Sacremon (Harmony War Series Book 1) (40 page)

           
Mark got up, finding he had a piece of shrapnel in his lower back where his unarmored ass met his back armor plates.

           
Grunting he pulled the damned thing out and moved on, he didn’t have time to spray, they needed to keep the pressure up.

Chapter 18

           
Processing City

           
Sacremon Actual, Sacremon System

           
7/3171

           
General Orlav had the history of Sacremon, reaching as far back as when the first colonists had settled on the planet. They had toiled under the companies to etch out a living on the planet that fought them every step of the way. The CEO’s lived in the top of their towers and watched their suffering families devote their lives to trying to make something for those that would follow.

           
The system rewarded those that screwed over their neighbor for positions. The CEO’s only cared about production costs, showing off to one another while making as much money as possible. To them life wasn’t a struggle, it was a game where having money was the ultimate way in which one should their capabilities and that helped them maintain their grasp on power.

           
Orlav and the people of Sacremon asked for more food to feed their families, it was the first time in history that they actually stood together as a people and demanded a share of equality, so that they could prosper as a people and provide a better future for the next generation. They were rewarded with a twenty percent cut by their CEO’s.

           
They knew what would happen if the planet rebelled, the stories of the EMF descending on planets that had rebelled against their CEO masters were a constant on Television.

           
What they didn’t know is just how damned possessed the bastards are.
He looked to the map of Processing city, all of the other cities had fallen. Four million people had been spread across those cities.

He had thought he had them when the cities started defending themselves. Then the EMF came out of the forests and attacked Growing City.

           
They’d used a CEO to get the support they needed to save the seventy or so troopers that were left from that initial wave. When the combat shuttles had descended he had watched with cold fury as they systematically wiped out the cities defenses and proceeded to take it from the people.

           
In a day they had gone from nearly wiping out every force that had landed on the first wave, to losing and entire city and having a carrier group’s worth of Troopers pressing out on every other.

           
“The forces in District Seven are in retreat, Troopers are right behind them,” Dawson Sylvia, one of Orlav’s aides said.

           
“Show me,” Orlav said, his hands tightening on the table which displayed the entire city with colored infographics.

           
Cameras input showed on one half of the wall, the other half showing a close up of the area which was slowly but surely falling back.

           
Colonists that had never seen the kind of destruction that EMF troopers could dish out. They were fleeing past weapon emplacements, blocking the gun’s line of sight.

           
Rounds cut into the backs of the retreating colonists but none of the troopers appeared in the corridors.

           
Then explosions rocked the gun emplacements as holes appeared from above.

           
“They’re running on top of the corridors to shoot down on our people,” Sylvia surmised.

           
Orlav ground his teeth. They had come up with weapons, plans of attack and defense, they had developed weapons and tactics but they had never come under engagement. His colonists were farmers, workers, some had been more prone to violence than others but in the large part they were peaceful people pushed to do what they had to do in order to defend their families.

           
“Third district’s outer defenses have fallen,” Sylvia said, a note of satisfaction in his voice, the casualties being inflicted by the outer defenses were terrible. Yet the EMF rushed onwards into that fire, their missiles and mortars had pounded his emplacements from above.

           
Other district’s outer defenses were now falling but Colonists manned those walls, piling fire into oncoming troopers who used their mortars as covering fire to move in for the kill.

           
His eyes darted back to the information on district seven.

           
“Reinforce them and give the order to gun emplacements to shoot the corridor’s roofs. Have our people use the tunnels to get behind them and push back at their walls, then we’ll smash those that are advancing into our defenses between our forces,” Orlav said, wishing he didn’t have to use his tunnel system so early in the battle.

           
“I want the next factory moving forward and ready to engage, we need to counterattack and halt these bastards as soon as possible,” Orlav said, his face grim as he looked at the troopers that had gotten through a quarter of his district’s defenses.

           
He watched as one fired through a window bashing through it with his body, not even regarding the shards that rained off of him as he fired down onto the fleeing forces.

           
There was a quick and deadly proficiency to the troopers as they fired into their victims without any seeming remorse.

           
It was hard to think of them as humans behind those featureless helmets. Only their dead that lay to the rear showed that they weren’t the juggernauts they appeared to be.

***

           
Mark slammed a new mag into place and ripped the bolt back to the rear, firing as soon as the first round slammed home.

           
They had the colonists on the run and they were pressing hard. There had been no time to see to the wounded, the medics were following behind getting them back into action as forces moved through the already secured area, trying to keep up with the lead elements.

           
“I’m out, dropping pack!” Someone yelled.

           
“Covering!” Mark said, he only had a few mags and a pack holding enough ammunition for four people.

