Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) (33 page)

They might be able to get more people off the ship, but they wouldn’t survive.

Denaski turned security firewalls off and ran the computers as fast as they could go. The sensor was tied directly into guns, and as long as a target met the requirements they fired, there was no pause to check.

The other carriers were lending their firepower but EMFC Reclaimer was in the center of the missile launches.

They only had one armored side with guns, they couldn’t fight a battle on two sides.

Combat Shuttles fled the carriers, supply lockers and power plants were thrown free, the most expensive items of the carrier would be recovered by a team later.

The carrier turned to red lighting as it ran on battery power.

Conti looked out of the armor covered glass. The view screens attached to them gave him a panoramic view of the fighting deck. Sea whiz and rail cannons didn’t stop firing, tracers disappearing into the black of space. Missile tubes lit up with missile launches.

Conti had never been prouder of his crew.

The first missile exploded off of the bow, Conti saw it flash into brilliant light, and the carrier shuddered. People were thrown against their harnesses, and the hull was stripped bare of weapon emplacements where the missile had hit.

Another hit to the rear of the ship, in the unarmored side. Red lights lit up the hologram of Reclaimer, they were leaking atmosphere and there were multiple decks open to space. The main engines were down.

Another missile hit he belly of the carrier, ripping up through the hangar blisters, eating through decks.

But the carrier kept fighting, guns blazing away into the darkness of space, leaking atmosphere and debris across Osdal’s orbit.

Conti never saw the missile that exploded off of his unarmored side. It cut through the decks and the bridge as fast as light.

The carriers continued to fight, her bridge crew dead. The tactical computers kept going.

Four missiles slammed into the flight deck. They cracked the carrier and sections tumbles apart.

Still those guns fired, running on batteries. They cut down missile after missile until they were out of ammunition and a missile finally reached them.

Chapter 50

Processing Station five

Osdal Actual, Osdal System

8/3267

The fighting was fierce. There were powered armor-wearing fucks everywhere; the metal storm rifles weren’t that good at taking them down, but they took the Chosen bastards without armor just fine.

There weren’t many Troopers but they were deadly bastards, as Felicia was learning. They ran at the powered armor bearing fucking swords.

The swords cut through anything they touched with enough force. The Troopers didn’t always fare that well, but then they could actually kill the powered armor wearing units. The mining groups kept them and the unarmored Chosen pinned down and the Troopers ran from engagement to engagement.

Alarms started going off on Felicia’s implants because she was still linked to Gold Runner. She got into cover and started changing her barrels out.

“Shit,” she said as she watched Reclaimer’s dying throes as missile after missile hit the massive carrier. Debris and ejected resources were all over Osdal’s orbit.

Missiles were exploding all over the place, they’d all been targeted on Reclaimer and they weren’t smart enough to try and find new targets, thankfully. They smashed into one another or were destroyed by EMF weapon fire. They hit shuttles and debris here and there by dumb luck.

Felicia didn’t keep watching, she made sure all the barrels were seated in the rifle and turned the corner, firing on the Chosen.

PAC’s advanced, firing from the hip and spraying from the hip.

Cocky fuckers,
she thought, ducking into cover, rounds hammering on the corner she hid behind.

Grenade launchers went off, their dull thumps belying their effect.

Powered armor staggered the explosions, throwing them back, Repulsor gunners fired at the stunned PAC’s, adding to the major concussion most of them were probably going through. The powered armor did the ‘dead man’s dance’, a term that had been coined by many.

She saw more powered armor come from behind her position and she was about to fire on them when she noticed they had Trooper ranks and symbols on their shoulders and their names printed on their fronts. They had extra armor on them and used cover; the Chosen in powered armor acted like bullets couldn’t hurt them any more. The fact that the metal-storm rifles couldn’t get through anything except their joints kind of made that an annoying reality.

The powered armor ran past the miners and Troopers, bearing swords, and crashed into the Chosen forces.

The miners cheered, and the Troopers moved up to cover their buddies.

Some guys wearing less armor and a cart came and grabbed the powered armor Chosen and started hauling them off.

They’re converting them for use,
she thought, not wanting to get in a dead man’s armor.

The miners followed, adding themselves to the fray, and the fighting was quick and furious. The powered armor wearing Troopers bowled through the Chosen and kept going. Felicia called a rest; the miners had been fighting for hours and it was draining work.

