It would look good for the CEOs when they came back and their people were already looking to get the system back in working order and pumping out product.
“Fuck those inner system fuckers, some like Olson, the processing facility foreman, are okay. The rest are just uppity fucks that use Harmony to feel better about themselves and sit back on their asses. They don’t care about the fact others are being turned into slaves, as long as they get to have time off their happy.
“As soon as the EMF comes they’ll rush to show that they were faithful. In reality, they make up most of the Chosen. They like feeling powerful and important! I can’t wait to see what happens when powerful and important means being soldiers for Harmony against Troopers.
“There was a small pirate group here about fifty years past, the Troopers came in from Strike Station. I’ll never forget the broadcasts, they didn’t even wake up the entire carrier, only about a company. The carrier pounded the asteroid base and their ships to shit, then the Troopers went in. Mean fuckers them, come from Earth’s slums, they’d kill you for your shoes there you know.” She drank her green coffee squeeze bottle.
Yeah, or just because you looked at them the wrong way, Mark thought, knowing the truth to her words.
“Anyway, they went in, looking like damned killing robots in the holo-vids. Could tell the pirates were screwed as soon as they dropped out of their Combat Shuttles.
“Four hours later, and the Troopers emerged, got on their Combat Shuttles and back onto their carrier. No more pirates. They continued through the system showing off their guns and power. Those Troopers were probably asleep already. Hell of a way to live, sleep for decades only to be woken up to fight.” She shrugged and took another drink from her bottle.
“Gold Runner, slip seven is clear,” a voice said through the center console.
“Thanks Raquel,” Felicia said, powering up her drives and following the waypoint that appeared on her HUD.
“The chosen might be bully boys and a few of them are actual fighters, but the EMF has numbers and killers. The chosen kill out of boredom.” She looked at Mark. “Boredom, how much of a fuck low life do you have to be to kill out of boredom?”
“A new kind of fuck up,” Mark replied, reclining in his seat.
“Got that right, anyway; while they kill out of boredom, the Troopers kill to survive, kill for one another. You fuck with one, you fuck with all. Think that’s a motto or something. But yeah, Troopers are trained to kill and destroy, Chosen are just dumb pricks with too much time on their hands, propaganda in their heads and not enough brain cells to be anything but cruel. Fucking waste of air if you ask me.”
The slip coming into view and it was a cage type thing with clamps all around it. Felicia brought them into the cradle, reducing their acceleration to zero. Moments later the clamps connected with the Gold Runner’s hull.
“One delivery done,” she said, pressing a button that connected her with everyone on the ship. “Helmets and suits!”
“All good Felicia,” Kale said back over the main line.
“Venting,” Felicia said, and air was pulled back into storage tanks. It didn’t take long but all background noise disappeared, as there was nothing for it to transmit through.
Mark felt rather than heard the large rear cargo door opening. The ‘roof’ of the large freighter was also opening, and arms reached down and started pulling containers out before the roof shutters were open all the way.
An extendable walkway connected to the airlock and the airlock lit with a blue light, saying it was connected.
“Power lines and fuel lines connected,” Felicia said.
It had been but a few minutes but they were already a fifth less of their cargo. The station was not one to wait around.
Mark adjusted to the lack of gravity, his augments stopping his inner ear from making his guts roll around. Dominguez tossed him his gear bag, and he slung it over his shoulder, making sure he didn’t mess up his space suit. Thing was more patches than actual material.
“Alright you lot, good meeting you, see you soon enough, make sure to get into as much trouble as possible!” Felicia called.
Mark smiled and waved, saying goodbye to the rest of the crew. They’d become close over the last two weeks.
Then Holm was leading them through the airlock, down the docking tube and into another airlock, some walking on their boots, but Mark used small touches to push himself around. With no air or gravity, he was enjoying the freedom.
Once through the airlock gravity returned and they found themselves among the various machinery that turned refined materials into complex compounds that were capable of making kilometer tall towers, or holding the power of a miniature sun, or micro-meteor impacts. These were the basic building blocks of any space-faring race.
Moretti took the lead, talking to someone that was waiting for them. They were escorted through the working machinery, while pressed hammered, and materials were sorted, heated, stretched mixed, formed and changed.
They came out of the facility into an area that was similar to Seventy-Seven’s living areas. There weren’t as many glowing signs and the place looked to be in better standings than the outer levels in Seventy-Seven. Moretti guided them through as if he’d been there all of his life.
Moretti did some more bargaining at a kiosk, and they dropped off their gear.
“Shuttle leaves in two hours, do whatever you want,” Moretti said when they got to the observatory.
Mark moved past him and looked out of the observatory’s crystal matrix, it had a really complex name, but everyone just called it glass. He looked out at Osdal Actual.
It was a red planet, red ground, red clouds and the tell tale swirls of colony cities, which sparkled under Osdal’s sun.
The red that covered everything wasn’t dirt like Mars, it was metals. Osdal Actual was an iron silicate world with ice caps, and was just far enough away from the sun to be habitable. Its day temperatures ranged from 40-50C.
