Sacremon (Harmony War Series Book 1) (13 page)

           
They weren’t going to take the chance there wasn’t anyone down there.

           
Tyler emerged on the third floor, seeing the red E-12 tracer fire below.

           
“Fornuk, find yourself a position to hammer the fuck out of those weapons Det cunts. Everyone else, we’re going to break the windows and bomb them back to the fucking Stone Age. Charlie fire team. I want you to start getting fire into the attackers moving through the streets.” Greens lit up Tyler’s face.

           
People moved along the windows, pushing desks and cubicles out of their way to make better positions. Others pushed bedroom or living room furniture, these towers weren’t just offices but living spaces thrown together. They spread out through an office area and half of a housing unit, waiting.

           
“On my mark,” Tyler said, shifting his rifle in his shoulder, checking the ammo count on his HUD and the positioning of everyone.

           
“Three, two, one, mark!” Tyler aimed at the enemy weapons Det’s haloed positions, firing a burst and kicking the window. It shattered massive sheets falling towards the ground below.

           
He didn’t pause, eyeing the other building and putting a string of grenades into the floor the weapons Det owned.

           
He ducked into cover as fire started coming back, explosions were going off across the opposite tower’s floors, windows blowing out as fires could be seen inside.

           
The weapons Det’s fire cut off as Tyler slapped a new magazine into his grenade launcher.

           
“Alpha, Fornuk, switch to targets on the ground,” Tyler said.

           
The opposing recruits had their shit together and were now returning fire at Tyler’s section.

           
They were trying to withdraw but they were learning how withdrawing under fire was hell.

           
“Moving up,” Mark said over the platoon channel.

           
Tyler saw he was moving through the lobby; the attacking platoon had been caught out in the open.

           
Tyler’s section sent plunging fire into their ranks.

           
Tyler willed one and two section on, there were just six of them now working in pairs, pushing out into the street, the enemy troopers being haloed by Tyler’s sensors.

           
Anywhere Tyler saw movement he popped a grenade off at it.

           
“Watch for friendlies,” Tyler said, waiting as Mark’s people got to the cars.

           
“Switch to rounds, watch your shots,” Tyler said, switching to three round burst. Three rounds loaded into the barrel, firing so fast that the recoil only hit after the third round.

           
Fucking A.
Tyler thought as three rounds cut hit a runner, they looked like they were going to throw their gun in frustration before thinking otherwise and lying down.

           
Tyler smiled and looked for more targets, there was less than a section left, but they were fighting for all they were worth.

           
Tyler’s section got them pinned down behind a large transport. Tracers hammering into its frame or whizzing off.

           
“Grenade!” Mark said, he and the remaining two tossed grenades around the truck, they went off, shaking the truck.

           
Mark and one other rounded the truck, their guns fired, red halos evaporating.

           
“End Simulation,” the simulations monotone female voice said.

           
The street became boxes instead of vehicles and the towers lost their windows, displays and tech, all of it had been holographically projected.

           
The ‘dead’ started rising and heading towards their section leaders.

           
Tyler slumped down in an office chair, feeling drained.

           
“Report to the armories for resupply and redeployment,” Fredrickson’s voice came through their helmets.

           
Mark threw down a new way point and they started to move.

           
“You heard the sergeant, we ain’t done yet,” Mark said.

           
Sighs and complaints came back but they started moving for the elevators. It was going to be a long ten day.

Chapter 5

           
EMFC Reclaimer

           
In transit from Sol to Sacremon

           
11/3136

           
Mark looked around at his platoon, all of them were slumped in some kind of position pouring ration paste down their throats and drinking from their canteens.

           
If you don’t need to stand, sit, if you don’t need to sit, lie down, if you don’t need to be awake, take a nap.

           
They’d done two battles a day, they’d all gone down and had to change their tactics. They looked forward to defending to grab just a handful of minutes to sleep. This was the first time they had been ordered to eat, the rest of the time they ate through their helmet’s tubes.

           
They weren’t humans anymore, but automatons that reacted to words of command. They weren’t humans, they were troopers, creations that looked like humans but could live on nothing and still carry out their mission. They would die in droves, they could fail, but they, or another trooper would win.

           
It was a kind of power that not many would understand. That even if you fell, you would live through those that followed and carried out your mission, your revenge.

           
Being a trooper wasn’t for everyone.

           
Thirty-six had started, seven had tapped the armory door.

           
“Get that in you, hurry up about it, we still have one more day to go!” Balhauser said, walking around them.

