Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3)

by Michael Chatfield

  Mark pulled out a stubby he’d been saving and lit it up.

  “I do like me a cigar man,” Eliese mused.

  “I do like a girl in a bikini,” Mark shot back, letting out a puff and putting his lighter away.

  She was wearing blue eye-shadow and glitter that emphasized her curves and guided a person’s eyes from her chest down to her groin.

  Mark didn’t try to hide where his eyes were going, smiling at Eliese who seemed to revel in the attention.

  There was a noise from behind the rack of clothes.

  The rack moved to the side and a man stepped through. Mark tensed up, the clothes the man was wearing marked him as one of the Chosen goons.

  “Hey Eliese.”

  Mark’s eyes thinned as he saw a familial resemblance between the two. The Chosen man didn’t look at all interested in her get-up, instead his eyes turned to Mark and Tyler.

  “I’m Alan,” the man said, nodding to Mark and Tyler, making his way to the table.

  Eliese sat on Mark’s lap and rubbed his chest, ignoring Alan’s sighs.

  “He’s Mark, I’m Tyler. I heard you had some products for us?”

  “I heard you’re in the Market for some protection. I’ve got a few things right out of the factory,” Alan said, pulling weapons from under his jacket.

  “Alan works with shipping for the Harmony Forces, can find all kinds of goodies in the right places,” Eliese said.

  “Got to make a living somehow, and there’s no love lost with me and Harmony,” Alan said.

  Mark nodded, looking over the wares the man was putting on the table.

  He had an impressive display of pistols, sub-machine guns like the metal storm, and rifles, one bolt action the other a metal storm variant but about a meter long with six barrels.

  “May I?” Tyler pointed to the rifles.

  “Go ahead.” Alan said shrugging.

  Tyler pulled out the barrels and started breaking the weapon down.

  Eliese squirmed in Mark’s lap eliciting a response as she smiled up at him coyly.

  Table full of guns and a certifiable ten on my lap. Yup, I could die happy right now. Mark looked at her with a raised eyebrow and grabbed a pistol, breaking it down and putting it back together. It was rough, but functional. It would need some filing to get it functioning perfectly, but it would work.

  “How many rounds per barrel?” Tyler asked, putting the machine gun down and picking up the rifle.

  “Twelve.” Alan said, sitting down at the table.

  “Nice. We’d like to take one of each, best to try them all out, then we’ll place an order for more. I’m thinking a few of those rifles to be sure, those things are sweet.” Tyler pulled out his surface, and wired the credits. The man nodded and a smile appeared on his serious face.

  “Good doing business with you. Let me know when you’re ready to order and I’ll get you anything you just bought today,” Alan said, standing. Tyler and Alan shook and Mark made to get up, but Eliese pouted.

  “Don’t worry, I can see you’re occupied. I hope to see you again. Later Eliese,” Alan said walking away.

  “Later A-boy!”

  Mark head the man sigh as he let himself out of the back room.

  Tyler started strapping guns to himself and Mark stood up, holding Eliese up as she stretched herself to full height.

  “You got a long jacket?” Mark asked, looking at the guns.

  “Course, for all those flasher moments,” she winked.

  “Good, cause we’re in need of a gun mule, and you look just about perfect,” Mark smiled, putting the stub of the cigar in the side of his mouth, and tucking weapons into his waistband and jacket.

  “You flatterer, you just want to get me back to your hotel,” she purred, leaning back on the table and arching to present herself more fully.

  “I’ll even throw in a hundred credits, and a room to ourselves,” Mark said, rolling the cigar around.

  “You got yourself a deal,” she said, kissing his cheek.

  53 fucking virgins! The very thought of 53 fucking virgins… it's a nightmare! It's not a fucking present, it's not a prize - it's a punishment! Give me two fire-breathing whores any day of the week. I'm a slut man! Mark grinned at the line that ran through his mind; it had come from a Scottish comedian almost twelve hundred years ago when religious fanaticism was rampant on Earth.

