Masoul (Harmony War Series Book 2) (32 page)

              “Will do!” Mark said hooking his IV around the shower head.

             
Oh I’m going to be happy to get rid of you,
he thought staring daggers at the annoying bag.

              “You playing euchre? Mind if I join?” Mark heard Jerome ask.

              “Sure, grab a seat, Niemi was just about to go on a hot date,” Dominguez said.

              “Yep, gunner from Charlie, the tongue on him, hot damn!” Niemi said.

              “Have fun!” Tal called.

              “Oh
I
will,” Niemi answered, the sections door opening and closing.

             
And to think she was so shy when she started in this section, what happened!
Mark let out a laugh as unbidden memories of the others in his section rose up in his mind.

              At one time they had been strangers, training and shooting the shit with one another had turned them into people willing to lay down their lives for eachother.

              Silent tears fell down his face as he showered.

              ***

              Nerva heard the knock at his door, his implants telling him that it was Tyler.

              “Come in,” he said, a flick of his wrist clearing the latest report from his view and focusing his icy blue eyes on Tyler Victor who marched into the room, coming to attention and saluting.

              Nerva returned the salute but left him at attention as he looked over the newly minted Sergeant.

              His shoulder bearing the two lines over a dot that denoted his rank.

              “The
fuck
were you thinking?” Nerva asked, seeing Tyler’s attempts to hide his wince.

              “I...” Tyler started.

              “We both know what I’m talking about,” Nerva said, cutting off Tyler’s possible actions to derail the conversation.

              “I fucked up sir. I saw that my section was in a good position. I knew that they would be fine and let my emotions carry me,” Tyler admitted, his jaw firming up as he continued to burn a hole in the wall behind Nerva.

              “Your section might have been in a good position, but losing their leader in the middle of a firefight isn’t going to be of much use if that situation changes.” Nerva held up a finger, making Tyler pull back the comment forming on his lips.

              “We both know how quickly a battle can and will change. Yes, you might have a good section, but they need a leader to have their back and be on track,
not
someone that’s going to run off if his girlfriend is in danger,” Nerva said interlacing his fingers.

              “Yes sir,” Tyler said, his tone making it clear that Nerva’s words were hitting home and his answer wasn’t just rote response.

              “See that it doesn’t happen again, if I have to have this conversation again it will be inside the ring and I’ll be pulling those lines from your shoulder,” Nerva said.

              “Yes sir,” Tyler said, swallowing hard.

              “Now get out of here and apologize to your section and report to Second Lieutenant Haas,” Nerva said sitting back in his chair grabbing thin air and pulling it up, the report he’d been looking at before Tyler entered appearing in his vision again.

              Tyler turned for the door and walked out.

              The door closed as Nerva let out a sigh, rubbing his temples.

             
“It’s even harder when you care for them. Aurelius is asking for you to return to the Legion again. He says that you’ve been in the EMF too long. Other recruiters are now within the EMF and capable of taking up your job. With General Wai now looking to grinding down you and your Division it’s just harder. I agree that you should also fake your death and extract,”
NIDenise said.

             
“What about the new recruits?”
Nerva thought-spoke.

             
“Over three hundred Legion recruits are aboard the stealth shuttles and moving for the freighter,”
NIDenise said, understanding that for now Nerva was closing down that particular conversation.

             
“Captain Harold?”
Nerva asked.

             
“He’s alive and well, not too happy about the way he was extracted, thinks that he could have saved more people if he was still alive,”
NIDenise reported.

             
“He’ll do well in the Legion, they need more people like him to win against the Maraukians. Even though Ortiz has agreed to join the Legion I need him where he is for the next little bit, Demar and Shultz are new to their positions. Until they get some more seasoning Ortiz is going to need to stay where he is. When it comes for him to be extracted he’s not going to be happy at all. That man lives for his people,”
Nerva said, which was a big part of why he had taken a risk on the Captain when he had just been a Lieutenant.

              The other recruits were picked by the three other recruiters across
Reclaimer
. Nerva had been doing this for much longer, he could pick out people that would join the Legion within the initial meeting.

              Hell he was grooming Mark, Tyler, Jerome and his entire Division to join the Legion, but he was careful about who he picked. A few he had Chosen had flipped out at being pulled from the EMF, thinking that they betrayed those they left behind, that made them next too useless.

             
“For now we focus on destroying Harmony, with the sleeping-carriers coming into battle the Legion will be getting more recruits than ever before. Aurelius needs me right where I am whether he knows it or not. I’m in the perfect position to fake deaths and get people funneled into the Legion. Now when’s my next meeting?”
Nerva asked.

             
“Ten minutes, Mark is hobbling up here,”
NIDenise said.

              “Good,” Nerva said out loud, finding where he had left off on the report and continuing on.

              ***

              Mark saluted and hobbled his way through officer territory to Nerva’s door.

              “Come in,” Nerva said before he knocked.

