Lieutenant Luke Plunkett turned and looked up from his desk, clearly trying to hold back a laugh. “You’re a sick bastard, you know that?” Plunkett gestured toward an empty chair.

“Won’t do them no favors goin’ easy on them, Lieutenant. When they end up in the shit, every time I beat them to the ground gives them an extra chance to make it back home.” Hargraves was the only real combat veteran in fourth platoon, and that included Plunkett. The career sergeant was forty-five, and he’d done service in the last war between the Union and the Confederation. He had stories of the Union ground forces that shook even the lieutenant.

“Tell me, Sarge. The FRs…they’re really that tough?”

Hargraves sat down, letting out a deep breath as he did. He’d never have admitted it to his Marines, but he was pretty damned tired himself. “Well, sir…let’s just say they ain’t like nuthin’ you ever saw before. Not better than us…not as good even, I’d say, not by a good chunk. But there’s always more of ’em, Lieutenant, and the thing is, they’re disciplined. Like nuthin’ you ever saw. Every one of ’em would jump off a cliff if an officer ordered it.”

The Foudre Rouge were the Union’s ground forces, the counterparts of the Confederation Marines. The FRs were clones, genetically optimized for combat, and mentally conditioned for total obedience and a complete lack of fear. In theory they should have been the ultimate warriors, but it didn’t work quite that way in the field, and the Confed Marines had held their own in the last war, at least wherever they weren’t outnumbered two or three to one. The FRs were good fighters, highly effective against most enemies. But they met their match when they faced the Marines.

Confederation ethics frowned heavily on cloning for any purposes, and it was legal only on a few worlds. Breeding a customized class of slave-warriors and removing their will to resist, even to understand the idea of questioning an order, was extremely immoral to the Confederation way of thinking. Indeed, it was downright evil.

The two sat silently for a while. Then Hargraves said, “Do ya think we’ll get redeployed when the war breaks out? I’m not sure I like the idea of sittin’ out here in the middle of nowhere while Marines are fighting and dyin’ trying to turn back the Union.”

Plunkett shook his head. “I just don’t know, Sarge. Normal procedure is to rotate after a year’s deployment, especially on Santis. But I don’t know. If the balloon goes up…I hope they don’t forget us. It’s not like one platoon’s going to decide the war, but I don’t like the idea of being stuck here for too long…”