Enemies on All Sides (Maraukian War Book 4)

by Michael Chatfield

  Ava almost spilled her glass. “You’ve got motakia mushrooms for me?”

  Mark pointed to the basket. “Sure have. But there’s something we need to talk about before we dig in. Is that all right with you?”

  On her frown, he worried about his decision to do this.

  But she took a sip and spoke clearly. “No, I know we need to talk. I heard what my father asked the other night.”

  “That’s not just the reason I’m doing this.” He pulled her in closer to him.

  “Then what is all this?”

  Mark put his glass down and took her hand in his. “I don’t talk about some things, and I probably won’t ever again. But I want to talk to you about Osdal, about what happened to me there.”

  ***

  Ava swallowed. This she hadn’t expected. But instead of saying anything, she just let him talk.

  Mark started with his life with Tyler on Sol. What it was like to grow up with no family, with no one. Then to find someone he clicked with, how they’d decided to become the Victor brothers. Then he moved on and talked about their life in the EMF, how they’d met Alexis. And how much she had Tyler wrapped around her finger. He talked for a long time about how much the two of them loved each other—their marriage, all their loves, laughs, and then their losses.

  Then he started to talk about Osdal, and Ava finally started to put the pieces together that made him the man he was today.

  Mark had shared a friendship so deep, it was more than love. When he spoke her name, Caroline, Ava felt his pain.

  He paused but for a moment to talk about what happened to her, what the men on that planet were going to do to her and what they actually did. This was what made him turn, turn into the dark monster that she’d seen all but a few times.

  While the sun set around them, Ava held his hand and listened. He never faltered in his stories, and this time though she expected it, he didn’t get angry. He was for once finally letting it out and she allowed him that.

  When Mark finally finished, he sought her eyes with his.

  She moved around to climb onto his lap and kissed him, kissed him harder than she had before. “It’s okay.” She eased back. “I’m here.”

  Mark held her tightly. “I never wanted to love again, to feel pain. Watching you fight, seeing you in harm’s way, it kills me. But, I know that’s what we are. It’s what we do. I just don’t want to lose you too.”

  Ava wanted to ply him with platitudes, to make him feel better, but she also knew that what words she offered, what promises she could give him, she also couldn’t keep. “There will be many trials in our future, many choices we have to make,” she said. “But I know we’ll make them together.”

  She had thought for one brief moment he might have asked her to marry him, but he hadn’t. If he had, she wasn’t so sure what her answer would be. Would she have actually said yes? Hearing him talk about Alexis and Tyler’s wedding, she might have, but the pain when he lost them…

  Ava didn’t let him out of her sight once. Eventually they made their way back to the shore, just as the sun started to rise once more.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Freighter O-41 (Wind Snapper)

  Oort Cloud, Hellenic System

  12/3556

  “Looks like those boys in the Ark weren’t lying,” Captain Shwab said as they checked their position compared to the stars around them.

  “The engineering group comes up with good ideas, albeit a bit crazy at times,” Moretti admitted with a smile.

  Shwab gave Moretti a look that seemed to say, “No kidding,” making Moretti laugh.

  All of the crew had become close over the last couple of months. Living in such tight quarters, it was hard to not get to know your neighbors. Thankfully they’d had plenty to keep them busy as they were mainly Moretti’s operatives. When they had down time, they were going through reams of information to keep him and the Victor Corporation in the loop with everything that was going on in the EHC and the Union.

  It wasn’t simple work, but they were the best; it was why he was bringing them into the belly of the Union.

  The new batteries and the modifications to the reactors increased our speed by nearly two times. This kind of advantage couldn’t be looked down on. It might still take them an average of twenty-three days to travel one parsec, but compared to thirty-five days, that was an incredible time difference.

  It had allowed Moretti to reach the Hellenic system well ahead of schedule and before the Luyten forces reached the Emarl system.

  His gaze turned cold and the smile stilled on his face as he thought of the hell that was about to fall on the Emarl system.

  There wasn’t a way to stop it, but he would make sure that any who allied themselves with Rimateus and his plans paid the price. Their positions wouldn’t save them from him.

  He had been talking to Zedra and they were of the same mind.

  They cared little for anything but their values. With their values lining up, they easily shared information between each other.

  She didn’t care for information gathering and passed edited reports over to Moretti.

  He understood she wouldn’t pass him everything; in fact, he respected her more for it. She wasn’t an intelligence officer but she wasn’t bad at it.

  By no means did they trust each other past completing their goals, but they had come to an understanding.

  It was why he didn’t get reports from the Emarl system, only sent them reports. If someone hauled him in for questioning or tortured him, then he wouldn’t know everything going on in the system.

  Knowing less was actually his best defense.

  He looked out over the Hellenic system. The system had nearly twenty billion residents over three planets and hundreds of stations, with thousands of freighters moving between the planets and to the other systems that made up the Union.

  The Roma Union never stopped moving.

