Fernix (Harmony War Book 4)

by Chatfield,Michael

  People looked confused, interested and then there was excitement, laughter and joy. They could do it! The problem was that they did it damn well.

  Companies that needed items shipped were always looking for good people to move them; to have freight waiting was to lose money.

  Companies, corporations, anyone with freight and credits found a new shipping option.

  Companies that had pressured them to use their resources, instead of mining their own, became good friends. They had goods to ship and needed trustworthy shippers. Madeline smiled to their faces, cursed them in The Yard and made credit hand over fist. The Yard stepped into its prime, and everything flourished.

  Soon, they had too many customers and not enough freighters. Why didn’t they just make them bigger?

  Jane had joined when the last of the large inter-system freighters came out.

  The Yard grew to make the Big Freighter, and the Bigger Freighter; people weren’t about fancy long names, and it went well with The Yard being called just what it was.

  It was as if Madeline had read the future. Osdal was a warzone. A few years after that and the EMF was putting out contracts to have people make Carriers.

  The Yard signed on, and any issues they were having with corporations and companies disappeared overnight. The EMF was controlled by Nivad Selvra, and no one wanted to piss him off.

  The Yard, unhindered and with money being thrown at them by contracts meant to entice corporations with more money than sense, exploded into activity.

  They started pushing out one every year, then two, then three. At the peak they had been putting out seven a year.

  Madeline was old and frail, because the companies had kept medical aid from her in her younger days. It was only in her later years, when the EMF needed their Carriers, that she’d found out that life extension treatments wouldn’t work on her. Madeline had shrugged it off and continued working.

  A dozen years later and the exploits of her younger life were catching up with her body.

  Madeline had summoned Jane to her bed in the medical ward; Jane was already running the day-to-day business of The Yard, waiting for someone to take over, maybe one of her brothers, maybe her mother.

  Madeline had told Jane that Earth and Her Colonies were going to need freighters to carry supplies between planets that hadn’t been shipped to in decades.

  “Why don’t we make the biggest Carriers in Earth and Her Colonies?” Madeline whispered in her ear. It was quiet but strong. With those words, Jane saw the woman who had asked why they didn’t set up their own transport business reflected in her eyes.

  “Why don’t we do just that,” Jane said into the dead air of her grandmother’s office, no, her office.

  A tear rolled down her cheek as she looked out onto The Yard. It never stopped working. Refined ore was deposited, factories churned out parts, machine shops checked them out and transports took them to The Yard, turning empty space into ships.

  There were now three other yards under their control, all of them dotted around close by.

  They made everything from shuttles to the Madeline Classed Freighter, the first of its kind at three kilometers wide and two kilometers’ long.

  Jane pulled up a hologram showing the boxy ship. The crew quarters rested along the spine of the freighter, and it had holds that could be divided, breaking off shipments.

  It was wider than it was long for two reasons: more drives could be added to its rear and more solar sails could extend around the craft. It was ugly as all hell, but while it was planned to be the largest freighter in existence, it was also meant to be one of the fastest.

  The slowly spinning hologram of the ship disappeared and Madeline’s face appeared in its place.

  “Alright, well, looks like I’m going to be punching the clock out of this place sometime soon so I made this recording to tell you who the owners of The Yard really are.” Madeline wasn’t one for small talk, even in her old age. “Don’t you get teary-eyed and all that messiness on me, listen up and listen good. If you got ‘em, smoke ‘em,” Madeline said, following her own advice in the feed.

  Jane laughed. It was a sad thing as she knew that Madeline was dead and gone. She grabbed a cigarette from her arm pouch and lit it up as Madeline started her story.

  “Your great grandfather was one of four people who started The Yard. The others were Quentin Richter, Mark Victor, and Jerome Victor, though Tyler and Alexis Victor are also part of the contract now,” Madeline sighed, looking into the feeds. “Family’s messy, anyway. Quentin Richter was the leader of a gang called the Westerly Three Complex - you might know them. We have a number of their people working up here, after they found they couldn’t hack it in the gang. Hell, the gang screens everyone that comes up here. He provides security and a funnel from The Yard to the Victor Corporation, which The Yard is a part of. The Victor Corporation is not only the gang, but the greenhouses on Earth… they have an agreement with them, a tax. That tax has kept the lights on more times than I would like to admit.” Madeline smoked, Jane mimicking her grandmother’s motions.

  “So, the Victors,” Madeline said, looking wistful. “They should be around twenty-eight or so now. They’re my bosses, your bosses, and the owners of the Westerly Three Complex, the greenhouses and The Yard. They also own the system to system freighting business.”

  Twenty-eight? How, The Yard was bought over sixty years ago!”

  “They’re also Troopers,” Madeline said, pulling Jane right out of her line of thinking.

  “What?” Jane asked Madeline, who was smiling as if she had heard Jane’s question.

