Well he has a much better chance of getting them aboard than I do. Mark pulled them out and put them into Tyler’s pocket, while sending him all the information that he’d copied from the CEO’s tower.
He checked the vitals of Tyler’s chamber which all looked good.
“Alright while Captain Nerva is moving units to deal with the people above us, we’re getting a lift for the sole purpose of moving wounded to the roof. A platoon has already been detailed to clear the top floor and move down. They should be getting up there in a few minutes and then we will know if we are moving immediately or not,” Ferguson said, looking to everyone in the room.
“We should assume that we’re going to be able to move people as fast as possible. I’ll detail out who is to go first and I want two medics per ride, three are to stay upstairs to make sure that the patients’ health doesn’t deteriorate. All of you not medically trained, well you’re going to be used to move the patients. We’re getting more help from the reinforcements in a short while. Now on the first lift I want him, her, her, him, him and him going up,” he said, pointing people that needed immediate aid. “They’re stable but they should be in cryo that we just don’t have right now. I want people on them and ready to move in a moment.”
Mark slung his gun and moved to help get the wounded ready to transport.
The order came down and Mark helped get the wounded into the elevator, going up and pulling them out before descending again. Ferguson pointed out who was to go and Mark went again and again, the number of people in the room reducing each time. He lost track of time until he was moving Tyler up to the second highest floor.
He stayed up there and helped people as they took the ones deposited outside the elevator up through a roof entrance onto the windy rooftop. A combat shuttle swooped in out from the sky. Medics waited on the shuttle as Mark and the others dragged them up onto the ramp and got them secured. It took three more loads before the shuttle’s ramps closed, it fired up it’s blowers, hovering before the engines kicked in and it headed off towards Reclaimer.
That was the last shuttle and Mark collapsed against a wall in sheer exhaustion.
“Mark I want everyone back down on the fifth floor as soon as possible,” Captain Chen said.
“Yes sir,” Mark answered, getting his ass back up. It was like the Captain could acrually sense he was taking a break.
He passed the word and everyone got back in the elevator and rode it down to the rest of the regiment.
They came out and were greeted by people with food, actual food.
It didn’t take long for them to track down the source of the food. They dug in, shovelling the warm meal into their faces and sitting back against the desks.
“Everyone get some rest, those that have been detailed positions see that they’re manned. We’ve got fourteen hours of down-time at least. Make it count,” Nerva said.
Mark found Pullo, Gupta, and Dolche. Utkin had been hit in the head and should be on Reclaimer already. They were the only four people that had survived from their section and were conscious right now.
“Good work lads,” Pullo said before finding a comfortable place on a desk to put his head. Mark laid on the floor, dimmed his helmet and passed out.
Chapter 14
EMFC Reclaimer and Growing City
Sacremon Actual, Sacremon System
8/3169
Tyler awoke with the same sour taste he had when he had first come out of cryo. He turned on the table his tongue working against his mouth to wet his mouth.
“Welcome back to the land of the living Corporal Victor,” a medic said as they ran a scanner down his chest and abdomen.
“You’re going to be sore for about a day, grab some food and rest and wait out for further orders,” the medic said, looking at their pad and moving away.
“Wait, where’s my unit?” Tyler asked.
The medic paused for a second as if considering telling him what was going on or not. His inner battle was decided with a sigh as he turned back to Tyler.
“You were with the fourth regiment right?” The medic said, looking at the pad, flicking through information.
“Yeah,” Tyler said the word, unsure if it was the right thing to say or not.
“Your unit that landed first got chewed up worse than I’ve seen most units. The rest of the regiment that was sitting in orbit dropped down and reinforced them. They’re all safe now, we’ve got quite a number of your people in here getting medical aid of some kind.” The medics shook his head, looking tired.
“Do you know what happened to Mark Victor?” Tyler asked, his voice tight.
The medic looked to their pad tapping something in instead of answering right away.
That’s a good sign right?
“It looks like he’s still down there alive and combat capable,” the medic said.
Tyler let out a breath that he hadn’t realized that he was holding, settling back down to the table.
“Thanks doc,” Tyler said.
You thought some colonists could kill Mark? Fat chance! He thought with a levity that he didn’t feel.
Enough moping around here, need to get food, rearmed, and get back down there.
With that he got to his feet and found a bulge in his leg pocket that he didn’t remember. His implants came online and he realized that there was a message waiting for him.
“Keep what’s in your pocket to yourself,” Mark’s voice said through his head.
Tyler’s hand moved away from his pocket, checking no one had seen him as he quickly moved to his sections quarters, he grabbed a pad, connecting it to his implants so he could see what kind of information Mark had sent him.
Why the hell is he giving me all this stuff on plants?
He opened his pocket and pulled out a number of seeds.
“Well I’ll be damned it looks like Mark wants to be a gardener.” He understood what this could bring to Earth, especially W3C if they were able to get it home, he took the seeds out putting them into a bag and hiding them in the bottom of a lock. He downloaded his implants information onto a spare data-square.
