Masoul (Harmony War Series Book 2)

by Michael Chatfield

  Get the ship moving before Reclaimer leaves us, or don’t and strap ourselves into cryo-pods and hopefully be revived this century. Sometimes I love being in the EMF.

  Tyler kept his thoughts to himself, as he moved in his armor before he pulled his helmet on. He checked that all his seals were good, and pulled his rifle from its place.

  “This job never gets old,” Dashtund complained. No one disagreed.

  Tyler checked his display. Everyone showed as a green dot. They had a new display update that color-coded troopers. Green meant they were good. Yellow meant that they were injured, but still able to fight. Red meant they needed immediate attention. Blue meant they were in cryo-stasis. Black meant they didn’t have vital signs.

  It didn’t take long before they were headed into the hangar. It was depressurized, and the ship just woke up from deep-sleep. A number of Combat Shuttles came online. Their lights illuminated the area around them, as crews worked to run a full check-up on them.

  “Could have woken us up earlier to make sure the damned shuttles are good to go at least,” Jerome complained on a private channel. As a Sergeant, he couldn’t complain openly like Dashtund. Well, none of them could now. Mark, Jerome, and finally Tyler were all Sergeants now.

  They marched up their shuttle’s ramps and locked themselves in. The Cargo Master went through, and took longer than normal to check them all out. The shuttle’s engines thrummed, and they rose off of the deck. The main hangars were open. The shuttles pulled out and away from their resting place in formation. The entire Division, which was just over eight hundred troopers under the newly minted Major Nerva, were headed towards the carrier. All of Reclaimer’s batteries were turned and aimed at the ship, just in case.

  Nothing happened as the shuttles approached. They flew around the carrier, and found no life in the ship - even though their sensors registered the power plants as still working.

  “Orders from high, we’re going to be going in through the access airlocks. Each Shuttle will get one, and try to make entry,” Wen said, as he cut the channel.

  Tyler moved from his seat. He was with the weapons detachment. They swapped out their mortars for E-12’s, and breaching charges.

  Tyler got into the pilot cabin, and looked between the pilots’ two seats to see the oncoming ship.

  “How we looking?” he asked through a private channel.

  “We’ll be on site in three minutes,” one of the pilots said.

  “Good, I want to have us on the hull. If the airlock has an explosive decompression, I don’t want that to blow right out into your cargo hold,” Tyler said.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” the same pilot responded. The other pilot’s hands adjusted something as the shuttle moved away from its initial route.

  True to his word, the shuttle was down in three minutes and the ramp opened. Tyler walked out of the ramp, and made sure that his shoes were firmly stuck to the carrier’s hull before he went on. He looked up and around him. The vastness of space was all around him. It was as beautiful as it was terrifying. If he got disconnected from the hull, and his grapple gun didn’t work, it would be a bitch to be rescued.

  Going for a walk on the wild side was a scary, but exhilarating time. Tyler didn’t have that much time to take in the sights. He moved with his and Zukic’s sections up to the airlock that blinked on his HUD.

  “Zukic, breach it open. Tyler, flow in behind him. I’ll be behind. Zukic follow in the rear,” Haas said, as he came down the shuttle’s ramp and followed the procession across the massive carrier’s hull.

  “Understood,” Zukic and Tyler said, as they passed on the orders to their sections.

  Zukic’s people found the access port, and input their breaker.

  “Breaching!” Givens said, the airlock opening.

  “Move it!” Tyler said. No air blew out, and no weapons were fired from inside. The Troopers piled in from above and below the doorway, into the airlock. Some came in upside down, but the method was used to make sure that at least some of them were on their feet.

  They quickly pulled themselves up. The gravity was weak here, so there were no major injuries.

  The five-man airlock filled up fast and Tyler sealed it up. He pressurized it, and they moved through into the interior of the ship.

  “Reading low atmo and low heat,” Tyler reported, as he and his people moved in. Their weapons were up and ready.

  The rest of the shuttle piled in.

