Masoul (Harmony War Series Book 2) (4 page)

              “The devil himself,” Nerva said, as a flicker of amusement passed over his face.

              “Who?” Harold asked, as he looked between Ortiz and Nerva.

              “Mark Victor, sometimes uses his old nickname, Diablo. He and his brother are both in the same platoon. Gets a bit confusing if people are calling them both Victor,” Ortiz explained.

              “So what’s the other called?” Harold asked.

              “SWAS,” Nerva replied.

              “Serviced with a smile, on account of his good looks and the fact that no one that’s pissed him off should be within ten kilometers of him and his E-12,” Ortiz said, as he looked to Nerva for confirmation.

              “Sounds like a plan, as well as having Jerome on the Repulsor training. They were trained up to Alpha Company standards for Warrants while everyone else slept,” Nerva said.

              Harold nodded. He never met the three, but he heard enough tidbits from the lower ranks to know that there was something to them. With so few survivors from Sacremon, he thought it was just wild tales to give the troopers hope.

              With Nerva and Ortiz’s backing, his interest in them rose a couple notches. He still hadn’t made a decision on them. He would have to meet them first.

              “I also have it on good report that we will be leaving sooner rather than later,” Nerva said.

              “So we should start getting a plan sorted out,” Ortiz said.

              “Quite,” Nerva said, as he pulled three tablets from a drawer and passed one to each of them.

              Ortiz let out a snort of laughter and Harold sighed, taking the tablet anyway.

Chapter 4

             
Westerly Three Complex

             
Earth, Sol System

             
3/3206

              “So, why are we here?” Kova asked. She was the effective leader of the greenhouses in the area, and linked to a number of others. She was the one that Mark and his group needed to convince.

              She devoted her life to caring and growing the plants of her greenhouses. It was easy to tell since dirt was on her hands, and she had an earthy smell to her.

              “My friends have a proposition for you, for all of you - one that could open a whole new door for the greenhouses on Earth,” Quentin said, as he looked to all the gardeners in the room. They looked skeptical, but Quentin had built up his reputation of being a fair businessman.

              They would hear him out.

              “Very well, let’s hear this growing miracle,” Kova said impatiently. She wanted to get back to looking over the results of her Ph testing on the soil sample from Sector five’s greenhouse.

              “Come in,” Quentin said into a comm unit. Kova was getting annoyed with all this smoke and mirrors shit.

              A big bastard walked in. His eyes swept the group in front of him, and assessed them in a way she hadn’t felt since she left her orphanage decades ago. The other shorter man did the same.

              Their hands were down at their sides but ready. The dusters were open, and she could see the smart clothes underneath.

              “What is the EMF doing here?” she asked.

              “This is Mark Victor and Jerome Gomez. I guess I’ll leave this to them,” Quentin said, as he pointed to each before he sat back in his seat.

              “Thanks. First, if any of this is breathed to anyone in the EMF or outside of the greenhouses, we will make sure it is the last thing you say,” Mark said, as his eyes looked over everyone to make sure the threat settled in.

              People shifted uncomfortably and Mark nodded.

              “Good, now this,” he said as he pulled out a data chip and put it on the table, activated it and pulled data from it, “is the holy grail of farming. I’ll give you five minutes to check it over and then we’ll continue talking.”

              Kova was annoyed, but she pulled the files over to her side of the table and started opening them.

             
Holy shit on a stick.
She wasn’t normally a person to swear, but it was hard not to as she went through the information.

              The information contained in the book was decades of research. The implications of such processes could have dramatic effects on growing production as a whole.

              The file suddenly disappeared to the annoyed sounds around the table.

              “Looks like we have your attention then,” Mark said, as a smile formed on his and Jerome’s face.

              “Where did you get this from?” Kova asked.

              “Sacremon, the growing planet,” Jerome answered, as he stepped up to the table and grabbed something from his cargo pocket.

              “We also got these.” He pulled out a bag of seeds and put them on the table.

              “What are those?” Kova asked, as she took a point for the greenhouse managers.

              “These are genetically modified seeds for trees and plants that have ten to twenty times the yield of our current seeds. The ones that form into trees take time. Though when they’re fully formed, they provide multiple kinds of fruits, grains, nuts and beans,” he said.

              Kova’s hands itched to grab them, to plant them with care and see them grow.

              “Even if what you say is true, it will take decades for them to grow,” she said.

              She knew the expense for all of this was incalculable, and she needed to haggle them down.

              “That’s where this will help out,” Mark said, shaking the data chip. “This will help you to grow the trees within the space of months, not years.”

              “So what do you want?” asked Sasha, another greenhouse manager.

              “A tithe of all the profits you make from these resources, your backing, and management when we need it and to spread this knowledge across Earth,” Mark said.

              “How much of a tithe?” Kova asked.

              “Fifteen percent,” Jerome answered firmly.

              She winced on the inside. These might have been slum boys at one time, but now they were troopers. Once they named a price in that tone, haggling was gone.