           
“I’m good!” They yelled and Mark changed out with them, they were on the upper floor of a factory, this one’s catwalks were more substantial, giving them better cover, but also making it hard to see below. As they continued there was more and more machinery that had been left behind which gave the colonists better cover.

           
It’s taking us longer to get reinforcements and while we’re losing a few here and there, and killing a hell of a lot more colonists. The colonists have people in every fucking factory.

           
Mark heard fire from behind him as he pulled magazines out of the pack and threw them in his various pouches.

           
He paused looking in the direction and pulling up the information of what was behind him on his implants.

           
“We’ve got colonists behind us!” He yelled to Pullo.

           
“What?” Pullo said, sounding caught off guard, Mark could hear his weapon firing in the background and then die off.

           
“Fuck,” Pullo said, announcing that he had seen what Mark was seeing. “Troopers hold firm, clear out the factory Warrant Demir I want you to take half of our forces and perform a rearguard it looks like the colonists got behind us somehow.”

           
“Sir.” Demir picked his people, Mark was one of them.

           
“Alright we’re going to move back to the old factory and hold there. Move it!” Demir said, about a section of the three sections that were on the front moved back. Seven were on the second floor, the rest were on the ground.

           
Mark lurched over the small inconvenient lip into the factory and crawled to the catwalk, sighting a position that allowed him to see two corridors.

           
“Hold your fire until I say so,” Demir said. Mark didn’t need to look on the map to see the enemy targets that started to populate the hallway. He adjusted his gun so his grenade launcher would get a grenade right in the mouth of the corridor.

           
The factory was about three hundred meters long, the first colonists entered nervously and slowly, after a quick search they were pushed on by the larger and excited numbers behind them.

           
Should have looked a little harder
. Mark thought coldly as more colonists moved in and weaved through the wreckage of the factory floor.

           
“Second floor, fire,” Demir called out.

           
They seemed to fire as one, destruction raining down on the poor colonists that had thought that the factory was clear. They’d been too trusting.

           
The lead forces looked around in horror as a wall of fire ripped through their friends.

           
“First floor.” Demir’s voice had a cold hunger to it.

           
The leading colonists didn’t know what happened, they were just fifty meters from the forces on the ground when they added in their own fire, four repulsors ripped through an unarmored human with brutal efficiency, espically when the targets only fifty meters away.

           
The ground floor couldn’t hit targets hiding behind cover, but the second floor could.

           
Rounds sparked around Mark and he rolled away from his position, he crawled backwards and moved a new one.

           
He sighted a new group and fired into them, sending them sprawling for cover where they immediately open fired, trying to kill him.

           
The EMF weren’t having it all their way when they found out that processing forces had homemade grenades, announced by a repulsor gunner’s position exploding.

           
There was nowhere to pull back, there was no ground that Mark could give. Instead he fired and moved as fast as possible, hammering as many of the colonists he could get.

           
It came down to hand to hand and Mark continued to fire at the colonists that were hiding around the gun emplacements, trying to get him and the other troopers in the rafters.

           
“The fuckers are coming through the damned floor; they’ve got some kind of tunnel system!” One of the fighters on the ground floor said in panicked tones, they were all engaged in fighting for their lives in hand-to-hand.

           
“Incoming mortar support on the corridor,” Captain Nerva said, his words followed up with the screams of mortars. They popped above the corridors, sending shards through the corridor’s roof. The screams of the mortars competed with the screams of colonists.

           
Tyler ran over to Mark using a wall to stop himself as he put rounds into the first floor.

           
“You get down there, hand-to-hand is your thing, I’ll cover, gimme your gun,” Tyler said.

           
Mark didn’t even think, he’d been taught that his E-12 was his life. Giving it up was like giving up your child, but he trusted Tyler and knew he was a damned good shot.

            Mark was better with his hands.

           
Mark thumbed grenades tossing them as he ripped at the release straps on his pack, it came free as the grenades thumped beneath him.

           
He rolled under the bannister, grabbing it with one hand to orientate him vertical and dropped onto a colonist, his right blade twirled in his hand and shot out multiple times. His left arm went down and came up with a blade. Fighting when it’s life or death isn’t the smooth and clean like instructional videos, it’s fast, hard and anything goes. Mark’s hands lashed out with speed and precisions but even the most amateur fighter might get a lucky break and hit.

           
The difference between their gap in strength was that Mark had augments that accelerated his brain slightly and years of training that made his body react on an almost instinctual level.

           
He yelled as he stabbed people, punched, sliced, kicked, working his way to the beleaguered repulsor gunners. They had the hardest time in hand-to-hand but they were the strongest in the section usually. They could lay someone out in short order.

           
Mark stabbed a colonist in the back of the head, getting them out of the way of the gunner.

           
He recognized the armor and it’s features.