Jerome shrugged, he had worked at the docks but it had been the only way he could make enough credits to survive. He had no attachments to the place and he didn’t have anything like a family back there.
“We’re going to go to Westerly Complex,” Mark said, looking to Jerome, advancing the invitation.
Jerome gave a terse nod of awkward appreciation before looking away. Mark could see the signs of emotion seeping into his eyes before he his face.
“How about you?” Tyler asked.
“I don’t know, if my information was good enough then Hell’s own is gone,” Alexis shrugged.
“Come with us,” Tyler offered.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, no one fucks with a trooper on leave anyway,” Tyler said, his expression turning dark at the thought of anyone attacking any one of the troopers he had just fought beside.
“I heard that we’re going to get a big bonus for this one,” Alexis said, probably trying to steer their minds away from their grim thoughts.
“Yeah, three times the pay, plus it looks like we’re going to become the EMF’s new trouble-shooter carrier. After some leave we’re going to be training like dogs. Higher ups want everyone to be like Alpha Company. Cost benefit ratio exercise I heard them saying,” Jerome said.
Mark wondered how the man was able to gather so much information but being in the docks for so long he had probably heard more than one rumor, or dug it up. His skills had gone to work with the various information channels within the EMF.
“That’s good right? We’re going to use a few years of our contract up without being in some kind of battle like this,” she said, her hand indicating Sacremon.
“Yeah,” Tyler said smoking his cigar.
“Where do you think they’re going to put their best trained and equipped carrier?” Jerome said, heat entering his voice as anger made him chew on the end of his cigar. “Right in the fucking middle of the biggest and worst rebellions.” He pulled the cigar from his mouth and spat out the chewed cigar that had filled his mouth.
Mark puffed on his cigar in the new silence.
“You think that’s true?” Someone that had overheard them asked, looking to them.
“Why not? We’re just cogs,” Jerome said using a term that only older troopers used now. “There’s plenty of us. They’re only looking for some magical formula that will give them the best fighting force for the lowest cost. Look down there, they’re going to strip our people of everything they’re wearing but not take their bodies home because moving bodies is probably inefficient in their minds.” Jerome stood and walked away, his face dark.
The room was quiet with Jerome’s outburst.
“Fuck cost-benefit ratios, fuck these colonist pricks and fuck anyone that thinks they can beat us. We might die before thirty-five years of service, we might be left on a planet we weren’t born on, but we, we the troopers will know, we’ll remember and we’ll make anyone that thinks of rebelling so goddamn fucking scared that even thinking about it will make them piss themselves,” Mark said, his voice deadly with the acid tang of resolution.
Hardened faces nodded, turning from confusion and fear for the future into resolution.
Mark got off of the table and headed for Jerome.
He found him looking out of a hole carved into the side of the tower, just staring over the planet blankly.
Mark left his helmet next to Jerome’s as he walked up, looking at the ruins of processing city.
“What now?” Jerome asked.
“We go home,” Mark said in a solemn voice.
“And what about when we get called to go serve again?” Jerome asked.
“Then we train, and we make the bastards that meet us regret ever even thinking of rebellion,” Mark said, his voice catching with a heated edge.
Jerome nodded and the two of them smoked their cigars until their implants alerted them that their shuttle had arrived.
They didn’t say anything as they flowed with other units up to the landing pads. They dropped their cigars into their holding tubes and walked up the ramp. Mark looked back seeing the planet through the windows of the tower.
He brought his helmet over his head and walked to Tyler who had already found a seat in the shuttle.
“Goodbye Sacremon,” Tyler sing-songed, his voice tired as he sat back in his seat.
Mark let the shuttles movements send him to sleep.
He awoke on Reclaimer, the lack of movement making him blink with bleary eyes.
They walked off of the combat shuttle, the carrier looked pristine with it’s unmarred metal and rows of shuttles.
They walked to the armories, returning the weapons that had become part of their person for the last twelve months.
He unloaded and pulled his mag pouches off, tossing them into the right chutes to be sorted.
He checked his weapon and put it into his rack with care. He did the same with his pistol, moving to the second part of the armories that held armor.
Everyone helped one another get off their armor.
It felt odd removing the plates. Mark, like the rest of the troopers felt practically naked without that layer of protection.
Officers and veterans guided them to the medical bays to make sure that no injuries had been missed.
Everyone was bone weary and no one was up for shouting out orders.
Mark walked into a curtained off room.
Lucille, the implanter who had put at least three augments into his body came in.
“Hey!” She said with a bright smile.
“Hey,” Mark answered, his dull eyes finding her. Their was a brief flash of recognition marred by dark green eyes of someone that had aged years in only months.
She bit her lip, something flicking behind her eyes. Mark didn’t pay it attention, he wanted to shower and go to sleep.
She looked over information on a data slate, scrolling through a mess of information.
“I’m going to run some scans and if everything’s good then you’ll be free to go,” she said, something like concern in her eyes.
“Alright,” Mark replied, the word like the sigh of a tree falling.
She ran a scanner over him, watching her data slate as she did so.