  The Wind Snapper was just another freighter added into the mass as they moved for the planet Ageia. He wouldn’t go directly to Roma; instead, he would make sure his path was complicated to the extreme, making it hard for people knowing where he came from.

  Once he left the Wind Snapper, then he would be on his own—no support, no backup.

  Masoul all over again, or maybe Osdal. Moretti’s life had been anything but simple, but it was the life he had chosen.

  He was lucky enough that he had met the Victors and stepped outside of the corporate world. He had been looking to climb the corporate ladder, gaining power and money when he started. Now he had a cause.

  Having a cause made him much more dangerous.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Freighter E-567

  Oort Cloud, Emarl System

  1/4

  The last couple of months hadn’t been easy. All of the legionnaires were living in tight quarters and with all of the people who seemed to be yelling at them from back home, it was mentally draining.

  They kept it together still and the Victor Corporation sent them information on the different positions that they might apply for, but any more information wasn’t forthcoming. Although they were glad that the legionnaires were coming to Emarl, they didn’t trust for there to be someone who wouldn’t let out vital information back to the Roma Union.

  They were gearing up for a fight against Rimateus’s forces. The biggest thing in their favor right now was the fact that no one knew what was happening inside the Emarl system.

  It was only now when they finished their last jump and they found that they were no longer connected to the legion net but connected to the Emarl net that they were able to see what was going on in the system.

  “What the hell?” Quina said off to the side as she looked at the tactical display map that was in the middle of the higher-ranking officers.

  Nerva was looking through the system, assessing the different resources that could be found in-system.

  The Roma Union news made it look as though Emarl was nothing
more than a backwater, with a struggling shipyard and a bunch of traitors filling it.

  When they saw it for themselves, they weren’t seeing a system that was in chaos. Instead, they saw patrol groups moving around the system; four carriers and four battleships roamed with one battleship to one carrier around the system.

  There was fourteen EMFCs that were being worked on near to the Yard, their armor upgraded and weapons placed on both sides instead of just one.

  The shipyard was missing the mega freighter that had been under construction there. Inter-system freighters moved to the asteroids and to the planet.

  The station had grown from a simple platform to a platform with spokes coming out of it. A circular station started to take shape at the end of those spokes.

  “Mark is trying to talk with you,” Denise said.

  “Let him,” Nerva replied.

  “Hey, old man, how’s it going? Navigation information is being sent to your captain and it should be about a week or so until we can get you into a holding pattern around the Yard. We’re going to have to check everyone’s identities and verify they are who they say they are and they’re not spies before allowing them off the ship,” Mark said.

  “Understood. I have a roster for everyone who is aboard, or at least who they say they are.” Nerva sent the information to Mark. He understood Mark’s paranoia. If there was just one person in their group who could communicate this all back to the Union, then Rimateus would have to change his plan of attack.

  Right now, he was dumb, blind, and happy, and Nerva was more than happy to keep him that way.

  “M is moving into the Hellenic system soon and his first mission is to help evacuate the family members of the people you brought to us and weren’t pulled out with the Aegean gardens. It looks like he’s already made some contacts, so it should move smoothly,” Mark said.

  “Understood,” Nerva said.

  “Welcome home. It’s good to have you back with us.” Mark closed the channel.

  Nerva looked up. The others were looking to him. It was clear he had just been on a call.

  “Mark sends his hello. We’re moving to the Yard, where everyone will be inspected. Once they pass security checks, then we can move to see where we fit in all of this,” Nerva said.

  “Those ships around the Yard that are being upgraded?” Thomas McDougall’s statement turned into a question.

  “They are Earth Military Force carriers. Holds a crew of one hundred and seventy thousand personnel, one hundred thousand of which are troopers. It looks to me that all of them have been given Alcubierre drives, which means that the people of Emarl have been a lot busier than we thought,” Nerva said.

  “But for them to be here, shouldn’t they be on patrol?” Quina asked.

  “When not in use, then the EMFCs are put into a sleep state where the crew goes into cryo, ready and waiting to be activated and put to work. Seems that they were woken up and they chose to come to the Emarl system,” Nerva said.

  “Won’t the EHC retaliate?” Quina asked again.

  “Retaliate?” Pullo let out a rough laugh. “The EMF is their bully boys to make sure everything runs well. Mark probably woke them up, gave them a choice to actually live for themselves and the EMF personnel jumped at it. I doubt that the EHC even knows that their military force has quit en masse as they can choose to fight for something they want, instead of just trying to escape the shithole that is Earth.”

  The people from the Roma Union looked at one another with confusion while those who had been part of the EMF agreed with Pullo.

  They knew that they would have done the same if they were in the positions of those on the carriers.

  “Seems like Mark isn’t thinking small scale anymore.” Pullo laughed.

  The corner of Nerva’s mouth lifted into a smile, choosing to not say anything else.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  The Crucible

  Ark, Emarl System

  1/4

  Candidate Kovyas exited the drop-ship. Even the ride down to the Crucible, the headquarters of the Vanguard, was rough. Since the first trip down by the Moby, there had been more lightning rods added, creating a path down to the planet that was easier to follow.

