Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) Read online

  It was all meaningless and all so useless, and they fell asleep on the truck crying. It was the first time in years that they’d been able to sleep undisturbed.

  They woke to the noise of air cars roving through the sky.

  Caroline looked out over the windswept plains that ran from the strip mines to Twenty-One.

  There were holes all over the place, and a dozen dead Diggers lay over the landscape from the strip mine to Twenty-One.

  Colored bundles broke up the red landscape that made the planet look like Mars before it was terraformed. Caroline’s chest tightened, knowing that those bundles were her fellow slaves.

  She heard rifle fire in the distance, and at Twenty-One, air cars were moving around a bundle of colors. The Chosen were already herding them back out to the strip mine.

  An air car came out of the sky, the wind whipping at Caroline’s coverings and waking Ellie up.

  A Chosen stepped out from the air car with a snarl on her face. She kicked Ellie, who was still prone.

  “Get the fuck back to work, lazy Earthers!” She spat, climbing back up into the air car.

  Caroline saw the heavy machine gun welded to the bed of the air car track Caroline and Ellie as it rushed away.

  Caroline ran over to Ellie, who held her head in her hands, her nose a broken mess as she whimpered into her hands. Caroline pushed it back into place before Ellie could say anything, and Ellie screamed, shoving away from Caroline.

  Caroline felt her chest contract as she thought that she might lose her last friend.

  “Thanks,” Ellie said a few moments later, her eyes already puffing up.

  “Come on, I’ll give you a ride down to your excavator,” Caroline said, not wanting to be on the truck’s roof when the Chosen came back.

  Ellie nodded numbly.

  Caroline had seen it time and time before, but she just hoped Ellie hadn’t given up on life yet.

  Chapter 8

  EMFC Reclaimer

  7/3266

  Training continued. The veterans bestowed the knowledge that they’d gained from the other carriers on the new boots.

  Ortiz had turned Second Lieutenant Kim into Captain Kim, shuffling Alexis from Sergeant to Warrant. It was a big move and she felt odd in her new position, but she listened to newly promoted Second Lieutenant Che.

  It didn’t take her long to learn her position and then start learning Che’s. The more she knew about how he worked, the better they could interact and get their platoon performing.

  The boots had needed to be brought down a few levels and built back up again, they were used to the lax rules on their carriers. Now they listened to their peers with open ears.

  They hadn’t earned their place at the veteran table, but they were being treated like adults for now.

  The Triple Twos had been in meetings, training themselves and others, and giving lectures on everything they could. Alexis knew that Tyler was leaving shortly, and it made her gut tighten in fear.

  She worried about him as he worried about her. It was hard being married in the EMF, it was harder than anything she had done before, but the moments they got together made it worth it.

  She buried herself in reports, looking at her people’s strengths and weaknesses, looking at ways to get them into classes that they might need.

  A tray lowered in front of her. She glanced up and her frown turned into a smile.

  “Hello there Warrant Officer Victor Ma’am!” Tyler said, coming to a half-assed position of attention.

  “None of that mess,” she said leaning across the table to kiss him His smile was infectious. “I was trying to get my classes sorted out, I want to get some extra training with the Repulsors for my two section.”

  “Ahh, just throw them in with Holm, he’s doing shooting in two days, Repulsors and those heavy machine guns,” Tyler said.

  Alexis gave him s kiss, “Thank you, babe.” she said, before opening her implants and fired off a message to Holm.

  “So what will you do with all that free time? I was thinking of watching a movie and cuddling,” Tyler said.

  “I couldn’t think of a better plan, but I need to check into our gear stores and do paperwork for everyone’s new qualifications.”

  “So I’ll watch the movie, you snuggle and do the reports?” Tyler asked.

  She knew she’d be distracted by the movie, but she also knew his departure date was coming up soon. “Okay.” She could think of nothing better than curling up with her hubby to watch a movie. “I’m picking the movie, though.”

  “You’ll be working!” Tyler protested.