Massive circles around the towns told of strip mines that had been cut into the planet. Everything was useful, and most of it was used by Osdal itself, only the rare metals were worth shipping up to the processing stations that hung in orbit.
There were rail accelerators dotted around the planet, which shot special containers to the stations. It was feasible due to the planet’s gravity being only three quarters of Earth’s.
Mark’s implants identified the different mining cities he was looking at, as well as the various launch sites. There was also a pop-up that told him about Diggers, animals native to Osdal. They heard vibrations and ate metals, using them as skin and organs.
They were hellish things to kill, but use a sonic blaster at the right frequency and they’d fuck off.
“Looks like Earth, less clouds and smaller though,” Ko said.
“Yeah, when I got into the history records and I saw Earth when it was still green and blue, I thought it was a colony. We killed the damn thing by importing so much metal and polluting the atmosphere to hell. Not much we can do now,” Mark said, even as a small part of him hoped that, with the program he had started with the different greenhouses across Earth, and his finds on Sacremon, they could help to reduce the carbon in the air.
Chapter 21
Mining City One
Osdal Actual Osdal
6/3267
Guy Castillo looked at his glass, somehow it had emptied himself.
He stood and stumbled.
Maybe it didn’t just evaporate, he thought, laughing at his own joke as he let the glass drop and wandered through his office and to the fridge. He grabbed a beer from the door, taking a big draw from it.
Tsik was on the couch, looking out of the windows at the strip mine that lay outside of Mining City One.
“Oh, don’t worry Tsik, we didn’t send our slaves to that mine,” Guy said, drinking. He saw Tsik wince and take a long drink from his own glass. He had a broken nose and a black eye. Guy had done that one nig
ht when he couldn’t take the shit any more, and he’d punched the man who had drawn him into Harmony with his nice words.
Tsik had let it happen; he felt as betrayed by Guy, and he knew that he was the reason Guy had become part of Harmony, and he’d dragged down the people that had followed him into it.
Guy had stopped after a time, crying as he realized he should be punching himself. Tsik was a wide-eyed optimist, but he was supposed to be a businessman. He had wanted to break into the CEO levels; he should have listened to Tsik but checked the facts.
He sunk into a seat, absently drinking his beer, his weakness, and for a time he could forget what he had brought on the people that had followed him. Many of his friends and their families had been shipped off to Twenty-One.
“Fucking Harmony and their fucking lies,” Tsik muttered.
“Ah, you’re finally learning Tsik. That’s not the right way a dog of Harmony should be acting,” Guy chastised the man. The noise cancellers were on all the time.
“Fuck you Guy, I didn’t want this to happen,” Tsik shot back, anger in his eyes.
“But you let it! You came in here, all pretty fucking words and promises, and told me that Harmony would make things better. You didn’t tell me that they would make fucking slaves out of the people that wanted to change the system, not just make it easier on those who ate Harmony’s shit up!” Guy’s words turned to yells, and he pointed a finger at Tsik, shaking with anger. “I should have just pushed you off of a tower and been done with all of it, but no, you came to me when I was at the bottom and you gave me hope. You piece of shit.” Guy spat on the floor, adding to the stains and beer bottles around the living room. He drank heavily from his beer.
“You should have,” Tsik said, taking a drink himself, looking dejected, a shadow of his former self.
“Look at us, just two drunks who can’t deal with reality any more,” Guy said, guilt and anger writhing in his gut.
“Don’t worry, when the EMF comes they’ll kill us both anyway. They don’t leave any rebels behind,” Tsik said, emptying his beer and grabbing another.
“Well it’s not like they mean this system to be anything more than an exercise at slowing the EMF. Luke’s got a system freighter ready to go at any time and I’m sure he’s not going to want to take the likes of us with him. He’s Harmony’s real golden boy. Once EMF arrives, he’ll run off to his masters and we can die for all of the shit Harmony stuffed into our heads.” Guy tapped the beer to his head and then pointed at Tsik. “And we spouted that like Harmony’s perfect fucking mouth pieces!” Guy threw the beer in a moment of rage and it broke, satisfying him.
He looked out at the strip mine, knowing that the people down there were living a charmed life compared to those at Mining City Twenty-One.
“I need another beer,” he said, standing and moving to the fridge, as impotent and useful as a pogo in space. Luke didn’t know what was going on with Guy, but Guy’s bodyguards were all Luke’s people. If Guy looked to pushing back, Guy would probably find himself in Mining City Twenty-One too.
His own cowardice stopped him; when he’d watched those in Mining City Twenty-One fear had rippled down his spine. It still chilled him whenever he thought of it.
Unlike the majority of people, he didn’t think of the Earthers as people who deserved their punishment. He saw them as the innocent, atoning for his sins.
Earthers. He snorted at the word, pulling out another beer. Fucking stupid name; all of them were born and raised in Osdal. Most of them have less connection than the people sitting on their assess and saying Harmony is great.
So Guy Castillo, grabbed more beers and sunk into his seat, looking over Mining City One, his thoughts becoming muddled and messy. Just how he liked them. In this world of pain, his only retreat was inside the bottle he took a long drag from.
