Sacremon (Harmony War Series Book 1) (50 page)

           
“Have fun?” Mark asked as he turned, changing his direction towards Nerva’s quarters.

           
“Was about to,” Tyler grumbled.

           
A message pinged on Mark’s implants and he pulled it up on the slate he retrieved from his leg pocket.

           
“Seems Jerome’s coming as well,” Mark said sliding the slate back into its proper place as Tyler tried to get control on his hair.

           
“You should just cut that damn mess,” Mark complained as they got to a lift, taking it up towards the area where Majors lived.

           
“I’m sorry I have a sense of style,” Tyler said. “You know what this is about?”

           
“No clue,” Mark answered. Divall got on the lift, looking between Mark and Tyler. Both of them had matured on Sacremon and despite the way they had lived, they’d certainly grown.

           
Mark stood at about two meters tall, his shoulders broad and strong. Tyler was just a few centimeters shorter and had a thinner build than Mark’s barrel chest and powerful frame.

           
They still weren’t the biggest guys on Reclaimer but they were on the bigger side. The hard glint in their eyes that hadn’t been there before Sacremon made more than one person keep their distance.

           
“Figures,” Tyler said. They stepped off of the lift and Mark pulled out a black beret from his pocket, slapping it on his head, he hadn’t worn it for so long it felt odd.

           
Tyler eyed the beret with a thinned expression.

           
“You forgot yours in the room,” Mark surmised.

           
“I wouldn’t say I forgot, but it was definitely not the first thing I thought about grabbing,” Tyler amended.

           
Mark rolled his eyes saluting officers wearing their headdress as they passed, continuing to Nerva’s office.

           
Tyler tapped on the door which opened after a few moments. Jerome was inside, looking as if he was still waking up fully, still wearing the uniform that Mark had seen him asleep in previously.

           
Mark saluted Nerva.

           
Nerva replied the gesture in kind and waved them in. He stood and headed to the chairs and couch on one side of the room.

           
“Take a seat,” he said, taking a chair while the others took a seat on the couch.

           
He looked over them as if delivering an assessment. Mark thought he saw a flash of something behind those eyes, possibly pride.

           
“As of today you are all corporals,” Nerva said, sending the upgrade in rank to them directly.

           
“I thought that we would get the promotion only when we were back from leave so the EMF could save money,” Jerome said.

           
“That is usually how it works, but someone can only jump up two ranks, all of you will be master corporals when you come back from leave.” His eyes had new weight to them as all of them sat straighter.

           
“You showed me that you were capable troopers, you survived what most are going to call one of the worst deployments in recent memory. I for one agree with them.” Nerva sat back in his chair and Mark caught a glimpse of the tiredness behind those eyes. He was away for a moment before returning his gaze to them.

           
“There’s no sugar coating this, we lost a lot of good people down there, too many of them. Right now Reclaimer is understaffed by a large margin, we need people to step up to leadership roles. I put your three names forward as I’ve seen you at work. If you can prove that you’re ready for it, I will be happy to push you up to Sergeant and beyond. There are going to be eyes on you, a jump like this would never happen in a regular carrier. I had to pull some strings for this, you’re representing me as much as anyone else, which is why I want to spend the next two months training. If you don’t want the responsibility or the training, then you can stay as Corporals. The choice is yours,” Nerva said, looking at them with expectant eyes.

           
“I’m in,” Mark replied without hesitation.

           
“I’m with stupid,” Tyler chipped in with a grin.

           
“I’ll take it,” Jerome said.

           
Nerva looked at Tyler letting out an amused sigh that might, just
might
have made the corners of his mouth twitch ever so slightly.

           
“Okay corporals, I’ll be sending messages down the chain of command that you’ve got the week off before we start,” Nerva said.

           
The three took that as their dismissal and stood.

           
“See you in a week, Major,” Tyler said with a grin.

           
“Thank you Tyler,” Nerva ground out the words. Tyler’s grin only grew as they left his office.

           
“Well that was not what I was expecting,” Jerome said, yawning since sleep hadn’t totally left him.

           
“Got any plans?” Mark asked.

           
“Nope, other than taking a shower,” Jerome surmised.

           
“I think I’m gonna go to the mess. I have a feeling that I don’t want to be in my barracks for a few hours,” Mark said, looking to Tyler.

           
“Alexis?” Jerome asked.

           
“Now everyone’s going to know!” Tyler pouted, he couldn’t keep the expression up for very long, breaking into a smile as Mark saluted an oncoming officer on their way to the elevators.

The officer looked confused at the smile as they walked past.

***

           
Alexis got Tyler’s message as soon as she stepped out of the armory and jogged over to his barracks, a smile plastered to her face and butterflies in her stomach. Happy to see him but scared that he might have changed.

           
Seeing the empty bunkbeds around Tyler sent a stab through her heart, until she saw Tyler lying there, his chest rising and falling.

