Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) (15 page)

He let her go, slammed the door and headed down the ladder.

Fear pushed Caroline back into her seat. Her left eye was already swelling, but she pressed the accelerator on the truck, heading towards the shaft mines.

Every bump moved her broken ribs, making her whimper and gasp for short breaths, as if that would reduce her pain.

Chapter 15

Asteroid claim BT1

Oort Cloud Osdal System

3/3267

“See you in two weeks,” Jerome said to Young. She, Holm and his section had just finished their rotation on the asteroid. The Bandit Corporation that Moretti was creating had grown to five ships strong, two of them being the largest hauling inter-system freighters he could find.

Bobbie and Young were using Bandit Two to search for another claim, and they had picked out three possibilities but the people of Seventy-Seven were watching closely, so they wouldn’t move on the asteroids until they could control them.

Moretti was getting a good idea of the system, and they’d made tentative connections with a few of the insertion teams without telling them what their cover was or their real location.

Haas and Zukic were vetting people to take over the work of Bandit corporation. Their cover as miners was working well, and Moretti was pushing Johnny to take some of the runs from Seventy-Seven to Osdal Actual.

Johnny was a good man and didn’t want to cut anyone’s agreed contracts. So Moretti worked on a different angle, working the freighters doing the runs. If they passed vetting then they would move materials from the Bandit corporations claims to Seventy-Seven when they weren’t transporting goods to Osdal, picking up regular and higher paying work.

For right now everyone was putting their flying qualifications to work as they transported people to the asteroid, and whatever they pulled out of the asteroid back to Seventy-Seven.

Haas, Zukic and Moretti had cleared Carly, so when Bobbie got back to Seventy-Seven he could offer her a job working for Bandit Two corp.

She had the contacts they needed and would help to identify people that they could bring into the company to create the face, as they worked to spread across the system.

Jerome and Dooks were on first shift, so they powered up the grinders, moving between them, checking the lines were good.

They’d managed to get some robots to pack ore containers, but the rest of the machines could be run from a surface. Fifty grinders worked non-stop, with fifteen replacements ready in case one of them went down.

Dooks finished his checks and started working on a grinder that had stopped working. Jerome linked into the sensor network, making sure there weren’t any ships nearby, and sent and encoded data stream to the EMF fleet that should be now finding their hiding places among the Oort cloud.

Chapter 16

EMFC Reclaimer

Oort Cloud Osdal System

3/3267

Nerva looked over the reports that were coming in from all across the fleet. The carrier fleet was spread out over millions of kilometers to hide behind the massive asteroids that littered the area.

The net of sensors that the insertion groups had sown across space allowed them to see what was in the area, but they were running on low emissions to make it harder for sensors to see them. Still, no one was taking chances.

All of the Troopers were to be on high alert for a few months while the carriers settled into position, and the sensor grid was working overtime to make sure that no one came up on them.

The carrier’s actual sensors were only running on passive so that they didn’t ping a Harmony ship or one allied with them.

All of the Troopers were training but it was now diminishing returns, and they were repeating lessons over and over again, which was making them agitated instead of interested.

Nerva had pushed on Vibra-Blade training, and the ships heading to Housapel were getting powered armor, but armor wouldn’t get to them for another forty years if they requested it. They didn’t have forty years, they had fourteen months until they moved into Osdal, whether the insertion teams sent word or not.

He looked at the latest information dump that was being funneled through a grid of stealth communication systems. While people weren’t using their implants, it didn’t mean that they’d turned them off. Moretti was in the process of downloading all of the saved information and sending it back to the fleet, who were then sending it back to Earth. It was a gold mine for the Ministry of Intelligence, as any implants connected to the communications network gave them an idea of how Harmony had grown into being and their ongoing actions.

New mission parameters had been sent out to the insertion groups. Their sole mission was to create a plan of attack for their area of operations and then do what they could to identify priority targets, disrupt the enemy’s ability to counterattack, and create chaos among the enemy command structure.

If they could do that, then any action the EMF took would hit them hard. He just hoped that things were going well with the insertion teams. Anything they could do would save lives.

Chapter 17

Oort Cloud Refinery Seventy-Seven

Oort Cloud, Osdal System

3/3267

Mark checked the sub-machine gun and pistol. The pistol was a simple mag loader; the sub machine gun was a metal storm variant.

This would be a risky move by Mark and Tyler, but if it paid off then they could get some Chosen weapons, which were not only less eye catching than their EMF hardware, but it would help them figure out the Chosen’s capabilities.

They were wearing space suits and jackets. Mark missed his duster, but that was a thing for Masoul and Earth’s slums it seemed.

“We’ll be listening in and ready,” Dominguez promised, and she Dashtund and Ali had their E-1’s on them.

“See you in an hour,” Mark said, shifting his jacket around before looking out of the hotel room door. It was cleaner and nicer than their old hotel.

They passed through the lobby, and there was no one around. This one didn’t have the armored glass around it, and drew people of better means.

A doorman opened the door for them. Mark nodded to the man but his eyes were looking for Chosen and threats. They were well protected with their payments; twenty percent was enough to allow them to get away with nearly anything.

They were in a nicer area of the station, less neon signs and outside bars, more boutiques and food places. But Mark and Tyler were rougher than most people, and their muscle mass and scars revealed them as different to most of the people around.

