Military sci-fi written by someone who actually wore the uniform.
The 13th LRF unfolds across 12 books, each building on the last to tell one continuing story.
Staff Sergeant Reed just made rank, and his own team isn't sure he's earned it. MilCom hands him a sterilization order: six operators, no backup, and a warlord named Vale who already knows they're coming. He walks out with a target on Vale's back and the first thread of something MilCom never wanted him to find.
Vale should have died on Briar Ridge. Instead he's back, and MilCom has handed Reed's team something worse than another mission: an asset called EMBER. Fast. Precise. Built to follow orders without hesitation, and never once asking a question it should be asking.
Six weeks after the validation site, MilCom still doesn't know what to do with the 13th. Then the orders come: a dying research station, an asset no one will identify, and no explanation. EMBER got there first. And Reed starts to suspect that every mission they've ever run was part of the test.
Reed came back from Vanguard with a conclusion he cannot document and a team that believes him anyway. The record says everything was handled correctly. Proving otherwise means asking the one institution that owns the record.
The saga continues. Titles and covers in development — rolling out through 2026–2028.
BOOKS 01–03 AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON & KINDLE UNLIMITED
"Combat was clean. Measurable. In a firefight you run the numbers. Leading former teammates… nothing added up. That was the sum of leadership."
"So what's the play, Staff Sergeant?" He put extra weight on the rank. "You really gonna stand there and pretend this doesn't smell like a one-way ticket?"
Brick shifted his weight, armor plates creaking. "Six of us. Full sterilization. No backup. No real intel. Feels like they're sending us in to count bodies before they glass the place."
Sparks exhaled sharply. "Yeah. Why risk us at all if it's just confirmation? Unless we're the confirmation and the cleanup."
Reed met Reaper's stare head-on. He didn't raise his voice.
"You want the truth?" he said evenly. "This mission is shit. We all know it. Sterilization order. Unknown enemy capability. And yeah… It feels like we're the ones they're willing to lose if it goes sideways."
Robert Pendland is a U.S. Army veteran and military science fiction author. He served during the Cold War, training at Fort Dix before being stationed at Camp Hovey, Korea, and later commanded detachments in both the Kansas and Missouri National Guard.
Rising from Private to Captain, Pendland brings a perspective shaped by both following orders and giving them. That experience informs how he writes about soldiers, leadership, technology, and the decisions people make when the mission stops being simple.
His fiction focuses on authentic tactics, believable military culture, and characters who have to live with the consequences of their choices. He is the author of The 13th LRF, a twelve-book military science fiction series that begins with Operation Briar Harvest. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri.
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