Sacremon (Harmony War Series Book 1) (36 page)

           
When someone knew that they were going to die that energy was hard to beat, until they were actually dead.

           
Mark laughed darkly, his laughter stopping as his blade got caught in someone's sternum.

           
He released it with a note of anger, coming down under he stabbed them in the groin and punched them in the face. They fell backwards as Mark grabbed his pistol and fired into another attacker's face at point blank range.

           
Then Mark found himself on the other side of the colonists, he didn't know how he'd done it, but he found himself looking at the helmeted heads of the rest of the regiment.

           
"You want a fucking invitation?" He growled, turning back, his pistol barking. He used it as a blunt weapon hitting an arm out of the way, he kicked a colonist back, making others fall over, their chest bloomed in red certainty. He moved onto his next target, firing and continuing on through his targets.

           
Troopers threw themselves behind Mark.

           
He came out of it in a haze of reactions and actions. He walked over to the bastard that had taken the knife to the chest. He grabbed it and his helmet. It took a few good smacks to get the HUD working again, even then it was still flickering.

Mark sighed, as long as it worked somewhat he was good with that.

           
Troopers went through those on the floor, shooting those that were still alive. If they were allowed to live, then the CEO’s would make their lives the worst kind of hell imaginable on this side of the grave. Though with religion banned people were supposed to think that there wasn’t anything on the other side.

           
Mark wasn’t thinking philosophically as he cleaned his blades and went to go and find his repulsor and hopefully some damned ammunition for it.

           
“Who the hell are you?” A second lieutenant Xen asked.

           
“Mark Victor sir,” Mark said, confused as to why an officer was asking who the hell he was.

           
“Trooper I want you to stay to the rear with the…”

           
“He’s going to do no such thing Xen, he’s my bodyguard right now and he’s going to check on his brother and make sure that all of the injured get out to the landing zone that is being made on the roof of this tower,” Captain Chen said.

           
“Sir, he just went through those people as if they were nothing, laughing and yelling to my troops instead of listening to orders,” Xen said.

           
“Xen, we’re not the prettiest unit ever and yes Mark is a bit on the wild side, but he’s a damn good trooper to have on your side so I’m going to make sure I have his skills close at hand,” Chen exasperated, his voice heavy as if trying to point something out to Xen.

           
“Sir.” Xen accepted the order but was still confused by it.

           
“Anyway, you and I need to be look to securing the rest of this tower. Bring your troops, we’ll reinforce our holdouts on the fifth floor, get you accustomed with the lay of the land and send you right into the colonists faces. Alpha company will be joining us shortly as well,” Chen said, turning and leaving. Mark trailed after him and Xen. Jerome tossed him a spare E-12. He nodded his thanks and kept up after the Captain.

           
“Mark make sure that Ferguson gets back to the fifth floor in one piece and have him prep the people in medical for transport to Reclaimer if they need it and use the medics of our reinforcements to supplement their own losses.” Chen said.

           
“Sir.” Mark looked on his HUD to track down Ferguson and trotting off to gather him.

           
He found him in a room dealing with the injured from the last attack.

           
“Don’t tell me that you’re injured
again,”
he complained.

           
“Thankfully I don’t have such bad luck that I need to be under your clutches once again. Captain Nerva sent me to get you and anyone else you need prepped so we can get you all the hell out of here.”

           
“Good, one moment and then we’ll get right to that,” he promised, dealing with a few more patients before joining Mark. Sejourdo who had been looking after the medic in the attack also joined them.

           
“The other medics will meet us there and they have their own security details,” Ferguson said.

           
“Good enough for me. I’ll lead,” Mark replied, the walk was uneventful but everyone was alert and looking for threats nonetheless.

           
When they got to the medical facility Ferguson started talking to the medics and Mark looked around the office space, it didn’t take him long to find Tyler’s frozen ass. He walked over to him and knelt down, feeling the seeds pressed against his leg.

           
Well he has a much better chance of getting them aboard than I do.
Mark pulled them out and put them into Tyler’s pocket, while sending him all the information that he’d copied from the CEO’s tower.

           
He checked the vitals of Tyler’s chamber which all looked good.

           
“Alright while Captain Nerva is moving units to deal with the people above us, we’re getting a lift for the sole purpose of moving wounded to the roof. A platoon has already been detailed to clear the top floor and move down. They should be getting up there in a few minutes and then we will know if we are moving immediately or not,” Ferguson said, looking to everyone in the room.

“We should assume that we’re going to be able to move people as fast as possible. I’ll detail out who is to go first and I want two medics per ride, three are to stay upstairs to make sure that the patients’ health doesn’t deteriorate. All of you not medically trained, well you’re going to be used to move the patients. We’re getting more help from the reinforcements in a short while. Now on the first lift I want him, her, her, him, him and him going up,” he said, pointing people that needed immediate aid. “They’re stable but they should be in cryo that we just don’t have right now. I want people on them and ready to move in a moment.”