           
Mark swore that this was the last day, he poured the rest of the faintly salty, faintly sweet paste in his mouth, swallowing it down with a drag of water.

           
He stowed the paste tube away, garbage was an easy way to detect if humans had been in an area on colony worlds. Everything was recycled on them, no one littered except people from Earth.

           
The Platoon’s training staff, Warrant Odal and Second Lieutenant Mitchell stood waiting for them to get into formation. It didn’t take long, moving without thinking into their places.

           
Mitchell stepped forward, looking at them all. Rank was dictated by two things, time in and merit, or brown nosing like it was your day job. Mitchell’s hard brown eyes, the scars on his face and neck even the way he walked showed how he had got his rank.

           
School and education didn’t get you status here, the EMF taught you all you needed to know, surviving was the only test you needed to take.

           
“You all have one more day to go, then you can wear the tattoo of the EMF with pride and be called troopers.” Mitchell looked around, probably letting their sleep fucked brains understand what in the fuck letters and sentences were.

           
“You have broken bones, been stabbed, slashed, fought for days on end and applied first aid in the most realistic manner possible save actual combat. We use an old saying in the Troopers, the more blood and sweat you lose in training, the less on the battlefield.”

           
Mitchell waved Lastrade forward, he had an E-12 in his hands.

           
“I have yet to meet someone that has not been shot while in the field, so today you will be shot. It won’t kill you but you will know what being shot feels like and not panic when it happens for real. Shock kills ninety-five percent, if you know what that pain is, you can turn it into action. Think don’t just react.” Mitchell looked over everyone.

           
“Who wants to go first,” Mitchell asked.

           
Mark stepped forward, Alexis, Tyler and the others did so as well, a few hesitated. While they might be pale as the ghost of Christmas past they were troopers to the end. They would endure, a bullet would hurt, but they would survive and they would fight.

           
Mitchell smiled, it was the first time Mark had seen him do so.

           
“Lastrade, looks like Mark is going first,” Mitchell said.

           
“Stand in front of the wall,” Lastrade said, pointing at the simulation city wall they had been sitting against.

           
“Take off your leg armor, you pick,” Lastrade said.

           
Qui who had been with the training staff now moved to Mark’s side as Mark pulled off his left leg’s armor.

           
Qui checked the leg and put an X on the side of Mark’s leg.

           
“Turn it juust, so,” Qui said, Mark’s unarmored leg turned away from Lastrade.

           
“You ready?” Lastrade asked.

           
“Do it,” Mark said, putting weight on his right leg releasing the tension in his left. It was hard to make it relax but he knew tensing would only make it worse.

           
Lastrade kneeled, his gun steadying.

           
Mark was about to ask him if he was going to shoot anytime soon when the rifle cracked and Mark’s left calf disintegrated.

           
He screamed, pushing off with his right backwards into the sand.

           
Qui was there, saying things slamming needles into Mark’s leg a length of bandage coming out and going around his leg.

           
“Tyler, next,” Fredrickson said.

           
Even through the swearing and pain Mark heard Lastrade talking.

           
“The reason you’ll get a round in your leg is because a round anywhere will most likely cause you to die or need to be replaced by a limb printer. We’re using non-shatter rounds here and less propellant. If we did, your leg would come off and the shattering rounds could kill you.” Lastrade’s gun barked as it sent Tyler into the dust.

           
Two medics with a stretcher grabbed Mark and took him off. Mark saw that the stretcher bearers had hidden behind the wall, but were now ready to pull out the newly shot recruits to the medical bays.

           
“Just stings a little, you can do it!” Mark said through gritted teeth, hoping his words were enough to push them all through the test.

           
How the fuck are we going to be able to fight tomorrow.

           
Even with the pain the meds started working and he went to sleep, he knew he’d need it after they fixed his leg.

           
They pulled him into the med-bay the change in lights waking him up. They rolled him onto a table, his face down and his leg exposed and went right back to sleep, he felt an itch in his calf but it wasn’t enough to keep him awake.

           
“Mark!” Someone yelled, sleep was forgotten memories coming back as Mark sat on the bed, he got off of it, seeing Balhauser waiting.

           
“Get to the armories for ammunition and your armor,” Balhauser said.

           
“Sergeant,” Mark acknowledged, his left calf was weak, but it functioned, he jogged off, getting a feel for his fixed limb. Making it into the armory.

           
Fredrickson and Fei were waiting for him.

           
Fredrickson held a gun with a wide mouth on it.

           
“Welcome to the EMF trooper,” Fredrickson said.

           
Mark looked at the two of them waiting for the joke. Their grinning faces didn’t show a hint of malice.

