“What’s the plan?” Tyler asked.
“We continue as planned, but as fast as possible. We’re going to send messages out to the other teams and see if they can move up the timeline. If they can’t, then we sit and watch. Mark knows what he’s in.”
He didn’t promise that Mark would be okay, they all knew that he couldn’t promise that. Mark was in the enemy’s hands. Now they had to continue on their mission, their only hope lay in completing it. First came the mission, then Mark.
It hurt Tyler but he knew that his brother would agree with the priorities. He was in danger, but if they rescued him then carriers of Troopers just like him would be in danger.
“You take Bandit Two and hang out, there’s a slip already paid for at Processing Station One, that’s where Moretti thinks the sensor grid is being run from. I want your team to find out Harmony’s capabilities on the station, and figure out a way of shutting down the sensor grids. Once that’s done you’ll have a part of your team stay on the station prepared and ready to shut down the sensor grid. The rest of your section will move to assist the other operatives as needed,” Haas looked to Jerome.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be joining up with them soon enough,” Haas assured him.
Jerome nodded, and he and Tyler looked at one another. Tyler felt understanding in those eyes. He could feel the dark tension in the room. They wanted to grab their gear and blast away anyone that got in their way. Tyler sensed that Haas wanted to do the same thing, yet their discipline and trust in Haas and Moretti held them back.
Mark was strong, and if anyone could survive the camps it was him.
“Once everything here is running smoothly, Jerome’s section and myself will grab a ride with Gold Runner or Bandit Two and head to Osdal Actual,” Haas said.
No one looked pleased, but that was the plan.
Chapter 25
Mining City Twenty-One
Osdal Actual, Osdal System
6/3267
Luke listened to Emilie’s report, and he sighed and rubbed his head, his expression pained. Bandit Two was pulling the majority of rare metals out of Refining Station Seventy-Seven’s operating area,
The situation was bad, First, the Chosen, acting like the air heads that they were, had threatened the Bandit Two Corporation, then they’d threatened to rape one of their founding members.
It seemed that another one that had taken offence to them trying to carry out that second act, and had reacted. He’d killed three Chosen, one with his own jaw. Luke was more impressed by that than angered. He didn’t care what happened to the Osdal Chosen, after all, they were just a testing platform for Harmony’s weapons.
If he was back working a CEO on Housapel this would have never happened; Bandit Two knew their place, they paid their dues and followed the rules.
Now they were actively selling their materials to stations that needed it for repair work. They still gave Harmony 20%, but that was all.
Luke had looked into cracking down on them, but Bandit Two Corp was deeply entrenched, and they owed a third of the ships that ran around Refining Station Seventy-Seven. They had thirty claims already staked out, and had provisional contracts with all of the large haulers at the station. They shipped materials to Osdal Actual’s Processing stations, and then also hauled the raw materials from the claims to Seventy-Seven when not doing those runs.
People were flocking to Seventy-Seven as they offered contracts to miners. They mined and got a solid return on their time.
Luke could try to bully them, but then it would show how much Osdal Actual was prejudiced against the asteroid miners. If that happened then he could lose all of the productivity of the asteroid miners, and they contributed thirty times, in weight, the metals of Osdal Actual.
As it was, the Chosen killer would be just another number moved from general population to Mining Camp Twenty-One.
Hell he was already in the population. Luke couldn’t pull him out and send him back to Bandit Two now. He would get word out to the asteroid miners and, as much as they were a group of weirdos and could only be among one another for short periods, they stuck up for one another, not something he wanted.
“So you’re telling me that you don’t think that the miners will lose their shit over this?” Luke asked, sitting back and resting his chin on his hand.
“Yes sir, it was an isolated incident, I don’t think it will have too much of an effect,” Emilie said.
“You arrested him two days ago, right?” Luke looking at her and, accessing his implants, used his right hand to glance through different images.
“Yes sir.”
“Right, definitely not enough time for this to become much of an issue. Nice and quick, in and out. No one the wiser.” Luke found the image he was looking for and threw it against the wall to his right. Emilie looked at it, her eyes widening as she saw the graffiti.
“Now, what does that say?” Luke asked.
“Sir I...” Emilie started.
“Say it,” Luke’s voice became dangerous; he had enough augments in his body to overpower her with brute strength and take a couple of stabs and pistol rounds. Her eyes snapped to the image.
“Fuck Harmony,” she said.
“This one,” Luke threw up another image, this one a poster.
“What did Harmony ever do for us, except try to rape our people and throw them in camps?” She read, her jaw working.
“The EMF is coming, Chosen fucks,” she said looking away.
“That was yesterday,” Luke said.
“Sir, he’s just one man,” Emilie said.
“Oh it doesn’t matter; the asteroid miners don’t care. They don’t care who’s running things, as long as they can get drunk, have a good time and be left alone. I was fine with leaving them alone as long as they met their quota and allowed us to prepare for the EMF. Now we look like a bunch of rapists who throw their people into penal camps for defending their own.”
Emilie flinched. “He wasn’t going to...” She couldn’t look Luke in the eyes.
