What Lies Behind Read online

  Copyrighted Material

  What Lies Behind Copyright © 2022 by Variant Publications

  Book design and layout copyright © 2022 by JN Chaney

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.

  www.jnchaney.com

  www.jonathanbrazee.com

  1st Edition

  CONTENTS

  Don’t Miss Out

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Cast of Characters

  Acknowledgments

  Join the Conversation

  Connect with J.N. Chaney

  Connect with Jonathan P. Brazee

  About the Authors

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  1

  The Manifest Destiny Sphere under-colonel, the rough equivalent to a Marine lieutenant colonel, stepped out of the tree line and marched forward, his helmet carried in the crook of his arm. He stopped in the middle of the clearing, the picture of deadly confidence.

  “He sure looks the part,” Staff Sergeant Reverent Pelletier, Perseus Union Marine Corps, whispered as he watched on the feed in the MDS command post. “All he needs is a swagger stick to complete the picture.”

  “Sssshhh,” Captain Aristotle Bundy hissed. “We’re guests here.”

  Rev sighed. Aside from being his platoon commander, Bundy was one of his first friends in the Corps, but the older man didn’t always have much of a sense of humor.

  Hussein now, he would have laughed if he hadn’t beaten Rev to the punch. Only Hussein wouldn’t have whispered it, so maybe it was good that he was outside with the rest of the platoon.

  Not that anyone was paying them any attention. Rev, Bundy, and Navy Commander Hun had been grudgingly allowed to brief the MDS task force, but it had been clear from the start that they weren’t welcome, and the commanding mid-marshal had only listened to the brief for form’s sake.

  Still, the under-colonel, the commander of the combat element, was following their guidance, at least up to now.

  The arrival of the Naxli in human space had changed more than a few things within the military. After the first few raids on ships and populated worlds where they kidnapped hundreds of thousands of humans, the next incursions had been on sparsely populated planets. Rev came to the conclusion that the Naxli were testing human military capabilities, an opinion that was evidently shared by the Union Marine and Navy commands.

  When the larger Naxli force on Mistworld agreed to fight on even numerical terms, with the rest of the force withdrawing when their smaller force was defeated, the Marines latched onto the strategy of limiting the scope of any single battle. The Congress of Humanity had agreed to pursue this strategy. The MDS hadn’t seemed to be on board with it, voicing their opinion that it was somehow part of a Union powerplay, but having lost their war with the rest of humanity, they were no longer in a position to go against the Congress. By perverse luck, it was an MDS planet, Alicia’s Bounty, where the next incursion occurred, and Third Platoon, as the unit that had already taken part in a limited fight, had been sent to help guide the MDS task force through the process.

  This was more than just a way to minimize the fighting. The Union was putting its leadership on the line.

  “Just let things go as expected. All we need is for the under-colonel to be cut down before a parlay,” Rev muttered under his breath. “Bad for everyone.”

  Punch said.

  Rev couldn’t hold back the laugh, and Bundy gave him a hard elbow to the side, which didn’t bother him at all, given he was wearing his PAL-HX combat suit. But he got the message.

  He was glad that Punch was showing a little of the humor that had been part of his battle buddy’s persona since the crystal AI had been implanted into his brain. Punch had been somewhat distant lately without his continual telling of bad jokes. In normal circumstances, Rev might have had a tech check on what was going on with him, but given Punch’s unique development, neither of them wanted the powers that be to pay the AI any more attention than normal and pry into his crystal mind.

  There was a sudden stirring in the CP, and Rev snapped back to the screen. A tall, lanky figure, vaguely human-looking, strode into the clearing, marched up to the MDS officer, and stopped three meters from the human. The drone recording the scene flew in closer.

  The two stared at each other for a long moment like fighting dogs sizing each other up.

  “Do we have any confirmation of some sort of way to determine nox ranks yet?”

 

  Rev grunted. Militaries had ranks. It was a fact of life. The Naxli were alien, true, but their military tactics wouldn’t be out of place in a human army. Rev thought that was evidence enough that they had to have some sort of leadership structure.

  The Naxli facing the under-colonel might not be an officer as humanity understood the term, but if things went true to form, it had the ability to arrange for a gnist, what they termed an arranged, limited fight.

  The MDS officer could have stepped out from central casting: tall, broad-shouldered, square-jawed, and with a touch of gray in his close-cropped hair. He stood there as if he hadn’t a care in the world, but Rev couldn’t help but remember watching the recording of when the Synergy Alliance battalion commander on Heverig approached the Naxli and was cut down in cold blood, his battalion’s survivors murdered.

