Jerome waited a few seconds and then peeked out, firing at the Chosen positions.
To his right were glass windows looking out onto Mining City Thirty Five, to his right lay a dining area with chairs and tables and a food court around it. They were in the walkway filled with planters that separated the viewing area of couches, and in front of him it wrapped around, the food court turning into housing units. Past that there were offices and maintenance areas, then the fucking landing pad that was his section’s goal.
Jerome’s finger barely twitched on the metal storm’s trigger; with four rounds per second it only took thirty seconds to spend all a hundred and twenty rounds.
“Covering!” Jerome and Kojo yelled, the Chosen hiding from the fire coming in over their heads.
Jerome peppered one Chosen peeking around a planter and yells went up as Chosen fired wildly. Jerome just continued firing; if he stopped then the others were in danger.
“Moving!” Haas said, and Dooks and Sasaki moved past Jerome and Kojo, sliding on the floor into planters and then firing at the beleaguered Chosen.
The Chosen had only played with their guns, they’d seen the respect they got for simply holding their firearm and any caution or tactics that they’d been taught had been washed away with the knowledge that no one messed with them.
But that had been around unarmed civilians who knew that the Chosen were their own policing force.
Every man under Haas’s command was a blooded veteran who had done nothing but fight for their lives for nearly a decade. Their tactics had been ingrained into their thinking. They moved with purpose, with deadly intent, and that was the difference between the Chosen and Troopers.
On Earth, the Troopers might have been the same way, but you had to fight to stay alive, you didn’t make it off Earth without blood on your hands. The EMF refined that killing talent and pitched them up against anything that looked like it could be a potential combatant.
“Covering!” Haas, Sasaki and Dooks called as one.
There was no hesitation, and Jerome ran forward into the Chosen’s fire.
“Moving!” He and Kojo yelled, the coppery taste of adrenaline in his mouth.
Jerome came up on a planter, poking over to put fire down range, and a Chosen jumped up from behind the planter, eyes wide with fear and panic. They grabbed Jerome’s barrel and Jerome pulled the trigger and they fell away. Another Chosen just a few feet away was getting to their feet, but rounds hammered into them; Jerome’s people were looking out for him as he fired at the Chosen just feet away now.
“Covering!” Jerome called a second after Kojo.
“Moving! Line up together, we will advance up the center and split to clear the planters,” Haas said. “Jerome, Sasaki left, Dooks, Kojo, me right.”
Someone stepped up next to Jerome using the same planter as cover, and Jerome didn’t look, he just kept firing.
“Out!” Jerome yelled, ducking behind the planter and grabbing the barrels of the metal storm. He twisted and pulled them free, his gloves melting from their heat. He grabbed a quick loader with all the barrels attached and he drove it home, twisting the barrels until they locked, pulling the quick loader out.
He stood up and pressed the trigger, and recoil and planter shards greeted his pull.
“Back in!” Jerome called.
“Move it!” Haas said.
Jerome had point and he moved quickly, coming out of cover and firing at any Chosen that looked to put their heads up. He passed over dead Chosen, saw Sasaki right behind him on his HUD, and he could feel Haas shooting beside him and pointed to the right. His HUD confirmed everyone was up and good, only Kojo’s indicator showed yellow instead of green.
They reached large planters where the remaining Chosen were hiding. They were still five meters away from them.
Jerome and Haas ran forward, the rest following. Jerome dropped his shoulder, sliding into view of the Chosen behind the planters who were just peeking up as the fire had reduced. Jerome held down the trigger on the metal storm, guiding a red stream of tracers down the Chosen.
Sasaki kicked him, letting him know she was there as she fired over him, catching any targets he missed
“Clear,” Haas said from his side.
“Clear here,” Jerome said. Kojo was covering in the distance as everyone else put in new barrels on their metal storms.
“Enemy in depth!” Kojo said as he fired, cutting down reinforcing Chosen.
