Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) (25 page)

Mark cared for Caroline deeply, in a way he had never found with his past lovers or flings. Sure, he had offloaded his life story onto them; he had never done that with Caroline and it didn’t matter, he could see she didn’t care for that.

She stayed around based on what he had done, and she cared for him. Not because she should, hell, she should be on the other side of shack city rather than being around him. She cared for him because she wanted to.

For the first time she saw Mark Victor the man, not the gangster, or Trooper.

It was irrational and stupid. His body was broken, terribly so, his skin was a mess of bruises and friction burns, and his skull was broken and his fingers were missing. Pain was something Mark had become used to.

But this, this was something different, something new and almost magical.

He didn’t see rainbows and butterflies in the future, but the tiniest sliver of hope filled him. He glanced down at their entwined hands to make sure it was still real.

She helped him up and half dragged half carried him up his truck ladder.

Mark knew that she had just made herself a target for him.

He let out a grunt of gratitude, his jaw closed shut by the medical augments.

“Don’t pass out, and we’ll see about those wounds later,” Caroline said.

She checked on him through the day when she could, and then helped him out of his truck when it was quitting time.

Mark cried silently as she cleaned his wounds with water.

She crunched up his food and fed it to him and fed him water. He would have died if not for her care.

That had been a few weeks ago. Mark woke up, nightmares making him tense and sweaty.

He found Caroline next to him, making soft noises, her eyes closed as she tried to get some rest, her fragile hand touching the parts of his face that weren’t badly cut.

Mark pulled her next to him and sank back into sleep.

One new man had hit Caroline and taken her and Mark’s food.

Mark slipped out in the night and found the man; he took the food back and most of the man’s too. The man never stole again, and no one messed with Caroline.

From then on that was how it went, she made sure he stayed alive and acted as something to calm his raw nerves and stop the nightmares.

Mark stopped anyone from looking at her with anything other than boredom.

The Chosen had thinned out a few days after the incident. There was news that the asteroid miners were rebelling against Harmony, siding with Earth.

The camp workers who decried that they were not Earthers now didn’t care if the asteroid miners were backed by Earth, they just wanted to be set free.

Mark and Caroline were doing maintenance on the trucks, and it was grueling work. Mark moved hundred pound drums of coolant, and Caroline worked electronics and batteries.

Straining, Mark felt some of his wounds open. He had a new rag shirt and it covered his wounds that were healing much too fast. He already had skin forming again and his bones only needed a few more weeks before they were finished.

“Three hundred meters, your right hand side, air car turret.”
Tyler sounded like he was right next to Mark.

Mark felt strength returning to his body and his heart beat faster. He looked at the man lounging behind the air car’s turret, harassing people as they went by.

Suddenly, his head rocked back in a fountain of blood and he slumped into the turret.

“Two hundred meters, pisser,”
Tyler said in Mark’s ear, and a hole appeared in the side of the chem toilet’s wall.

So it went on; Tyler called out targets and holes appeared in them.

The Chosen started reacting diving for cover and running, but the camp workers kept working, paying no attention.

“Truck, twenty meters, hiding,”
Niemi called out, and Mark heard the bullet whiz as the Chosen stumbled backwards and then fell to the ground. Mark looked around, the Chosen were in a panic and the camp workers were looking around with vacant eyes.

Mark moved to the downed Chosen, pulling off their knives, and tucking their holsters and pistols into his pants and grabbing the extra magazines.

The Chosen were firing wildly, and a camp worker went down with a cry. Everyone got low, and Mark scrambled back to the coolant barrels.

The panicked Chosen’s yells were cut short as rounds found their targets.

“We’ll be seeing you soon, bro,”
Tyler said. Chosen stopped falling and Mark knew that Tyler, Niemi and their spotters were already vacating their shooting positions.

“What was that?” Caroline asked, her eyes looking to Mark’s waistband, implying the pistol underneath.

Mark smiled at her.

“Just don’t do anything too crazy, I put a lot of work into putting you back together.” Her voice was gentle as she touched him.

Mark nodded sincerely, emotions making his guts twist. He knew at that moment that he liked her, that she’d put her life on the line for him, though he’d never seen her full face and he hadn’t talked for weeks. Yet he wanted to make her smile and laugh freely. He’d seen a few rare moments and they made his heart leap.

Their relationship wasn’t sexual, yet it was fulfilling. They looked out for one another and cared for one another, and those actions had led to feelings. He watched her as she continued to work on electronics.

She might have a scar across her face, but those eyes captured his heart. They saw him for the killer he was and they didn’t care, to her he was her defender.

He kept moving barrels as his mind started spinning. He wondered if she liked him in that way, or if she simply wanted his protection.

He hoped it was the former.

Chosen ran around scared, and a few fired off their machine guns in random directions, but none of it did much good. The Chosen leaders were hiding in air cars and barking orders at other Chosen. Camp workers tried to help those that had been hit by Chosen rounds, but many wouldn’t make it.

Mark pushed his thoughts of Caroline to the back of his mind. He was a Trooper, and if he survived he would be fighting across Osdal, and then wherever the EMF sent him next.

Chapter 36

Mining City One

Osdal Actual Osdal

7/3267

Guy Castillo looked at the news channels. He’d seen the video of his own daughter torturing a family to death. He was ashamed to have had such a child.

He now sat facing a pick up in his office, a drink in his hand.