  That guy tried to surrender, Reverent. The Mad Dogs are offering to fight. Big difference.

  When the Naxli didn’t speak, it was the human officer who broke the silence. “I offer you warrior terms.”

  The Naxli stared at the under-colonel for a full twenty seconds before it asked, “What terms?”

  “Standard warrior gnist,” he said, stumbling over the alien word. “Infantry only. No armor or mech. One thousand troops.”

  Rev had been surprised that the MDS wanted to make this almost a battalion-sized battle. Win or lose, MDS troopers were going to be killed, and that was putti
ng a lot more of them at risk.

  “One-thousand, one-hundred, seventeen warriors,” the Naxli countered. That seemed like a weird number, but the Naxli were aliens, after all, despite that they’d shifted their bodies to approximate humans.

  The under-colonel seemed a little surprised as well, but he quickly said, “Agreed.”

  “No airborne vehicles of battle. You may keep your recording devices,” the Naxli said, quickly glancing at the microdrone recording the meeting.

  “Agreed. When?”

  “We will return to this spot in one hundred, thirty-six of your minutes.”

  “Agreed.”

  “That’s it, folks,” the mid-marshal said, breaking the silence inside the CP. “Back to your stations and get ready to kick some skeletal ass.”

  There was a chorus of “hup-hups,” the MDS equivalent of the Marine “ooh-rah” as the staff turned back to their pads and comps, a flurry of activity.

  “Captain Bundy,” the commander said before tilting her head for the two Marines to follow her out of the CP.

  “This is going to take a while,” she said once they had a modicum of privacy. “I’ll wait it out in the CP, but no need for all three of us to sit and bask in their disdain.”

  Rev snorted. He hadn’t known what to make of the commander when she’d debriefed him after the mission on Mistworld, but after working with her on this liaison mission, he had to give her his respect. She was good people.

  “Why don’t you two go do your jarhead stuff with your platoon? Get back here before the combat team kicks this thing off.”

  “Better you than me, ma’am,” Bundy said.

  “That’s what I get paid the big credits for, Captain.”

  She turned to go back into the CP, and Bundy told Rev, “Just make sure they’re fed and rested. Nothing much else for them to do.”

  Which was about the twentieth time Rev had heard that. Bundy hadn’t understood why the command had sent the entire platoon to the MDS. They were superfluous here. This was an MDS mission, and the Marines were not attached as combat troops. They were there to guide the MDS in the new paradigm of limited engagements with the Naxli forces. Rev had been through it himself, and the commander was one of the Union’s experts in the engagements with the Naxli to date. Bundy was . . . well, he was an officer, and Rev was a staff sergeant.

  Rev might be one of the very few who’d gone through a parlay with the Naxli, but to those at the top of the food chain, a staff sergeant, even one with Rev’s rep, just wasn’t up to the intricacies of dealing with other officers.

  “Probably thought I’d stand around picking my nose with one finger and sticking the other up my ass,” he told Tomiko when the orders had been received.

  “You don’t have the right officer mindset,” she’d responded. “An officer wouldn’t use their finger. They’d order some non-rate to stick a finger up their commissioned ass.”

  And that was just one reason why he loved her.

  “You gonna eat sludge?” Bundy asked in a hopeful tone as they walked back to where they’d parked the platoon.

  The Marines had given the platoon three weeks’ worth of combat rats, otherwise known as sludge, which provided everything a combat Marine needed to fight except for one thing: taste. But as an officer, Bundy couldn’t very much disparage the sludge in front of the platoon.

  Rev thought about screwing with Bundy, but friend or not, the man was still his commander.

  “I’m going to track down Hyanis and see if he can hook us up. Say what you want about the Mad Dogs, but their chow is pretty primo.”

  Bundy slapped Rev across the shoulder and said, “Righteous. I don’t care what Major Pelegrino says. I think you’re a good Marine.”

  “With all due respect, sir. Eat me.”

  “No, Staff Sergeant. I’ll be eating whatever you, in the best traditions of a Marine SNCO, can scrounge up.”

  There was a bounce in the captain’s step as he kept walking. Rev watched his friend for a moment, then split off to find Over-sergeant Hyanis, the platoon’s liaison. Bundy had that part right. MDS trooper or Union Marine, the SNCO mafia was where you went when you wanted to get shit done.