  She threw on clothes and a fancy coat, and she didn’t need any help hiding the guns under her jacket. She wrapped her hands around Mark’s arm and guided them out.

  Tyler followed. The security guy at the front gave them their weapons back discreetly.

  “Tell Joey I’m going to be out today,” Eliese said.

  Then the door was open and they were back out on the street and heading towards their hotel.

  “Going back, got the stuff, stay back, make sure we aren’t followed,” Tyler said over a channel to their section.

  Another lift ride and more of Eliese’s thinly veiled remarks, and they were up on the level where they hotel was.

  Eliese seemed to go overboard with the play on words and teasing, and Mark smoked his cigar, smiled and teased right back, both of them loving to annoy the self-important people.

  Mark and Tyler nodded and greeted the roving Chosen, who greeted them in return and walked on. Mark heard people asking why they weren’t getting thrown into the camps, that surely they must be Earthers to be that disgraceful. Mark doubted that they even knew what that meant. They and Harmony had insulated themselves from the realities.

  They thought of the camps on Osdal Actual as prisons, where the undesirables and those who disrupted the way of things were sent for punishment. Earthers were the reason that they were never allowed to have more freedom. In their minds, the people of Earth lived in paradise, and some of them did, but the vast majority, twenty billion of them, lived in slums across the planet.

  Mark and Eliese’s room was opulent and, as soon as the door was closed, Mark and Eliese’s hands were over one another. Their lips met as they ripped at clothes.

  They never got to the bedroom, the main room was comfortable enough, and Mark was right, Eliese knew some tricks that Virgins would never think of.

  Chapter 18

  Gold Runner

  Oort Cloud, moving to Osdal Actual Osdal System

  5/3267

  Mark dumped his bag in the hold of the Gold Runner.

  Most miners had called their rigs something dumb, and Gold Runner wasn’t even the worst. That wasn’t the reason that Mark’s face was screwed up into a scowl.

  “Will this thing even fly?” Mark asked as he looked over the surfaces that were scarred with honest to God rust, which didn’t happen unless someone had basically power washed the entire section with salt and water.

  “She’s just got a lot of character,” Moretti said, thumping on the side of the large freighter.

  “So probably,” Zukic surmised, dropping his gear bag off. There were quarters underneath the nose of the freighter, and they would be hot bunking it. The Gold Runner’s owner, Felicia, was nothing to write home about. She was a miner through and through; she liked a big payday, and she liked the drinking, brawls and bartering that came with being a freighter captain.

  She didn’t care much for the Chosen, but she kept that knowledge to herself. Mark wouldn’t even know that if Moretti hadn’t told him.

  Though she was also old, about seventy or so, she hadn’t had many life-extending treatments, so the big scores were let go as she settled into a regular paycheck with the refiners and machine shops which took refined materials and turned them into specialist items.

  Well, until Moretti had hit her up with the potential to get back in on the hitting a big win and keeping her regular paycheck.

  They'd gone through the bartering more as a formality. Moretti had had her in the bag as soon as he’d explained his position.

  She might be older, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to have some fun.

&nb
sp; Felicia seemed to have sensed that they were talking about her as she came down from her cockpit. She’d lived a hard life, but she’d had fun doing it. She was a large woman, with brawn that hid the brains underneath.

  She slid down onto the cargo deck with practiced ease.

  “Mr. Moretti, I guess this is the cargo?”

  “That’s right Felicia, just taking a ride to Osdal, hopefully get set up there and start figuring out a few ways to get the Bandit corp turning up some pretty tokens,” Moretti said.

  “Tokens, creds, as long as it works at the bar I’m a happy woman,” Felicia said, slapping Moretti’s back, a genuine smile on her face.

  “Oh, looks like Johnny’s here,” Felicia said, walking out of the large cargo bay and waving to Johnny who was working on his surface, an army of bots coming in after him, all of them holding sealed containers. Each of them were loaded with refined and processed metals.

