THE PRIZE: BOOK TWO - RETRIBUTION by Rob Buckman Read Free Book Online

march. They will also act as air ambulances to ferry out the wounded.”
    “That will help. I’d hate to get stuck with a lot of wounded men on my hands during a long push. Treating them out in the bush would be a bitch, especially in the jungle even with a MASH unit.”
    “I’m told they're setting up a large M.A.S.H unit to the rear as we speak, so don’t worry about that. I’ll check on it personally, and make sure they have it ready.”
    “Thank you Colonel much appreciated. That’s one load off my mind.”
    “Plug this into your helmet, Major.” Ellis handed Cassidy a wafer thin chip, seeing the surprised look on his face. Cassidy took his helmet off and switched the chip. The moment it went active, most of the troops wearing helmets looked up at the gallery. Their HUD indicating the change in command. Ellis handed another to Bull Striker.
    “You too, Striker. You are now RSM.”
    “Me?” He asked in surprise.
    “Yes, you. As senior NCO here with the longest service. That makes you the Regimental Sergeant Major.”
    “But…”
    “Suck it up soldier, and congratulations.” Cassidy laughed. Bull Striker clamped his jaw shut and just glowered. Ellis reached into her breast pocket and pulled out two data chips, handing one to each.
    “Yours contains the 201 file on all the officers, while yours RSM has all the NCOs and other noncoms. How you organize this collection of misfits is up to you. I’d suggest you throw the book out the window and start from scratch with what you know works.” Cassidy looked at her a moment as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.
    “The brown noses aren’t going to like that.”
    “I dare say they won’t, but I suspect you won’t be seeing any of them around here for a long time… maybe ever.” She added cryptically. “Carry on.”
    “Thank you Colonel.” They exchanged salutes as Cassidy hit the all-hands frequency.
    “Listen up people!” Ellis faded back and slipped out the door. Had they followed they would have seen Colonel Ellis enter a side room and close the door behind her. The moment the lock snapped shut Colonel Ellis disintegrated into a pile of dust and mingled with the dirt on the floor.
    * * * * * *
    After moving out of the underground chamber and into open training ground, Cassidy sat in his makeshift field office and looked over his TOE, but he couldn’t quite keep his mind on working out his chain of command. If what Colonel Ellis said was true about not seeing any Tellurians around here for a very long time. He suspected there was something else going on, and this went a lot deeper than just pulling all the human troops together in one place. Ever suspicious of Tellurian high command, he wondered for a moment if they just wanted all humans in one place so they could drop a KEW on them. A kinetic energy weapon from space or a big fragging rock would put a half-mile deep crater in this place and eliminate all the humans in one strike. Somehow, he didn’t think that was the case, but if not, what was the plan? In the end he brushed the question aside, concentrated on getting his command sorted out, and getting them all moving in the right direction at the same time. In all, it took three days to get the mess sorted out, and a normal, Earth type chain of command in place.
    From Cassidy’s point of view, with no Tellurian officers running around to bugger things up, they might just as well run things the way everyone knew things worked, rather than the mish-mash of competing units the Tellurians seemed to love. It was no surprise to discover he had a lot of over aged second lieutenants wandering around, but that was typical with the Tellurians. They hated promoting humans to senior ranks, so the first thing he did was promote half of them to the temporary rank of Captain, and the rest to first lieutenants. That solved the problem of company commanders and second in command. He left it up to Bull Striker to promote the NCO's up to senior