  “Let’s head for the bridge,” Haas said.

  The bridge on all ships within the EHC was located at the front. It was usually raised up a little so that they could see better if they needed to eyeball something. View screens filled in the rest of the information. Tyler read military fiction, and all of those ships had their bridge in the center. The cost of doing so was immense, so the EMF needed medium-sized carriers with extra armor, weapons, and decks as their workhorses - instead of designing and building a purpose-built war machine.

  “I’ll take the right, Smith left, double time to the bridge,” Tyler said, sending a waypoint to Smith.

  A green light appeared next to Smith’s name, acknowledging the order.

  The last of the troopers piled into the corridor, and Tyler took off at a sedate pace so that no one got all fucked up from the get-go.

  The whole journey was boring as hell. Nothing changed on the readings, no one tried to contact them, and no one tried to talk to them. Well, until they were three decks away from the bridge, and they ran into blast doors with asphyxiated and irradiated people who floated about.

  Tyler zoomed out on his map. It was being updated with the sensor readings from Reclaimer. They were next to the decks that were in the blast path of Strike station’s explosion. The radiation was higher in these areas. It was nothing to worry about if they took some drugs when they got back to Reclaimer.

  “Guess we know what they used to create that explosion,” Haas growled. “Strike Station’s own power plants.” He answered the question that sporuted in everyone’s mind.

  “Let’s go see what happened to the bridge, and why this ship is Dutchman,” Haas said.

  “Finding us a new route,” Tyler said.

  They ran into one more dead-end before they came to the bridge’s blast doors. They were sealed.

  Zukic’s people used codes on the access port again, and the inner door opened. Air was pulled in towards the bridge.

  “I think the bridge doesn’t have pressure. Let’s close the first blast door behind us, then slowly open the second,” Tyler said.

  “Givens, see to it,” Zukic said.

  Tyler’s section could fit into the space between the massive doors. The first closed behind them, and made a sort of tomb.

  Haas joined them and waited. His weapon was up and ready, like all of the other troopers.

  The inner door opened slowly, and the wind was pulled out quickly. There wasn’t enough pressure to pull the troopers off of their feet, but it was still annoying.

  “Fuck,” Sal said. He summarized Tyler’s thoughts nicely.

  Bodies drifted in the low gravity. The air that escaped with Two-section’s entrance pushed them around the bridge. A number of the windows that faced where the ship had been hit were bowed out, and told the story of depressurization.

  Wen broke up the tasks.

  “Tyler, fire up the main computer. Zukic, there’s nothing for you to do in here. Check the area, and see if you can find anything interesting,” he said.

  “Warrant,” Zukic responded. Tyler was already moving to the communications console. He knew his environment, which was key to winning. He knew the EMF carriers inside and out.

  He turned on the systems, and was rewarded with the console’s glows that came to life. He booted up communications, and the net across the ship.

  He headed for the navigation console. It was a massive table with workstations all around it, and a single large seat at its peak. The chief navigator would sit there, pilot the carrier in-system, and
make sure that it followed its necessary path through the black of space.

  Tyler remembered his limited education on navigation, and started to run a systems check.

  “You seem to know your way around the bridge,” Haas said a few moments later.

  “Thought I might as well know the place I call home. Fearless is the same type of carrier as Resilient,” Tyler shrugged.

  “You think you can get this thing moving?” Haas asked.

  Tyler looked over the consoles. He saw the input flight plan, and the results that came in from the system checks.

  “Yeah, I should be able to. It’s already headed in the direction we want to go. If I just power up the engines, put it on the right course, it’ll do the rest,” Tyler said.

  “Good, do it. Reclaimer is willing to send a navigator over, but only if we get her moving. If we don’t, then Reclaimer is going to have to slow down more, and we won’t have much fuel to maneuver,” Haas said.

  “Yes, sir.” Tyler put his gun on his lap, and started using the different consoles. He upped the power from the plants. He swore he could feel the thrum of the power plants, as they fed their power into the engines. The ship started moving.

