Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) (9 page)

There were also two missile launchers fed by internal magazines, though he only had twelve missiles in total and their rate of fire was one every three seconds.

He checked the wings. This inter-system freighter was rated to land on planets, and had nice sloped back wings and an aerodynamic frame.

Yu knew it would be a bitch to fly in atmosphere, but the engines were as strong as a combat drop ship’s, which sounded nice, when you didn’t think of the fact it was nearly three times the size of a Combat Shuttle.

“What the hell did we do to get stuck driving these buckets?” Yu growled as he saw Bobbie head deep into an ammunition bunker hidden under the decking.

“We were too good at flying a Combat Shuttle, so giving us this tin can is higher ups idea of job satisfaction. You know, the whole, ‘we’re not happy unless we’re pissed off and complaining’ bit?” Bobbie said, climbing out of the bunker.

“I hate driving this thing,” Yu said, wandering through the large cargo hold, which looked nearly the same as the Combat Shuttle’s, minus the drop hatches under the seats.

He couldn’t think of piloting the freighter as anything more than driving; sure it entered atmosphere, which would be interesting, but was something Yu did
not
want to do with the lumbering beastie.

Being in a Combat Shuttle was living, this, this was doing the goddamn milk run.

“Looks like our passengers have arrived,” Bobbie said, looking past Yu.

Yu looked behind, and saw the Triple Twos stepping across the hangar deck.

A flash of memory surfaced, of seeing them walking across another hangar deck and climbing aboard a shuttle destined for Masoul Actual, at a time when he hadn’t known them that well.

He waved, biting down his emotions. He’d come to know them all very well, which made seeing that there were three Troopers missing hurt all the more.

Some of the Triple Twos waved back.

Yu turned and wandered up to the cockpit where Young was checking her downloads on one screen and her diagnostics on another.

Yu heard Bobbie close another work space and move to the power plant under the cockpit, his final check.

The Troopers walked across the cargo decking, dropping bags and setting up their gear, and the hatch remained down, trying to get the last bits of fresher air inside the freighters.

Bobbie came out of the power plant and mechanical center of the freighter.

“Got room for our weapons?” Zukic asked, dragging a large green locker with him.

“Right over here,” Bobbie guided Zukic, Mark, Dooks, Holm and Bairamov to deposit their lockers in compartments under the decking; once secure they looked like nothing but real flooring, but within them they held the entire platoon’s weapons, and a hefty amount of ammunition.

Thankfully no one would be finding out that surprise, or the others built into the freighter, until the carriers were in the Harmony controlled planets and asteroid belts’ orbits.

Moretti entered through the hangar’s air lock, wearing a ragtag space suit and duster combo like the rest of them.

Yu, Young and Bobbie had put theirs into storage as they got in the way of flying and having stuff fly around if they were in zero grav was a pain in the ass.

Moretti greeted everyone and grabbed a place to set up his sleeping gear.

Everyone was friends, and there wasn’t much special about going on platoon only mission. They’d been there, done that, got the scars.

“Looking good here,” Bobbie said poking his head into the cockpit.

“Last scans show we’re operational,” Young replied.

“Let’s power everything up and prepare for departure, seal hatches last,” Yu said.

Bobbie’s head disappeared back into the cargo hold as Yu fired up the power plant on the freighter and opened a channel to flight control. “Flight Control this is Bandit two, sealing up and prepared for departure.”

“All sealed up!” Bobbie reported.

“Understood Bandit one, depressurizing hangar,” Flight Control said, and Yu saw dust and a wrench being sucked towards the walls; someone had forgotten their tools.

He sighed to himself.

“Depressurized and opening hangar doors,” Flight Control said.

Yu held off putting power to the vertical thrusters.

The hangar doors opened, showing space beyond. There wasn’t any sign of Osdal System in the inky darkness.

Young anticipated his request, a checkpoint by checkpoint map showing where they were going.

“Bandit Two this is Flight Control; you are cleared for launch.”

“Thank you Flight Control, see you later.” Yu powered the vertical thrusters, and Reclaimer was pointed away from Osdal, its engines firing to slow the carrier down and bring them to stop outside the system’s Oort cloud. As they were losing speed, the shuttle still had inertia, and it wasn’t braking.

They slid out of the hangar without any thrust.

Yu looked to his flight plan; he wouldn’t need to fire his engines except for minor corrections for a few weeks.

“Now all we have to do is get to Osdal Actual,” Young said.

“Fuck, I hate this part, so goddamn boring,” Yu sighed, getting comfortable in his seat.

He’d changed the freighter’s seats out, after the flight on the shuttle, he’d learned that good lumbar support and a comfortable chair were key items to staying sane. It was odd the things you changed and appreciated after adversity, or too much exposure to the opposite.

“That’s why I got Reclaimer’s movie and television database.” Young grinned.

“Isn’t that illegal?” Yu asked, looking at her with a smile.

“Well, we are Harmony supporters, I don’t think anyone’s going to give a rat’s ass that we aren’t paying the corporations to watch their movies while fighting their war.”

Yu let out a snort. “You may have a point there. I’ve never thought of what we do as a war, sure, we were clearing the worlds of rebels, or just scaring the shit out of them by simply showing up. Before Sacremon we didn’t have that many slug-them-out fights, but even those were just battles. It all sucks, don’t get me wrong, but this, this
war
is not just a group of people that want more money or benefits from their planet’s conglomerate partnership. It’s a hell of a lot uglier.”

