Masoul (Harmony War Series Book 2) (35 page)

              “Garcia can help you learn when to get them the hell out of the way during, uhh.
Other
activities,” Alexis said, she and Garcia sharing a smile.

              “Well I’m off to check the gear some more and sort out some damned paperwork,” Mark said, excusing himself. “I should have that paperwork ready for you, if you want to do a fifty-fifty split?”

              “I trust you, sounds good,” Jerome said.

              “Mind you don’t nick your arms with those things, did that so many damned times before I got the hang of it,” Mark nodded to the blades.

              “Thanks, makes them sound so much more fun,” Jerome said dryly.

              Mark laughed and left the cafeteria, he was looking over the rest of the information Madeline had sent him. She had a number of ideas of how to expand, the biggest being retailors of cheap refined materials within Sol. They were making a brisk trade swapping ores for parts at certain manufacturers. They had five yards not just the one and the skeleton hidden in the asteroid belt.

              She wanted to make a fuel refiner to turn some of the asteroids ice into fuel and make a solar farm to cut their reliance on the fuel companies. Though the start-up costs were a decent chunk of change.

              She said that they could make freighters and they’d be good if they went with the standard size. Yet if they went with super freighters, measuring not three or less kilometers, but three or more. They could make a lot more money shifting that freight. Again massive upfront cost and fuel was going to be a pain.

              She didn’t want to have engines and tech from other companies, she wanted to make it in-house. Which meant that reading between the lines she wanted to have a research and development team looking at speeding up the transport and making them a damned sight cheaper.

              She had listed how much the initiatives were calculated to costs, along with projected profits in the twenty to fifty-year range.

              Thankfully the one thing that didn’t need developing was the people. Well they could grow, but they were solid and reliable. Nearly all of them were descendants from the original workers. The additional workers had been pulled from EMF retirees that could stay off the drink long enough to function, then others from Westerly three complex and the greenhouses.

              Mark totalled up the numbers as he got to the armory, he waved his greeting to the bored looking armorer that was reading a book.

              “Hey Joe,” Mark said.

              “Mark, what brings you about these parts?” Joe asked.

              “Just looking for some peace and quiet,” Mark said.

              “My armory is your armory,” Joe said, waving to the racks and getting back to the work of reading.

              Mark grabbed a seat on some ammunition boxes and opened up the accounts tab. He had to use his thumb print with a series of questions and a recording, then it finally opened to show him his earnings.

              He thought the ammunition had exploded underneath him as he looked at the numbers on the screen. The mining business in Sol was a Quadrillion credit mule.

              Mark’s two-and-a-half million credit debt was replaced with a healthy twenty-seven billion profit. The greenhouses had spread their information across all of Earth. Adding a further ten billion to the pot.

              He opened a channel to Jerome, using his new vocal cord implant.

              “That wasn’t long,” Jerome said.

              “Come to the armories, say you need to check your gear and bring your surface. You’re going to want to see this, and come alone,” Mark said.

              “Be there in a minute,” Jerome’s voice became serious, almost anxious.

              Five minutes later and Jerome was in the armories, looking like he’d run the entire way.

              “How fucked are we?” Jerome asked.

              “What?” Mark said, confused, before realizing that Jerome must have thought it was bad news.

              “Open your account and check your numbers,” Mark said.

              Jerome did so, his face grim as he went through the security checks.

              “Holy fuck!” He yelled.

              “Shut up will you,” Mark barked, looking around to see if anyone had heard him.

              Jerome walked over to a bench as if his legs were lead, sinking down onto it. The numbers pulling his eyes into them.

              “Not bad is it,” Mark grinned.

              “You ass, I thought we were fucked in debt,” Jerome growled.

              “Oh well, Madeline wants about twenty-four billion for all of her projects. If we want to get her starting to work on super-freighters then all of it will be gone again,” Mark said.

              “All of it?” Jerome said, sounding almost pained.

              “Well a few hundred million to spare,” Mark shrugged.

              “That’s a hell of a lot,” Jerome growled.

              “Look, we spent ten million and got a hell of a lot more. I say we put our faith in her and see what she can do. Plus a few hundred million is more than enough to do whatever we want when we retire. If we don’t make it back then we aren’t going to be able to spend the money, and who knows how long this campaign will take,” Mark said, sensing that Jerome wasn’t convinced yet.

              “Look we’ve been in the EMF for a hundred and sixty years technically. We’ve been awake for three and a half of those years. We do this now and the next time we wake up will be in four years. We don’t know how long we’ll be in Masoul for. Though if we go straight from Masoul back to Sol it’s still another thirty-six years. In that time, even if the yard doesn’t make these projected earnings, we still have the greenhouses going and they’re expecting to explode with their new project to spread the trees across the system. We get fifteen percent of all those earnings,” Mark said, realizing as he went that they weren’t building a retirement fund anymore, they were building a small empire.

              “You have a point,” Jerome said.

              “I don’t usually like to waste oxygen,” Mark said dryly.

              “Fuck it, let’s do it,” Jerome said. They spent the next few hours going over all the damned paperwork, firing funds off and preparing their own data packages, one for Westerly three complex, another for the greenhouses and one for Madeline Costa.