Jerome snapped his barrels into place, rolling on his stomach, firing at the running Chosen.
It was a bloodbath; they didn’t use cover and stared blankly as their friends dropped.
“Moving!” Haas said, but there didn’t appear to be any of the thirty or so Chosen left alive.
Haas, Dooks and Kojo moved up, Kojo reloading as he did so.
“Covering!” Haas said, looking over the planters but not firing as he didn’t see any targets.
“Moving,” Jerome got to his feet and ran forwards, trying to wipe blood off his gun from rolling on the floor.
“We’ll move up in teams until we come under contact,” Haas said.
Jerome slowed his pace, aiming and stepping forward carefully as he went, looking for any threats.
They were now moving into the housing units.
People started opening their doors and looking around, their faces paling at the dead Chosen and advancing Troopers.
“Get the fuck back inside!” Haas shouted. Thankfully most listened, others moved to the Chosen. The Trooper’s guns fired, they couldn’t let them grab the Chosen’s rifles. The people that were watching screamed and hid inside their homes, as if the doors and walls could protect them.
Jerome didn’t care what they did as long as they didn’t try to fight him and stayed the fuck out of the way.
The Troopers quickly advanced, with Dooks trailing making sure nothing came up behind them.
They turned away from the housing units and towards the office units.
“Heavy machine gun!” Kojo yelled, the first one to see the weapon as he pushed Haas down.
Jerome dove for cover behind a planter and the heavy machine gun’s rounds hit Kojo’s breastplate.
It was a terrible sound.
Jerome pulled out the homemade explosives he’d made, throwing what looking like a water bottle at the emplacement. He waited a few seconds and activated the chip inside with his implants.
An explosion ripped through the corridor, and the glass blew out, wind whipping at the room as they were a kilometer and a half up. The office’s lobby and walls opened up, the air throwing them and the contents of the office everywhere.
“Move!”
A glance to Jerome’s HUD showed Kojo as a red blip.
Jerome and the rest of the section listened, running forward into the chaos Jerome’s bomb had made.
They fired at the gun, which was set up in a big planter, and the Chosen scattered around it.
Jerome heard a wind cracking boom outside of the tower and he ducked for cover as the heavy machine gun started firing again.
“This mother fucker is pissing me off!” Jerome hollered, aiming and firing around the side of the planter, catching a Chosen in the leg and then head.
His gun clicked empty.
“I’m out!” Jerome said, tossing the gun away and grabbing the submachine gun he’d taped to his chest.
He turned the corner again, catching two more Chosen before the heavy machine gun found him. He ducked back into cover, but not fast enough. His left arm caught a round. It hit him in the forearm, ripping it apart, pulping his elbow and lower bicep. His wrist and hand went spinning away.
“Fucking mother fucker!” Jerome fought through the pain, ripping his shirt up to his upper arm where the smart cloth and the blade that Mark and Tyler gifted him lay. He pulled the blade and sent commands to the smart cloth which tightened painfully. He tucked the blade away as his augments pumped him up with endorphins and go juice, the smart cloth wrappi
ng acting as a tourniquet.
“This is Bandit Two, targets sighted, fire mission incoming,” Young said in Jerome’s headset. A moment later and the glass side of the tower disintegrated under the converted freighter’s fire. Tracers cut into the Chosen and left holes in the office walls.
All Jerome could do was huddle down against that firepower.
“Meet you at the landing pad,” Young reported.
“Move it!” Haas barked.
They rose up into the howling wind and flying debris, rushing towards the chosen positions.
Jerome shot at anything that was moving.
They continued on, and Jerome saw that Kojo’s red marker was being carried by Dooks. He would have felt bad about leaving the man behind; he didn’t want to know what Harmony would have done with the body.
The freighter was waiting for them, all of its weaponry out and looking for targets.
Yu spun the craft so the rear ramp touched the landing pad. As soon as Jerome and his people were in the cargo hold, the freighter’s engines kicked in and it went into a dive, losing altitude for speed.
