Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) (30 page)

Ali got the door open, and Dashtund boosted Ko up, while Niemi and Tyler were looking for targets.

Seeing no one, Ko stepped onto the floor.

“Seems the bastards in the East sector got out, should have a line of sight, down,” Tyler checked his HUD before pointing through the elevator and into an office space. “Ko you take point, let’s move.”

***

Mark was in bad shape, but he just plain didn’t care. He’d taken the med kits and used as much as he could on himself. His augments took the extra aid and were speeding up the process, but he needed weeks, not hours for them to get him back to combat ready.

He moved from position to position, giving quick and brief lessons on the weapon systems. People saw the tattoo and listened. When your life is on the line then you listen the hell up.

This was their chance at freedom, and they were doing all they could. People dumped their truckloads around the air cars, usually crushing them. Mark didn’t care, as long as the turrets were able to function.

He’d set fire to the shacks, and most people had cheered. He’d done it to clear their line of sight and to make sure that no one got their hands on Caroline’s body, or the bodies of anyone else.

On one side of the maintenance area there were massive hauling trucks making a row down the length of the kilometer long maintenance patch, and there was a space between them and the workshops that littered the center, with supplies that kept the machines going resting there.

On the other side was the mining machinery, the conveyor belts and the Diggers that ate into the sides of the strip mines. Parts lay all around them, ready to be rushed down to the strip mine to keep production up.

Mark had the truckers crush all of the trucks in a line together, and the supplies were thrown underneath so no one could crawl in. The roadways were blocked off with more trucks.

Rocks had been poured over the parts and mining machinery on the other side of the lot.

Mark had taken oil, painted the barrels black, put them in the sun and mounted them to the trucks.

The massive batteries that ran the trucks and machinery were buried around the defensive positions. Rubble and rocks were everywhere, breaking up the plain surface of the planet.

Mark dropped into his turret on top of a truck, and there were five others up in the trucks. He put the people he was most confident in in those turrets. They would see the enemy far away, and he wanted their shots to count before the turrets along the strong points in the defenses found the enemy.

A turret started opening up.
Small bursts dickhead,
Mark thought, following the tracers to find where the rounds were going. His implants zoomed in on the powered armor and air cars that were racing towards his defenses.

“Cut them down!” Mark cranked his turn wheel, bringing the weapon on target.

He used the stubs remaining of his fingers and fired on the approaching enemy, and other turrets added in their fire. Mark adjusted, using his implants to guide his fire across the forward Chosen.

He wouldn’t be able to hold out long without support. He wanted to see Harmony fall for Caroline, but if all he got was a dozen of their lives, he would be satisfied with that.

Chapter 45

Bandit Two

Osdal Actual, Osdal System

8/3267

Picking up Zukic, Moretti and Dominguez had been easy. Yu barely stopped, opening the hatch and hovering as the three ran in. Then he’d been off again, heading as fast as he could to Mining City Twenty-One.

The situation there looked like a hell of a lot more than just a simple pick-up.

“I’m tracking multiple targets heading from the city, I’ve got shuttles spinning up and moving out to other cities, there are powered armor units in the streets,” Young said as Yu flew, no longer driving the freighter.

“I’ve got a convoy of air cars and powered armor moving on the camp,” Young said. Yu could see it, to his right lay Mining City Twenty-One, to his left there were the massive open pit mines all around the shack city, refinery and the maintenance pads. Smoke from the shack city clouded the sky, heading towards the dust cloud of the advancing powered armor and air cars racing along the conveyor belt that ran to the city.

Lines of tracer fire came from one of the maintenance pads. Yu used eye twitches to zoom in on the maintenance pads, and he saw makeshift defenses around the perimeter, and heavy machine guns fired into the advancing cloud of Chosen.

Air cars were thrown and tossed and powered armor was knocked back, taking a few hits before the heavy rounds penetrated.

The mounted heavy machine guns on the air cars tried to return fire, their firing off-balancing the machines they were mounted to and making them weave dangerously.

Yu knew that Mark was down there, but he didn’t know how long he and the camp workers could hold out for.

“Incoming!”

Yu saw the tracks on his HUD and threw the freighter into a dive and banked. The turrets underneath the belly of the freighter opened fired on the heavy machine guns trying to take the freighter out.

Yu dismissed the image of the maintenance pad, for now he needed to pick up Tyler and his bunch of vagabonds.

“Tyler, where the fuck are you?” Young left Yu to deal with the flying part, and he could hear rounds hitting his hull like hail off of a tin roof.

“Fuck sakes Yu, I don’t want another fucking skylight!” Bobbie barked.

Even with rounds hitting the hull of freighter, Yu had to smile at that one. He powered the engines and went high.

“Moving to a rooftop,” Tyler said, and a Marker appeared on Yu’s HUD, but he continued to fly higher and erratically to throw the heavy machine guns off. They continued to miss as the freighter’s turrets fired down into their positions.

“Time estimate?” Young asked.

“Fifteen minutes,” Tyler said.

“Hurry that the hell up! We’ve got converted shuttles on us,”

“Ahh fuck,” Yu barrel rolled as some of the shuttles were heading for them.

The auto-turrets fired, and the crew fired from their implants, strapped into the freighter’s harnesses.

“Hey, I’m getting a new fucking arm here, mind going easy on the roller coaster ride?!” Jerome didn’t sound like he was in the best mood.

Yu flipped and came back at the shuttles, firing his larger auto cannons. They pulled the shuttles apart as they dove past them, their explosions making the freighter shake violently.