“Okay it looks like most of your injuries are healed or on their way to recovering. I’m going to give you a few boosters to help that along. I’m also picking up a decent amount of scarring. I can remove that as well,” she said moving to the curtain to go and grab the necessary supplies.
“I’ll keep them,” Mark said.
“Keep what?” She asked, looking up from her data slate, her mind somewhere else.
“The scars, they remind me that I’m alive, and of those that weren’t as lucky.” His eyes found hers.
“Okay,” she said with a sad little smile of someone that didn’t understand, but recognized his need.
“Thanks,” Mark said, leaning back so he could stare at his hands. They were a pale whitish colour, a side effect of being in armored gloves so long. Cuts and gashes showed where something had got past the gloves. He didn’t notice Lucille leaving, or coming back. He did feel the needle however.
He grunted, now used to the feel of the damn things.
“Alright I want to see you tomorrow but for now you should be good, get some rest,” she said, looking to him. He tilted his head to her noticing she was pretty. She had deep brown eyes, brown tanned skin and a face that seemed like it was constantly trying to break into a smile.
He saw also noticed the concern in those eyes.
“Sure thing,” he said, holding her gaze.
“You’re free to go,” she said breaking eye contact and making a note on the data slate.
Mark got off of the bed and walked out of the room. He followed some other troopers as they made their way to their living quarters. It felt like it had been a lifetime ago since he had been on this ship, but it had remained unchanged in that time.
Tyler caught up with Mark as
they walked towards their old quarters. Jerome joined them before turning and heading for his own, making the promise that he’d come over once he’d gotten some rest. They were all too tired to go about moving things.
Mark walked into the room and looked at the empty bunks with mournful eyes. It was the same as they had left it, bunkbeds with thin blankets covering them made three rows of two, books lay on the blankets, lockers were opened showing the personal belongings of the others in the section.
It looked as if everyone had just stepped out for a minute and would be back shortly.
Mark sat on his bed, it rocked heavily under his weight. Tyler climbed up on his own bed and laid down in it. He kicked his boots off and dropped his smart clothes on the floor.
Mark pulled off his shirt and removed his pants, not bothering with his damned boots as he pulled his sheets over himself, his boots were left jutting out the end of his bed.
“I miss them,” Tyler said, his voice wobbly with emotion.
“Me too Tyler, me too.” Marks voice was exhausted as he looked out over those bunks whose occupants wouldn’t be coming back.
They were troopers, they were kind of people that the two of them had always wanted to be. And absence hurt a hell of a lot more than any injury Mark had ever experienced in his entire life.
He drifted off to sleep, his mind bringing the memories of his section-mates death to mind as well as other troopers he had known in passing or even those who he’d never even learned their name, but they’d had impact on his life regardless in big ways and small.
Fresh memories from advancing into processing made him want to yell out, but sleep kept him her prisoner as he watched himself move forward. The colonists were defeated and they knew it. Many opened their suits to the poison gas while others committed suicide.
Still some fought on. The troopers didn’t try to be clean about it, they massed fire on pockets of resistance, bombed the hell out of them and made sure they couldn’t retreat anywhere, letting gas and time do their work.
He walked into a command centre that much was clear, it was buried some seventy feet below the city’s surface containing a number of rooms that went in every direction.
He checked the room was clear, others calling out to him and moving forward to make sure the rest of the facility was empty. Mark had scanned the room, his eyes falling on the bodies that lay around the command structure. They’d opened their suits, dying horrific deaths.
Those eyes seemed to follow him as he’d left the room, burning the image into his existence.
He woke, panting and in a cold sweat, sleep finally releasing him from her clutches. He lay there, staring up at Tyler’s bunk, controlling his breathing before throwing the covers back and to take his boots off.
His and Tyler’s clothes littered the floor as he went to his locker, grabbing a towel and headed for the shower.
He let the water flow down on him, the feeling of that heat was pure bliss. He stood there for a few minutes ingraining the moment into his mind.
Tyler wandered into the bathroom a few minutes later. They nodded a greeting to one another, each in their own world as they lavished in their spare moments of free time.
“So what are we going to do with those seeds?” Tyler asked.
“Going to lend them out to the gardens, we’ll take a cut from them and take a percentage of their overall profits from those that also take the information files we give them,” Mark said in a tired voice, he had forgotten about the seeds and gardening information.
Tyler was silent for a long moment. Mark got out of the shower when he started talking again.
“Why?”
“Why what?” Mark asked.
“Why are you doing all of this?”
“Because after all of this I want us to have something more to go back to than just the slums,” Mark said.
“We’re just two kids from the slums that were lucky enough to join the EMF.” Tyler said ‘lucky’ with a great deal of distain and sarcasm.
“Yeah and we should have a damned back-up plan just in case. Plan for the worst because it will and can happen,” Mark said, reciting one of Nerva’s favourite sayings.
Tyler made a noncommittal noise as Mark left the bathrooms, he put on clean pants as Alexis walked into the room.