He looked around the section’s quarters, memories coming back as he thought of the people that were already dead. He used his pad to check his section and seeing the red writing of KIA over those that had been lost.
He looked up as someone came into the quarters.
“Utkin!” Tyler said in greeting, his face splitting into a wide smile.
“So you got ground up pretty good as well eh?” Utkin said clasping hands with Tyler and taking a seat on what had been Simmons rack.
“Yeah, something in my guts, you?”
“Something in my head,” Utkin said his expression dark.
“Ahh you wouldn’t have lost much,” Tyler said with a grin, getting a dry laugh from Utkin.
“I hear that the fourth is getting redeployed to Field City soon,” Utkin said, looking to Tyler.
“That the one surrounded by fields?”
“That’d be it,” Utkin nodded.
“Fucking imaginative aren’t they? How soon?”
“In ‘bout nine hours,” Utkin said.
“Well I’m gonna hit the showers grab some food and get a new issue of gear in that case,” Tyler said.
Ah shit I probably lost all of the weapon upgrades I bought. At least the Augments are literally in me so I can’t lose them. Might be worth investing some more credits into those little machines.
“Sounds like a plan to me, Corporal,” Utkin said as if accepting the rank that Tyler had been given and agreeing with it. He stood, his own shoulder showing the same rank now.
“I don’t think that the EMF has learned of the concept of down-time,” Tyler complained.
“We had nearly thirty-three years of it!” Utkin said.
“Yeah but my ass was frozen and I wasn’t doing so much resting as being chemically knocked out!”
Chapter 15
Growing City
Sacremon Ac
tual, Sacremon system
8/3169
Mark awoke with someone shaking him, he bolted up expecting another attack only to find the rest of his section slowly waking up and getting to their feet. He took his helmet and gloves off, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he leaned against a wall. His body felt like it had been put through the grinder, fatigue seemed to have seeped into his bones while he slept.
“Don’t worry we aren’t getting bombed, yet,” Dolche grumbled, taking a seat on a desk and checking over his repulsor. The medics supplied with their limb printer had given him a new arm and got him into fighting condition like everyone else.
Dolche tossed Mark a new helmet which he caught, taking off his flickering one and replacing it with Dolche’s spare.
“Thanks, that HUD was on it’s last legs, damned visor was all cracked too,” Mark said.
“You always get yourself into some nasty scrapes,” Dolche grinned.
Mark smiled and shrugged.
The anger about the BM had disappeared, Dolche seemed all but forgotten about the encounter. There were so few of them left that he looked like he didn’t want to bring up prior issues. Having comrades that hated you on the battlefield could be as deadly as the enemy.
Everyone kept their helmets off and were taking their time in getting up.
“Get some food in you and we’re going to be reporting to Nerva directly. We’re going to be his bodyguard for the next little while. Gupta could you grab Jerome and get him over here as soon as possible?” Pullo asked.
“Will do.” Gupta stood and walked out of the room.
Mark munched on a meal replacement bar absently. His implants pinged with a message. He finished his meal before he got his helmet back on to check it.
Relief filled him as he read the message from Tyler, he and Utkin had woken up. They were fine and looking to get back down to Sacremon as fast as possible.
“Tyler and Utkin are good, they’re looking to get their weapons and gear sorted out and they’ll be on the fastest ride headed our way,” Mark said through his opened visor.
“Bout time that they got their asses down here,” Dolche said relief coloring his face.
Mark checked over his equipment and went to go grab an ammunition pack.
Pullo grabbed Marks hand to stop him, “Mark hold up, I need to have a talk to you when Jerome gets here.”
“Okay?” Mark said arching his eyebrow at Pullo in question.
“Don’t worry you’re not in shit,” Pullo grinned.
Mark sat on a desk releasing his knives and cleaning them better than he had the day before.
Jerome and Gupta took a few more minutes to show up and Pullo had them come together into a tight little circle.
“Has any one of you looked at your account recently?” Pullo asked.
Everyone shook their heads.
“Well I suggest that you do,” he said.
Mark closed his visor and pulled up the information, it took him a few minutes to access his account and when he did he felt his eyes go wide. With the last transaction there was also a message asking if he would like to be a bodyguard for a CEO after his time with the EMF.
“Fuck me, he actually did it,” Jerome said.
“Yeah and you better damned well keep it to yourselves,” Pullo said looking at everyone. “The EMF isn’t no slum but those that are above us are going to be damned jealous of that amount of funds. If they find out about this, then they are going to do everything to put pressure on us to have us pay them off for not getting shit assignments. We’re going to have to hide this and fast, right now we should setup an account that contains all of our money and is hidden from the system. We put down rights to the money so we can get it afterwards and if one person dies then the other’s get it.” The kind of trust that Pullo was putting in all of them made them stand straighter.
In the slums, people killed to steal just a few thousand credits and they weren’t talking about mere thousands here; this was a combined ten million. That kind of money could buy a damned carrier.
“We’re going to have to find some way to launder it,” Gupta said.
