Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3)

by Michael Chatfield

  “Who?” He tilted her chin, and his hands were rough but gentle as he lifted her face.

  “Some guy with blue pin-stripe shirt, new guy, shack three. I’m sorry, I just wanted to get back quickly.”

  “Don’t apologize for the assholes in the world, Caroline,” Mark said standing, the shack’s floorboards creaking.

  “I’ll be back, drink some water.” He smiled.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to get our dinner back,” he smiled as if he was just going to the cafeteria.

  She drank water and waited, her anxiety growing, and frustration boring in her stomach.

  Is he going to come back? He might just be leaving to sleep in another shack. Doesn’t want to sleep with someone that loses his food, her fears and doubts plagued her.

  The shack’s plastic boards creaked and Mark walked in a smile on his face.

  “Worried about me?” He asked, amused and maybe happy as he sat down and gave her ration.

  She noticed his scarred knuckles looked rough. “What did you do?”

  “I made sure that he doesn’t steal from anyone again.”

  “Are you okay?” The question seemed to catch him by surprise.

  “Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” He put the bar into his sleeve to eat it when the next shift started.

  With that they laid down and went to sleep. Mark started tossing a few minutes into sleeping, talking in his sleep and sounding panicked.

  He rolled over, his arm pulling her on top of him so she was lying on his chest. His face looked pained, scared and close to tears.

  Whatever he had been through, it had never left him.

  She made reassuring noises, her hands caressing his face. She laid her head down on his chest, making the noises and rubbing his face until she fell asleep to the strong beats of his heart.

  There was something different about Mark.

  Today they were on road clearing duty. They ran out between trucks, using picks to cut grooves into the slopes that went into the mines.

  Caroline and Mark’s shift got hard labor in the shaft mine, and they lost two newbies to truckers. Mark snarled, but he kept on working.

  Caroline realized what was different about Mark; he was dangerous. The way he held himself, the way he looked at people, and that body… he didn’t have the body of a person from Osdal Actual.

  “Where are you from?” Her voice was low as she slammed her pick into the ground, cutting through the rock. It was hard work and metal flecks hit her arms. Pain was something she’d just got used to, living around Mining Station Twenty-One.

  Mark looked at her, his eyes thinning as he struck the ground again. His blows were powerful, sending metal and sparks flying.

  “Somewhere far from here,” he said, looking up as the sound of picks died down. A truck was coming out of the mine.

  He and Caroline rushed to the side, and a truck came rushing past, then they went back to their lines and continued them across to the other wall.

  It was hard work and Caroline’s further questions fell away as they moved lower into the mine, repeating the same grooves and running away from trucks.

  Eleven sirens went off and Caroline started to wander back to camp, it would take ten minutes to walk there, ten minutes she couldn’t eat or sleep. She slogged it back, Mark staying with her.

  “You going to hurt me?” she asked Mark.

  Mark took some time before responding. “No, little Caroline, I’m here to protect you.”

  “Okay,” she said, and somehow she knew he was telling the truth. She saw it in the hard lines of his face and the darkness in his eyes. He might be a dangerous man, but having a dangerous man around was comforting to her now. They went through the food line, and Caroline ate the bar on the way to her shack, but it was hard going. Her head was pounding from too little water and too much labor.

  She fell onto the shack floor and made to go to sleep.

  “Water,” Mark said, pouring some down her throat. She drank it thirstily, half of her already asleep.

  Once he was satisfied, he set her down and hid her food bar in her clothes.

  She happily passed out, the worst of her headache abating a bit.

  That night she dreamed of Mark’s body. The siren came too early and she woke up to find Mark pulling himself up.

  “Let’s get this day over with,” he said, holding out a hand to her, and she took it, her scarf hiding her blush as she remembered her dreams.

  Even in a place like this her mind tried to escape.

  Though why couldn’t it be a spaceship leaving this place and not the hunk I slept beside?

  Thoughts on her dreams fell away as they moved to the reporting board. Caroline frowned at the board but it told her and the truck drivers to report to one of the maintenance pads.

  She trudged off, Mark following her.

  Time to see what these fuckers have lined up for us today.

  Chapter 26

  EMFC Reclaimer

  Oort Cloud, Osdal System

  6/3267

  Nerva looked up at the priority report that came across his view, and he stepped back from the sparring that was happening.

  He opened the message and scanned it quickly, his feet moving before he knew it. He turned from his class and started jogging.

  “Gangway!” Nerva yelled, and people moved out of his way as he got to a lift. He punched in a priority code, and it shot down.

  He got out of the lift and was running again. He got the to command center, looking to Provisionary General Domashev.

  “Something up?” Domashev asked. Nerva was keeping tabs on the insertion teams and he updated Domashev and his staff every week. This couldn’t wait for the meeting.

  “They’re moving the schedule up,” Nerva said, pinching the message from his view and throwing it at Domashev. His eyes went blank as he reviewed the message.

  “Louise, connect me to the Captain of Reclaimer, priority one,” Domashev said, his eyes still unfocused.

  Captain Conti came on screen in his bridge a few moments later.

