Free MERCS: Crimson Worlds Successors by Jay Allan

He forced a smile.  “…I appreciate your concern, but you have to trust me on this.  War is my business.  And I’m good at it.  Very good.”
    She didn’t look convinced, but she just nodded and looked up at him with watery eyes.  “Be careful, Darius.”  Her voice was soft, affectionate.  “Please.”
    “I am always careful, Ana.”  It was the first lie he’d ever told her.
     
     
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    “I want your people to form a large perimeter and dig in as soon as we land.  I wouldn’t put it past Ling to send his people in to try to pinch out our LZ as soon as we hit ground.”
    “Yes, sir.”  Cyn Kuragina stood next to Cain, fully armored except for her retracted helmet.  She’d had long blonde hair when she’d first arrived to join the Eagles, but she’d been shaving her head for years now.  She stared back at Cain with piercing ice blue eyes.  Kuragina was a very attractive woman, but she’d given herself over completely to the martial life.  Cain pitied the man who tried to pick her up when she was on leave.  He’d be lucky to keep his teeth.  Kuragina loved men, at least the ones who made up 80% of her regiment, but for most other purposes, she preferred women.
    “The Teams are going in on the lead wave too, so make sure your people know they’re there.  I don’t want them seeing bogies when it’s just our scouts and snipers.”  Nothing made Cain as crazy as friendly fire incidents.  He mourned every one of his soldiers lost, but the ones caught in the crossfire cut the deepest.  The Eagles all had friend or foe transponders, but jamming and other battlefield confusion sometimes overrode precautions.  No matter how good a unit was, no matter how well trained and equipped, when the shit got really nasty, troops got hit by their comrades.
    “Understood, sir.”  She paused, staring at him with those glacial eyes.  “And prisoners, sir?  Is it true we’re not to accept any surrenders?”
    Cain returned her stare, and his eyes were no less frozen than hers.  “There is to be no quarter given to the Gold Spears, Colonel.  They have had their warning, and they have chosen to disregard it.”  His voice was like ice.  “You may accept the surrender of local forces, but only if you are confident you can do so without compromising the security of your command.”
    “Understood, sir.”  She snapped to rigid attention.
    “Very well, Colonel Kuragina…you may see to your regiment’s dispositions.”
    She saluted crisply and turned on her heel, a difficult maneuver in armor.  Cain watched her walk briskly toward the launch bay.  He’d always liked Kuragina.  When he’d first seen her, straggling in with a shipload of new recruits, he’d bet himself she would wash out in less than a week.  She was the shortest of her trainee class by a good quarter of a meter, and half the men outweighed her by 50 kilos.  But she was the toughest of them all, and she finished at the top of the class.  She’d risen through the ranks faster than anyone else in the history of the Eagles, and she was the only regimental commander who had started as a trainee instead of coming to the unit with previous combat experience.  He still remembered watching her kick the living shit out of a male trainee almost twice her size.  She’d walked away almost without a scratch, and her opponent ended up in the infirmary.
    Cain walked toward a long wall at the end of the ready room.  There were empty racks stretching for a hundred meters, with one suit remaining in place.  He walked over toward the hulking black armor, sliding his shirt over his head as he did.  “Open,” he said, as he continued to undress.
    “Open,” the AI responded as the suit popped like a clamshell.
    “Diagnostics?”  Cain pulled the last of his clothes off, stowing them on the small shelf next to the suit.
    “All systems confirmed 100% functional,