  Rev never did get that MDS chow. It was only twenty minutes before the MDS deca was moving out to clash with the Naxli. Rev rushed back to the CP and joined the commander in the back, where he tried to remain unobtrusive, which was a little difficult given the IBHU attached to his left shoulder.

  He wasn’t even sure they were supposed to be in there. They’d done their job in helping prepare the MDS to set up the situation. Now that it was go-time, the three Union personnel were serving no purpose. But it was better to take the initiative than ask for permission. Within moments, Bundy entered the CP, spotted the other two, and hurried over.

  “This is it,” he said. “Hard to believe that we’re watching a Mad Dog op from the inside.”

  “Hard to believe that the Naxli are OK with the pick-ups and aren’t jamming the hell out of them,” Rev said, pointing to all of the screens in the CP.

  “Not that hard to believe, Staff Sergeant,” the commander said. “Not if they want us to watch what happens.” She looked around to see if anyone was listening, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “And not if they expect to wipe out the Mad Dogs.”

  Rev grunted. She was right. He was sure they’d want everyone to see what was going to transpire.

  “You think the Mad Dogs have a chance?” Bundy asked.

  Rev waited for the commander to answer, and when she didn’t, he turned from the screen that showed the Mad Dog infantry moving to the Line of Departure and saw that both of them were looking at him for his opinion.

  Which took him aback for a moment. He might be the only one on the planet who’d actually met the Naxli before in a limited engagement, but it had been a spur-of-the-moment thing where he’d been acting on instinct. And the commander was far more the expert on MDS capabilities.

  He took a moment to get his thoughts straight. “Can they win? I guess so. But the only times we’ve beaten the noxes so far have seemed to be when we surprised them. Like with the armor on Armadillo. Or with our IBHUs on Mistworld.

  “If the Mad Dogs can keep them unbalanced, then maybe.”

  “But do you think they’ll win?” the commander asked.

  Rev looked around the CP where the command staff was the very model of military professionalism and efficiency. The MDS was still a powerful force, and their military was a vital cog in their culture. With more people, they could have very well defeated the combined nations in the Council of Humanity. So, it didn’t seem like a reach to opine that they could win the coming battle. The Naxli seemed to be a more powerful force, but with their desire to meet their enemies on equal footing, they were bringing themselves down to the human level.

  Approximate level, Rev had to remind himself.

  On Brahmaloka, while they were still in their Centaur-like forms, they’d been hit by two Marine Shrike fighters. They opened up with two of their energy weapons to blast the fighters out of the sky. To Rev, that meant they were willing to up the ante if it looked like they might lose.

  They could win if they could surprise the Naxli. But the MDS weren’t known for being innovative on the battlefield. They were too wedded to their SOPs. And from what Rev had been able to glean, none of the combat force, for some unfathomable reason, were karnans, the MDS hyper-augmented soldiers. Taken together, Rev thought that would be their downfall.

  “No,” he told the other two. “I don’t think they’ll pull it off, to be honest. Without some surprise to pull out of their hat, I think the noxes have the advantage.”

  Bundy pursed his lips for a moment, then said to the commander, “We might want to make sure we’ve got our ride off planet if that happens.”

  “The Naxli have agreed to the terms, Captain. I don’t think they’ll interfere with a withdrawal.”

  “It’s not the noxes that concern me, ma’am.”

&
nbsp; Rev hadn’t considered what Bundy was inferring, and from the expression on her face, neither had the commander.

  “Um . . . let me go see what I can find out. You two stay here for now,” she said.

  Rev didn’t think the MDS would react if their combat force lost. They were allies now, humans against the Naxli invaders. But . . .

  “Lead elements are crossing the LOD,” one of the MDS staff officers shouted.

  On the main screen, MDS troopers were moving out. Rev settled in to watch, feeling more unsettled than he’d been at any time since he landed on the planet.

  Eight hours later, clarity was finally beginning to gel. After more probing than Rev had expected, the Naxli were starting to gain the upper hand. In clash after clash, the Naxli were controlling the narrative of the battle.

  It wasn’t that the MDS were getting routed. They were acquitting themselves with bravery and honor, but after an initial offensive push, they had now taken a more defensive posture. More than that, they were reacting, and that was a bad sign. The surviving MDS troopers were being herded closer and closer together, and the Naxli were massing for a final assault that would bowl the humans over.

  “It won’t be long now,” Bundy whispered.