Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3)

by Michael Chatfield

  “He needs to get surface side so we can start messing with Osdal’s lines. Masoul taught us that information from the ground can make sure we don’t get NRs right as we’re launching,” Domashev said.

  “Well we’ve thought that for a number of years, but it would be an expensive clean up; are we being given clearance?” Nerva asked.

  “That would depend on what our plan is,” Moretti said, as the door locked behind Nerva and Domashev. He put down his surface and pulled his feet off of the desk.

  “After seeing the tactics we used on Masoul the higher ups are interested in developing small groups to insert themselves into Osdal, get the lay of the land and then turn it into chaos before the main body even arrives. I don’t think it will work on Fernix or Housapel, but Osdal, the population seems to be split, something we can use to our advantage.”

  “You said we?” Nerva said, as Domashev took a seat.

  Moretti let out a rush of smoke and pulled the cigar from his mouth. “That’s because I’m going down with the Triple Twos.”

  Nerva nodded slowly, a plan forming in his mind. “So we best think of a way to get you in-system without onlookers.”

  “Thankfully we still have a few shuttles we grabbed from Masoul,” Domashev said.

  “So what’s the objectives?” Nerva asked.

  “Find out what Harmony knows, see what their capabilities are and prepare to hit all of the areas controlled by Harmony at once. Hell, if we can get into their sensor grids, then we can get our forces right next to Osdal3 and Actual. We don’t give them any time to react, and drop Troopers right on them while they’re still scrambling,” Moretti said.

  “Ambitious plan, but any information we have can save lives,” Domashev nodded.

  “And I’ll be going with my people, not sitting back on the carrier?” Nerva asked.

  “We’ll be bringing Reclaimer into the Oort cloud, we’ll hide it in the asteroids and send shuttles out to start working their way through the system. You will report to me only. I wanted to make you a higher rank to give you the most control. I want you to break your new Force into two groups, one to create chaos and the other to report information higher. Once they’re out in Osdal, they are to act on their own and carry out their tasks without any need for extra orders. You’ve got nine months before Reclaimer is in position and ready to deploy our first units,” Domashev said.

  Nerva tapped his fingers on the chair he sat in. “Then I’m going to need to know a lot more about Osdal, go talk to the Triple Twos and let them know that you’ll be along for the ride.”

  “Yes sir,” Moretti gave him a sloppy salute.

  Chapter 3

  Mining City Twenty-One

  Osdal Actual, Osdal System

  2/3266

  Castillo hadn’t wanted to believe it, he couldn’t believe it, but the news had finally reached him. He had taken a shuttle to Mining City Twenty-One within the hour.

  Now he stood in a large living room in Mining City Twenty-One’s central tower. Couches were dotted over the three long steps that reached down to the interactive glass window.

  Outside it was black, except for the towers of the city and the lights that lit up the strip mines in the distance. Guy used the interactive screen to zoom in on them, making people seem like they were standing right in front of him instead of kilometers away.

  Strip mines pocked the area, and trucks ran materials to processing plants outside the city. People and mining machines worked through the night, connected by chains, and Chosen were quick to lay punishment into any that they deemed worthy of their attention.

  He’d heard rumors about the ‘camps’. He’d brushed them off as nothing but boogie man stories; that was until his idiot son had started bragging about how he had educated four women.

  In that moment Castillo had forgotten he had a son, and he’d stormed into the family room where his son and daughter, Majors in the Chosen military, drank beer and joked about their exploits.

  “The fuck did you say?” Castillo had been stunned by the words coming from his own bloods mouth. He truly thought he’d heard wrong. Now he only wished he had.

  “What, Dad? They tried to escape, would’ve been a waste, they were belly-full with one of the Chosen’s babies. They might be Earth lovers, but we could raise their kids up,” Dean’s head had snapped sideways as Castillo’s hand smacked him across the face.

  “You mother fucker!” Castillo yelled. His son had looked offended, hell, he’d looked like he wanted to kill his own father.

