Sacremon (Harmony War Series Book 1) (43 page)

           
“What’s the plan?” Mark asked.

           
“Starve them out,” Ferguson said flatly.

           
“Well that doesn’t sound exactly fun,” Mark said, sinking into a squat.

           
“No it doesn’t, there were canisters of the stuff you ran into in Vine City, it’s being brought up. The techs are figuring out a way to drop it onto the enemy to help speed the process up. Any food will be covered with it. We’re immune so it won’t affect us,” Ferguson said, seeing Mark’s look of concern.

           
“You don’t exactly sound
pleased
with the idea of using their own weapons against them,” Mark said, wondering why Ferguson wasn’t happy about the fact that it looked like their time on Sacremon  was going to become a hell of a lot easier.

           
“There’s about a million of them, say that half of them survive the gas, they’re going to be angry. They’re going to be living in their breathers and full coverage suits, they’ll have to check all of their food, water, everything. Anger is going to turn into blinding rage. Then it won’t matter, they’re going to charge us, the only way to get out of this hell they’ve made is through us. Say by the time they snap there’s three hundred of them, that’s being optimistic, that’s six times our numbers!” Ferguson said, waving his hands to emphasize his points before they sank into his lap.

           
“I thought that Reclaimer had nukes, cannons and turrets, wouldn’t that mess them up before they got to us?” Mark asked.

           
“Yeah, but processing is the most valuable city on this entire planet. It is the centre of it. Every road and path leads to this city. This is the hub of the planet, the amount of money here numbers in the trillions, losing this would put Sacremon back decades. We also only got a contract to break so much stuff, the more we break the less the EMF makes off of the contract,” Ferguson said.

           
“Fuck,” Mark said.

           
“Yeah exactly. Pissed off CEO’s means pissed off EMF, which means pissed of generals and the proverbial shit falling down hill,” Ferguson sighed and then seemed to pull himself together a little. “Oh yeah, Nerva wants you to see him, there’s a new set of clothes and armor there.” Ferguson used his chin to point to the pile of items, standing.

           
“Thanks,” Mark said.

           
“Try to keep yourself in one piece more often,” Ferguson said with a note of concern.

           
“I’ll try.” Mark flashed a rare smile.

           
Ferguson snorted and walked off to see to his other charges.

           
Mark quickly dressed, feeling gross because sweat permeated everything, the salt in it making him feel grimy. He pushed the thoughts aside. He might be nine kinds of nasty but keeping Nerva waiting was not an option, and being out of armor felt odd.

           
He clipped the last piece of armor into place a few minutes later, it’s comfortable weight settled into position as he pulled his helmet on, he found Nerva soon enough, Tyler was with him as well as Jerome.

           
Everyone else except Tyler was dead from his section. Jerome was the only survivor from his section now.

           
He grabbed his rifle and clipped on the awaiting ammunition pouches. He checked the rifle as he walked out of the room. Everything looked good on it. He jogged towards Nerva’s position, hoping that he would have at least some time where he didn’t need to use his E-12.

           
Following Nerva it’s better to bet that I will be using it.

           
Nerva was talking to an officer, Mark joined with Tyler and Jerome.

           
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Jerome said. Tyler reached out his arm and Mark tapped it. Neither of them were in the mood to slam shoulders together.

           
“Thanks, what’s going on?” Mark asked.

           
“We’re going on a little road-trip for a briefing with Major Huang, he got hammered pretty good but he wants to talk to Captain Nerva and the newly minted Captain Ly before he gets shipped back to Reclaimer,” Jerome said, a mix of annoyance at having to make the trip, but also respect for Major Huang actually sticking around for it.

           
Captain Nerva walked over, he looked like the rest of them, aged beyond his years, hard lines framing his face. His armor was scarred and worn, his face and hair were dirty but he had long ago forgotten about that.

           
“Good to see you back on your feet,” he said to Mark.

           
“Same sir,” Mark replied, nodding to the Captain. He saw the weight behind those eyes and the question in that simple statement. Nerva was asking if Mark blamed him for his injuries or the loss of the rest of his section and two sections worth of people.

           
But Mark couldn’t really blame him for it and he was starting to understand why Nerva had sent Alpha company to recon Growing city instead of helping out the rest of the unit. Knowing the weapon emplacements and the information they knew about the enemy and that information being given to the next wave of troops was more important than the lives of those that were on the ground.

           
It was simple but bloody math, if they had Alpha fight with them then they might have held their tower, with their information Nerva knew that the next wave could come in and take the city.

           
Nerva nodded recognizing Mark’s support, he leaned against a wall and took a drink of water, his icy expression tired but not beaten.

           
“So I assume these two told you what’s going on?” Nerva asked.

           
“Yeah, were taking a little road trip,” Mark said.

           
“Yeah, we’d best get a move on.” Nerva pushed off of the wall, his face hardening as he walked, he stored his water, and put his helmet on while checking his rifle.

           
Mark and Tyler were on both sides of him as Jerome took up the rear with his repulsor.