           
“Get out of your gear and take your shirt off for your tattoo,” she said.

           
“Yes Sergeant,” Mark said breaking into a smile. He couldn’t believe he’d made it, he’d thought he’d be relieved, and he was, but more than that he was damned proud to be asked to wear that tattoo.

           
He stripped out of his gear storing it in his rack. He pulled off his shirt, with all of the Physical Training and custom diet he had filled out his large frame and added hard earned muscle.

           
He stood about a half foot taller than Fredrickson, tall and heavy without being a muscle bound creation. She pressed the gun to his arm, pulling the trigger, it stung but it was nothing compared to getting shot in the leg.

           
He looked at the tattoo, it showed Earth with twelve stars underneath to symbolize the colonies, his service number laid under that. Two E-12 rifles crossed over it all, the sigil of an EMF trooper.

           
Tyler came in next looking at them all and Mark admiring his tattoo.

           
“Well fuck,” Tyler said, he and Mark shared a grin, they’d done it.

           
Tyler got his tattoo. The whole platoon did, no one opted out, Alexis had made someone hold her in place but she’d had her calf shot out as well.

           
They milled around in the locker room, admiring their tattoos.

           
“You’re entitled to three days’ liberty, use them wisely, get your calves trained up. The messes will be open for you to grab a beer and relax. I don’t want to have to drag anyone out. If I do then you’re going into the cryo and you’ll wake up with the universes worst hangover,” Fredrickson said, making sure her words sunk in.

           
“Now get out of my sight!” She said.

           
“Sarge, I was wondering if I could stay awake, get my leg trained up and read up on a few things,” Mark said.

           
“Knock yourself out, there are some medics awake at all times, you’ll get reduced pay and it won’t count as time on your contract, but do as you want,” Fredrickson shrugged.

           
“Thanks Sergeant,” Mark said turning and leaving with the rest of his platoon for a shower and a cold beer.

           
After the showers Mark didn’t miss Tyler and Alexis sneaking off, he had an almost pre-natural skill at knowing where his brother was.

           
He felt happy for them, before he might have been scared that Alexis was trying to lure him away to plant a blade in his back. After training he knew Alexis much better than that. She was the little sister he had never had and he could see she was smitten with Tyler.

           
Mark smiled, a touch of sadness in it, not for them, but for himself. He had regularly bed women on Earth and there were a few girls he was interested in, but he found it hard to invest in a woman more than just sex.

           
He was a lonely and focused man. He did what he had to, he knew that if he got close to someone then he would be constantly worrying about them, he already worried about Tyler constantly and he could handle himself.

           
A girlfriend was just another way to get hurt.
Mark thought.

           
“Beer?” Moe, a large dark skinned man asked, no one was skinny anymore, lean yes, but all had a healthy slab of muscle.

           
“Yeah,” Mark said, pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind.

***

           
“What’s up?” Tyler asked as soon as they got to the library, a data repository filled with nooks and cranies for people to access information, and where a number of more
private
but no less informative meetings were held.

           
Troopers were a lonely group, few interacted with them other than the strippers and hookers on Resolute or Strike station.

           
Troopers might die any day so few looked down on relationships with any sort of disdain. What you did and who you did on your own time was your business as long as it didn’t fuck with your job.

           
Tyler and Alexis’ growing interest with one another had started with simple talking, they had been around one another more than they’d been around most others.

           
They were from the same area and the stuff about the gangs brought them closer rather than further apart. Alexis had jumped gangs a number of times, losing another was kind of rough, but the EMF had given her a new gang and people she could trust to have her back.

           
Tyler was focused when in battle, but sweet, almost boyish and free when he had free time.

           
Alexis’ walls had broken down with every smile and joke they shared.

           
Now they were sitting in the library, a place they’d visited a few times to enjoy the others lips, the urgency of their bodies pressing against one another but never passing an unspoken boundary.

           
Tyler was fine with that, and that made Alexis want him even more than before. She could already feel heat spreading across her body, hungry for his touch, his lips. The feeling of his hard body against her own.

           
So much for the cold shower helping!
She thought, smiling.

           
Tyler caught the expression with an eyebrow rising with the side of his mouth in a way that made her want to give in and kiss him.

           
She pressed those feelings down, she needed to do this even if it was difficult. She looked away, his hand rested on her arm, reassuring rather than pressuring.

           
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she said.

           
His hand slowed for a moment before continuing.

           
“Why?” He asked, thoughtful rather than condescending.

           
“Because I can’t share,” she said, looking to him.