“Hello people of Osdal, and you Harmony fuckers, hope you’re sitting comfortably because I’ve got a story for you. Don’t mind me and Mister Beam here, by the end I’m going to have got through a lot of this,” Guy said with a smile, tapping the large bottle of whiskey on his desk.

“My name is Guy Castillo, and I was deceived by Harmony, like many of you. I could have at any time made this video, at any time, I could have admitted my mistakes, but it took me until now to do that. I thank the brave asteroid miners who are fighting for their families and friends, fighting to stop the oppressive regime of Harmony. Those people you call Earthers are the people who wanted the best for Osdal, they were the ones that spoke up against people being thrown into camps to make up for the quotas the rest of Osdal didn’t reach. Harmony needs supplies, and they used our people to take it from us. The rest they kept dumb and stupid, as their Chosen bully boys murdered and tortured their way into power.” Guy’s hand tightened on his glass.

“My own son and daughter became Harmony’s monsters. No sign of the children that I raised still rests in their souls. All I can hope for is that they receive a quick death, unlike those that fell into their clutches. Only my love as a father makes that wish possible, but I know many who will want to prolong their deaths. I ask that you do not. Not for me, or for them, but for yourselves. The Chosen became the disease that they are by allowing them to do what they want. Fight them, reclaim Osdal, but do not let yourselves become the creatures that they are.” Guy paused and took a drink.

“Now, I said I would tell you a story, so here it is: the story of how Harmony deceived me through a man you all know, Tsik. Let’s pull the shadows out of the closet, shall we?” Guy started the story of how Harmony came into control of Osdal, and how he had helped them achieve it.

***

Tsik got a message on his implants from Guy. He blinked, trying to focus his eyes on the message.

He jumped at the sound of a gun going off, and poured beer on himself.

“Guy?” he yelled, rolling off the couch and heading to Guy’s office.

There at his desk was Guy Castillo, a bottle of Jim Beam empty on his desk and the back of his skull covering the wall behind him.

Tsik threw up at the sight, and guards rushed in. Calls were made, and someone guided Tsik back to the couch.

People kept coming and going from the room. No one made to move Guy Castillo’s body.

Tsik remembered the message, so he opened it to see Guy addressing the camera. For the first time in a while he looked alive, and new purpose filled him.

Tsik listened, sobering as Guy laid out all that Tsik had done, the Trojan horse, as he called it, for Harmony. How he had let Luke in and the idea of having a policing force, the Chosen, and how that policing force had been turned into a group of bullies and psychopaths.

“There it is folks, that’s how you turn a system into a Harmony-loving cess-pit. Let’s not kid ourselves; it’s not like we’re even really Harmony, we’re just a system that they’re using to get the materials they want to fight the EMF. As soon as the EMF show up, Luke and his people are going to go home and we’ll be left to bleed the EMF, because that’s what we are: a road stop on the EMF’s path to the real Harmony.” Guy pulled out a gun.

“Never really liked these things, but they seem to do the job. I realize now that I’m a coward and, well, it’s better to find that out now rather than later. All I can look forward to is the Chosen making an example of me, or making me admit that all I just said is a big lie, and I’d have to be tortured into that admission. I have one last
fuck you
for the Chosen. Ain’t going to get me alive, you fuckers! I’m truly sorry for everything that I did, and I know that I do not deserve forgiveness. I will not make you watch my last moments, good by people of Osdal. I hope that you do what I couldn’t: tell Harmony where to shove their Chosen and their plans.” Guy cut the message.

Tsik looked to where the video had been posted; the simple explanation was everywhere.

Chapter 37

Mining City Twenty-One

Osdal Actual, Osdal System

8/3267

Mark rolled, a shock stick hitting the floor where his head had been moments before. With his motion he pushed Caroline away from him, away from the threat.

He took a strike on his arm, the whole limb going numb, and he took another to his leg before he turned, trying to fight the bastards from the ground.

But there were too many and he was too weak and tired.

His limbs flailed, useless and numb. He twitched, unable to protect himself as they continued to hit him.

Mark barely heard Caroline shrieking and he could see her getting dragged away from him.

Mark was limp from the shocks, shaking with the volts that were making his muscles twitch painfully.

They lessened up the beating; they didn’t want to kill him yet.

“Seems that you’ve taken a liking to her,” one of the chosen holding Caroline said, stroking her face and looking at Mark.

He pulled the scarf off her face, revealing the scar that sliced through her features. Mark had seen scars throughout his life, and he could tell that Caroline was a good-looking woman before she’d cut her face up. She’d told him why she’d done it.

Another grabbed her shirt rags and ripped it down.

Mark made to move and got shocked again, and he fell to the ground panting as they bound Caroline and tore at her clothes. She screamed the entire time, kicking at them, and they laughed and pushed her down.

The other camp workers moved away from them tussle, watching with pity but not reacting, knowing that they would become the center of the Chosen’s attention instead.

They were so scared that they were going to watch instead of acting. Mark’s guts rolled, he was powerless to stop it.

A Chosen took a knife, and Caroline’s motions stopped as the woman’s blade touched her stomach. Caroline’s shrieks turned into a scream.

“Hold her down, won’t get a good strip otherwise,” the woman said, and the other Chosen pinned Caroline down even harder, leaving just one holding a stun stick above Mark. They hit him between the shoulder blades, opening recently healed wounds and making Mark cry out in pain.

Caroline screamed as a blood red line appeared down her side. The Chosen was fucking skinning her!

“Tyler, fucking kill them, fucking kill them all!
Mark yelled, his mouth still unable to open.