  “The fuck? What was that for? You were the one who told me that Harmony is the best for us! I did this for you, you ungrateful fuck!” Dean Castillo had spat on his father’s shirt while Emilie, his sister, looked at her father with disdain.

  “Those are our people, and you’re here drinking beer and gloating about raping women that had been impregnated by your fucking guards!” Guy Castillo was thirty years older than his son but he had been a brawler, and he hadn’t had a gun to hide behind when he’d got into fights.

  Those hands had pushed Dean, fire renewed in his eyes.

  “Don’t push me,” Dean had warned, his voice cold. Guy would have cried hearing that harsh tone from his son some time ago, but it had served to fuel him.

  “Get the fuck out of my house, I don’t have a son any more.”

  “The fuck you say to me, old man?” Dean had demanded, disgusted.

  Guy could see it now; his son and daughter had changed from the kids that loved to play outside, to run around the halls of the tower he’d lived in his entire life, their laughter filling the corridors.

  Harmony had seduced them with power, with riches, had warped their minds with propaganda. They saw the people of Osdal who didn’t support Harmony as nothing better than Earthers that wanted to control them.

  Harmony had turned his loving children into warlords, with little care for the people. They did as Harmony said and they were rewarded.

  “Get out of my house,” Guy had said, grief filling him as tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “Fucking weakling,” Dean had snorted, shaking his head.

  “Fuck you, old man,” Emilie had got up off of the couch and tossed a bottle lazily across the room, beer spraying everywhere.

  As the door slammed behind them, Guy Castillo had never felt more alone in his life.

  It had taken him time to pull himself together, but then he’d ordered a shuttle and gone to mining city Twenty-One. His head enforcer had tried to argue, but Guy was not to be swayed.

  Guy now looked out on Mining City Twenty-One.

  It was the largest mine on all of Osdal Actual.

  People worked the strip mines tirelessly, and they looked little more than skeletons.

  Guy used the zooming features of the main tower to see people, there must have been hundreds of thousands, and Enforcers and Chosen whipped them, beating many.

  There was little to no fight in the people, the Chosen and Enforcers did it for fun.

  He’d seen shuttles drop off new people, and an enforcer pulled a girl out from line and used her in front of everyone.

  What have I done? he thought as Luke wandered into the room.

  He wanted to yell, no, he wanted to kill Luke; this was his plan coming to fruition. In that moment Guy saw Luke for what he was, and he wasn’t just a tough come to make the Chosen. He was the planetary CEO.

  He ruled the planet, nothing went on without his say so. He wasn’t even from Osdal, but he was surely its ruler, more so than any SEO the Osdal partnership had placed in control.

  Guy wanted to see the man dead, but he knew it would do nothing. His actions against the man would be for nothing.

  “Guy?” Luke’s voice was questioning.

  “I was wondering why the production numbers had been so high,” Guy said, forcing his face to not snarl, resisting the urge to try and beat the man into a pulp.

  Luke didn’t say anything for a time, obviously trying to figure out what Guy was
thinking.

  “Rather good use for sympathizers,” Guy said, feeling his stomach rebel as he smiled.

  Oh God, I’m going to do it, I’m going to support him. If I don’t he’ll throw me down there, he’ll throw Stella down there with the grandkids. I can’t see that. I can still save these people once Harmony wins! Tears itched in his eyes. I wonder how long that lie will last before Luke destroys it? He remembered Tsik’s drunken stupors, he’d thought them to look bad on the rest of Harmony, but he saw it didn’t matter.

  Harmony had offered a way away from the corporations and Earth’s politics, and he’d jumped for it like an idiot, not thinking how his situation could be worse, so much worse. It made him want to just drink and push it all away.

  “Quite. We’ve increased production to a level where the other true Harmony supporters don’t have to take on their labors. Their faith is rewarded with our kindness. I admit that I thought that you would have reacted… differently…” Luke said, stepping down from the tallest step and forward the few feet to the next one.