  “Yes, but we’ll be in my quarters.”

  Tyler sighed and scooped spaghetti and meat sauce into his mouth.

  “I know you like rom-coms,” she said, her face stretching into a wide smile at his accusatory expression as he tried to finish off his food. He knew she’d picked when he had a mouth full of food to hit him with that bit.

  “No, I just get stuck watching them with you.”

  “And you love me so you love rom-coms.” She batted her eyelashes for extra affect.

  “You are terrible,” Tyler said.

  “I’m your terrible though.”

  “All mine,” he agreed with a grin, leaning over and kissing her again.

  With her new rank as Warrant she shared a room with Second Lieutenant Che.

  Tyler was a regular guest and having somewhere that the two of them could just be themselves, that wasn’t the library, was a nice change.

  ***

  Mark flipped the blade around in his hand, it buzzed, but the grip negated the thousands of vibrations along the blade that occurred faster than a human could see. It was about as long as his own arm and a tenth the weight of his E-12.

  It was well balanced and made, and Mark was impressed.

  “Well? You gonna hit the thing?” Dashtund asked. Everyone stood watching Mark, they were in a classroom with a piece of armor plate from Masoul strapped to the desk.

  Mark held the blade with two hands, preparing to saw into the armor to see if he could blunt the edge.

  He pressed down and it went right through with only a little resistance.

  “Huh,” Mark said, looking at the rough cut.

  The strap at the end of the sword’s pommel allowed him to flip it in his hand idly.

  He did it a few times then the handle rested in his hand, and he struck down and to the left, his left arm grabbing his right’s bicep.

  The armor, its clasp and the desk all had a cut through them.

  He didn’t pause, bringing the pommel coming back to his stomach as he stabbed forward through the plate, and it took him a few seconds to pull the blade free. He twisted the pommel and the buzzing stopped.

  “So we can get through the armor, now we just have to figure out how to use that against people wearing powered armor,” Zukic said.

  The Platoon fell into silent contemplation.

  “I doubt it’s something that we’re going to learn in a day. We are, however, going to work on using Vibra-Blade s, Mark; I believe you and Tyler have a decent background in fighting with blades?” Haas looking to Tyler and then Mark.

  “I can think of one person that schools both of us,” Mark said, and Tyler let out a snort and nodded in agreement.

  “Who?” Haas asked.

  “Force Sergeant Major Nerva,” Mark said.

  “For being an officer on a spaceship with people that fight on different planets, the man lives and breathes ancient fighting styles. I would never want to fight him unless he was five kilometers away and I had an AMR, and he was tied to a post,” Tyler said, looking thoughtful before shrugging. “Hell, maybe not even then,”

  “Well hopefully the Sir is bored of doing paper work,” Haas said.

  ***

  “You leave the Roma Legion to gather more recruits, leaving the swords, shields and damned ancient crap behind, and somehow, out here someone wants you to go and swing a sword around?” NIDenise sighe
d in his head as Nerva felt amusement touch his lips.

  “Something the matter?” he thought-spoke back.

  “Second Lieutenant Haas is requesting that you train the Triple Twos on fighting with swords. They tested them out against the armor plating from Masoul. Seems that it cuts through. They were looking at ways to defeat powered armor-wearing Chosen. The AMR took three shots, but the Vibra-Blades cut right through with some extra pressure.”

  “Do you need me for any more of this paperwork?” Nerva asked.

  No, go have fun.”

  Nerva got up from his seat, checking over the message Haas had sent, and fired off a quick reply on his way to the classroom.

  ***

  Jerome got out of the squat rack, his legs visibly shaking as he took a seat on a nearby bench.

  Mark got into the rack, squaring off with the squat bar. He pulled the bar off the rack, stepped back and dropped down, and with an exhale he pushed himself back to standing.

  He repeated the motion, gritting his teeth by the end of it, his legs shaking.

  “Just a few more,” Jerome said, more to assure Mark he’d help him if he started to fail.