“Alright, let’s clear this damn station,” Felicia said, getting to her feet as Troopers carried in a disheveled looking woman, her space suit was torn and burnt, her lip was cut and there were multiple wounds on her already. She was yelling and trying to hurt the powered armor Troopers with her fists and feet.

“Thought you might want this one,” one of the Troopers said.

“Hello, Emilie Castillo,” Felicia said, stepping on a barricade and leaning forward at Emilie.

Emilie’s eyes went wide as she looked at the asteroid miners. Felicia could feel them moving closer, like a pack of asteroid miners right before a beat-down.

“Throw her out like the rest of the trash,” Felicia said, her lip curling in disgust.

“Very well,” one of the Troopers said, and the woman’s struggles increased with panic.

Felicia and her miners followed, a few recorded the moment, and Felicia let them get a better position.

The Troopers tossed her into the airlock, the door shutting behind her. Felicia worked the panel, turning off the safety features. Emilie hammered on the airlock door, screaming and crying.

“For your crimes, we the people of Fernix sentence you to death,” Felicia said, looking Emilie in the eyes, and pressing a button on the airlock’s controls.

Felicia knew she would never forget that moment as overwhelming fear filled Emilie and she disappeared from view, the vacuum of space ripping her from the airlock. Felicia watched as she tumbled out into space.

It was a hollow victory. Felicia felt somehow tainted with the experience, but she would have done it a hundred times again. The image of the Dudayev family still filled her mind.

“Come on, we have a station to clear still.”

Chapter 51

Mining City Twenty-One

Osdal Actual, Osdal System

8/3267

Ortiz felt his jaw grinding as he looked up at the dissipating explosion and new meteors that tumbled through Osdal’s atmosphere. They were the only remaining markers of EMFC Reclaimer. Other than the supplies that had been evacuated and the Combat Shuttles that got free or were on operations, there wasn’t anything left of the Reclaimer larger than an office desk.

It had been Ortiz’s home for twenty-seven years, now it was gone.

Don’t have time to think on that.
He looked back to his maps, which were telling a nasty story. His forces were engaged with powered armor, they were in close combat, blades against armor. There were too many of the powered armor wearing Chosen to make it a fair fight, and his forces were getting hammered and pushed back.

Everyone was erecting fall back positions to channel the powered armor and reduce the amount that they had to fight at one time.

Ortiz ducked as a screamer went off, exploding in the middle of a group of powered armor Chosen that were running from one tower to another.

Eight times out of ten they could make it from tower to tower, their armor was good enough to take a few hits from the Repulsors and E-12s, hell it took a few shots to the chest plate to even get through.

He looked to the maintenance pad where Captain Sholtz was. They were quickly cleaning out the powered armor they had, slapping armor-up kits they’d made, and installing new operating software. It wasn’t the fastest process, but the Troopers would be better armored and have better control than the Chosen. They were also trained and bloodied in real fights. Ortiz was hoping that was enough of an advantage.

He looked to Alexis’s direct feed. It was a constant rolling update on supplies she had, the wounded and dead as well as when Combat Shuttles were moving all of the above.

New Screamers had come in, so he sent priority orders to have them distributed to his hardened position on the one hundred and seventy third floor.

Ortiz tried to ignore that number.
God, I fucking hate heights.

He glanced back up to the meteors falling from the carrier. He took a moment, remembering the people up there, and then went back to his reports. He needed to focus on the wounded; the tears and pain could come later.

***

Mark’s eyes snapped open, and he looked around. Most people were looking up, so he fired up his implants and followed their gaze to the cloud of debris. His implants showed him the last minutes of EMFC Reclaimer, sped up.

He got to his feet, and his body was better than it had been in months yet he felt heavy, the familiar feeling of knowing he wouldn’t see people ever again running through him.

He remembered the bridge crew, he knew that they wouldn’t have left the bridge, in order to buy the crew every second they could.

Tyler was there next to him, he stood as well.

Mark grabbed his brother, hugging him tight, emotions welling up inside him. Tyler held onto him thumping his back.

“Fuck, I was scared Mark,” Tyler said, his voice thick with emotion.

“Don’t worry, I’m here now,” Mark said, they embraced one another again before releasing.

