Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) (26 page)

“What happened?”
Tyler asked sounding confused.

“They’re fucking skinning her, they’re fucking killing her!
Mark cried as he watched, and another blast hit him and he went back down, panting on the dust floor as he looked at the woman pull her strip off.

Blood was streaming down Caroline’s side; she was going into shock. The woman started on the other side.

Caroline was panting, her eyes rolling back in her head.

“Better get in while she’s still alive!” one said, dropping his pants.

Anger flooded Mark, unlike anything he had felt in his life. His vision went red and his augments opened up, fully releasing everything they had into his system.

The one hitting Mark leaned down. “That’s a picnic compared to what we’ll do to you.”

Mark rolled, and pain lanced through him, but he embraced it, and used it to focus his actions. His hand dropped to his waistband and he pulled the pistol from his pants.

The Chosen was trying to get second hit on Mark, but their eyes widened in shock as Mark presented the pistol and fired, the Chosen’s head blowing out. Mark rolled to his knees.

Time seemed to slow down, with the mixture of feelings and chemicals in his system. The Chosen turned as if in molasses, and they were too close to miss. To Mark, it was like he was at the firing range. He fired his weapon, an extension of himself, and Chosen dropped with screams as he moved sideways. When the gun was empty he grabbed a fresh magazine, reloading and firing in seconds. He had trained for years, his only goal to protect his brother and kill anyone that threatened him.

He reached out and ripped the plastic sheeting off of the shacks.

“Right, blonde,”
Tyler said, and the blonde woman crumpled backwards. Her rifle was up, but her rounds passed feet away from Mark.

Mark dove into the woman who was skinning Caroline with blood on their blade and hands. He shot her as he ran, and he felt the blade drive into his back but it was someone else’s body, numb from feeling, from caring.

He grabbed the woman’s rifle turned and fired at the Chosen that were ducking and running.

He cut them down, not one of them remained.

The man who was about to rape Caroline was crawling backwards with his pants around his ankles, shock on his face.

“Do you know who I am?” He demanded, strength coming back to his voice.

Mark saw his nametag, and he glanced at the man, his pistol pointed at him casually.

“Dean Castillo, commander of this fair mining camp,” Mark said, his voice cold.

“That’s ri…” The gun cracked and Castillo’s head rocketed back into the floor, his body going limp.

Mark moved to Caroline, tossing the Chosen away, they didn’t deserve to touch her.

Caroline was panting, and pain marred her features. The wounds on her sides were deep and painful, and blood was pouring out of her, she didn’t have the augments that could clot her wounds up. Mark ripped his shirt off and wrapped it around her sides, but they quickly reddened with blood.

He looked around, grabbing a water bottle and a bottle of narcotics that the Chosen liked to use.

“Sniff this,” he said, his jaw opened less than a centimeter as he cradled her in his lap, holding the bottle up. She did so, her face relaxing. “Stay with me!” Her eyelids were closing slightly. She kept them open but Mark could tell it was hard for her.

He gave her water and she drank it coughing after a few moments. He took it away and ripped a shirt off a dead Chosen and used it to cover the rest of her.

Tears clouded his vision. He’d always wanted to see her face, to see her real smile, not just the way her eyes crinkled.

Her small hand reached up and touched him, and he held it to his cheek and rubbed his face on it.

“My protector,” she said with a smile that sent new tears streaming down his face. His anger was lost, only pain filled him. He wished he didn’t know the truth, but he’d seen too many people die. She was losing blood too fast, and he didn’t have medical supplies and she didn’t have augments.

“I wish we had gotten out of here together, would have liked you to take me to the asteroid belt, could’ve had something together. Would’ve been pretty sweet,” she said.

Feelings that Mark had hoped she had for him flourished in his chest.

“No, please, stay,” Mark begged, his mangled hulk shaking with tears.

“We both know I’m not going to make it.” Tears flowed down her face.

“This is my fault,” Mark said, bowing his head, hate filling him.

“No, never, don’t you ever think that! You were the only good thing about this place. It was Harmony’s fault, never yours.” She squeezed his hand, and it was weak, so weak. Mark cherished it. He had thought himself numb to this.

“Please kiss me,” she said.

Mark took her gingerly and lifted her head kissing her lips, tasting the salt of his tears through his beard.

“Beard feels weird,” she said, giving a coughing laugh, her body stiffening in pain. Mark held the narcotic up again, but she shook her head no.

Mark dropped it.

“Just hold me, please,” she said, her face breaking as she cried, scared for death, scared to let go of what had been the possibility for so much more. Mark held her to him, wrapping her in his arms, tears falling freely. He thought of his large arms as protectors against the world. Holding it all at bay.

It wouldn’t be enough.

***

Tyler took down another Chosen. Dashtund, Ko and Niemi were all silently marking and taking down their targets.

There was nowhere for the Chosen to go.
They
ruled the camp now. Chosen ran for cover, panic setting in as four rifles used the Chosen’s panic and confusion to turn the camp into a massacre.

Tyler glanced to his readings of Mark’s augments and implants. They were going all over the place. Mark he was cradling a woman to him, she seemed to have severe wounds. The camp workers were looking at him.

He’d been like that for some time.

Tyler was about to look away when Mark moved. He moved gently, slowly lowering the woman to the ground, and he made sure that she was wrapped up then kissed her forehead. Tyler watched, wondering what he was seeing.

Mark got up, drinking water and eating bars, pulling the blade out of his back and grabbing rifles.

He pulled on armor plates, and checked the metal-storm rifle his grip. Four more were draped from him, as well as a sub-machine gun.