              “It’s not much when you think about the fact that you will have an increased profit margin of at least seventy percent,” Mark said.

              “What is the management thing all about?” Sasha asked.

              Quentin raised his hand. “I think I can take this one, boys,” he said. Mark and Jerome nodded.

              “These boys are going to be travelling across the stars for possibly a few hundred years. When they come back, there might not be a Westerly three complex and all of us will be long dead. With their investment, they are gaining assurances. They can pass messages to the greenhouses, who can send their orders out to their other industries that they’re controlling,” Quentin said.

              Mark’s face had gone tight as he avoided looking at Quentin.

             
This might be the last time he sees Quentin or any of us,
Kova thought. For once, her heart went out to the young man. She studied him harder than before, and saw the scars on his neck that traveled under his smart clothes. There were more on his hands and face. Jerome had a scar running through his hairline, with scars on his hands and neck as well. They grew up on Earth, and became men in battle.

              “What’s to say our later generations won’t betray them? Or run away with their money?” Kova asked.

              “If they do, then we will take back our assets. There is an EMF station right above Earth, and troopers look out for one another,” Mark said, with quiet violence in his voice.

              Kova thought on the deal, and looked for any major issues. As long as her people abided by the rules, then everything would be okay.

             
Plus we get all that information on farming! And those trees!

              “On behalf of my greenhouses, I accept,” Kova said.

              Mark nodded to her, and slid the data chip across the tables surface. Jerome took a cylindrical storage device and rolled it over the table. She grabbed it and looked inside. There were hundreds of seeds in different sections.

               A contract appeared on the surface of the table. Jerome and Mark’s finger prints were already locked into it.

              “Please finger print this. Every successor you will have will also need to do the same, to ensure there are no leaks,” Quentin said.

              Kova looked over the simple one-page document. There was nothing in addition to what Mark and Jerome said.

              She put her thumb on the surface, and a light flashed over it. The contract was returned to Mark and Jerome.

              “Good doing business with you Ms. Kova,” Mark said, as a smile came to both his and Jerome’s lips.

              ***

              “Mister Costa, it’s good to see you,” Jerome said with a wide smile on his face, as he entered the conference room and moved to the aged looking man. He was about twenty when Jerome left, and he was one of the foremen at the shipping center he worked for.

              “Jerome, my god, boy,” Costa said. His eyes teared up at the sight of him. He grasped him from his seat. They hugged and pulled apart.

              “Oh god it’s been so long,” Costa said. The tears in his eyes welled as he thought of the years that had gone by. His memories of a life - so far in the past - felt as if it was a different one from his own.

              “Yes it has,” Jerome said, as he pictured the strong, healthy and fit Costa he once knew. It was hard to be met with the physicality of how long he was away.

              Costa got himself under control, his eyes still damp with the past. “So Mister Quentin says that you were looking for me for something?” Costa asked.

              “I’ve come into a bit of money, and I want to invest it into the ship building industry,” Jerome said.

              “Don’t aim high, do you,” Costa whistled, chuckling. “You’re not going to get much for the few hundred credits you get as a trooper,” he added apologetically.

              Jerome looked to Mark who nodded, and took a seat. Quentin grabbed cigars and left them to talk, as they did their own reminiscing.

              “We have closer to eleven million,” Jerome said.

              “That’s a good one!” Costa laughed for a few moments. The laughter diminished in his throat as he started to understand Jerome’s look.

              “You aren’t kidding. Damn,” Costa said, as he stroked his beard in thought. “So what were you planning?”

              “We want to start building ships, then lease them out to people in-system. We’ll be getting more money later on to increase its size. Eventually, we want to build freighters. The biggest in existence,” Jerome said, as his eyes lit up with boyish dreaming. Some of it infected Costa’s own eyes.

              He used the table top, sent a few messages, and checked out some back channel areas of the net that dealt with large scale deals.

              He started to walk Jerome through the different things he would need. There were the various contracts and such, overhead costs, the status of yards and factories to contract out, or to buy in.

              They talked about different things for the rest of the day. Mark and Quentin left at some point, and food was ushered into the room as Jerome and Costa saw to building a space-going empire.

              Jerome sent Mark a message in the early hours of the next day.

              They figured out three prospecting yards that they could buy and control. They had a shuttle ride set up in a few hours.

              Costa and Jerome found some drinks, and reminisced about a life that seemed so long ago. Costa had three grandkids now. He lived a healthy and long damned life.

              Jerome told him as little about the EMF as possible. He didn’t want to trouble the old man with the issues of war and survival.

Chapter 5

             
Abandoned yard 3217A

             
Sector 12 of Kuiper Belt, Sol System

             
3/3206

              “This is yard three-two-one-seven,” the chipper pilot and wholesaler Dill said.

             
A human pickle, awesome.
Mark kept his thoughts to himself as he looked out of the shuttle on the massive view screens. They weren’t the small-low expense things of Combat Shuttles. Costa was looking at everything and anything. It was a rare treat to leave Earth’s orbit in a shuttle. His three grandkids were similarly jumping and hopping around.