“I think I might have a plan for that,” Mark said, looking at Jerome.
“What?” Jerome asked warily, the others looking to him with thinned eyes.
“You worked on the docs where a lot of money moves through Earth, everyone knows that. The universe runs on the carriers that move between planets. What I propose is that we invest our money into keeping those ships running. If we get a slip, or a maintenance bay of some kind, people are going to pay hand over fist to keep those ships running. If we could also have some ships running through people that we trust then we’ll be good,” Mark admonished.
“Yeah that’s a good idea and all but who in the hell is going to make sure that those same ship pilots aren’t going to screw us over when we aren’t there?”
“Well we’re going to need people that we can trust and that will stay behind to look after that for us,” Mark said, all eyes on him. “If the W3C gang is still active then I know that they will back us up. I have something to guarantee it.” Mark gave them a bleak smile.
Any plan we make has to be made on the basis that we might be away for a damned long time and the people we leave behind will probably not be alive by the time that we get back. So we’re going to have to pick people that are going to last that long.
“What?” Gupta asked.
Mark took off his helmet pointedly, the others followed suit and Mark grabbed some paper and a pen.
Because I just smuggled the seeds and information of this planet onto Reclaimer. If we can get that into the gardeners hands of Westerly complex, then the gang will be in our debt forever. If they try to go back on that debt then we say where they got those seeds from. Mark finished the message and stood back so that they could read it.
Pullo looked slightly impressed as did the others.
“Damned dangerous,” Gupta said,
“Well they’re either with us or they’re against us,” Mark said
“We live under the constant threat of dying, what’s one more thing that might get us killed?” Jerome shrugged looking to the others.
“Alright, if we’re all agreed then I have the account made, check it over and sign with your implants,” Pullo said.
After a few minutes they had all affixed their names to the document.
“Good, now Jerome you can move back to your platoon. Dolche get over here,” Pullo said.
“It looks like we’re going to be moving to Field City, and it’s going to be a crappy time. We’re also going to be on the protection detail for Nerva. As you know the Captain likes to be at the front of everything, that means we’re going to have an even better time,” Pullo said dryly, getting sighs from Mark and Dolche who looked at one another.
Damn officers! They seemed to say to one another as they focused back on Pullo.
“The good news is that Tyler and Utkin should be joining us before we hit Fields. We’re looking at much the same kind of fighting we’ve had here. The fields around the city have been destroyed by the colonists giving them good clear views of the area. General Wai wants us to do what Alpha Company did last time and mark every damned weapon emplacement we can find, bring in the combat shuttles and make the colonists wish they never thought of striking.” With that said Pullo growled, his eyes darkened with thoughts of retribution.
Chapter 16
Fields, Maintenance shed 4A21E
Sacremon Actual, Sacremon System
5/3171
Fields was another month long slog but other than losing thirty-five people while they were spotting enemy emplacements and nearly seven hundred when they finally got into the city it was much better than growing.
Tyler and Utkin survived without a scratch, Pullo got hit with shrapnel when he tackled Captain Nerva to the ground, probably saving his life. It took the medics a few hours to get him back on his feet.
They had just finished
fields when their next target was announced.
“It looks like the other divisions have also taken their objectives so we’re moving to take the last city, Processing,” Captain Nerva said to everyone in the Regiment as they sat outside of a tower, enjoying the sun for once. There were scouting parties keeping a boundary around city making sure that no one crept up on them and thought about dropping a hand grenade or two into their relaxed positions.
Second platoon had been combined with third for all intents and purposes and while they had paid a heavy toll in Growing City, Fields had been a different story. They had taken only twelve losses while everyone else had doubled or tripled their mortality rates.
Some were saying it was because Fourth regiment was so small, but fourth knew it was because they were survivors and the men and women that had survived the NR had spread their experience far and wide the last month. There were only a few that were still referred to as boots, Mark had a feeling that they would be losing that nickname if they made it through the hell that Processing City promised to be.
Major Sanh Huang had spent more time with Captain Nerva than any other Captain, he had also sent them into the worst damned situations. There were rumors that Lieutenant Colonel Domashev had been keeping an eye on fourth regiment and was looking to have them act as the tip of the spear for processing centre.
These rumors were filtering to other forces and regiments. Spending his time around Captain Nerva had finally made Mark take the time to look at the ranks structure.
There were twelve people to a section, two of them were the Master Corporal and Sergeant in charge of them. Four sections, three assault sections and one support made up a Platoon commanded by a warrant and Second Lieutenant. Three Platoons made a Company under a Lieutenant and a Warrant First grade. Three companies made a Regiment under a Captain and Warrant Second grade. A Division was two Regiments commanded by a Major and a Warrant third class. This was all that really mattered on the ground, the rest of the formations were controlled by people based on the carrier.
A Lieutenant Colonel commanded a Force made up of five Divisions, they were assisted by a Force Warrant Officer. At that size they had roughly a thousand people under them, it was no surprise they didn’t care all that much about lone boots.
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