            Mark threw something across the room, startling the man awake and walking out of the door, leaving Alexis and Tyler alone.

            Tyler blinked into consciousness, his face splitting into a smile that made the butterflies swell in her stomach.

           
It’s not easy having a boyfriend in the EMF.
She reflected as she walked over, the two of them hugged one another, looked for injuries, and kissed.

           
“I missed you,” he said into her hair.

           
“I missed you too,” she said holding him tighter.

           
She hadn’t showered in days but she was too tired to care, she laid on his chest, hearing his heart beat. It was powerful, strong and alive.

            Tyler picked her up getting a squeal.

He patted her backside as he carried her into the washroom.

“What are you doing!” She yelled/laughed from over his shoulder.

“Bout time you had a damn shower!” He called out.

“Say I smell!” She yelled hitting his back as he turned the shower on.

“Say I’d like seeing you in a shower all to ourselves,” Tyler retorted, putting her down, that boyish grin on his face as water poured down over both of them. They kissed under the water, pulling one another’s clothes off.

Feeling their bodies touch was electric, goosebumps ran over her skin.  She jumped on him, wrapping her legs around his torso, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, she kissed up and down his neck.

She lowered herself down, heat flooding her as her breath escaped her voice.

Sometime later, a lot cleaner than when they’d stepped in the shower they collapsed on Tyler’s bunk. They put new smart clothes on as the terror, anxiety, and excitement of the last year worked through their systems and they passed out in one another’s embrace.

***

           
A hologram appeared in the middle of Nerva’s quarters of a woman. All of the recording devices in his room were being replaced with a fake feed. Nerva didn’t have to even think of doing it. The hologram in the middle did it for him.

           
“Hello NIDenise,” he said to the hologram, rubbing his arm that turned into a mercury looking sleeve.

           
“Legate Aurelius is not going to be happy. You were supposed to be extracted from the EMF,” she said, not sounding too pleased herself.

           
“Yes but I wasn’t about to let my people die there,” Nerva said with heat in his voice.

           
“They’re not
your
people, you’re a Centurion of the Union, not a Major of the EMF.” Her voice stern.

           
“Yes I know,” he replied.

           
“And your mission is to recruit possible candidates for Roma and her legions. The war with the Maraukians is still being waged behind the curtain,” she said.

           
“I know, but now Reclaimer is going to have the best trained personnel from the EMF crewing it,” Nerva said.

           
“You don’t know if they’ll be the best,” she countered.

           
“I’ll damned well make sure of it,” Nerva’s voice cooled dangerously.

           
“So you get the best carrier around yourself, then what?”

           
“Then I see if they want to try and save humanity instead of killing those that want to live free of the CEO pricks,” Nerva answered.

           
“I see from your readings that I’m not going to be able to sway you,” she said.

           
“Nope,” he said.

           
She might be an artificial intelligence but she had been linked to Nerva’s neural network for so long that she understood human emotions rather well. Especially when she could actually read the chemical balances of his body.

           
Nerva had no children, he had volunteered for the dangerous assignment of being a Legion recruiter inside the EMF. In the time that he had spent in the EMF he had helped more than one man or woman grow into adults. Losing them hurt his very soul as any father might feel losing a child.

           
He had helped transition at least a full legion worth of people from the EMF into the legion’s hands, yet he hadn’t felt nearly as close to that many people as he did with Mark, Tyler, and Jerome. He saw a bit of himself in them, and the way that they had handled themselves made him hope that they could survive their remaining thirty-two and a bit left on their contract.

           
“You are a hard man to look after,” she said.

           
“Well it’s either here or on the front lines of the real war,” he said, there seemed to be no end to conflict, no matter where humans lived.

Chapter 22

           
Landing City

           
Masoul Actual, Masoul City

           
4/3206

           
Agent Alpha-Two-Three-Echo flipped his coat up against the weather. He had spent the last eighty years as an agent on Masoul. There had to be a number of others but he had never contacted them. He was a gateway for Mister Selvra’s messages. Over that time, he had learnt to not only follow Selvra’s orders but to create his own network of feelers instead of relying on the EHC’s network. It was how he had stumbled on the information about the growing religion on Masoul.

           
He came from a low level CEO family, high enough to be a CEO, but low enough to be one of the masses instead of a figurehead. Perfect for the spymaster of Masoul. Also a position he could get away from for a few weeks.

           
He was on the higher levels of Masoul, some of the weather always got in, the wet wind was always a marker of low status on Masoul. Every planet had their own way of showing status. More heat and less wind was Masoul’s.

           
Mark Moretti didn’t mind it.

           
He walked up to a club, tapping on the door.

           
The bouncer, opened a port, their eyes thinning in question.

           
“I heard there’s a poker game tonight, buy in’s five?” Moretti said, looking the man in the eyes with confidence.

           
Moretti thought of ways to kill the bouncer to stay his nerves.