War of Alien Aggression 5 Cozen's War Read Online Free Page B

displayed some scorn for it. "Regrettable," she said, removing a glove and running fingers through her hair. "But necessary." Cozen poured and put a glass in her hand.  
    The fighter pilots hadn’t moved, but a darkness had come over their gaze, the same one Ram had seen in their eyes when they looked at Squidies. Just like Squidies, she was something they wanted to kill. In her months commanding most of the F-151 squadrons, she'd been successful against the Squidies at the cost of her pilots’ lives. Ram didn’t blame them for wanting her dead. She’d killed plenty of them.  
    Lt. Commander Dana Sellis couldn't keep quiet when she saw Matilda Witt. "What the hell is she doing here?" Dana’s arms and legs twitched and flexed under her jumpsuit as if she was about to strike. "She’s a bloody traitor!" Witt simply smiled at her in a patronizing manner. Dana implored Cozen. "She helped the Squidies try to kill you. She tortured me ! She negotiated with the enemy on her own! Why isn’t she in prison?"
    " I spent six months on Corsica, dear. Is that exile enough for you?"  
    Harry Cozen stood. He said, "Matilda Witt is here and working with us because she’s part of our plan to end this war. She has been for some time. This plan can't work without her because she's the only human the enemy trusts. You will set any differences you have had with her aside for the success of this mission."
    The fighter pilots formerly under Matilda Witt's command didn't look happy to see her, but Dana’s face had gone from bright red to deep purple with barely contained rage. Ram had never seen the veins on her forehead throb like wardrums before.
    " Lt. Commander Sellis..." Matilda Witt gave Dana a thin-lipped smile that was all the more eerie for being genuine. "I was so glad to hear you didn’t succumb to your injuries before being rescued." Witt drained the glass and wiped her lips with the back of her hand in a gesture Ram had never imagined her making. "My hat’s off to you for actually escaping under those conditions."  
    Dana continued to glare at Witt like her hate was a weapon. It bounced off Witt like arrows bounce off a tank.
    "I’ll apologize more if that's what it takes for this mission to go off, but we’re all here cramped up in Harry’s little paranoia cage, meeting to discuss the cold-blooded extermination of an intelligent, spacefaring species. I think that trumps the personal issues, what say? So... If you don’t mind, I suggest we let pass the little things and get on with the business of killing all the Squidies, hmm? Since my dear, dear colleague, Harry bollixed all real chances of an acceptable peace agreement, that's the only option left."  
    Cozen started the scotch moving around the room then. "This mission I am about to brief you on has been in planning since three weeks after the Squidies first attacked on Moriah." Witt rolled her eyes, but Cozen continued. "Development of the required technologies has cost one fifth of the entire war budget to date. This is the most important mission of the entire war. This is the mission that ends it. We will deliver the coup de grace to our enemy using perhaps the most famous deception in human history: The Trojan Horse.

 
    Chapter Five
     
    Jordo regarded the 1.15 cubic meters of personal storage space allotted in the design of the Sky Jack with some contempt. The designers had placed it in a section that wouldn’t get ejected with the cockpit. But that wasn’t what made him whisper curses at it under his breath. It was the fact that it was only 1.15 bloody cubic meters and he couldn’t fill it.
    Paladin said, " That everything you own?"  
    Jordo straightened up on the top of the maintenance platform and looked down at his wingman three meters below. "That's it. Almost nothing."
    Dirty said, "You packing?"
    " Like an Egyptian king," Paladin said. "You know how they put everything he needs in the tomb so when he gets wherever he’s going he’s got it?"  
    "