  “Nerva, Domashev,” Conti said, nodding to the two of them. He had got a lot of berating from the Troopers and learned his lesson from Masoul. Instead of getting reprimanded he was commended and made Captain of the ship, meaning he was the highest authority for operating the ship. He was then given tactical control of the fleet that was now hiding outside of Osdal.

  “We have received a message from our operatives on the ground, it looks like they are moving into the final phases. Something has come up and they are accelerating their plan in case their cover is compromised. I suggest that you talk to the other Captains and have them and their crews ready for action within the next couple of months. I am going to wake up half of the Troopers on Reclaimer and I suggest they do the same. Once the plan is confirmed, and we are moving in system, we should wake up the remaining Troopers,” Domashev said, his eyes clearing.

  “Very well, have there been any other developments that might affect our planning?” Conti asked.

  “They have missiles, and a launcher grid that we can assume is linked to the sensor network. A group is investigating claims that there are shuttles with missile systems attached to them,” Nerva said.

  Conti’s face was grave as he held his beard. “We will have half of the Combat Shuttles on offensive operations to keep the skies clear. As we’ve been perched on our asteroid I’ve had the engineers and Trooper volunteers filling up our ammunition stores. We’re back to a hundred percent on everything but missiles. We still have about a hundred locked away. I’m going to get those loaded and prepped; do you have anything else for me?” Conti didn’t need to tell them his plan, but it helped them to understand what the conditions were going to be like when they were carrying out their own operations. Conti had indeed learned more than the benefits of waking up his Troopers earlier. He’d learned to value their judgement.

  “Not from us, we’ll keep you updated if the sit
uation changes,” Domashev promised.

  “Very well, then I have some Captain heads I need to knock together,” Conti said, closing the channel.

  “You know that the plan Haas is presenting is promising a hell of a lot, but all he has is a company of miners,” Domashev said to Nerva. What he was really asking was how in the hell are they going to pull this off, can they?

  “Yes, and apparently Moretti has just the thing to light a fire under their asses,” Nerva replied.

  Damn fucking right my people can pull this off. Especially with one on the line.

  “Alright, I’m just saying that the asteroid miners have been perfectly fine with the Chosen staying out of their way and doing as they did under the companies,” Domashev said.

  “I don’t know what Moretti has planned, but he did say that once he let it out of the bag it wasn’t going to be pretty,” Nerva said.

  Chapter 27

  Processing Station One

  Osdal Actual, Osdal System

  6/3267

  Holm moved out of the vent, his pistol up and a silencer firmly attached. A Chosen tech was lounging in a chair with some television show blaring.

  Holm kept an eye on the woman he held onto the edge of the vent he’d painstakingly removed, letting his body drop slowly. His pistol never wavering as he released his hand, dropping into a crouch. Only a thin see-through wall separated him and the tech.

  The room was simple, at the front there was a workstation with a wall behind it, separating it from the multiple servers humming. He quickly made his way deeper into the servers. Keeping his ears open in case she decided to walk about.

  Holm moved quickly his pistol ready as he studied the servers and the room.

  There wasn’t anyone else on shift, and if Holm had his way, no one would know he was ever there. He moved into the server farm, which chugged away with fans whirring and cold air pumping through the entire area.

  He couldn’t see the tech anymore but he still didn’t put the pistol away

  He got to the third server stack, fourth from the left. He reached down between it and the next server, fans whirring beside his ear. He found a grip and twisted it in the floor. The grate opened and Holm felt footsteps through the decking.

  He released the grip to the maintenance hatch and pulled back into the servers, then he turned around a server and saw a closet full of wiring.

  Either this works, or I get enough juice running through me to turn me into human popcorn. Holm hid in the wires, and held his pistol up as the woman came to the back of the servers, three meters from where he hid and went through a door.

  He waited, his legs starting to tremble thanks to his awkward position. He didn’t dare move.

  He embraced the pain, waiting. A toilet flushed and the woman came out a few moments later, heading back for the desk.

  Holm put his left hand on the decking, feeling the footsteps disappear and hearing the door close to the work area.

  Holm moved forward carefully pushing the wires out of his way.

  He moved back to the maintenance hatch, pulling it off, revealing piping and wiring. Holm took large grey lines of putty out of a plastic bag, and put them around the pipes the wires went through. He attached a circuit board with an antenna to the putty, then did the same to five other bundles.

  He checked his handiwork before moving to the grate he’d opened.

  He pulled out a block of the grey putty with a circuit board and antennae on it and found the tube labeled COOLANT. He spread the putty under the tube, out of sight. The maintenance hatch went back on and he locked it with a quick twist.

  He went to three other hatches with the same COOLANT pipe in them and repeated the process. Then he opened up a server and pulled out what looked like a cooling coil wrapped into a ball, with a big battery underneath.

  Home made EMP grenade, never leave home without one, he thought, tucking it away in the far reaches of the server.

  “Complete, am I clear?” Holm asked.

  “We’re on the move. We’ll tell you when we’re in place,” Tal replied.

  Holm grabbed his pistol and moved back out of the server farm. The Chosen tech was still watching her show. He scaled a server to get back into the vents.