  “Very good, stay there. I’m going to connect the navigator to you,” Haas said.

  “Who is this?” The Navigator asked, snappish.

  “Sergeant Tyler Victor,” Tyler said.

  “Very well Sergeant, what is going on?”

  “We are heading three degrees off from Reclaimer’s direction star ward. I am correcting to run parallel at twelve thousand kilometers. Do you have Reclaimer’s thrust coordinates?” The Navigator rapped out a schpeel of numbers. Tyler had him repeat it a few times to make sure he had the numbers right. If he fucked up moving something the size of an EMF carrier, it would not look good on his record.

  The navigator asked a stream of questions. Tyler fired off responses as he found answers.

  He felt a tap on his shoulder, and looked up and saw the navigator. He was a middle-aged looking man, with a thin frame inside smart clothes with a large helmet. Instead of the armored and sleek helmet Tyler wore, it was made to give the user the greatest view possible - without the view screens on either side of their visor.

  “Thank you, sergeant. I’ll take it from here,” said the navigator, who talked to Tyler for the last twenty minutes or so.

  “All yours, sir,” Tyler said. He saw the Navigator was rated as a Captain.

  The other stations were manned with a bare crew.

  Haas moved over to a station that dealt with power.

  “Looks like all of the Troopers that made it to the spine are okay. Two section on me. We’re going to check that the armories are secured, and that we aren’t going to have a blow-out if we pressurize the areas the troopers will need to get into their armor,” Haas said, as he led the way back to the bulkhead. It opened as two engineers walked in, saw the caved out window, and headed towards it.

  The ship started to come to life. The troopers used ladders to move around as the elevators were still unpowered. They used the ladders to get through the ship.

  “Well, that’s annoying,” Obe said, as they got to the armories.

  “What?” Iliev asked.

  “Elevators just got powered up,” Obe said.

  “Always just a moment too late to be useful,” Iliev said, as they left the first armory. It was airtight. So was the second, and so it went. Troopers checked every armory and made sure that the spine was sealed up tight. Then, and only then, did Nerva give the all-clear and the area started to get pumped full of air. The medics went to the cryo computers.

  “So we’ve got good and bad news,” said Mo, the Regiment’s medic. “Good news, the cryo pods are all still functioning. Bad news is the Troopers haven’t had their muscles worked for a few months, so they’re all dead-limbs. We’re going to have to wait a few days for their muscles to be good enough to wake them up. Or, it’s going to take weeks for them to get functional,”

  Nerva relayed it to everyone in the Division, and to General Wai back on Reclaimer. Everyone else was muted.

  “Very well. See to it in the meantime, Nerva, you are in command of operations on the Carrier. Lieutenant Colonel Price will be in contact with you shortly undoubtedly. Good work in securing the prize Fearless. It’s going to make the ledgers a little greener.” Wai cut the channel.

  “For those of you that don’t understand what the General was saying - we captured this ghost ship. Ships that are returned to the owners, when they might have otherwise been lost, are entitled to receive compensation. About twenty percent the worth of the ship,” Nerva said. Tyler and the rest of the troopers around him broke out in whooping cheers, which drowned out anything else that Nerva might say.

  ***So they lived on Fearless, and in their armor for two days and loafed around. Then the medics said everything was good. More of them joined the group on Fearless. Cryo pods opened and troopers walked out. They were confused to see other troopers, fully ready for battle and with unfamiliar faces. Nerva’s voice came through the speakers on repeat.

  “Crew of the Fearless, this is Major Nerva of the EMF Carrier Reclaimer. Fearless received damage to her bridge from the explosion of Strike Station. We are here to assist and get you back in the fight. Please don your armor and helmets. While the immediate area has been proven air-tight, we would rather not risk you breathing vacuum.” And so, it went on again and again. Nerva’s voice made Fearless’ troopers’ brows come together in memory. Their anger and fear were very plain to see.