  “Anything to stop the companies.”

  “Their labors will serve to fuel Harmony’s war machine. Funny, that the blood of those that support the EMF will be used to destroy it,” Luke said with a laugh.

  Guy made his lips move to form a smile, disgust rolling through his stomach.

  Always talk about the EMF but never of Earth and Her Colonies; why is it important for them to destroy the EMF and not Earth and the Colonies? If you don’t want Harmony for the people, then what does it mean to you? A thought struck Guy as he looked back to the mines.

  If you were to supplant your own people for the EMF, then you would become the most powerful person in Earth and Her Colonies. Hell, these bastards aren’t trying to pull down the system, they’re just using it in a different way. Turning the population into Chosen, who are really just slaves that think they have power - slaves that have no rights!

  Castillo felt a chill go through him; it was a terrible but functional system. The Chosen felt empowered because they could do what they want. Those that didn’t like the way of things were turned into free labour to keep Harmony’s war machine moving. They didn’t care about the Chosen or the people, they were just using them.

  Chapter 4

  EMFC Reclaimer

  Moving from Masoul to Osdal

  2/3266

  “Morning boys and girls,” Moretti said, breezing into the conference room.

  He had been the Ministry of Intelligence’s source of information on Masoul, and he’d engineered the battle of Gas Planet in favour of the EMF.

  He’d also worked with the Triple Twos for a year to put the final touches to Harper and Harmony’s downfall and, in that year, he’d become closer to the triple twos than with anyone else.

  “Hey Eye,” Dashtund quipped; that fucker had put an eye on Moretti’s powered armor since Moretti didn’t want to broadcast his name to everyone.

  The others greeted him as M or DM, respecting Moretti’s wishes to keep his name from everyone.

  “Thank you, thank you,” Moretti said waving his arms to stop the hellos, getting grins from the others at his antics.

  He pulled out a device and pressed a button, and buzzing filled the room. “All right. Seeing as we did better than the people back on Earth expected, they’re sending us back in.” Osdal Actual appeared on the screen behind him. “Pretty much the same thing as last time, except we don’t have any people that we trust on the surface, so it’ll be us working solo. Though I do have a present…” Moretti moved back to the door, and pressed a button.

  Serious faces turned into grins and greetings as Bobbie, Young and Yu walked in.

  Their faces lit up, despite the circumstances under which they were meeting again; they’d piloted Combat Shuttle One-Four-Nine. They’d been the crew to get them to Masoul Actual without detection. They, like Moretti, had been around the team and actively working with them for a year. That kind of close quarters brought people together like few other things.

  The trio took their seats and Moretti made to continue.

  “In Osdal Actual, we’re going to be forward of any other teams, which means we get the run of the place to get trained up. We get to have whatever we think will be important, including implants that I’m going to have to make mandatory. It also means that you will not be getting any new recruits. It takes too much time to get them up to speed and the lot they’re sending over…” Moretti shook his head. “They’re about as useless as a fucking air conditioner in space.”

  Everyone winced for the fate of the people they’d be leaving behind on Reclaimer.

  “From the reports we’ve been able to get, Harmony controls all, but there are many sects, making it look more like a gangland you might see on Earth. Seeing as you fine people are a product of such ganglands, I hope that we can use that prior experience to fit in with the local population,” Moretti said.

  “What’s your part in this?” Haas asked. It was a genuine question, not one made to show how Moretti wasn’t doing anything for the team.

  “I’ll be there to see how Harmony has grown from Masoul. Higher wants me to gather information, assist your efforts and try to figure out what Harmony is looking like up the ranks.”

  “Damn, that sucks,” Haas grimaced.

  “As much as I would like to be back on Earth looking at metal storms, it seems my unlucky ass is stuck with you jackasses. It does indeed suck.” Moretti grinned, and the rest of the room laughed or smiled.

  “All right, smartass, more talky less jokey, else Dashtund will be jealous of you taking his position,” Haas said.