Yu found himself pointed at the convoy going towards the maintenance pad, and he fired down onto them, hoping that it helped Mark out some.

“Five minutes! Got some powered armor chasing us though!” Tyler said.

Yu changed direction and headed for the waypoint. He used his thrusters and flaps to break his speed, the freighter wasn’t any Combat Shuttle so he broke off on his approach and circled, cutting more speed.

Tyler and his section came out onto the covered landing pad and smoke rushed out of the stairwell they’d cleared. They ran full out for the edge of the building.

Yu brought them in; they were too high for most of the heavy machine guns, or towers were in the way.

“Ramp down!” Bobbie said, the wind whipping through the freighter from its own engines and the altitude.

Powered armor climbed out of the stairwell. Yu didn’t hesitate, he fired into the powered armor-wearing Chosen. The heavy rounds cut through even their chest plates.

The stairwell lit up as rounds turned it to ruins, and tracers bounced through the small enclosure.

“Good to go,” Bobbie said. Yu didn’t need to be told twice. He fired the engines and headed for the edge of the platform, then he fired at the glass, and the cannons tore it apart as the freighter pushed through, and they escaped through a waterfall of glass.

Chapter 46

Mining City Twenty-One

Osdal Actual, Osdal System

8/3267

The gun jammed again. Mark ripped on the charging handle a few times, but it still it didn’t work.

I don’t have time for this shit.
The powered armor was just minutes away from reaching the forward lines.

He had thought that the camp workers would have broken, they hadn’t, not yet. Mark checked his implants, they were linked up the sonic noise systems around the maintenance yard. He was running out of hope.

He opened the machine gun, ducking by reflex as rounds pinged off of the rocks piled around the turret for armor. One of them sent a shard of metal up his cheek, leaving a red line.

He grabbed a rock, hammering the messed up round out of the chamber, and finally it dropped, and he tossed it away. It might not work, but he didn’t trust shit that didn’t blow up the first time.

I’m not going to have the time to load another box.
He dragged a new box from his side and, pulling out the linked rounds, he slapped it into the gun, slamming the tray down and pulling on the charging handle. He held the belt of rounds with his left hand as he fired with his right, and a fresh line of tracers greeted the Chosen.

Rounds from above hammered into the Chosen’s lines, air cars exploded and powered armor fell apart under the barrage.

Mark didn’t stop firing, knowing that this was an opportunity he wasn’t going to waste.

“Moving to you, Mark,” Young said over his implants.

“I need support, danger close, did Tyler get those bells working?” Mark yelled.

“I did what you asked.” Tyler said.

“Good.” No matter if he was there to see it or not, the Chosen were going to have a
very
shitty day.

The first sets of powered armor made it to the barricades and the turrets inside the maintenance pad opened fire, holding them back for a time.

One of the powered armor landed on a turret, killing the gunner and anyone around them.

Mark didn’t dare to shift his fire but the camp workers did, they were scared and panicked. More than one person was killed by friendly fire, but there wasn’t anything Mark could do.

People fired their metal storm rifles at the powered armor, but it had no affect unless they found a joint or a weakness in their armor. They weren’t expert marksmen, they were scared people with a gun and people that wanted to kill those running at them.

Mark lined up a shot on a barely seen white dot. His tracers raked the area, and the battery packs under the ground burst into fire, their flames as hot as a plasma torch.

People wearing powered armor that were on those packs or who went over them were cooked alive in their armor.

Air cars opened fire, now close enough to actually hit the maintenance pad without throwing the whole thing off target. Mark fired at them, carnage between them and his own position. Armor wearers screamed and howled, trying to get out of their armor, or run away. Too many of them had survived the battery trick.

Weapons fire ripped through the rear of the Chosen group, and air cars were cut down from above and by the maintenance pad’s defenses.

Mark heard the engines of the freighter as it came through the massive dust plume made up from the chosen’s advance. The auto turrets were blazing, working independently to cut down Chosen. The freighter banked, coming out around the pad, circling to cut its speed down. It came back in from behind the camp workers, clearly firing on the Chosen.

The ramp lowered down and Troopers jumped out. They spread over the trucks, firing onto the Chosen. Two ran over to Mark.

“Hey boss, let Niemi take that, I’ll do what I can,” Ko said.

Mark got out of the turret, tired, like he was moving through a swamp, and Niemi jumped in. He saw the chosen fleeing their air cars, realizing that they were the bigger target. The oil that had been baking in the sun for hours was poured out, new screams filling the air.

Mark sat down and immediately Ko was pulling off his shirt and making unhappy noises, then he stabbed Mark above his collar bone. Mark barely felt it, but felt reassured seeing the clear line leading to an intravenous bag. Ko fired needle after needle into the in-valve.

“Drink,” he said, giving Mark a water bottle.

Mark drained it, salty and sweet at the same time. Ko gave him two more different tasting water bottles, injecting more drugs and spraying most of Mark’s body. Mark was numb to it, doing as Ko said, but watching as the Chosen were cut down.

The powered armor ripped through people, but the Troopers were quick to put the remaining Chosen down with their AMRs.

Mark felt bone-weary fatigue fill him as he leaned against the turret. Niemi was still firing, she was a good shot, but he wanted to get up, to go fight. He knew that his brothers and sisters would kill the bastards. He wasn’t close to avenging Caroline, but he would. He would make sure every last member of Harmony was good and dead. He looked at the sunset, no tears came any more, but a hardness built inside him, an anger. He had cried enough.

His eyes closed, hearing the beeping and whirring of the various machines connected to him, the IV attached to the turret’s ring.