              He opened the door and walked in, trying to hide his slight limp. He came to attention.

              “Sit down,” Nerva said before he could salute.

              “Thank you, sir,” Mark said, shuffling into his seat and stretching out his leg which was going through the pins and needles stage.

              Nerva waved the sir away and reclined in his chair, making it clear that this was a relaxed conversation.

              Mark in turn relaxed in his chair, shaking his leg.

              “That treating you alright?” Nerva asked, pointing through his desk at Mark’s leg.

              “Yeah just takes time as you know,” Mark said.

              “Wonders of medical science,” Nerva said, pausing as if wondering how to continue on.

              “First of all I know that it was probably hard for you to ask permission to go after Tyler, but it needed to be done. Making sure Jerome stayed and electing to have someone take over yours and Tyler’s command slots was also well done,” Nerva said, holding Mark’s eyes.

              Mark fidgeted, not one to take praise easily.

              “Thank you sir,” Mark said.

              Nerva knew Mark well enough to tell when the big man had a question.

              “Spit it out,” Nerva said.

              “Are you breaking up the platoon, I know we’re under-strength and it would be best to use us to patch gaps in other units,” Mark said.

              Nerva toyed with the idea of letting Mark wait until the meeting with his platoon later.

              “No you’re not, instead because of your size and new orders you’re staying together.” Nerva raised a hand to forestall questions for a moment.

              “Second Lieutenant Haas has the details, you’ll get it all from him,” Nerva assured him.

              “Thank you sir,” Mark said.

Chapter 28

             
Tower

             
Earth, Sol System

             
11/3240

              Nivad was going through the latest messages from the agents in Masoul while looking over the footage of the Extractors.

              The viewership was the highest ever, people that weren’t even CEO’s were streaming it in bars and other places to watch the EMF kick Harmony fighter ass.

              Nivad had a whole new viewer package created for the duration of the conflict, it was cheaper and gave less views, but it allowed more of the masses to gain access to the feeds. People from across Earth and Her Colonies were watching the EMF put Harmony down.

              He flicked his personal account out of view, he had already made more money than most planets made in a year.

              His best agent in Masoul wasn’t pleased with the operation he’d ordered, but they would carry it out.

              Nivad wanted this fight to go smoothly, Harmony outnumbered the EMF in the system by nearly thirty times. There was four and a half million of them on Masoul Actual. Most had been indoctrinated since Harmony took over thirty-five years ago.

              All they knew was how to fight and follow orders.

              Nivad’s agent was good at getting technical details and was still weeding out who Harper was getting his orders from, but he didn’t have a clue about military matters.

              So Nivad was going to have a few military personnel insert themselves into Masoul Actual. It was the task of the Agent to get them sorted out and let them go snooping for information that the carriers would need.

              “Ahh Harper, you annoying enigma,” Nivad said as for the first time he saw Harper’s face, the picture wasn’t the best, taken from a recording but with three other views Nivad parsed together to resolve it into a clearer shot.

              “Run facial recognition, all systems, excluding Luyten, Earth, and Masoul,” Nivad said.

              That was nearly two-billion people it would take a few minutes.

              While it ran he looked over the progress reports on the new scout ship that had just completed the blue-print stage. The hull and the heat sink system were new to keep the ship undetectable.

              The crew selection was already underway with Wallace working on the project it would be completed as fast as it could be. The ship would head out towards the systems that had been left as an enigma past Luyten.

              He would find out what made EMF carriers vanish and why there was a ban against all attempts to colonize the systems over there.

              It was too much of a question mark to not look into.

              The search pinged a result, Nivad looked up from his surface to the screen that dominated his wall, seeing the face of the same man entering a deep-space freighter some seventy-four years before.

              He sent the file off to Dalia, with instructions to find out what he had done before getting on that freighter.

              Then he looked to the communications records from the communication system, looking for any and all messages to Osdal. There were three from CEO’s talking about different traders. Nivad copied them to Dalia asking her to have code crackers over them.

              In his gut he knew they weren’t the messages he was looking for, which made him curious.

              How the hell was Harper talking to his masters if he wasn’t using the FTL systems in Masoul.

             
He’s using his own somewhere else.
The thought made a smile spread across his face as he searched for extra relays in other systems.

              He didn’t find any but he didn’t expect to.

              The FTL network worked because it was untraceable, stealth satellites fired their messages to the hidden in-system relay which then fired FTL particles at identical receiver-transceiver models in another system which shot out the messages through a similar laser-satellite network.

              They were untraceable, but they had to be deployed somewhere and they weren’t going to do that themselves. A ship had to drop them off. The crews that had dropped off the original FTL relays were long dead, Nivad was the only person that knew all of their locations and how to find them again.

              He brought up ship manifests searching for ships that had a slow transit and didn’t have a full hold heading to Masoul.

              There were hundreds of results, he added in extra search filters until he came to one ship, going from Osdal to Masoul.