           
Mark slung his gun and moved to help get the wounded ready to transport.

           
The order came down and Mark helped get the wounded into the elevator, going up and pulling them out before descending again. Ferguson pointed out who was to go and Mark went again and again, the number of people in the room reducing each time. He lost track of time until he was moving Tyler up to the second highest floor.

           
He stayed up there and helped people as they took the ones deposited outside the elevator up through a roof entrance onto the windy rooftop. A combat shuttle swooped in out from the sky. Medics waited on the shuttle as Mark and the others dragged them up onto the ramp and got them secured. It took three more loads before the shuttle’s ramps closed, it fired up it’s blowers, hovering before the engines kicked in and it headed off towards Reclaimer.

           
That was the last shuttle and Mark collapsed against a wall in sheer exhaustion.

           
“Mark I want everyone back down on the fifth floor as soon as possible,” Captain Chen said.

           
“Yes sir,” Mark answered, getting his ass back up. It was like the Captain could acrually sense he was taking a break.

           
He passed the word and everyone got back in the elevator and rode it down to the rest of the regiment.

           
They came out and were greeted by people with food, actual food.

           
It didn’t take long for them to track down the source of the food. They dug in, shovelling the warm meal into their faces and sitting back against the desks.

           
“Everyone get some rest, those that have been detailed positions see that they’re manned. We’ve got fourteen hours of down-time at least. Make it count,” Nerva said.

           
Mark found Pullo, Gupta, and Dolche. Utkin had been hit in the head and should be on Reclaimer already. They were the only four people that had survived from their section and were conscious right now.

           
“Good work lads,” Pullo said before finding a comfortable place on a desk to put his head. Mark laid on the floor, dimmed his helmet and passed out.

Chapter 14

           
EMFC Reclaimer and Growing City

           
Sacremon Actual, Sacremon System

           
8/3169

           
Tyler awoke with the same sour taste he had when he had first come out of cryo. He turned on the table his tongue working against his mouth to wet his mouth.

           
“Welcome back to the land of the living Corporal Victor,” a medic said as they ran a scanner down his chest and abdomen.

           
“You’re going to be sore for about a day, grab some food and rest and wait out for further orders,” the medic said, looking at their pad and moving away.

           
“Wait, where’s my unit?” Tyler asked.

           
The medic paused for a second as if considering telling him what was going on or not. His inner battle was decided with a sigh as he turned back to Tyler.

           
“You were with the fourth regiment right?” The medic said, looking at the pad, flicking through information.

           
“Yeah,” Tyler said the word, unsure if it was the right thing to say or not.

           
“Your unit that landed first got chewed up worse than I’ve seen most units. The rest of the regiment that was sitting in orbit dropped down and reinforced them. They’re all safe now, we’ve got quite a number of your people in here getting medical aid of some kind.” The medics shook his head, looking tired.

           
“Do you know what happened to Mark Victor?” Tyler asked, his voice tight.

           
The medic looked to their pad tapping something in instead of answering right away.

           
That’s a good sign right?

           
“It looks like he’s still down there alive and combat capable,” the medic said.

           
Tyler let out a breath that he hadn’t realized that he was holding, settling back down to the table.

           
“Thanks doc,” Tyler said.

           
You thought some colonists could kill Mark? Fat chance!
He thought with a levity that he didn’t feel.

           
Enough moping around here, need to get food, rearmed, and get back down there.

           
With that he got to his feet and found a bulge in his leg pocket that he didn’t remember. His implants came online and he realized that there was a message waiting for him.

           
“Keep what’s in your pocket to yourself,” Mark’s voice said through his head.

           
Tyler’s hand moved away from his pocket, checking no one had seen him as he quickly moved to his sections quarters, he grabbed a pad, connecting it to his implants so he could see what kind of information Mark had sent him.

           
Why the hell is he giving me all this stuff on plants?

           
He opened his pocket and pulled out a number of seeds.

           
“Well I’ll be damned it looks like Mark wants to be a gardener.” He understood what this could bring to Earth, especially W3C if they were able to get it home, he took the seeds out putting them into a bag and hiding them in the bottom of a lock. He downloaded his implants information onto a spare data-square.

           
He looked around the section’s quarters, memories coming back as he thought of the people that were already dead. He used his pad to check his section and seeing the red writing of KIA over those that had been lost.

           
He looked up as someone came into the quarters.

           
“Utkin!” Tyler said in greeting, his face splitting into a wide smile.

           
“So you got ground up pretty good as well eh?” Utkin said clasping hands with Tyler and taking a seat on what had been Simmons rack.

           
“Yeah, something in my guts, you?”

           
“Something in my head,” Utkin said his expression dark.

           
“Ahh you wouldn’t have lost much,” Tyler said with a grin, getting a dry laugh from Utkin.