              “Now let’s go and waste the rest of the day,” Mark said, standing.

              “Sounds good to me,” Jerome said, standing.

Chapter 30

             
Bandit One

             
Shipping Station to Masoul Actual, Masoul System.

             
11/3240

              “This thing is a piece of shit,” Bobbie said. Yu didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the first time Bobbie had said that, nor did Yu think it’d be the last.

             
He’s also not wrong either,
Yu thought, looking at the repairs that had been done to the shuttle. It looked like someone had used a slum to put the craft together, there was space tape holding sections together, the second engine had an intermittent fault, and the inter-atmosphere flaps were tiny, making them all but useless if they were to enter atmosphere at any speed. Whoever had made the thing was a fucking idiot that had never flown before.

              Yu couldn’t understand why someone would use the damn thing. Yet he was stuck with it. Nerva and higher didn’t want anyone messing around with the ship. The fewer people working on it, the fewer messages were passed around.

              Thankfully, Bobby was handy with a welder and Young was gold at soldering. They’d beaten the shuttle into workable shape and fired up the reactors. 

              Their fellows wandered across the hangar. Their armor and weapons were staying on Reclaimer, now they wore dusters, and the weapons of the Harmony hit squads. They were the enforcers of Harmony’s mandates.

              Under their clothes were weapons, hung off of cords, like gangs on Earth did.

              “Welcome to the fucking dumpster hauler,” Bobbie grumbled, getting a few laughs and grins from the troopers. They had all gone to Tyler and Alexis’ wedding. A bit of booze and a good celebration brought people together as few things did. Everyone got into the shuttle, where the whining clunking hydraulics and quiet conversation could be heard from the back.

              “Hey, Yu, Young,” Second Lieutenant Haas said, walking up the few steps to the cockpit and watching the two pilots as they worked their systems.

              “Hey, Jonas,” Yu replied, one of his screens flickering. “Piece of shit,” Yu slapped it to bring it back into focus.

              “I
love
this shuttle
so
much I could bark fucking rainbows,” Young said.

              “You two had caffeine yet?” Haas asked, sounding worried.

              “Yup,” Yu said.

              “Two cups,” Young flashed a smile.

              “Ah, shit,” Haas said, going from worried to an ‘I don’t get paid enough for this shit’ sigh.

              “Yeah, you got it,” Yu said, checking the lights above his head, igniting the engines, and bringing them up to power.

              “Doors are sealed, everyone’s helmets are on and tapped into the O-line. I don’t trust this shuttle at all and we’re going to pump out the air before leaving. Things a fucking shit show,” Bobbie said from the shuttle’s small cargo bay.

              There weren’t any seats so troopers were spread out on the floor, using their duffels to get some kind of comfort.

              Bobbie was checking out the single turret the shuttle had; it was welded into the right side air-lock, making the door useless and it’s range of motion absolute crap. Bobby had improved it some, but it wasn’t anything fancy, or particularly useful, unless Yu wanted to go side-to-side with whatever they wanted to kill.

              “Flight control this is Bandit One, good for depressurization and awaiting clearance for departure,” Yu said.

              “Understood, Bandit One, hangar depressurizing,” flight control said.

              Air rushed out of the hangar and the cargo hold as Bobbie equalized them.

              Haas continued to watch through the doorway as Yu and Young pushed the shuttle off the deck, the sounds of the shuttle falling away as oxygen failed to transmit the sounds.

              The hangars armored doors opened to the black of space dotted with stars from across the universe.

              “Bandit One, you are clear for departure,” flight control said.

              “See you later. Bandit One, out,” Yu said, cutting the channel and heading out of the hangar.

              “Heading on your implants,” Young said. The shuttle didn’t have the interfaces that the combat shuttle had so they were down to using their implants.

              They could fly without, but why work harder when you could work smarter?

              “Looks like we timed it well, the flight deck is opening,” Young said, looking at her screens showing the shuttle’s sensor readings.

              “Morning, troopers. Right now we’re leaving Reclaimer, they’ve reached Shipping Station and are beginning the first landings. Second Lieutenant Young will have a feed up for you if you’re interested,” Yu said.

              “Thanks, boss,” Young said.

              “No worries, Young,” Yu replied, sending his shuttle on its course, and using his implants to watch Reclaimer while its flight deck opened.

              One side pointed towards Shipping Station, the other the black of space.

              Doors finished opening and combat shuttles headed out in their lines, those that came out on the dark-side flipped and headed around.

              More were shot out from the self-contained hangars on the underside and top of the carrier, they looked like blisters.

              Bandit One sped away from the carrier and the combat shuttles.

              The first wave would reach the station in a matter of minutes. Lines of tracers peeled out of the station, and streaks of missiles added to the fray.

              The combat shuttles responded in kind, but here and there a shuttle was hit. Yet Shipping Station’s damage was minimal compared to what the combat shuttles were unleashing. Shipping Station was a big target and their missiles were smarter than probably most people. They had one job, blow up what the co-pilot designated, and they did it well.

              Heavy auto-cannons sheered at the stations hull, and explosive decompression blew entire sections of the station free.

              Auto-turrets’ smaller lines of tracers hit the weapon emplacements head-on.