“What, rape her?” Luke demanded, slamming his fist into the desk and startling her. “I saw the fucking video, Emilie! Look me in the fucking eyes!” He had sat through enough dinners to inspire the Chosen, and he saw what they were on Osdal; they were rapists, murderers and liars. It disgusted him just being around them. He’d taken satisfaction from seeing that fat fucker get stabbed to death with his own jaw.
Emilie’s eyes snapped up to his.
“Your people, hell, your fucking brother, you’re all fucking rapists and murderers. If you thought you could hide it, you would have killed them all and buried their bodies. That’s what happened with the Dudayev family.” Luke taunted her and she flinched at the name. “Thought you could hide that, did you? Your people seemed to have a lot of fun killing the father slowly, while raping his young wife, daughter and son. You looked extremely happy afterwards when you were gutting the young boy.” Luke’s eyes bored into hers and she looked away.
His hand pushed into the desk, cracking the glass surface with the pressure, then he slumped down and waved his hand, as if to make it all disappear.
“Get the fuck out of my office and find your brother those slaves he needs. Don’t take any asteroid miners, and let me deal with Bandit Two Corporation,” Luke said, looking at the glass windows that looked out onto the mine camps.
“Yes sir,” she said. “For the sake of Harmony.”
Luke parroted it, not looking it to her as she hurried out of the door.
Luke was losing it, he hoped that the EMF came soon, much longer and he’d start shooting the Chosen himself, the inept stupid motherfuckers. Couldn’t do anything without fucking up his plans.
He wondered if she was ashamed by what she had done with the Dudayev family, or if she was just embarrassed he had found it. In the end he didn’t care.
He pulled up the reports coming in from Dean, and the influx of slaves was yielding some results, though it would take a few weeks unti
l they were conditioned properly and worked without complaint, or at least learned to keep it to themselves for fear of retribution.
Luke wasn’t a murderer or a rapist, he was a businessman, and a businessman knew how and when to use all the tools at his disposal to get the job done.
***
Mark, like the rest of the people who had been declared Earthers, was dumped out of the air-truck and onto the ground in front of rows of scaffolding that had been covered in plastic sheeting to protect it from the elements.
Mark got to his feet. His hands were bound and the landing hadn’t been expected or gentle.
Quite a few of his fellow passengers were taking their time getting to their feet. A whip cracked, cutting through a man’s shirt and leaving a bloody streak behind.
He let out a wail and collapsed into the dirt. Mark helped those that he could get to their feet, mostly by just picking them up. They were all as tall or taller than him in the reduced gravity, but none of them had the muscle density he did. They felt like wiry puppets in his arms.
But he was used to carrying other armored Troopers in nearly three times the gravity of Osdal.
“Get those clothes off, Earthers!” Someone barked, more whips cracking as people screamed and cried. It wasn’t just men and women being dumped, there were seniors and children.
Mark wanted to take those whips and turn them on the Chosen.
But they were too far away, and the Chosen loafing on the air cars nearby would cut him down before he could do much more than punch their fellows. So he stood there, watching the Chosen and the Earthers.
“Strip, Earthers!” The person demanded, losing their patience, and a whip cracked again, this time it hit a kid in the head. The child went down, no sound coming from their lips.
Mark closed his eyes and let out the sigh as the wails from his mother started up.
“Fuck sakes, Hendricks, we need to keep some of them alive,” the one giving the orders protested.
“Sorry boss, the kids always fuck me up, fucking midgets,” Hendricks said.
Mark looked at the man, his implants taking a picture.
Hendricks, he said, remembering the name. He would make sure he was one of the first to die.
“If they don’t have their clothes off, help them,” Hendricks ordered.
Mark started pulling off his clothes, shirt first, and that elicited some stares from the Chosen. His tattoo of the EMF was hidden, but his familial one was still visible.
He pulled off his pants. Chosen were going through ripping people’s clothes off.
“The fuck you think you’re doing?!” a woman yelled.
“Oh, we’ll be getting acquainted real well, Earther,” the fondling Chosen said, and he ripped her clothes, getting a shocked shriek as he tore the front of her dress off and pulled the back away. The woman tried to cover herself, but she only had a bit of fabric on her shoulders.
Mark averted his eyes, she was a good-looking girl, and the Chosen would quickly break her down. He had seen enough of the non-active implants recording to know what happened in these camps.
“Now I have your attention; this is your lesson. Since you Earthers like to make others work so much for your precious credits and sitting back on your asses, you’re now going to work for your living,” the Chosen talker said. There was still fire in his voice, righteous anger lingering there, but Mark could tell the man had given the speech a number of times before.
“Fuck you I’m no...” a man cried out, and a whip caught him, a bloody line appearing down his chest.
“Earth isn’t here, just Harmony, you try to disrupt Harmony and will learn that your actions have consequences. You will each be given a person to follow, so do what they say and don’t get in the Chosen’s way. You slack off, you start reverting to your Earther ways, then the Chosen will look to sort out your ways. Sykes, get them paired up.” The speaker turned away and headed for an air conditioned air car.
People were crying, scared, with their worlds turned upside down. They were led by Sykes to a row of people who looked half-starved, their eyes lifeless and bored.