Mark stepped out of the room and started firing, the metal storm shredding through targets. Mark moved like a robot and it was like watching a simulation at work; he and his weapon moved, and Chosen fell as they ran around or hid from Tyler and the other snipers.

Tyler returned to taking out Chosen.

“We won’t be able to help for three days, so look after yourselves,” Zukic said, talking to the sniper teams, Mark, Moretti and Dominguez.

“We’ll kill them all,”
Mark said, his voice making Tyler feel a chill down his spine. He had recognized Mark as a dangerous man, but he had never been scared of him before. Those four words sounded like they were from a different man.

Tyler saw air cars approaching from the strip and shaft mines, and he took out a Chosen that was aiming at Mark. He pulled the bag off of the Anti Material Rifle at his side, and set down his Chosen bolt-action rifle.

***

Mark dropped the first rifle it’s barrels out his hand dropped to the sub-machine gun, a chosen was hiding in a shack, their barrel firing out at the distance.

Mark fired where they would be, the barrel dropped and something dropped to the floor. Mark let the sub machine gun swing on it’s sling, he pulled up a fresh rifle, he turned firing on an air-car that was taking off, he emptied the barrels in seconds, the three people inside dead, he pulled the guns sling off and tossed it he ran up the air car and dropped into it’s turret, it still worked, he turned it pulling the charging handle back, rounds moved into the gun and a live round dropped out. It was good to go.

He pressed the trigger, and the gun boomed, shaking the air car as heavy rounds left the weapon’s barrel.

He cut down two other gunners before Chosen started to realize what was going on. There were Chosen bodies all over the place and more were approaching from the mines.

Mark used the traversing systems to bring the heavy machine gun to bear. He pressed the butterfly trigger, and three air cars grouped too close together went down, one turning into a fireball.

The distant noise of an AMR firing reached his ears.

He guided tracers across the air cars.

An air car’s front rotors were destroyed, the front of the air car dipping uncontrollably, and the back end flipped over the front, ripping itself apart as Chosen went flying from the rear.

” Mother fucking Harmony piece of shit,” He yelled, his hands moving to clear the stoppage. A round was sticking at an odd angle in the breech. He hammered on it, against everything he’d been taught, it came out.

e re-loaded and pulled back on the charging handle.

Workers were stumbling out of the shacks, some bearing guns. Mark gestured at the other air car turrets and some seemed to get the idea. One looked shocked as they accidentally pressed the trigger, but Mark didn’t have the time to teach them. He heard the whine of air car motors and felt the heavy machine gun firing, so he used one hand to crank the wheel that moved him side to side, and the other twitched on the trigger, firing on the swarm of air cars.

They had all grouped together, eager to close with the enemy. They’d shot machine guns but they’d never learned that the enemy being nice and close together was a machine gunner’s paradise. They’d always thought that they’d be killing anyone running at them. Mark barely blinked as his barrel heated up, the blued metal turning slowly cherry red.

Air cars exploded, their shrapnel and carcasses causing other air cars to crash into the shacks. Others were flipped due to poor flying or weapons fire.

The shacks were torn apart by heavy machine gun fire; the Chosen were bad at aiming and they were moving quickly.

Mark and the other camp workers only had to point and shoot. An unlucky few were hit with rounds but the majority were fine as they yelled, screamed and fired, freedom and defiance flowing in their veins.

Three air car turrets were firing on the fifteen moving Chosen air cars. It was a slaughter; the fifteen air cars were spread out over six hundred meters of ground. Three escaped, one trailing engine smoke. The air cars weren’t armored or meant to be hit by heavy machine guns. The three were running straight for Mining City Twenty Seven. When Mark ran out of rounds he opened the gun up and tossed the old ammo box, and a boy handed him a fresh box. He slammed it into the old one’s place and put the first round in the gun, slamming it closed and racking the first round into the chamber.

He grabbed his shoulder, finding the edge of the synth skin. He pulled it off, his Trooper tattoo clear.

There were Chosen moving in the air car wreckage and he fired at the movement, his implants magnifying the area as he followed his tracers onto target.

He heard the AMR fire three times, and he knew the three air cars that had fled weren’t going to make it to Mining City Twenty-One.

“
Moving position,”
Tyler said.

“I’ve got them down here,”
Mark said, cutting down any Chosen that dared to show their faces.

Chapter 38

EMFC Reclaimer

Oort Cloud, Osdal System

8/3267

Conti got a message from Nivad and he opened it immediately, pausing his constant checks of the scans.

“Sound battle stations, full burn for Osdal Actual. The Triple Twos need our help,” Conti said.

His crew turned to their battle stations. They had stood beside him as they arrived in Masoul, the first action that an Earth Military Force Carrier had been in, ever.

“Full burn, roger,” Lieutenant Tamm said from his position at the front of the bridge. His readings climbed as he worked to decrease the flight time to Osdal Actual.

“Sending to the fleet, all ships on full burn,” Neves confirmed, his voice calm and professional.

“Weapons are checked, ready and loaded! I’m picking up contacts on sensors; looks to be the asteroid miner fleet moving to Processing Center Five” Lieutenant Denaski said, hungry and ready.

“Let them see us, it’s about time we got back into the fight.” Conti’s people had come a long way since Masoul, and they had learned from their mistakes. All of their decisions affected those that they were transporting, but they had matured into a fine crew. He was proud to be with them as they surged ahead to meet Osdal Actual.

Chapter 39

Gold Runner

Asteroid Cloud Two

Inner system, Osdal System

8/3267

“Holy shit,” Felicia said, chills running down her spine at her sensor plot. She was at the right angle to see the engine burn of five massive freighters that had snuck into Osdal system by aiming their thrust away from sensors and stations.