Jerome collapsed on the floor as the rear cargo door was sealing. Someone produced a blanket and put it over Kojo’s body and secured him to the wall.
“Good to see you Jerome,” Tal said, pulling out a med-kit and a printer.
“Ah shit, this is gonna suck,” Jerome said, holding his stub out to Tal.
“We’ll get you sorted out quick as you can say Fuck Harmony,” Bairamov said, holding onto Jerome’s shoulders.
“Let’s do it,” Jerome said, psyching himself up and grabbing the underside of the collapsible seat racks.
Tal put a piece of wood in Jerome’s teeth and pulled out a Vibra-Blade, making a clean cut, as fast as possible. Jerome yelled out, trying to stop his thrashing.
Tal got his upper arm in the printer and the heads got to work, making him a new forearm, wrist and hand. It hurt where they were testing out the nerves and muscle to check for where the printer would graft on the new limb. Jerome lay on the ground, knowing that it would hurt like a bastard when it was connected. The printer worked fast, and it would only be ten or twenty minutes until he had his lost limb back.
“Plan is we’re going to get suited up, grab Moretti, Zukic and Dominguez, then we’re headed to Mining City Twenty-One. Seems like there’s a little rebellion going on there that we can help out with,” Haas said in everyone’s implants.
“The fleet is in bound, they should be in orbit within four hours,” Yu said.
So we just need to hold out for four more hours, that’s not too difficult, Jerome said, knowing that he was lying to himself.
Chapter 43
EMFC Reclaimer
Osdal Actual, Osdal System
8/3267
Alexis checked her armor one last time before tucking her arms into her ammo pack.
Her sections were pulling themselves together. They were all armed, armored and running final checks. She moved her helmet, getting her hair caught in the locks was a bitch.
She was clear and her helmet was sealed.
“Two, four section, let’s move,” Alexis said, walking past them, and the sections fell in. Even the new people were looking good. She just hoped that it carried over on the ground.
They passed through the airlock, the flight deck was still closed and pressurized.
Alexis moved into a jog, the sections following her. Second Lieutenant Che already had one and three section on board their shuttle.
Everyone filed into their spots, taking their seats and locking in their harnesses. It might be four hours until the ships were in orbit, then it would take the Combat Shuttles two to get to the planet, and they didn’t need to slow down too much before their landing.
Half of the fleet Actual were headed for the stations; the others were going to the ground.
Fleet Three, which was made up of only two carriers, was already entering Osdal Three’s orbit. There was fierce fighting on the ground, but Alexis expected nothing less.
The carriers had pounded the ground before they sent down their Combat Shuttles, and Alexis just hoped that it had given the Troopers the cover they needed to close with the Chosen.
“We’ve got reports of powered armor battalions mobilizing, and we’re going right into the thick of it, so remember your Vibra-Blades and hammer the fuckers,” Major Ortiz said over the main command channel.
“Ten minutes until deployment,” Force Sergeant Major Nerva said, calm as ever. Alexis knew that he was going to be on the ground with them. He was the only person ranked above Major on the ground. She also knew that nothing less than being knocked unconscious would get him away from the front lines. It was reassuring to have Ice Man going out with them.
Alexis remembered the video that had been circulating when she had been pulled out of cryo a few days ago.
There was no mistaking the man in the video as anyone other than Mark.
Her hands tightened on her harness, her eyes bleak.
She hoped Mark was still alive, but it didn’t seem possible. She had a job to do, kill Harmony, and she would do everything in her power to complete that mission.
***
Nerva looked over his HUD which showed the entire force under his command, ten thousand men and women, all waiting. None of them were really ready to close with the enemy, that was a lie every soldier told themselves before a battle.
They were as ready and well trained as they could expect. That was all that Nerva could hope for as he settled into his harness, checking the feeds of the Combat Shuttle.
