Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) (20 page)

Mark put a hand on Moretti’s shoulder. “I killed them. They might be a terrible demonstration of the Chosen, but we wouldn’t kill chosen in Elekt, we’re not Earthers from the slums, I will take my punishment. We will see one another later.”

“Get the fuck out of here while you can, and kill the bastards whenever you can. I won’t let them kill me. I’ll be ready
.
Just move your plan up a bit, I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop myself from killing too many of them before long,
” Mark subvocalized.

Moretti looked to be waging an inner battle.

“Follow Moretti’s orders, don’t get me unless everything else is in place,”
Mark continued, looking to the others, his lips never moving.

“Well spoken, now if you will, I can get you on your way,” Emilie said.

“I’ll see you later Mark, we’ll get this sorted out,” Moretti said, moving to the cell doors, past Pel the two guards and facing Emilie.

“We’ll be watching out for you,” Tal said, making a circle with his fingers. Mark knew he meant watching with his rifle that was packed in his gear bag.

“We’ll get this sorted out,” Bairamov said, clapping hands with Mark and embracing, “And they’ll all be fucking dead,” Bairamov’s voice was only heard by Mark as he walked out.

One of the guys Emilie had called in shut the door and Emilie walked out, the others following her.

“I’m going to the camps aren’t I?” Mark said to the one Chosen still with him.

“You fucking bet.”

“Well it’ll be nice to have a vacation,” Mark said, Pel’s blood drying to his face, and he scratched it off, red flakes falling on the ground. He took a seat on the bench bolted to the wall.

The guard snorted and shook his head.

Chapter 24

Refining station Seventy-Seven

Oort Cloud, Osdal System

6/3267

“He fucking what?” Tyler demanded, a dangerous look in his eyes as veins started throbbing on his neck and his fists tightened into white balls.

Most people would have backed away from Tyler, but Haas knew that he was relatively safe, though any Chosen in the area definitely weren’t.

Tyler had just come back from finishing his two week shift on the claim.

Carly had got enough people together that they trusted, so it was the last time that they’d be on the claim. Felicia and her crew were still on the way back to Refining Station Seventy-Seven.

“He got sent to the camps at Mining City Twenty-One. Moretti rescheduled his meeting with Luke, and the others are getting the lay of the land as fast as possible. Bandit Two is getting fueled right now. Myself and Jerome’s section are staying here to manage things, but you and your section will be going to Osdal Actual,” Haas said.

Tyler sighed, anger making him twitchy as he took a seat on the couch in the apartment hotel.

“What’s the plan?” Tyler asked.

“We continue as planned, but as fast as possible. We’re going to send messages out to the other teams and see if they can move up the timeline. If they can’t, then we sit and watch. Mark knows what he’s in.”

He didn’t promise that Mark would be okay, they all knew that he couldn’t promise that. Mark was in the enemy’s hands. Now they had to continue on their mission, their only hope lay in completing it. First came the mission, then Mark.

It hurt Tyler but he knew that his brother would agree with the priorities. He was in danger, but if they rescued him then carriers of Troopers just like him would be in danger.

“You take Bandit Two and hang out, there’s a slip already paid for at Processing Station One, that’s where Moretti thinks the sensor grid is being run from. I want your team to find out Harmony’s capabilities on the station, and figure out a way of shutting down the sensor grids. Once that’s done you’ll have a part of your team stay on the station prepared and ready to shut down the sensor grid. The rest of your section will move to assist the other operatives as needed,” Haas looked to Jerome.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be joining up with them soon enough,” Haas assured him.

Jerome nodded, and he and Tyler looked at one another. Tyler felt understanding in those eyes. He could feel the dark tension in the room. They wanted to grab their gear and blast away anyone that got in their way. Tyler sensed that Haas wanted to do the same thing, yet their discipline and trust in Haas and Moretti held them back.

Mark was strong, and if anyone could survive the camps it was him.

“Once everything here is running smoothly, Jerome’s section and myself will grab a ride with Gold Runner or Bandit Two and head to Osdal Actual,” Haas said.

No one looked pleased, but that was the plan.

Chapter 25

Mining City Twenty-One

Osdal Actual, Osdal System

6/3267

Luke listened to Emilie’s report, and he sighed and rubbed his head, his expression pained. Bandit Two was pulling the majority of rare metals out of Refining Station Seventy-Seven’s operating area,

The situation was bad, First, the Chosen, acting like the air heads that they were, had threatened the Bandit Two Corporation, then they’d threatened to rape one of their founding members.

It seemed that another one that had taken offence to them trying to carry out that second act, and had reacted. He’d killed three Chosen, one with his own jaw. Luke was more impressed by that than angered. He didn’t care what happened to the Osdal Chosen, after all, they were just a testing platform for Harmony’s weapons.

If he was back working a CEO on Housapel this would have never happened; Bandit Two knew their place, they paid their dues and followed the rules.

Now they were actively selling their materials to stations that needed it for repair work. They still gave Harmony 20%, but that was all.

Luke had looked into cracking down on them, but Bandit Two Corp was deeply entrenched, and they owed a third of the ships that ran around Refining Station Seventy-Seven. They had thirty claims already staked out, and had provisional contracts with all of the large haulers at the station. They shipped materials to Osdal Actual’s Processing stations, and then also hauled the raw materials from the claims to Seventy-Seven when not doing those runs.

People were flocking to Seventy-Seven as they offered contracts to miners. They mined and got a solid return on their time.

Luke could try to bully them, but then it would show how much Osdal Actual was prejudiced against the asteroid miners. If that happened then he could lose all of the productivity of the asteroid miners, and they contributed thirty times, in weight, the metals of Osdal Actual.