           
Her guts were a ball of emotions burning like acid through her stomach, till she saw his brow pulled down in confusion. That combined with his opening and closing mouth like a fish trying to form words as his brain had short circuited, drove her to laughter.

           
God he’s so cute and careless.

           
“Um, so, ah what does that mean?” He finally asked go with the most neutral answer he could think of.

           
“You’ve seen it, the way the other girls look at you, the way they flirt with you,” she said.

           
“Yes, I’m not that blind,” he said.

           
“So you’ll want to go and do them as well,” Alexis said.

           
“Nope, not really,” Tyler said shrugging.

           
“What?” Alexis asked, her turn to look puzzled.

           
“Sure they’re good looking girls, but they don’t have your fire or determination. They don’t have that inner hardness that comes from being in the gangs as soon as you were old enough. You’re not a lady, you’re a woman, and that’s much sexier than a few looks.” His tone became lower and huskier his fingers moved over her arm in loops “Have you seen a mirror, the way you fill out smart clothes,” His fingers trailed up her arm as he spoke, giving her a wink.

           
Familiar heat flushed over her body and colored her cheeks.

           
“I couldn’t handle seeing you with anyone else. Especially if you were willing to become mine,” Tyler said.

           
“You’re bad,” she said, not caring how her own voice had become husky, as she leaned in closer.

           
“Oh so bad,” he said winking, that boyish smile playing across his face.

           
She leaned in, pushing him back on the love seat, arching her body so it pressed against his.

           
Their breaths mingled, lips just inches away from one another.

           
“Mine?” She asked, pushing off of him and tracing her finger over his chest.

           
“Yours, if you’ll be mine,” he said as she could feel his excitement.

           
“All yours,” she replied, her will falling apart as her body came back down on his, their lips coming together.

           
His arms wrapped around her, pulling her to him.

           
He picked her up and leaned her back so he was now over her, their lips coming together with slow luxuriates repetition. His lips travelled down along her neck, caressing every arch with careful patience.

           
She arched in wanton release.

           
I could get used to this,
she thought as she nibbled on his earlobe, his body and muscles quivering as her own.

           
“These smart clothes are rather restrictive don’t you think?” She said.

           
“That a hint?” He asked, his voice low and husky with tension.

           
“Maybe,” she answered bringing his head down and kissing his neck.

           
He basked in that feeling for a few moments before his finger found the sealing line, he traced it down, her blouse coming apart, cold air playing on her bodies sweat.

           
Lips followed the line, the two became lost in one another’s bodies, hot breath, moans and touches.

Chapter 6

           
EMFC Reclaimer

           
Sacremon System

           
7/3169

           
Mark, Tyler and Alexis as well as a few others spent a few months working on expanding their knowledge, with everything and anything they could find from tactics to weapons to fighting styles and using their implants. They hadn’t been able to use their augments before.

Augments increased their natural abilities or added assistance to get the most out of their bodies. There were chemical pumps that could keep them in a state of alert for days, or medical augments that could fight off disease, or help heal wounds. There were others for helping fix broken bones, or turn off a person’s inner ear so they didn’t get sick on exiting and entering atmosphere.

Implants were the only other tech that could be stuck in your body, they interfaced with the user and could be used to give and receive data, like subvocal implants, or HUD’s that linked to the user’s optical nerves. With a helmet neither Mark or Tyler wanted to spend money on them.

Augments were the most expensive things to buy, the model Richter had given them was one of the most advanced medical augments that would look to keeping them alive and functioning even with really bad wounds. Implants wouldn’t help out in any way.

           
Tyler and Mark had pooled their money for Alexis’ augments, calling them a birthday present.

           
Mark saw how Alexis and Tyler looked at one another, it wasn’t just physical. They were closer than Mark was with Tyler.

           
Instead of being angry or jealous he was happy for the two of them. He just had to make sure he did everything in his power to look after the two.

           
They’d all been unhappy when they made their way to ‘the spine’. The central area that ran the length of the ship and carried all of the lower ranked personnel’s cryo-pods.

The higher up officers had their own place in officer territory of the ship and the ship’s crew were close to the bridge in case they needed to be woken in emergency. They found their empty pods, passing rows of sleeping troopers, waiting to wake up in Sacremon System.

           
Mark got in his pod, the medic giving him cryo-injections. He immediately felt the sleepiness wash over him as Tyler and Alexis kissed one another.

           
He’d commented how it looked like they were trying to resuscitate one another with mouth to mouth.

           
Alexis gave him the middle finger, making him laugh as the medic’s injections made him feel cold and heavy, settling into his pod.