           
Everyone sealed their helmets and got to the edge of the factory.

           
“We have reports of sniper fire so we’re going to do some running. Hope you can keep up Jerome,” Nerva said, making a jab at the man’s shorter stature.

           
He didn’t give him time to reply as he took off. Mark and Tyler followed. Mark ran ahead, Tyler and Jerome behind Nerva, in that order.

           
No one so much as took a pot-shot at them as they made it to the next factory in district six.

           
They were breathing heavily after that run but Nerva kept moving forward to the medical area where Major Huang was.

           
The Major looked bad, his body looked to have been melted down one side and was hooked up to a face mask. He had a bag of drugs connected to his arm.

           
Nerva walked up, nodding to Captain Ly that was already waiting. The Captain looked apprehensive and unsure, but ready to do his duty.

           
Mark, Jerome, and Tyler stayed outside of the medical area, not wanting to get in the way of anyone. They found a place to sit and Mark pulled off his helmet and packed a chew into his lower lip, there was an area he could spit in his helmet and the helmet would recycle it out. It was made primarily if the user vomited in their helmet so they didn’t drown in it. It worked great for chew spit too.

           
“Mark?” He heard a somewhat familiar voice from a trooper.

           
“Yeah?” He asked, looking for the person’s nametape. They pulled off their helmet, blonde hair falling out of it.

           
“Alexis!” Tyler said, standing and pulling off his helmet.

           
Her face split into a smile and her eyes seemed to sparkle as the two of them embraced.

           
Jerome looked to Mark.
Am I missing something?
His eyes seemed to ask.

           
Mark waved him off and leaned against the wall.

           
Jerome nodded in understanding, pulling off his helmet and pulling out a cigarette.

           
“I heard that the fourth got pretty fucked up in Growing City,” she said a note of concern in her voice.

           
Mark nodded, his eye going bleak as memories tumbled through his mind.

           
“Yeah it was pretty bad,” Tyler said, finding a seat and bowing over, clasping his hands together. Alexis took a seat beside him, her hand falling on his leg. He smiled to her and leaned back.

           
“How was your trip down?”

           
“I came down in growing city with almost everyone, we cleared out the separation areas in Fields, where were you?” She asked.

           
“We cleared the fields and took the housing units,” Mark said, he saw the look of shock on her face.

           
“Fuck, you guys went through a grinder and a half,” she said, the housing units had been a nightmare with the people making fake walls and all kinds of modifications and booby traps to kill troopers. There had only been twelve or so towers, none of them higher than forty floors but they had been worked on a hell of a lot more than the towers in Growing City.

           
“Yeah,” Jerome said, clearly not wanting to talk about it.

           
“So what are you doing here?” She asked, quickly trying to change the subject.

           
“We’re guarding Captain Nerva, he’s talking to Major Huang,” Tyler said.

           
“You have any idea what we’re going to be doing?” Alexis asked.

           
“We’re going to use their own weapons on them and hopefully keep them in the city when they try to counterattack,” he said after no one looked to have much of a clue.

           
“So we get them to come to us, simple I like it,” Jerome said with approval.

           
“Yeah, all one million of them,” Mark said with disapproval. “Ferguson said that the hope is that the gas will kill a bunch of them, it will get on their food and make it harder for them to live. I think the higher ups are hoping that the gas just kills all of them. It won’t and when they see that there’s no option but to attack us, they’re going to smash into us with all the anger of caged animals,” Mark said, annoyed he spat on the ground and shook his head.

           
Nerva came out of the medical area, Tyler, Jerome, and Mark shot to their feet, ready to be moving.

           
Nerva’s eyes might have glanced from Tyler to Alexis for a few moments before he looked to them all.

           
“We’re going back; we’ve got preparations to make,” Nerva said.

***

           
General Orlav looked at the videos again, the troopers had taken losses with the counterattack but they hadn’t been totally unorganized and their weapons were made to inflict the most damage possible.

           
He’d had his weapon emplacements moved and opened up the roofs of the corridors so that the troopers couldn’t just run over them again.

           
He had been expecting the EMF to press an attack as soon as possible but now they were sitting in the second tier of defenses. He hadn’t been able to get much information on the activities of the troopers but from long-range scopes it looked like they were building defenses.

           
He had a year’s worth of food stuffs so he wasn’t worried about that. Though they had to know that he had that kind of supply packed away.

           
They could be settling in to stay out there for a year. Though everything I’ve read makes me think that they’re doing something else, they hate waiting around.

           
He looked to the tunnel map and his face turned dark, the EMF had moved into those tunnels and advanced far enough that he had to close them off. They’d hashed together what looked like shields and advanced, one holding the shield while another shot through a port cut in it.

           
It had started in district seven and spread.

           
Whoever is in District seven is being a royal pain in my ass.

           
“Something the matter General?” Sylvia asked.

           
“I’m just wondering why the bastards are digging in. They’re damned good offensive troops, we’ve seen that and the EMF isn’t known for sticking around longer than they absolutely have to. So I have to wonder what the hell they’re planning on doing,” Orlay said.