  Some of them were probably from Bandit Two’s asteroid claim.

  I’ll get you sorted out. Name’s Kale.” He was a hardy looking man, and the way he moved showed that he was used to working in zero grav.

  Moretti said that he was an old hand at the whole mining thing, and had stayed next to Felicia for the last twenty years or so. They were as thick as thieves and he was her second in command.

  Mark got his gear stored and then wandered back out to the cargo hold. It was five times the size of Bandit Two’s hold. Robots kept coming in, securing the containers to one another and the modular supports in the cargo hold.

  I hate these long distance flights in freighters and shuttles, he thought, remembering the shuttle that had taken him to Masoul Actual. It had seemed a neat idea at first, but by the end it had been a royal boring pain in the ass. He laughed as he thought of the toilet breaking down, the various antics they’d got up to, but his smile soured as he remembered those that hadn’t made it out of Masoul.

  “Good to go!” Felicia said, and the cargo hold’s doors were already closing. Johnny waved good bye, Mark waved back, smiling only slightly. With a reminder of what was on the line and how they could die at any time, it was hard to be cheerful.

  All of the stuff to make sure that they went undetected was tiring and annoying, but when he arrived on Osdal, he could start getting the real work done. He could go back to being a Trooper. They could start figuring out how they were going to have Osdal Actual go the same way as Masoul Actual.

  There was no sign of a smile on his face by the time he returned to the freighter, only dark longing. He would destroy Harmony; they’d hurt and killed people he cared for. That kind of action was enough to warrant their deaths. In Mark’s mind the carriers couldn’t come soon enough.

  He would do everything in his power to turn Harmony’s control into chaos.

  Watch out Harmony, I’m coming for you, run away now from the big bad Trooper, he sing-songed badly in his head.

  Chapter 19

  EMFC Reclaimer

  Outer Limits Osdal System

  5/3267

  “Fucking dammit, Waz!” Alexis cussed as the man crashed into the wall again.

  She had much better control of the powered armor they were all using, so she used her implants to dial down his power and override his systems.

  “Sorry, Warrant,” Waz scrambled to his feet.

  “Eska move it, don’t be scared of the damned thing!” Eska, a newbie from another carrier, was making Alexis age with her slow movements.

  The fuck have I got myself into? Alexis thought. This was the third training session they’d had with the powered armor.

  It was the first time that they’d been woken up from cryo since the fleet had moved to their ready positions in the Oort cloud surrounding Osdal.

  They were a lot better than their first time, the second time they had been with the Triple Twos guiding them. But that was months in the past and they were still confident in their skills - some of them a little too much.

  “We’re going back to basics; seems your heads have a damned hole in the back of them!” she growled.

  The sergeants got their sections together, Che was watching from the sidelines, and he saw that there wasn’t enough of the powered armor to go around.

  They weren’t all getting powered armor before they got into contact with the Osdal Forces. While it hadn’t been confirmed that the chosen in Osdal were operating the powered armor, it was better to know how to use it if they could. It would at least help to counteract them in the field.

  Sword fighting had come back in a big way thanks to the Vibra-Blade s. Nerva hadn’t gone into cryo; he was staying up to keep an eye on the situation in Osdal and also training any and all Troopers that were awake.

  They had done a few fights with the powered armor against people with Vibra-Blade s, and it made her feel more confident, but it took concentrated time and effort to not just use the powered armor, but to fight in it. There was a reason that the powered armor back on Masoul had been using Repulsors instead of rifles. With the Repulsors they could spray and pray, it was a lot easier than actually aiming, plus the fine motor controls it would take to reload was a practice in the ‘annoying as fucking hell’ department.

  Sergeants started to get people walking and moving easily, coaching them through the moves, and Alexis took her time checking them out. She was good, but over-thinking was a mess waiting to happen when you fought in powered armor.

  Reacting and doing were a lot easier than just wandering around and realizing you were basically in a different body and it didn’t necessarily want to obey you. You had to learn how to just do, not think about it.

