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

too sweet on me to begin with.

-10-
     
    I found my new rank to be a little bit daunting. Sure, I was far from a rookie, but I knew there were soldiers with more experience than I had in this unit. They looked at me with a strange mixture of jealousy, curiosity and maybe, just maybe, a hint of respect.
    It was that last item on the list that worried me. I had to earn that respect in order to keep it. I had to prove myself worthy of it. Yes, I’d pulled a fast one during a simulated battle with the dragons from Dust World, but that was a far cry from leading a squad throughout a campaign on an unknown planet.
    One of the nice things about my new position was the command structure the auxiliary cohort had embraced. Rather than being made up of infantry with units led by centurions with the strength of one hundred twenty men each, Winslade’s cohort was more limited in size. We were considered to be cavalry. Each squad was led by a veteran, like me. The squads were broken up into two maniples of five troops each, just like the Roman cavalry of ancient times. One of the maniples was led by a specialist, making him second in command, while the other was led by the veteran directly. That meant each squad was made up of an even dozen riders and their dragons. The specialists placed in charge of a maniple were mostly weaponeers, but there were also a number of bios and techs in the mix.
    Because all of us were outfitted with large, walking, fighting machines, we didn’t have as much need for our traditional infantry-oriented roles. I was a little sorrowful I wasn’t going to be carrying a belcher into battle this time, but I got over it quickly the more I worked with the dragons. They were quite obviously superior weapons systems.
    Harris took the other squad in our platoon, and Leeson commanded above him. Although I was effectively just one more trooper piloting a dragon, the difference this time was I’d been placed in charge of eleven other guys riding along behind me.
    A little over a third of the infantry who tried out qualified on the dragons, and I was proud to note that almost everyone in 3 rd Unit had survived the winnowing process. That was due in large part to our success with the initiation trials on the rooftop battlefield. Most units had been slaughtered. In fact, my group was given the grim task of annihilating the last units to come over from Minotaur to kick off their training. I wasn’t proud of it, and the butchery was intense, but I had to admit afterward that it was a valuable lesson to both sides. No trooper could fail to appreciate the power of a dragon after being killed by one. The pilots working the controls were undeniably impressed as well.
    The troops that performed badly during the training exercises were sent back to Minotaur to fill out other ranks as needed. Once we were down to the best of the best, the training commenced in earnest. During a period of about three weeks, we trained hard every day. In all that time Veteran Harris never spoke to me. In fact, he did his damnedest not to even look at me.
    I understood. After all, I’d made a fool out of him and the other veterans in my unit. That wouldn’t sit well with anyone.
    Della and I had had lunch together a few times over the weeks following our first encounter, but I’d made sure things didn’t go any further than that. If she was married, I was determined to respect her vows—even if she didn’t.
    During my fourth week aboard Cyclops , the brass announced that the target star system was now easy to see with the naked eye directly ahead of our three ships. This wasn’t exactly true, as we were in a warp bubble and vision was interpolated, but it was still an exciting change.
    Going up to the observation deck the night before we arrived at Gamma Pavonis, I sat quietly with many others and watched the white star grow fractionally larger every hour. Kivi joined me that night as I maintained my vigil.
    “James?” she asked. “Are you