“Depressurizing!” Flight Control said, and the lights went off to warn crews and personnel. People left, others ran final checks on Combat Shuttles.
The last stragglers got into their Combat Shuttles as cargo ramps started closing.
Finally, the air was sucked out, and in the eerie silence all around, Nerva could only hear his own movement in his smart clothes and the cargo master’s footsteps through the cargo bay’s decking.
The lights changed color and the armored doors opened, showing the star-speckled skies of space.
There were four other carriers out there in that darkness, but they were hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, too far to be seen without magnification. Nerva could see them on a section of his HUD that relayed the fleet’s positions.
Light from outside of the carrier illuminated the flight deck. Nerva knew that the carrier was firing, but there was no noise to accompany the weapon’s fire.
“Launching,” the pilot said, and the first line of Combat Shuttles rose as one, pushing forward out of the carrier. They angled away, getting clear of the carrier and heading past the rear.
The carrier’s engines were at full burn to slow it down before it reached Osdal Actual, but the Combat Shuttles didn’t need to slow down that much. They formed up into their pyramid and diamond fighting formations.
Nerva changed sensors; he could see Reclaimer’s relatively small Close In Weapons Systems or Seawhizz firing streams of tracers ahead of the Combat Shuttles, shifting their fire and shooting again.
The pilot didn’t announce it, but Nerva saw the missile launch from the orbital batteries around Osdal Actual. It seemed that someone had panicked and fired them at the oncoming fleet and their Combat Shuttles. The fleet’s turrets were searching out the missile platforms and hunting them down. The missiles numbered in the thousands, but the fleet had distance and time. The Seawhizz twitched from one target to another, firing clouds of rounds at the oncoming missiles.
Explosions blossomed ahead of the Combat Shuttle formations. Their own small turrets were on missile defense, taking strain from the Seawhizz and letting them deal with the platforms.
It was an incredible show of people working together against the enemy, but the enemy had too many missiles and the EMF didn’t have enough turrets. The first shuttles started winking out, missiles reaching the forward ships.
Nerva could have stopped watching
the sensor feeds, but he didn’t because he was a leader. Those people dying might not be under his chain of command, but he still felt loss seeing them blink out, knowing all too well that those ships could have been his own.
Then he didn’t have time to worry about it because his shuttle was getting tossed and thrown about. Missiles were exploding around the craft, and the Combat Shuttle’s crew fought for their ship, for the people inside the shuttle.
Fuck this shit, Nerva thought, gritting his teeth against the jostling.
Then the front left section of the shuttle disappeared, light blinded Nerva, and his helmet darkened enough to stop the full light of the explosion sear into his eyes.
Nerva found himself pushed into the wall, the shuttle was in a spin, and outside, stars sped past.
People were flopping around, dead or unconscious. Nerva fought against the nausea, against the panic, trying to get his blood moving normally.
Is this it, is this the end? he wondered seeing more missiles explode outside of the craft. A thruster must have fired as the gravities pushing him into the wall suddenly pushed him against his harness and he passed out.
Chapter 44
Mining City Twenty-One
Osdal Actual, Osdal System
8/3267
Luke looked at the reports coming in; the EMF was on his doorstep. The asteroid miners were fighting across Processing Station Five and multiple charges had gone off through stations, towers and cities all across Osdal Actual and Osdal Three. He couldn’t even contact Osdal Three, either the communications satellites were out, or the ground stations were out of action.
They had completely lost control of one camp, and the camp workers had fired on the Chosen, killing about fifty. The rest had fled for the city itself.
He looked out of his office window as he stuffed various data cubes and surfaces into a bag.
A section of a tower blew out; he saw powered armor falling from fifteen stories up. The powered armor was impressive, but not that impressive.
“We need to move you sir,” a bodyguard said, bursting into the room.
He was one of the people that Luke had brought with him from Housapel, and he knew the real plan.
Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) Page 21