As it was, the Chosen killer would be just another number moved from general population to Mining Camp Twenty-One.

Hell he was already in the population. Luke couldn’t pull him out and send him back to Bandit Two now. He would get word out to the asteroid miners and, as much as they were a group of weirdos and could only be among one another for short periods, they stuck up for one another, not something he wanted.

“So you’re telling me that you don’t think that the miners will lose their shit over this?” Luke asked, sitting back and resting his chin on his hand.

“Yes sir, it was an isolated incident, I don’t think it will have too much of an effect,” Emilie said.

“You arrested him two days ago, right?” Luke looking at her and, accessing his implants, used his right hand to glance through different images.

“Yes sir.”

“Right, definitely not enough time for this to become much of an issue. Nice and quick, in and out. No one the wiser.” Luke found the image he was looking for and threw it against the wall to his right. Emilie looked at it, her eyes widening as she saw the graffiti.

“Now, what does that say?” Luke asked.

“Sir I...” Emilie started.

“Say it,” Luke’s voice became dangerous; he had enough augments in his body to overpower her with brute strength and take a couple of stabs and pistol rounds. Her eyes snapped to the image.

“Fuck Harmony,” she said.

“This one,” Luke threw up another image, this one a poster.

“What did Harmony ever do for us, except try to rape our people and throw them in camps?” She read, her jaw working.

“The EMF is coming, Chosen fucks,” she said looking away.

“That was yesterday,” Luke said.

“Sir, he’s just one man,” Emilie said.

“Oh it doesn’t matter; the asteroid miners don’t care. They don’t care who’s running things, as long as they can get drunk, have a good time and be left alone. I was fine with leaving them alone as long as they met their quota and allowed us to prepare for the EMF. Now we look like a bunch of rapists who throw their people into penal camps for defending their own.”

Emilie flinched. “He wasn’t going to...” She couldn’t look Luke in the eyes.

“What, rape her?” Luke demanded, slamming his fist into the desk and startling her. “I saw the fucking video, Emilie! Look me in the fucking eyes!” He had sat through enough dinners to inspire the Chosen, and he saw what they were on Osdal; they were rapists, murderers and liars. It disgusted him just being around them. He’d taken satisfaction from seeing that fat fucker get stabbed to death with his own jaw.

Emilie’s eyes snapped up to his.

“Your people, hell, your fucking brother, you’re all fucking rapists and murderers. If you thought you could hide it, you would have killed them all and buried their bodies. That’s what happened with the Dudayev family.” Luke taunted her and she flinched at the name. “Thought you could hide that, did you? Your people seemed to have a lot of fun killing the father slowly, while raping his young wife, daughter and son. You looked extremely happy afterwards when you were gutting the young boy.” Luke’s eyes bored into hers and she looked away.

His hand pushed into the desk, cracking the glass surface with the pressure, then he slumped down and waved his hand, as if to make it all disappear.

“Get the fuck out of my office and find your brother those slaves he needs. Don’t take any asteroid miners, and let me deal with Bandit Two Corporation,” Luke said, looking at the glass windows that looked out onto the mine camps.

“Yes sir,” she said. “For the sake of Harmony.”

Luke parroted it, not looking it to her as she hurried out of the door.

Luke was losing it, he hoped that the EMF came soon, much longer and he’d start shooting the Chosen himself, the inept stupid motherfuckers. Couldn’t do anything without fucking up his plans.

He wondered if she was ashamed by what she had done with the Dudayev family, or if she was just embarrassed he had found it. In the end he didn’t care.

He pulled up the reports coming in from Dean, and the influx of slaves was yielding some results, though it would take a few weeks until they were conditioned properly and worked without complaint, or at least learned to keep it to themselves for fear of retribution.

Luke wasn’t a murderer or a rapist, he was a businessman, and a businessman knew how and when to use all the tools at his disposal to get the job done.

***

Mark, like the rest of the people who had been declared Earthers, was dumped out of the air-truck and onto the ground in front of rows of scaffolding that had been covered in plastic sheeting to protect it from the elements.

Mark got to his feet. His hands were bound and the landing hadn’t been expected or gentle.

Quite a few of his fellow passengers were taking their time getting to their feet. A whip cracked, cutting through a man’s shirt and leaving a bloody streak behind.

He let out a wail and collapsed into the dirt. Mark helped those that he could get to their feet, mostly by just picking them up. They were all as tall or taller than him in the reduced gravity, but none of them had the muscle density he did. They felt like wiry puppets in his arms.

But he was used to carrying other armored Troopers in nearly three times the gravity of Osdal.

“Get those clothes off, Earthers!” Someone barked, more whips cracking as people screamed and cried. It wasn’t just men and women being dumped, there were seniors and children.

Mark wanted to take those whips and turn them on the Chosen.

But they were too far away, and the Chosen loafing on the air cars nearby would cut him down before he could do much more than punch their fellows. So he stood there, watching the Chosen and the Earthers.

“Strip, Earthers!” The person demanded, losing their patience, and a whip cracked again, this time it hit a kid in the head. The child went down, no sound coming from their lips.

Mark closed his eyes and let out the sigh as the wails from his mother started up.

“Fuck sakes, Hendricks, we need to keep some of them alive,” the one giving the orders protested.

“Sorry boss, the kids always fuck me up, fucking midgets,” Hendricks said.

Mark looked at the man, his implants taking a picture.

Hendricks,
he said, remembering the name. He would make sure he was one of the first to die.