  Mark pushed again and got those few more, and Jerome helped him get the bar back into the rack.

  Working out cleared his mind and let his worldly troubles slip away, it was his meditation.

  “Only a few days to go,” Jerome said.

  “Yeah.” Mark was ready, mentally and physically, and his people knew what they were doing and were well versed in their roles.

  They hadn’t even decompressed from Masoul, there was no time for that. Instead, they’d rushed through weapons training.

  “I thought that Nerva was just showing off when we were doing that extra training to become Master Corporals,” Jerome said, rubbing his neck, feeling the bruises that his augments had already healed.

  They’d been fighting with Nerva for the last month; the man moved with grace and surety, as if he had been born with a sword in his hand.

  Every fight was a learning opportunity and he was far beyond anything that the Triple Twos had started off with. They were a hell of a lot better, but he could still call out their problems as they were fighting and Jerome hadn’t even seen the old man get near to being out of breath.

  Other units quickly joined in on the sparring sessions once they learned what the purpose was. Everyone did drills with swords and they were strapped onto every Trooper’s ammo pack.

  Carriers other than Fearless and Reclaimer didn’t make it mandatory, and they kept holding back their screamers, everyone Corporals and up had at least one screamer.

  Screamers were Hypervelocity Missiles. They went really damn fast and made anything in its path have a really really shitty day.

  If they were facing powered armor, they needed to put them down as fast as possible.

  The powered armor from Masoul was still in a cleared out ammo bunker. Reclaimer and Fearless’ people had a familiarization course with the armor so they could use it if they found it, and understand its weaknesses.

  In demonstrations by the Triple Twos and others with some decent time in the powered armor, the newbies from the other carriers understood the need for screamers, Vibra-Blades and anything that might put powered armor down.

  “Four days,” Mark said.

  “Can’t wait.”

  It would take them possibly months to reach Osdal Actual, and in that time the EMF fleet would be moored out-system, all of the Troopers and non-essentials rotating from readiness to cryo, waiting for a signal or going at a pre-set time that the insertion teams didn’t know. If they got captured, the EMF didn’t want the enemy to know when they were attacking.

  Jerome got in the calf machine and started pushing himself into the shoulder pads and pointing his toes to lift the weight.

  On the freighter they wouldn’t have any equipment to work out, so Mark and Jerome had been getting the most out of their workouts before they left. But that was half the reason, the other half was that gym allowed them to get away from thinking about their upcoming deadline.

  Chapter 9

  EMFC Reclaimer

  Osdal System outer limits

  7/3266

  Young, Yu and Bobbie had gone through the entire freighter and checked it all over at least three times in the last week. They did it again before their flight.

  Bobbi checked the work spaces and his cargo hold, Young ran electronic checks and probes, Yu wandered around the craft checking the engines, the ports that hid weapon systems that he only knew about because he’d seen the weapons deployed.

  He had four auto-cannons along the craft’s belly, and five auto-turrets; one on each side of the freighter, others at the forward and rear of the ships belly, and another on the roof.

  There were also two missile launchers fed by internal magazines, though he only had twelve missiles in total and their rate of fire was one every three seconds.

  He checked the wings. This inter-system freighter was rated to land on planets, and had nice sloped back wings and an aerodynamic frame.

  Yu knew it would be a bitch to fly in atmosphere, but the engines were as strong as a combat drop ship’s, which sounded nice, when you didn’t think of the fact it was nearly three times the size of a Combat Shuttle.

  “What the hell did we do to get stuck driving these buckets?” Yu growled as he saw Bobbie head deep into an ammunition bunker hidden under the decking.

  “We were too good at flying a Combat Shuttle, so giving us this tin can is higher ups idea of job satisfaction. You know, the whole, ‘we’re not happy unless we’re pissed off and complaining’ bit?” Bobbie said, climbing out of the bunker.