  He had passed through the main dockyard, which had purpose-built areas for making battleships and carriers. The ones that had been resting there were already on patrol, with a new crew working out the kinks as new ships had taken their place. They were rapidly growing as the automated systems and engineers who had come down assembled the crafts.

  He had seen the Moby docked off to the side. The carrier was a hulking great mass. Its cannons, missile ports, and Vanguard launching system made it dominate the area around it, filling one with awe and interest in what lay beneath the hull of the powerful and old carrier.

  He exited the drop-ship with his fellow candidates, seeing Vanguard mergers moving about the docking area, grabbing flights from other areas or coming in from whatever jobs they’d been working on.

  There was only one entrance into the Vanguard’s territory.

  Kovyas entered with three Vanguard who seemed to be communicating with one another but they weren’t emitting any noise.

  Kovyas shifted the bag on his shoulder as the inner air lock opened.

  The Vanguard brought themselves to attention and saluted.

  Kovyas brought himself to attention and repeated the action, looking around.

  The Vanguard mergers didn’t seem to be talking anymore as they entered the hallway.

  There seemed to be a different kind of gravity in this hallway. Kovyas removed his helmet and looked at the walls, at the large crates that were stuck in the wall—each one a merger of the Vanguard who hadn’t made it home.

  There were those who had fallen on Gilese, and others on Indalia. Seeing them, Kovyas stood a bit taller. It was a test of will, knowing that if he made it through training and became a merger of the Vanguard and fell in battle, then he, too, would make it into this hall.

  He had stepped into the hall of remembrance. All of the candidates looked on those crates, affirming their actions or letting doubts settle in.

  Kovyas walked with straight strides. He had wanted to become a merger on Gilese. He knew that they had saved his life and the lives of his men. That kind of debt wasn’t easily paid.

  He would be dead without them. What was dying once to rise as one of the Vanguard?

  His NIAI guided him into a greeting hall, where there were other candidates who had moved into seating. All of them were veterans: from the legion, from Tricticus, from the Earth Military Force.

  Looking at them all, he saw a similar light in their eyes. They were determined, ruthless and driven. Most of them weren’t great big hulks; instead, they looked like normal, unremarkable people. To get to this stage, it didn’t take the biggest muscles or the best scores; it took putting in hard work, dealing with the shit day after day, being forged from man to warrior. Each and every man and woman here had gone through hard times and it had made them hard people.

  Kovyas moved to a seat. The two troopers there nodded to him and went back to their conversation over what they thought might happen to the EHC.

  “Look, if any of the colonies step up, and there’s no one to knock them down with us not there, the EHC is going to fall apart,” one said.

  “Maybe, but what’s saying that they won’t just gas the place and start again? That’s what happened with Fernix and Housapel,” the other said.

  “Well, shit, they aren’t my people. I fought to get a new life and I’ve lost more brothers and sisters than I can count. It’s time that they fought for their future. I ain’t going to stand in their way no more,” the first replied.

  The second went to make a noise when someone called out.

  “Atten-chun!”

  The room stood at attention. Even across militaries, the position was the same.

  They all looked to the front of the room, where an older-looking man with cold eyes
walked onto the stage.

  “Sit.” His words weren’t loud or quiet but they could be heard through the room and had an immediate reaction as everyone put ass to bench.

  “You are all candidates to become mergers of the Vanguard. You have already passed your first tests. Though they won’t be the last ones you go through. My name is Captain Reckhi, though everyone calls me Dodger. I will be leading your training. These unfortunate bastards,” a few dozen mergers walked out at the bottom of the stage, “will have to deal with you directly. This selection is about finding who of you can last, who can push past their limits, and who is worthy to become a merger. Look around this room.”

  Kovyas and the others did as they were told, with bored expressions.

  “They are not your brothers and sisters. Maybe at the end of this they will be. Right now, there are twenty thousand people in this selection round. That means there will be about two hundred mergers at the end of this all. If you pass and make the decision to become a merger, you will not be just joining another unit—you will be a new being. Some believe that you will not be human. Don’t worry—I know you won’t be human anymore. You will be the deadliest thing to have ever touched a weapon—you will be a weapon yourself.” Dodger’s eyes swept over them all.

  They all knew who he was and what he had done. In front of such a man, there was no use in putting up a front.

  He took shit from no one.

  “Let’s see just who out of you can make it. Training staff, see to your people!”

  With that, he turned and left the stage. Information appeared on the different candidates’ views as they were broken down into training groups and moved to follow their new directions, heading out of different exits where the training staff looked over them.

  Kovyas hadn’t seen the Vanguard out of their armor.

  Their eyes were cold and calculating as they looked over the candidates. The shortest was over seven and a half feet tall. Their gray skin contrasted starkly against their black and purple fatigues and silver veins.