  He put the vent covering back in place and started crawling. Using his hands and padded feet to grab the sides of the air duct and climb upwards. It was difficult and slow, Holm was breathing hard and sweating by the time it leveled out.

  He moved through the straight air duct by careful inches, his knees, elbows hands and feet moving slowly and carefully so as to not scrape the air duct or bang it.

  He came over a grate agonizing minutes later.

  It was in a corridor, and up ahead there was a 30ft climb up to his original entry point. That was out, as the office they’d used was now occupied. So they’d improvise.

  A big cleaning car appeared, and Iliev was dancing like crazy, pulling out a broom and a step ladder.

  “Good, hurry,” Bairamov vocalized.

  Holm kicked the grate open from under him and let himself drop he fell into the thick yellow material garbage bag.

  He hit his right elbow on the side, cradling it as he internalized the pain.

  “Right on the fucking funny bone!” he sub-vocalized, He grabbed the vent covering and held it above his head. Iliev grabbed it, closing the lid on the garbage container Holm was now in, nursing his elbow.

  “The hell did you do?” a woman asked, getting closer.

  Holm carefully pulled out his pistol with his good arm.

  “Sorry, hit the grate off, damn thing is filthy,” Iliev said.

  “The hell are you using mop for?”

  “Looks like one of those big old dusters, thought it might get some of the grime that I saw on the grate.”

  “Just put it back in place and try not to break anything else,” the woman sighing as they wandered away.

  “Sure thing boss lady!” Iliev replied.

  Holm heard Iliev’s ladder creaking and the grate being put in place.

  Iliev put his tools away, and then Holm was moving.

  Chapter 28

  Mining City Twenty-One

  Osdal Actual, Osdal System

  7/3267

  Mark had quickly learned to get as much sleep as possible. In that respect, working in the camp was similar to being a Trooper; get whatever sleep you can, whenever you can. He tucked his food away and passed out; he could eat between working the next day.

  He was already losing mass, but that was to be expected. He and Caroline still hung out, looking out for one another, and they had been working in the maintenance yard for the past month. They were pulling the massive battery racks from the older machines and replacing them with new ones.

  Tires and brakes were also getting replaced because they didn’t work any more. While the Chosen didn’t seem to care one way or another, it looked like they were following orders from on high. The mines were meant to keep running, having faulty equipment meant that it would only decrease production.

  Mark had barely closed his eyes when someone ripped open the plastic sheeting. He couldn’t be alert all the time and he started to look around as a shock stick hit him in the head. He let out a piercing yell as his vision danced and he thought they’d burned his eyes out for a minute. The Chosen kicked and beat him, and he felt bones breaking under their batons and boots. Someone got a loop around his leg and he was pulled through the side of the lean-to plastic sheeting, whipping around as he was dragged on the ground. The Chosen laughed as his back was cut ragged on the metal ground.

  The air car kept moving, with Mark being thrown around like a pendulum on the end of a rope.

  The Chosen called out, but Mark couldn’t make out the words as he twisted and yelled out, metal cutting through his back, shredding it.

  He could tell from their tone they were laughing at him, enjoying torturing him and calling him names.

  Then they swung him again, and this time he
hit a parked air car and he blacked out.

  He came to later to find they’d dropped him off somewhere; he could see the camp. A bullet kicked up the dust around Mark’s feet.

  His head was pounding, his skull felt fragile and his augments were focusing on reducing the brain bleed he had going on.

  “Seems you lost your way Earther, get back to camp!” A Chosen called out to the snickers of the others.

  “Come on Earther, time to get moving,” another said.

  Mark felt pain killers flooding his system his augments were going full out, but the damage was severe, His back was a deep open wound, with only strips of skin left. Metal shavings filled the wounds. His legs were in better shape just because they’d been up in the air. The skin around his legs was bleeding from the rope.

  His arms and hands were open and bleeding, and his chest and stomach also showed bleeding. He could feel teeth were missing and his face was a mess.

  “Don’t worry I have the bastards in my sights,” Niemi said.

  “No, I’m okay, hold your fire,” Mark said, his voice harsh and odd due to his broken face.

  It took a herculean effort to free himself from the rope around his legs. A bullet went past his head, one of the chosen was shooting at him. He twitched at the bullet’s near-miss.

  Mark’s head swam and his implants angrily told him to get the fuck back down and let the augments work.

  “Holy shit Mark,” Niemi sounded like she was close to tears as rage built in her.

  “You hold your fire Corporal.” The painkillers were slurring his words.

  Slowly he got to his feet, and he heard the air car power up. He didn’t look around as his head swam, and the air car hit his back.

  He grunted in new pain as he fell to the ground again, his kneecaps complaining as his ruined hands sunk into the ground, and he noticed he was missing two fingers.

  Metal dust filled his wounds. It was a familiar feeling, and it reminded him of Earth. The air car was already away as Mark got himself to his feet again and shuffled forward. His hip felt weird, his ribs were smashed, and metal dust shifted in his bloody wounds like someone was rubbing a metal pad into his flesh.