  “I hate driving this thing,” Yu said, wandering through the large cargo hold, which looked nearly the same as the Combat Shuttle’s, minus the drop hatches under the seats.

  He couldn’t think of piloting the freighter as anything more than driving; sure it entered atmosphere, which would be interesting, but was something Yu did not want to do with the lumbering beastie.

  Being in a Combat Shuttle was living, this, this was doing the goddamn milk run.

  “Looks like our passengers have arrived,” Bobbie said, looking past Yu.

  Yu looked behind, and saw the Triple Twos stepping across the hangar deck.

  A flash of memory surfaced, of seeing them walking across another hangar deck and climbing aboard a shuttle destined for Masoul Actual, at a time when he hadn’t known them that well.

  He waved, biting down his emotions. He’d come to know them all very well, which made seeing that there were three Troopers missing hurt all the more.

  Some of the Triple Twos waved back.

  Yu turned and wandered up to the cockpit where Young was checking her downloads on one screen and her diagnostics on another.

  Yu heard Bobbie close another work space and move to the power plant under the cockpit, his final check.

  The Troopers walked across the cargo decking, dropping bags and setting up their gear, and the hatch remained down, trying to get the last bits of fresher air inside the freighters.

  Bobbie came out of the power plant and mechanical center of the freighter.

  “Got room for our weapons?” Zukic asked, dragging a large green locker with him.

  “Right over here,” Bobbie guided Zukic, Mark, Dooks, Holm and Bairamov to deposit their lockers in compartments under the decking; once secure they looked like nothing but real flooring, but within them they held the entire platoon’s weapons, and a hefty amount of ammunition.

  Thankfully no one would be finding out that surprise, or the others built into the freighter, until the carriers were in the Harmony controlled planets and asteroid belts’ orbits.

  Moretti entered through the hangar’s air lock, wearing a ragtag space suit and duster combo like the rest of them.

  Yu, Young and Bobbie had put theirs into storage as they got in the way of flying and having stuff fly around if they were in zero grav was a
pain in the ass.

  Moretti greeted everyone and grabbed a place to set up his sleeping gear.

  Everyone was friends, and there wasn’t much special about going on platoon only mission. They’d been there, done that, got the scars.

  “Looking good here,” Bobbie said poking his head into the cockpit.

  “Last scans show we’re operational,” Young replied.

  “Let’s power everything up and prepare for departure, seal hatches last,” Yu said.

  Bobbie’s head disappeared back into the cargo hold as Yu fired up the power plant on the freighter and opened a channel to flight control. “Flight Control this is Bandit two, sealing up and prepared for departure.”

  “All sealed up!” Bobbie reported.

  “Understood Bandit one, depressurizing hangar,” Flight Control said, and Yu saw dust and a wrench being sucked towards the walls; someone had forgotten their tools.

  He sighed to himself.

  “Depressurized and opening hangar doors,” Flight Control said.

  Yu held off putting power to the vertical thrusters.

  The hangar doors opened, showing space beyond. There wasn’t any sign of Osdal System in the inky darkness.

  Young anticipated his request, a checkpoint by checkpoint map showing where they were going.

  “Bandit Two this is Flight Control; you are cleared for launch.”

  “Thank you Flight Control, see you later.” Yu powered the vertical thrusters, and Reclaimer was pointed away from Osdal, its engines firing to slow the carrier down and bring them to stop outside the system’s Oort cloud. As they were losing speed, the shuttle still had inertia, and it wasn’t braking.

  They slid out of the hangar without any thrust.

  Yu looked to his flight plan; he wouldn’t need to fire his engines except for minor corrections for a few weeks.

  “Now all we have to do is get to Osdal Actual,” Young said.

  “Fuck, I hate this part, so goddamn boring,” Yu sighed, getting comfortable in his seat.

  He’d changed the freighter’s seats out, after the flight on the shuttle, he’d learned that good lumbar support and a comfortable chair were key items to staying sane. It was odd the things you changed and appreciated after adversity, or too much exposure to the opposite.