Chapter 22
Mining City Twenty-One
Osdal Actual, Osdal System
6/3267
Luke looked over the numbers in front of him; they denoted the production levels of the various mines around the city.
He flicked the air. He was one of the few people that not only had implants but they were up to date. It was one of the privileges that came from his weekly chats with Housapel and Fernix’s heads.
The next page denoted number of workers compared to production levels. Another broke down the various machines that were being used and reports on their conditions.
Luke couldn’t give a fuck about the people behind the numbers, he had two jobs: keep Harmony supplied with the materials they needed to build their war machines, and bleed the EMF that arrived to take Osdal.
Of course, he wouldn’t be there when that happened, he would be in a ‘command center’ observing the battle. For the first few days or weeks they would think that he was just secured away giving orders, instead of aboard a freighter heading for Fernix.
“Gather the work vehicles that you need from other sites; the people of Osdal seem to be getting lazier as time goes on. Remind them that there are places within the ranks of the Chosen, then also remind them that we are looking for Earth sympathizers,” Luke said to Dean Castillo, who was sitting in the chair across from him.
“Yes sir.”
“I see that you are also having an issue with workers, especially after the four Digger incidents. I know that there are Earth sympathizers out there, so see if your sister would be interested in heading up those investigations. I am not satisfied that everyone is being caught. The laziest among those that profess themselves to be Harmony supporters make me suspicious. If they did want to help Harmony, then they would work harder in the time that they can,” Luke said, knowing very well that Dean and Emilie Castillo would take that to mean, round them up, accuse them, and use them as an example for others to work harder, then toss them into the work camps.
The Diggers were a pain in the ass, but Osdal had a lot of people, and with new sweeps he would fill the camps back up and production would be higher than ever. He had a decade or less until the EMF arrived. In that time, he would work the people of Osdal until none but the Chosen were left, or till the EMF arrived.
“I will pass the message on personally, and Emilie will be more than happy to look into those people.”
“Good, I expect to have another shipment going out in four months,” Luke gave another wave and the images only he could see disappeared.
“What about the asteroid miners?” Dean asked, his voice curious, but Luke saw the anger in his eyes. Dean came from Osdal Actual and thought of the miners in the asteroid belts and those on Osdal Three as slackers.
Luke tried not to sigh, the entire population of Osdal Three were working in camps to collect organic materials for the processing stations. It was slow going, due to disease, bad conditions and native creatures killing the workers. Despite that, their production numbers were matching those that were coming from Osdal Actual and the asteroid miners.
They had a smaller population to begin with, so it was easier to cut them out of the loop. They kept to themselves, so now communication had stopped with them no one seemed to care. They had enough to worry about with the Chosen around and Mining City Twenty-One.
“One refining station in the asteroid belts pulls in more raw materials than two mining cities. It might not be rare metals that the cities get, most of the time, but they pull their weight and then some,” Luke said. He saw a flash of fury in Dean’s eyes; it was a slight against his planet and people. Luke hoped that it would serve to light a fire under the young man’s ass and get him to kick the other Osdal Actual people into working harder and faster to out do the asteroid miners.
“I see what you’re saying about people on Osdal not understanding their need to work. Emilie will find those that are not working for the good of Harmony,” Dean promised.
“Good, now I have a meeting with the heads of Harmony, so let me know how things are going and I hope that you and your camp administrators will join me for a meal tomorrow evenin
g?”
“We would be honored sir,” Dean said, bowing his head. “For the sake of Harmony!” He gave a proud salute.
Luke returned the salute and words. He didn’t like eating with Dean and his camp administrators. All they talked about was the people they’d tortured, killed and raped, they took joy in sharing their sadistic tales. Luke would smile and laugh, but he didn’t care, they were just pawns, and their purpose was to give him and the heads of Harmony the means to attack Earth and take over Nivad Selvra’s position.
Luke walked to his conference room. The lights dimmed, no light from outside coming in. Two shadows waited for him.
“Sorry for my tardiness, I was dealing with a personnel issue,” Luke said, his voice warbled and changed as he took a seat.
“I take it that it is no longer an issue?” the head of Housapel asked.
“No, sir. I expect that the production numbers will be the highest they have ever been in the coming months. Why corporations didn’t think to do this before I never know.”
“Bylaws, the fact that workers would rebel, and they didn’t have a military to themselves. Nivad likes to use the EMF as his threat. People do as he says and he keeps the peace. Well, until we fucked the little bastard’s plans,” Fernix’s head said.
“Now that is sorted, shall we look over production numbers?” Housapel said. “Would you like to go first Osdal?”
“Certainly sir. We are on track to fill a freighter every four months with the requested materials.
“Production has ceased on the powered armor units, as well as machine guns and heavy machine guns. We scrapped the bolt action rifles. There will be groups with the weapons to check their abilities against the Troopers’ armor. But finding people that can put the weapon to use are hard to find on Osdal.
“We have taken the plans provided for the shuttle upgrades, applied them to the ships and have made several remote launches in Osdal Actual’s atmosphere. We have switched production to make more, and sensor units,” Luke said, sending them reports that backed up what he was saying.
Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) Page 13