People moved out of their way as they crossed through streets and caught an elevator down a few levels, coming out in their old hangout. Here, no one gave them a second look, they were just two more miners that had got into a few brawls in their time off, and they blended into the crowd.

Mark saw Niemi and Ko, who were enjoying an afternoon beer, talking about random shit. He didn’t make eye contact, and he and Tyler walked into the Pink Goose, where a bored old lady was smoking in an armored booth.

“Ten Tokens,” she said, her voice sounding like too many cigarettes.

“I’m here to see Eliese,” Tyler said.

The woman seemed to glance over them a bit more. Mark thought he saw her eyes dart down to something he couldn’t see.

“Ten tokens,” she said again.

Tyler pulled out his surface and sent it to her.

“She’s got a camera feed, looks like outside,”
Tyler said sub vocally as the door to the Goose opened, where pink lights that barely lit up the strip club, and old music with a beat, and dark corners invited them in.

Mark made to go through, but the old lady cut in. “Ten a piece.”

Tyler sent her more tokens. “He’s with me.”

She put out her cigarette and started to grab another, waving them on.

A guard looked them over. “Anything I should know about?”

Two pistols, one stunner,” Tyler said, holding his arms up.

The man fished them out of Tyler’s clothes and expertly tucked them into a box to his side. “You’ll get them after.”

Mark raised his arms, his shirt wasn’t meant to hide his bulk, but now it stretched across his chest. “Pistol, machine gun.”

The man pulled them off and gave him a quick pat down. “Have a good time,” he said, turning as the club’s door opened and a group wandered in.

Tyler found Eliese first. “
There,”
he said, his lips not moving. It reminded Mark of the first time he’d been on a mission in Westerly Three. They had been killing off an opposing gang, and he remembered how the low odd lighting had messed with his ability to find targets.

Mark pressed his arms together, feeling the blades under his arms.

Tyler sat in a booth and waved to Eliese, who swaggered over from the table that she’d been heckling.

“Heya boys, I could ride you all day and night long,” She said, dropping into the booth and smiling.

Mark looked her over; she was a good looking girl and he might take her up on that offer later.

“Our meeting still a go?” Tyler asked.

The guys that had been at the other table approached. “Hey, look, it’s the big shots from BT! Think you can just come in here and steal our girl?”

Miner, decently drunk, smaller build, brawler,
Mark looked over the man and his pals, as he automatically classified them.

There were four of them, one next to the end of Mark’s bench, the talker was leaning on the table and the other two were a few feet back with their arms crossed, looking tough.

“Don’t be like that! Tyler here is just a good friend of mine, comes all the way from Elekt, trying to educate me on the ways of sharing,” Eliese said, her hand rubbing down Tyler’s side and smiling at the other men.

They didn’t seem mollified in the least.

Mark kept his eyes on her, but he felt the locks on his augments falling away. A slow smile spread across his face. It had been months since he’d done any real fighting.

“Here’s four tokens, show us your tits!” the talker said, throwing the paper tokens and grabbing at her bra ripping it away.

Mark punched the man blocking his exit, in the balls, crossing his left over and hitting the man that had had a handful of bra in the head.

Tyler grabbed the back of the man’s head as he tried to stay up, using the table for support.

“Night night,” Tyler drove the talker’s head into the table so hard that there was a dent in the metal.

Mark kicked the man he’d punched in the balls, in the head. He heard their jaw break as he ducked by instinct, catching a blow on his shoulder instead of his head.

He punched the attacker in the chest, the man who’d been standing backwards gasped like a fish out of water, all of the breath and fight out of him.

Mark heard a chair hitting Tyler.

Tyler grunted with pain. Mark kicked the chair wielding dickhead in the kneecap.

There was an audible pop as the man screamed, collapsing to the floor. Tyler grabbed the discarded chair, beating his attacker with it.

The man Mark had winded, got up, cracking Mark in the back of the head with a bottle.

“Fucker,” Mark yelled, back-handing the miner, he got a lucky hit, catching them in the ear.

The stumbled, punch drunk and in pain.

Mark drove a fist into the side of their head, dropping them to the floor, out cold.

“Well fuck,” Tyler said, holding his head.

“Little fucker cut my head open,” Mark felt his head, feeling blood on his neck.

“Come here,” Tyler turned him, looking at the cut and checking it. “Looks clean to me.”

“Turn,” Mark said, Tyler did so, sporting a nasty cut on the side of his head, he’d saved most of his face by raising his arm, but he’d got cracked good on the top of his head.

Mark pulled out a tube of glue, putting Tyler’s skull back together. Using sealant would be suspicious, it cost a ton for anyone outside of the EMF and the glue would work just fine.

“My knights in shining armor,” Eliese purred, not caring about her state of undress.

Mark grinned as Tyler sealed up his cut head.

His grin faded as security came out to deal with the situation.

“They’re okay,” Eliese said pointing to Mark and Tyler.

Security nodded, and started checking out the miners none to gently.

As Eliese led them away, tossing away what was left of her bra.

“Ah shit, two of them are dead.” One of the security guys said.

“Fucker tried to jump the Chosen’s biggest contributor on the entire station; they’re not gonna give a shit.” Another growled.

The door closed behind Mark as Eliese took them past the women’s changing room, where most were just walking around in the nude without a care. There were different kinds of bikinis and flashy clothing. Mirrors lined the room with lights and women conversing.