  “They’re Troopers aboard the Earth Military Force Carrier Reclaimer. I’ve never met them in person, though I’ve seen them fighting on the military streams the ministry sell. They’re wrapped up in the Harmony mess. I don’t know if they will make it out alive, but no matter what, you will keep the lights on and you will keep the family’s promise to them. The Yard and everything else is their retirement, it’s their plan for if they get out of Earth’s Military Forces alive. The Costas will not break that promise,” Madeline said, her eyes boring into Jane’s. “Now, all the finicky little bits, like how we break up profits and how you can apply for a discretionary fund if something goes bad. Hopefully you won’t need it, but all parts of the corporation, from the gang to The Yard, have a reservoir of cash that we can use if we get into a tight spot. No, I don’t know how much there is, all I know is that it is considerable. Don’t go and buy fancy things with it! We’re not going to keep this thing going by running the people that gave us this chance out of their savings,” Madeline said, talking to Jane as she had when she had wired a power closet on an inter-system freighter wrong. Right amount of scolding, understanding, and hope that she’d learned her lesson from the whole thing.

  Jane smiled once again; her grandmother had been one hell of a character, and she hoped that she could do the old woman proud.

  Even if her eyes were getting itchy with hidden emotions. She’d known that there had been something going on in the background. She knew too much about the yard and her grandmother to know that there was something going on and that a portion of their profits seemed to drift away.

  “Okay, get out a surface, or one of those gizmos that you like to use and listen carefully,” Madeline said, lighting up another cigarette.

  Jane felt like a kid again, listening to her grandmother tell her late night stories.

  Madeline let out an exhale of cherries and vanilla.

  SLS Furtim

  Heading to the Hellenic System

  12/3267

  Legate Nerva.

  Nerva looked himself over. He was wearing the tanned, almost leather looking, fatigues of The Legion, and they weren’t all that dissimilar to his Troopers’ smart clothes.

  The only major difference was the medals that appeared on his chest, and the fact that the clothes connected to NIDenise, his Neural Interfacing Artificial Intelligence.

  If he took
the shirt off, then he could see her liquid-like metal housing on his left arm. While he had been undercover in the EMF she had spread her mass out, so she wasn’t a solid bar on his arm.

  Now they were surrounded by people of The Legion and Legion recruits from the EMF, there was no need to hide the armband.

  There was a stack of medals showing his deployments, timed served, wounds. On his right shoulder an image of a shield and two swords showed that he was powered armor capable. His view was augmented by NIDenise, and she related everything through his optical nerve, just like the EMF’s implants.

  He looked at himself; it had been a lifetime since he had last worn the uniform of The Legion.

  He looked away from the mirror and headed out of his quarters towards the bridge. He heard the whispers and saw the legionnaires giving him sideways looks. With their augmented view they could see his rank and name, but his bio he had taken out of the public sphere.

  “Can’t they just use the net?” Nerva asked, hearing another person talk about Legate Nerva, the Ice Man that had held the gates to Roma Prime closed to the Maraukian horde.

  NIDenise was wise enough to not comment on his thoughts. He had a less than cordial relationship with her, as it had become clear that she had played a role in his removal from the EMF, and his return to The Legion.

  “Permission to enter, Centurion Exceter,” Nerva called out, catching the centurion’s eye.

  “Certainly, Legate Nerva,” Exceter said, waving Nerva in.

  Exceter was ranks below Nerva, but Nerva wasn’t going to bust the man’s balls. He was the cap… centurion. He corrected himself in his mind.

  Nerva moved into the bridge. It wasn’t like the EMFC bridges. It was buried in the center of the Carrier, and people weren’t sitting at their stations, they were reclined in them, their hands manipulating controls down at their sides as holograms flickered in front of them.

  There were manual controls, but they didn’t need them, a thought through an NIAI could control their station. Many of them were probably checking out news streams or playing games or doing tests in their heads.

  The bridge looked like a curved arrow with the centurion of the ship at the rear, helm to his right and weapons to his left. His second in command was the ships artificial intelligence, Furtim, called AIFurtim to differentiate between him and NIAI’s.

  It was like having Mister or Miss ahead of your name. Coming from the EMF, Nerva found it weird, but it was also comforting.

  They faced forward with the lower deck housing communications, the helm, sensors, and engineering from left to right in their reclined couches. The chairs around the outside of the arrow, pointing into the wall were feeder stations; they pooled information from the ship and sent it to the seven stations that were the brain of the ship.

  The front screen showed the blurring stars of being in jump. On the side screens it showed their intended destination. Roma, within the Hellenic System. The heart of The Legion, and where the war with the Maraukians had started.

  Where it had all started for Nerva.

  What would have taken Earth and Her Colonies decades using sub-light engines and solar panels to get from system to system. The SLS Furtim would take weeks, their jump drives breaking past the barriers of physics and FTL travel.

  Aurelius hadn’t told him what he was going to be doing yet. He wished that he was still back with his people and heading for Fernix. Though there wasn’t any way he could go back to that now; him coming back from the dead would raise too many questions.

  For now, The Legion needed to remain a secret from humanity. They were still too violent, caring only for profit. The Union of Human Worlds was already fighting one war with the Maraukians. They didn’t need to fight another against the greedy corporations of Earth and Her Colonies.