“Hey umm.” She looked over Mark’s scarred body, his right arm and side were a motley collection of scars showing where his armor hadn’t been able to stop shrapnel. He had even more on his neck and stomach.
“Hey Lexis,” Mark said, using her nickname.
“Tyler’s in the shower. I’m gonna grab some food.” He donned a tunic over the twin bands that lay on his upper arm, his blades resting against the inside where they always lay.
“Umm, thanks,” she said flashing him a smile.
He gave her a knowing grin as she walked past him towards the shower.
He looked around, feeling like he was missing something before realizing that he was looking for his rifle and sidearm.
He walked out of the room, rolling his shoulders against the smart cloth’s feeble fabric. He never realized how accustomed he’d become to wearing full armor until he was out of it.
He nodded and waved to people as he walked towards Jerome’s was quarters. Jerome was still passed out in his bed when Mark entered. Not wanting to wake him he left Jerome a message on his implants where he was going to be and headed off towards the cafeteria.
The noise was subdued compared to the excited and quick chatter that had greeted Mark when he had first come to the cafeteria the morning after coming out of cryo. Hell even in basic the cafeteria had been louder.
He saw Cpl Groshva from the section he’d been piled into at the end of the campaign. They waved to one another and Mark got his food.
He took a seat across from Groshva, he looked up in greeting but was focused on getting as much food in him as possible.
He came up for air after finishing off a large bowl of noodles.
“Seems that we’re going to be changing rooms so that we’re all together. I don’t know why. Nearly everyone is getting promoted or getting every pay bump that the Majors and lower can find,” Groshva said.
“You know when?”
“Nope,” Groshva shrugged, eating his dessert. His spoon stooped halfway to his mouth as he seemed to remember something.
“Did you hear about Nerva?” He asked, before dumping a spoonful of dessert into his mouth.
“No,” Mark said warily, his eyes focused on Groshva instead of his food.
“Looks like he’s going to make Major,” Groshva said.
“Oh, cool,” Mark said turning back to his food.
“I also heard that you and Jerome helped get that CEO out, which allowed us to drop onto Sacremon finally.” Groshva’s voice lowered some as his eyes thinned in interest.
“Something like that,” Mark shrugged.
“Not one for the praise eh?”
“I was looking to help Tyler out, he was in cryo and his wounds were really bad, plus our position was coming down around our heads. It was the only choice we had, roll the dice. It came out alright, but a lot of people died on that planet no matter what I did.” Silence stretched as Mark ate.
“Yeah, four forces are being collapsed completely until we get back to Earth and are reinforced. We don’t even have enough people to make a proper chain of command,” Groshva said, leaning over his food and pushing it around his plate with a spoon.
“Where are we going to get the reinforcements from?” Mark asked.
“I heard that it might be from other carriers instead of straight from Earth.” Groshva looked to Mark as if he might have heard more.
“You know how much leave we’re going to get before we start this new training thing?” Mark asked.
“Two and a half months like always.” Groshva took a spoonful of food, a look of annoyance on his face. “I wish it was less,” his said, his spoon paused going upwards as he saw Mark’s confused look
.
“This is your first leave isn’t it?” Groshva said; his voice something between recognition and pity.
“Yeah,” Mark said.
“You’ll see,” Groshva sighed, putting the spoonful of food in his mouth.
“See what?” Mark asked, with more questions than before.
“Earth isn’t your home anymore, this fucking place is. Going down there, everything feels different, people will be gone and nothing will be the same. It’s why most of us stay up here or go to mega-city to live in the citadel and waste our credits on the lower or smaller CEO’s bars and clubs.” There was a distant look in Groshva’s eyes.
They continued eating, each wrapped up in their own thoughts, they grabbed more food and Sergeant Don joined them.
“How’s it going gents?” He asked.
“Good Sarge,” Groshva said, answering for them both. “How long do you think it’s going to be until we leave?”
“Probably another month, gotta wait for the CEO’s to be woken up and returned to the planet. Say two months until we’re moving at the latest. They’ll probably keep us up for another couple of weeks then shove us away for the journey back to Earth,” Don said, then he looked to Mark. “Nerva wants to see you and Tyler after you’ve got a meal into you.”
“Understood,” Mark said, diving into his food with new gusto. He pulled out a data slate from his leg pocket, using it to interface with his implants and send a message as he ate.
It didn’t take him long to finish.
“Good luck,” Groshva said with a happy grin. Mark tossed him a wave, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards at Groshva’s ridiculous expression.
He marched towards his quarters. Tyler appeared to all but fall out of them, his hair still wet as he pulled his clothes on.
“Have fun?” Mark asked as he turned, changing his direction towards Nerva’s quarters.
“Was about to,” Tyler grumbled.
A message pinged on Mark’s implants and he pulled it up on the slate he retrieved from his leg pocket.
“Seems Jerome’s coming as well,” Mark said sliding the slate back into its proper place as Tyler tried to get control on his hair.
“You should just cut that damn mess,” Mark complained as they got to a lift, taking it up towards the area where Majors lived.
Sacremon (Harmony War Series Book 1) Page 33