  Tyler could half-read their thoughts. They had been asleep. If Reclaimer wasn’t there, would they have ever woken up?

  Instead of dwelling on the possibilities, leaders got their people together and got them into the armories and into their gear.

  Engineers and techs flooded Fearless as the numbers started to come in. A third of the carrier’s strength was dead or missing - which included all of the officers in their separate spine. Something had pierced the ship’s unarmored side of it’s hull and carved out the officer’s cryo pods. They never woke up. A few of the pods were still functional but there weren’t many..

  General Wai took over command of both ships and moved Reclaimer’s officers into both carriers’ command positions.

  Units were pulled apart, which gave Fearless trained leaders and secured Wai’s authority.

  Troopers were moved between Fearless to Reclaimer.

  Nerva had Alpha Company shipped back to Reclaimer. Another platoon from a different force group took over, and helped make sure there were no issues on Fearless.

  They came back to their barracks to find new troopers, who rested in or around their bunks.

  They stood up and saw the new master corporal bar, and dot on Tyler’s arm.

  “Dalhousie,” Tyler read. A tall, blue-haired girl - who actually suited the color and was not washed out by it - looked up. She had a perpetual scowl on her face, which made Tyler think she was fending off sexual attention much like a train would barrel through a thunderstorm. There were corporal stripes on her arm, and an air about her that said she would beat the hell out of anyone that crossed her.

  Well, looks like this will be an interesting time.

  “Kojo,” said a dark and tanned man, who looked perpetually tired and bored.

  “Ma,” said a skinny, and nervous-looking private. He glanced around, and his epicanthic folded eyes flitted over the new arrivals.

  “Evans,” said an equally skinny, and brand new private. He was pale and awkward, like most new privates.

  “I’m Tyler and this is my merry band of idiots,” Tyler said, as he smiled to the rest of his section.

  “Smith.”

  “Sal.”

  “Iliev.”

  “Obe.”

  Each of them rattled off their names in quick succession.

  With greetings done, Tyler moved to his bunk. The rest of the section moved to their own, and told the new recruits which were
empty bunks.

  Tyler grabbed the gear on his bunk, and moved it to the bunk that had been Sergeant Alvarez’s.

  He turned, and saw Dalhousie angrily flash her eyes at his actions.

  “Why is there gear in the lockers?’ Dalhousie asked, as her face became angry. “I hope you don’t expect anyone to double bunk.” Her words were a clear threat instead of a question.

  Tyler sat on his bunk. A wave of memory made it past the sea walls that he formed in his mind, to hold them at bay.

  He took a moment and looked at the floor. He saw the barracks filled with the laughter. He remembered the jokes shared, and the crap they went through, as Alvarez pulled the best from them. It turned them from people, into a unit.

  When the wave of memories passed, he found her tapping her foot with her arms crossed over her chest - probably done to minimize her looks. Sexual harassment was low with the Troopers, but people could still make unwanted advances.

  “Master Corporal?” she asked, as heat entered her voice and her green eyes flashed angrily.

  “They’re not here,” Tyler said quietly.

  “They’ve been moved to another section? You must be hard pressed to get to Masoul not having half of your troopers,” she said. She was thoughtful, and looked a little annoyed at the EMF’s planning.

  “We went from Sacremon to Earth. The cleaning crews didn’t remove their gear before we left for Masoul. Ali is the only one other than me that survived Sacremon,” Tyler said, as an edge entered his voice. She stopped her tapping foot, and her scowl turned into something else.

  “I’m going for a walk,” Tyler said, as he stood and made his way out of the room. The memories were too fresh for him right now.

  He sent a message to Mark. He got one back a few moments later, and headed for the gym. When he worked out, or hung around with people that were on Sacremon, it kept his mind centered and off of his section that was killed.

  ***

  All four sections that made up four platoons were in a semi-circle around second Lieutenant Kim and Warrant Wen. They looked over the new arrivals from Fearless that didn’t look like part of the platoon yet. The look in their eyes made Mark think that they were going to change that shortly.