Black Gold Protocol

Forget saving the galaxy. They forgot the coffee.

When the Interstellar Coalition welcomes humanity into its perfectly regulated war machine, Sergeant Mara Delgado quickly discovers a critical oversight. The rules are rigid. The enforcement is constant. And the one supply her unit runs on has been stripped from the manifest without explanation.

Aboard the ICC flagship Accord of Eight, every action is logged and every deviation corrected. Human Combat Detachment Twelve was recruited to prove humanity belongs in the Coalition. Instead, they're unraveling - focus failing, tempers fraying, improvisation replacing precision - while surveillance drones hover and the official substitute makes everything worse.

Delgado doesn't panic. She adapts. Black markets. Cultural leverage. Administrative blind spots. And when a botched workaround stains the ship's most sacred artifact and triggers a formal hearing, she doesn't retreat. She files paperwork.

Because buried behind a Council seal is a truth that changes everything: the Coalition didn't forget coffee. It's been making it - and deciding who deserves it.

What began as a supply problem is now a power problem. And humans are very, very good at admin warfare.

Perfect for fans of John Scalzi's Old Man's War, Robert Asprin's Phule's Company, and anyone who has ever fought a bureaucracy and won on a technicality.