“Should probably stay away from Halls from now on. We’re getting powered armor and then moved to support Mining City Twenty-One. It’s Sacremon all over again, but this time they’ve got powered armor and weapons that’ll punch through our armor,” Tyler said.

“Much better than shotguns that shoot explosive shells,” Mark sighed, pulling a smart cloth shirt over his frame. The printers had been already taken away, other people needed them more than him. His fingers were back in place, and he barely even noticed that they had been replaced.

“Course,” Tyler said, starting to walk towards one of the work sheds, getting out of the way of wounded that were coming in on Combat Shuttles landing on a cleared section of the maintenance pad. Wind from the engines blew dust everywhere.

At one side there was what was left of the previous operators and techs, cleaning them out to get to the servo motors and other bits they needed to get the powered armor in working order. Then there were other techs taking off the armor, leaving the exoskeleton bare, and techs checked the systems before the new operating system was uploaded and better batteries connected. Armor kits, basically armor that covered the entire exo-skeleton, were welded into place.

Then the whole thing was booted up, tests run and you had one functional Trooper grade powered armor.

The suits came out with stronger armor covering the weak points that they’d never learned about from Masoul and an operating system that made controlling them a hell of a lot easier.

An ammunition pack was also connected to the clips that one would see on normal armor. These were connected to Repulsors with a sling that allowed the user to drop the gun but not lose it. Vibra-Blade

Troopers were already climbing into them, and someone was coming around with a laser cutter, burning names into people’s breast plates.

The Triple Twos were armoring up and grouped around a mess table, devouring hot food, slapping on ammunition and getting ready to go out. Tyler dropped off his armor in some bins that had been set up, passing his gun to an armorer that went to secure it in the portable weapon racks they’d brought down to the planet.

Mark stepped backwards into a set of powered armor roughly his size. He didn’t care for the red stains inside from the last user. The armor closed around him and locked into place easily enough, then his helmet came down. Tt wasn’t the metal hat that the Chosen were using.

It was based on the Troopers’ regular helmets, padded and with the same HUD, extra armor and no visor, but with armor plates and interwoven cermite layers.

Inside it looked like Mark had just put on his regular helmet. He moved the actuators, his hands a few extra inches long.

His checks read good as he stepped out of the charging cradle and walked forward. He checked the Vibra-Blade came free from the left side of his ammunition pack and checked his Repulsor had good movement as he walked over to the rest of the platoon. He opened his helmet up again as the person with the etcher came over.

“Name?”

“Diablo,” Mark said, keeping his arms out of the way.

The person’s eyes flickered, but they got the etchers working, carving the name into the armor.

Tyler got his S.W.A.S. across his chest.

Haas signaled Mark to come to the side, away from the others. “Mark, I need to know if you’re good or not. We’re going right into the deep end as usual, and I need you at 100%.
They
need you at 100%.”

“I’m good to go, Sir, just give me some Chosen to fight and you’ll see a happy man.”

Haas looked at Mark, slowly nodding to himself. “Alright, don’t do anything stupid,” he said, tapping Mark’s shoulder. “It’s good to have you back.” Business done, he became Haas the man, not the Trooper.

“It’s good to be back,” Mark said, turning, the two of them moving to the platoon.

“Alright, we’re getting a ride right into the middle of Twenty-Two Division. They need help and we’re it until they can scrape more Chosen out of these things,” Haas said.

Mark saw that Moretti wasn’t around; he assumed that he was off in some office pouring over information and trying to get it to the leaders on the ground.

Mark grabbed meal replacement bars, nodding to Jerome, greeting the others that caught his eye silently and joining his section.

“Our normal ride is banged up to shit, so we’re taking whatever Combat Shuttle is hea...” Haas paused, his eyes going blank. “Our ride’s just in, let’s move it, we’ll brief as we go.”

Mark stuffed the bar in his face, closing his helmet and following Haas out of the work shed.

They naturally broke down into sections, Mark chewing furiously. Someone seemed to have sorted out the worst of his broken teeth by simply removing them.

“Fuck this, if I ever lose all my teeth I’m eating soup for the rest of my life,” he growled, using mostly his gums to try and pull the bar apart. The others laughed, and Mark sensed relief in that laughter.

“Shit, open channel,” Mark apologized as he kept trying to get the obstinate bar down his friggin’ throat.

Gonna have heart burn today,
he thought, knowing that he was trying to distract his own brain from worse thoughts.