“And it feels like it’s not going to go away any time soon,” Young said, looking out at the stars and darkness that surrounded them.

“Yeah,” Yu said, shaking his head to try and get off the subject, but it was hard to. Everything they did was done to prepare for fighting Harmony. All they talked about was Harmony.

“I’ll take first watch, go play some card games or something if you want,” Yu said, checking his navigation controls, though they didn’t need to change their trajectory for another couple of days.

“Holler if you need anything,” Young said, pulling off her seat straps, and walking through the cockpit and into the cargo hold. Yu heard her talking to someone at the bottom of the short ladder that separated the cargo hold’s floor to the cockpit, then he heard footsteps coming up.

Yu looked around. “Hey Haas.”

“Hey. I was wondering what information you might have for me on the last sensor logs and our time to destination. I was also thinking we should go over how we’re going to impersonate a group of cargo handlers. I know Jerome’s got experience moving cargo, the rest of us, well we’ve probably stolen from cargo haulers like this, but load and offload one… not officially.” Haas grinned.

“Well, Bobbie would be the best for the cargo handling stuff, and as for the sensor logs and time estimates…” Yu used his implants to bring up the information on his mix of screens and holographic display, and slid them over to Young’s seat where Haas was.

They sat in companionable silence, Haas looking over information as Yu checked that the ship was still operating like it was supposed to be. Then he went to the list of movies, books and series. The freighter would get them to Osdal System fine, Yu’s role was simply to make sure that they were on track and to react if a situation came up.

Goddamn driving.

Chapter 10

Tower

Earth, Sol System

7/3266

Wallace walked into Nivad’s office.

“So they’ve left for Osdal?” Nivad asked.

“Yes, they should be there within a few months.”

“And the carriers?”

“So far undetected.” Wallace remained standing by the door.

Nivad stood. “When will the other teams start being inserted?”

“Over the next three months.”

Nivad nodded and walked out from behind his desk and over to the door. “Let’s go and see what our sector heads have to say.”

Wallace opened the door for Nivad, following behind.

Their guard detail all wore the powered armor like that which they had sent off to the carriers around Osdal. They fell in around Nivad and Wallace without a word.

In the conference room. Dalia, the head of the EMF and the intelligence heads of every system sat around the table.

Faces had changed, and the heads of Fernix, Housapel and Mintran had all been replaced. Those who filled their positions were determined to do better than their predecessors, or they too would vanish from Mega city.

“It would be disappointing if those units that the other carriers gave Reclaimer and Fearless were seen to be sub-standard. After much study, I have come to see that veterans prove to be almost invaluable. I believe that the cross training that Reclaimer offered Fearless was a large part of why they were such an effective unit. I have not seen the other carriers request access to the wealth of information that Fearless and Reclaimer have,” Wallace said as they walked to the head of the table.

Nivad felt satisfaction at the expression on the head of the EMF’s face as she worked her surface.

“I will have to look into that more. I do believe that the veterans are earning an additional stipend for their knowledge? They also got a percentage of the price for the freighter and infrastructure that they recovered undamaged, right?” Nivad took his seat.

“I believe so. Keeping their mind off their credits and on destroying Harmony is a good idea.” Nivad sensed some serious undertones to Wallace’s words.

“Let us begin,” Nivad said.

Systems were hurting from not getting the materials and supplies from Osdal, Fernix and Housapel. More freighters were reported stolen, as they hadn’t shown up at their intended destinations. It was assumed that Harmony had control of them.

Mintran was doing all it could to look like a model planet; the people were working their assess off and the companies were putting money into their people and infrastructure, not only to keep them happy, but it looked like they wanted to take Osdal’s position as a fabricator of compound materials.

Earth and Her Colonies were having a massive issue with transporting materials. Shipping Station was still being repaired, and could only hold a percentage of its old capacity. Most companies didn’t want to send their products there, and were instead shipping direct to other systems.

The subscriptions for the Harmony War were way up, and workers, not just company officers, wanted to watch the war.

Masoul was recovering quickly. They were going through a population boom and they were looking at building more housing.

The Gas planet and Asteroid belts production was up.

The sale of the last cargo on shipping station and the shipping station itself back to the Masoul partnership was confirmed.

There were Ministry of Intelligence agents on Masoul still, but they hadn’t found anything of note in the cities.

Fernix and Housapel were firmly under the control of Harmony.

Their military was growing, and camps for Earthers, or those that didn’t agree with Harmony, were constructed. Someone made the reference to segregating camps. Harmony gave them the bare minimum to sustain themselves, and worked them hard. They built their weapons, kept the systems working and provided for the people who supported Harmony.

No information came out of the camps, and they were located away from population centers. Both Housapel and Fernix were highly developed worlds; they had sprawling colony centers and nearly five hundred million people combined.

The majority were living with minimal work, other than those in the camps.

Harmony’s propaganda machine was in full force and their military had swelled to ten million. It was expected to be closer to fifty times that by the time Troopers showed up. The heads didn’t think that they would be able to give all of them good gear, but people trained to use even a simple rifle and who were driven with the knowledge that their plight was right and their cause was righteous could do some hellish damage.

Harmony wasn’t just a group in Fernix and Housapel, they were a system, and it was working. The people were getting a taste of the freedom that company officers got, while others were taking up all the slack and being the focus of anger and propaganda.

Some people likened it to the Nazi’s system, but with a focus on communist sharing and pride in one’s group.