  Nerva sighed, thinking of his forces, that were spread over EMFC Dauntless and Fearless. It wouldn’t be long until they got underway for Fernix, to attempt to catch up with the freighters hauling Osdal’s processed materials.

  Another thought brought up Fernix again. NIDenise read his mental thoughts perfectly, he didn’t even need to move his hands as images and data flew across his ocular nerve.

  Fernix would be harder than anyone thought, and it wasn’t even the real battle. No, Harmony were too smart to have the fight on just their own soil.

  Chapter 4

  Tower

  Earth, Sol System

  12/3267

  Nivad Selvra looked at the feeds coming in from Osdal. There were still two Carriers, the Indomitable and Prudence, above Osdal Actual. Their Troopers now controlled the processing stations holding orbit over Osdal Actual.

  The Chosen were being segregated in their cities along with the civilian populations.

  If any shuttles or craft tried to leave those cities, they were hunted down by Carrier weaponry or Combat Shuttles. The tactic was simple: weaken the people by starving them a little, then roll in and smash them down with the combined strength of both Carriers. All of the Troopers on those Carriers were wearing powered armor and knew how to use it.

  Nivad was hoping that they could clean up Osdal quick, in order to join the rest of the Troopers leaving the system for Fernix.

  He changed to different reports. The asteroid miners were happy with their fighting; they’d handed over their weapons and headed back to their stations. They’d had their taste of war and it was enough for them, it seemed.

  The Troopers were keeping an eye on them, but the asteroid miners seemed to be getting back to work instead of sitting around.

  Nivad had annulled all debt in the system and given away some incentives to the asteroid miners. It seemed to have inspired them, and they were busy hauling asteroids into their refining stations by the freighter-load for cold hard credits.

  The colony ship with the CEOs and higher management was still a few decades away, and by the time that they got to the system, the asteroid miners would have filled the processing stations and the Osdal Partnership’s resource bunkers, and then some.

  He looked into freighter services that were able to go to Osdal, nearly all of them were running around the Harmony controlled area to keep the rest of the EHC going. They were already behind on deliveries, as freighters were in high demand and Fernix wasn’t exactly going to help make more of them.

  He saw a notation on The Yard connected to Osdal. He looked into it and felt a smile cross his lips. The Yard had proved to be more resourceful than Nivad had given them credit for. They were becoming a major player in Earth’s inter-system freighting business.

  They were outbidding other companies, and their people cared about getting the cargo where it was supposed to be, on time and without damage, unlike the larger companies.

  Now, with their larger yards that they had developed since they had taken on the contracts to complete Earth Military Force Carriers, they were working to make the largest freighters in known space.

  It would be a matter of months until the freighter was complete, and its inaugural trip would be to Osdal. It looked like they were in negotiations with the Osdal Partnership to haul personnel to the system, as well as machinery and equipment, and they were also talking to Masoul about moving that freight to their system, and setting up a trading hub there.

  Masoul would never have thought about signing a trading agreement with a freighting Company with just one freighter before Harmony had happened. Now, they needed every freighter possible moving goods in and out of their system.

  Nivad looked at the production rates for The Yard; they were aiming to have a Carrier produced every year for the next five years, but judging by the plans for expansion on their various building slips, they were going to be making much larger freighters a lot faster. The wall of his office went from showing Mega City outside the tower in which he resided, to a graph showing viewership of the feeds of the EMF that the ministry sold to the rich for entertainment.

  It spiked abruptly and Nivad smiled. He’d had Wallace come up wit
h a program that looked through people’s records and their commander’s reports. It would determine whether Troopers deserved a medal for their actions in the war against Harmony. It was just another way to instill a sense of pride in the EMF.

  Harmony gave Nivad a perfect way to portray the companies in a good light and use it to create peace, for at least some time. War was good for many Company’s profits, at least those based around Earth who hadn’t joined Harmony.

  For Nivad it was wasteful, and it messed with the market. It made it unstable and messy. It also showed a rival to his own power.

  His smile disappeared and his eyes dulled as he looked at the view screen without seeing it.

  Few had seen behind Nivad’s mask and, of those, none of them had lived past seeing the psychopath that lay beneath the thin veneer of humanity.

  He honestly didn’t understand why people cared whether others lived or died. He cared about money, and about pulling one over on the most powerful people in the history of humanity.

  Harmony went against his game, but it didn’t make him angry, and it didn’t make him sad or pissed off. It made him toy with the idea of letting them win. It would only be too easy.

  Only one thing stopped him: letting them win would be losing. This was a game of subterfuge, he might see people as pawns, but he couldn’t deny a good game. When his life was on the line, well, it made his heart actually speed up for once.

  He would destroy Harmony for fun, and to return to the much more interesting political games of Earth and Her Colonies. One battle was boring, but controlling an entire race without them ever knowing it, that was interesting.

  He continued to watch his various news feeds, not caring about the broadcast of the medal ceremonies and the highlight reels that the people in the Ministry of Intelligence had put together.