  Dashtund blew on his hand and rubbed it on his nametape as if polishing it.

  “Please squeeze my head back into normal proportions if that ever happens,” Moretti said, continuing on before anyone else could interrupt. “We expect that they will have armor, could be powered, definitely plates. They’ll have the heavy machine guns, and probably rifles that have something like the E-12’s abilities. Fun fact, Housapel makes your E-12s,” There were groans from around the room, “They shouldn’t have good ammo or grenades; Guaranak makes those and, since they’re on our side, they shouldn’t be as powerful as our weapons. We don’t know what else they have, but from reports, Osdal is actually producing more material than ever, and shipping it off to Fernix and Housapel.” Moretti paused; the next piece of information was troubling, even to him.

  “They’ve turned a third or more of the population into slaves. They’ve got them working the strip mines, asteroid belts and Osdal3. The reports are grim. Violence is normal, Chosen don’t care who dies, sometimes they torture people for fun and display it to the other workers to motivate them. Rape and malnutrition is the norm,” Moretti looked over the people in the room and their faces tightened; all of them were killers and they were good at their craft.

  Tension in the room was raised, but all of it was directed outwards. They listened, the knowledge would serve to keep them alive, and anger would serve to end their enemy. He had seen them within Masoul; they had kept that murderous rage just below the surface, hidden from everyone but one another.

  When he’d gone in the research and development area once they’d killed everyone in it, he’d seen the controlled violence they were capable of. Their actions to get to friendly lines made him happy he had never pissed them off.

  “We want to get as much information on that as possible and disrupt their work. If they’re so focused on getting people to mine, then it’s in our best interests to fuck with that. We need to have them stretched thin, pissed off and tired before the main force shows up. Now, we’re going to be inserting by inter-system freighter, and that’s up to our flight crew,” Moretti said, looking to the three Combat Shuttle pilots who nodded. “The rest of us are getting packed with implants, augments, and going through training to kill everything from powered armor to people. Nerva has requested your aid in teaching people on weapons systems and giving briefings on the
enemy.”

  “How long until we leave?” Tyler asked.

  “How did I know the newly-wed was going to ask that?” Moretti said, giving Tyler a small smile. Tyler had been married for a while, even if you didn’t count the time in cryo.

  But he’d been doing operations under Harmony’s nose and hadn’t been able to spend much time with his wife.

  “We have four months to get prepped. Then we’ll get inserted, and the carriers will wait until we clear out the sensor grid before moving in. The idea is to hit both planets and the asteroid belt simultaneously,” Moretti said.

  “Fat chance of that,” Dooks muttered.

  “Pretty much what I was thinking,” Moretti agreed, “Now, questions?”

  Hands shot up and Moretti sighed, but kept an affable smile on his face as he pointed to Holm.

  ***

  Mark took a large pull from his beer glass; already there were unfamiliar faces filling their mess, and he didn’t know how to feel about it. Yet he knew he wouldn't have much time in the coming months to give a rat’s ass. He had other things to think on.

  “Fucking camps! What is this, the goddamn Third Reich?” Jerome asked. He had taken Mark’s suggestions to look into military history seriously.

  “We’ll make Harmony pay,” Mark promised.

  They shouldn’t care about the colonists, but they’d been in Masoul, they’d lived with the resistance, and seen Harmony’s real face. Even then it hadn’t been as bad as Moretti had explained. They cared now, and they couldn’t think of colonists under Harmony’s thumb as anything but victims.

  “They’re pulling out all the stops to get this thing pushed ahead, we’ve got less than a year to get trained, and get our asses over to Osdal Actual,” Holm said.

  Mark had learned a while ago that these meetings usually bore rare fruit that might actually help their mission.

  “Hopefully the flight crew can speed that up. I’m thinking that we can get our training done faster than that, and have something to do on the flight, like remember our cover stories. We don’t need to do that here as long as we have paper copies and we burn them, hell, we could just toss them out of an airlock,” Mark said.