I cut Carlos’ feed to my tapper when we hit the upper atmosphere. I couldn’t see anything but white clouds after that, anyway. We hit a patch of turbulence right off, and it kept getting worse as we went down. Whatever this atmosphere was made of, it was thick. The vapor never broke from the mesosphere on down to the troposphere. We were bouncing and thumping every kilometer of the way to the surface, and more than a few of my troops puked.
    “Shut those visors the second you’re done throwing up,” I ordered. “You never know when we’ll take a hit and lose pressure.”
    “Permission to get out of my dragon, sir,” Carlos asked. He’d toppled over onto his nose, and was having trouble getting up. Servos whined and his claws gouged the metal of the ship’s floor.
    “Permission denied,” I said, clanking over to him. I threw out my grippers and caught hold of his tail, which was whipping around, trying to get him back into balance. I hauled him up onto his hind legs and clanked away.
    “Hold onto something—anything,” I told them. “I’ll try to get a weather report from the techs.”
    As a veteran, I was now permitted to log into command chat and listen in. It would have been considered bad manners by my officers if I’d said anything, so I kept quiet. On the inside of my helmet, the names of the speakers lit up in green when they spoke. That was helpful because a lot of the transmissions were sketchy.
    Winslade’s ID flashed up first. “What’s your status, Graves? Give me a count of effectives.”
    “We’re at full capacity, sir,” Graves responded. “4 th Unit is on the same lifter with us, and I think they’re as ready and able as we are.”
    “No casualties?”
    “No sir. My unit was on the first lifter out of the ship. We didn’t take any flak.”
    Winslade chuckled unpleasantly. “That figures. Your team is made up of the fastest rats in this part of the galaxy.”
    I wanted to jump in and yell at Winslade, but I held my tongue. We’d followed our orders, that’s all. If we moved fast, it was because we’d been prepared, not because we were chickens.
    “What are your orders, Primus?” asked Graves.
    “Looks like you’ll be on the first lifter down. Spread out and secure the LZ for the rest. Report back any resistance or hazards encountered. Winslade out.”
    That was it, then. We were going to be the point formation on this invasion. I relayed this to my team, and they produced a general chorus of groans.
    “Okay people, hustle up. Let’s be ready to scramble when we touch down. The second that ramp drops, I want to see nothing but metal tails and dust as you rush out there to surround the lifter.”
    We didn’t have long to wait. The general rule when making any kind of assault from space was to get the flying part over with as quickly as possible. Every second we were in the air increased the odds the lifter would take a hit and wipe out whole units of troops at once.
    The pilot seemed to be exquisitely aware of this reality. He maneuvered the lifter