  Alexis tried to take her mind off of it, her thoughts turning to Tyler.

  He was off again in the middle of danger and there was nothing that she could do. It hurt, a bit less than last time, as she knew what to expect and had made the most of their time together. Yet it still pulled at her heart when she started thinking about the kind of danger he was in.

  They had confirmed the existence of work camps that were used to keep the majority of people happy as a small percentage were thrown into hard labor and toughed it out.

  There weren’t any official reports from the camps that they had picked up, but implants showed it all. Some of the things that she’d seen happening in those camps made her want to take the carrier to Osdal right that minute.

  An anger burned in her, an anger that she hadn’t felt on Sacremon. Sacremon had been about surviving. Masoul had been about killing the bastards that had killed her people.

  Osdal, Osdal was a mix of guilt, shame and anger. These people were just normal everyday folk. They might have been miners, cleaners, CEOs… it didn’t matter, they were peaceful and probably didn’t cause that many issues. They were just living their lives, until they were turned on by their neighbors, family, even loved ones, and thrown to Harmony.

  Any freedom they had disappeared as soon as Harmony got hold of them. They’d become Harmony’s slaves and true workforce.

  Those that professed loyalty for Harmony were given more freedoms. They got more food, less work, even air cars were available to them. Their work had been taken and dumped on the slaves and they didn’t give a fuck, because it wasn’t them. So what if some Earther died?

  It wasn’t them, the loyal Harmony supporters.

  It was surprising with what the human mind could come up with to rationalize their treatment of other humans.

  The Harmony supporters with previously undreamed of luxuries, commented how disgusting the Earthers were when they had visited the camps, as if it was their fault for the conditions they lived in. Alexis saw that for what it was; people were making up excuses for why they could have a charmed life and watch as others died.

  It boiled down to a few simple words: they must be bad because they’re not me. They deserve what they get. Yet the reasoning, for all of it, that went right out the fucking airlock.

  So when Alexis felt anger, it was the all consuming rage she had seen take
Mark. It made her want to punch, scream, it made her want to kill.

  When the EMF got there, they wouldn’t just kill Harmony and be done with it. No. They were recording every person that supported Harmony, who had turned in someone that they cared about, or who had seen the suffering in the camps and done nothing.

  Earth and Her Colonies had their reasons for doing this. Alexis’s were simple: she didn’t want to live in a universe populated by useless snakes who would change what they said at the drop of a hat and turn the blame onto those that couldn’t defend themselves.

  Chapter 20

  Processing Station Five

  Osdal Actual Osdal System

  6/3267

  The ride hadn’t been as bad as Mark had feared. Felicia and her crew were a lot of fun, and they had booze for the days when it got really boring. The people on watch didn’t partake, but the others got a nice buzz on, played cards and bonded.

  By the end, Mark knew that Moretti had picked a good freighter and crew.

  He was almost sad as Processing Station Five came into view, looking like a scaled up version of Refining Station Seventy-Seven.

  Felicia took over the comms channel and talked to the foreman, chatting like they were old friends and catching up on the latest gossip. More people were going to the camps. Seemed that there were Earthers everywhere. The Foreman and Felicia didn’t sound like they agreed with the situation, but they knew that to cross the Chosen was to get themselves thrown into those camps.

  Moretti had made it clear that neither him nor the rest of the Bandit Two Corp cared for the Chosen, actually hinting at the fact he left Elekt was to get away from the Chosen and Harmony lovers, and Felicia’s barriers had fallen.

  They’d talked about the Chosen with open disgust. They were nothing but bully boys with too much power and a chip on their shoulder against anyone they thought had any power.

  Felicia had openly said that she was just looking forward to the EMF wiping the floor with the Chosen and getting back to working. The companies gave order, and she knew it was going to be hard when they came back, but she knew there was the possibility of upwards movement. She kept the Chosen at a distance and, when the EMF showed up, she and a lot of people she knew were going to hide out the battles and then start getting the economy rebuilt.