Someone started running away, and an air car started up, hitting the person with their bumper, and knocking them to the ground. The chosen beat the person, chucked them in the back and threw them off of the air car as they passed back around.
The person fell in a lump, rolling on the ground. There was a thin dust of metallic sand, and underneath was solid steel and other metals. It did not make for an easy landing, but they got up.
Mark looked to the person he was paired with.
“Hi,” she said, seeming confused as she looked him over.
“Never seen a man before?” Mark growled, reaching down and pulling his pants up. The Chosen wanted to humiliate people, and as long as he didn’t give them ammunition then he wouldn’t get any extra beatings. Some of the threats he’d heard as he was being transported made him sure that the beatings were coming.
It wasn’t a matter of if, but when.
He let his shirt drift back down over his chest, then held his zip-tied arms high, and swung them down, bringing his elbows out. The zip ties broke and he was free-ish.
“Just not one like you,” she said.
“Well I’d keep that to yourself,” Mark said, his dark eyes glancing over her and then continuing to take in the rest of the strip mine that the lean-tos were perched on. Long ramps disappeared into shaft mines. Mark could only make them out by the trucks that were rushing to and from them. Everything went to the large factory complex and then back out to the strip mines and underground mines.
“I’m Mark.”
“Caroline,” she said, sounding tired.
“So what do we do now?”
“Now we get what little sleep we can until our shift siren goes up.” She led the way back to the lean-tos and Mark followed. His eyes were still searching, and he made out basic bathrooms, holes in the ground, and a food line at one end of the lean-tos, opposite the strip mines.
Maintenance areas were dotted around, with mining equipment and bell looking things on poles.
Caroline looked back at Mark, suspicion in her eyes, but he couldn’t see much other than her eyes and a scar that ran from her forehead and across her nose.
Mark looked at her in question.
“You think about trying to get lucky and I’ll open you right up,” Caroline said.
“Have you ever killed anyone before?” As soon as he asked the question her face gave the answer.
“Yes, I had to kill my best friend.” Her eyes were haunted and distant as she walked through the shack’s plastic sheeting. Inside it wasn’t much cooler than outside, and people were all over the ground passed out. Caroline and Mark found a spot and lay down.
Caroline kept away from Mark, watching him, her hands inside her sleeves, probably holding a blade. Mark lay down and closed his eyes, firing up his implants.
“Situation?” Holm asked, his voice tight and professional to cut off personal feelings.
“In the camp, I’m fine. Nothing to report, I’m going to try and get some sleep,” Mark sub-vocalized back.
“Understood, we are working on things on our side. We will be getting eyes on the area shortly. SWAS is coming in for a visit,” Holm said, easing out of his professional voice.
“Tell him and everyone to not do anything stupid or rash. We need to finish the mission first,” Mark’s voice was firm.
“We know, we’ll get it done,” Holm promised.
“Talk later, stay frosty, Triple Twos,” Mark said, turning off his communications. He needed to stay in somewhat capable condition until the fighting started, so he went into his augments and adjusted them to keep him as healthy as possible for as long as possible. Thankfully they ran off of batteries that would last a lifetime.
With the rations that the people at the mine were getting, he was going to have to stretch out every meal bar he got. Mark started trying to get to sleep only to have a siren go o
ff.
Caroline moved from her position, she’d passed right out in a matter of minutes. Without any real thought, she and the rest of the camp dwellers started to move out of the shacks to start another day of working in Mining City Twenty-One.
Mark followed Caroline, and Chosen walked through the shacks, yelling and brandishing shock and night sticks. Anyone they caught, or deemed to be slow, went down with a crackle of electricity, or yelled after a brutal hit from a night-stick.
The Chosen beat on people, and Mark saw that few people that had been in the camp for a while paid any attention to the cries.
I wonder how long it will be before I stop caring about their yells and screams? Mark wondered. His famous anger was simmering under the surface, but he held off, biding his time, his rationality grating against his wants.
***
Caroline walked back to the shacks where Mark was waiting. He’d grabbed water, she’d gone to get food.
“I don’t have it,” she said, expecting him to accuse her of eating it. She didn’t know what she would do when he accused her of that.
She liked Mark, he never made any advances and he was a reassuring presence.
She wondered why a strong man like him was staying around a woman like her. She had seen others do it to use them, but Mark treated her as an equal, listening to her when she talked.
He was a good listener; she’d finally told him about Ellie and the blade, and he hadn’t judged her as they lay on the shack floor, he’d just listened, giving up his sleeping time to hear the fears and tears that she thought she was done with.
When she was done he pulled her to him, his beard touching her head as he hugged her.
“You did what Ellie wanted, what she needed you to do. If you didn’t do it then she would have just suffered,” he said, his voice reassuring, like cold water over her inflamed worries.
“What happened?” Mark said, pulling her down to sit. There wasn’t any accusation in the words, just curiosity.
“Someone took them,” she said, looking away, ashamed. She should have gone the long route, but she’d wanted to get back to the shack quickly and nestle up next to Mark. She felt safe sleeping next to him.
Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) Page 15
