Salvage Marines (Necrospace Book 1) (12 page)

When the Helion trooper operating the mounted weapon had to stop to reload, Samuel made his move. The two marines made a mad dash across the street, holding their fire until they were very near point blank range. Samuel’s attention was focused on the machine gunner, the Helion trooper going down with holes shot through his back as Samuel approached. Ben’s rail gun whirred and vomited projectiles in a deadly cloud that enveloped the troopers who occupied the nest. Samuel slung his rifle as he ran and vaulted the wall of the nest, trusting that his comrade marine would not only finish off the enemy, but also avoid shredding Samuel in the process. The marine knew that he had to turn the mounted gun on the building as soon as he could before the other Helion force knew what was coming.

Samuel landed as gracefully as he could and reached for the gun to steady himself as he stumbled. As it turned out, the stumble saved his life. A wounded, but still capable, Helion trooper raised a pistol and fired several rounds into the space where Samuel had been only milliseconds before.

Samuel whirled the heavy gun around even as he prayed that the previous operator had chambered the belt fed rounds. His luck held as he squeezed the trigger and the heavy gun belched a salvo of high velocity rounds tearing his adversary to pieces. Samuel then turned the gun on the handful of troopers who had survived Ben’s fusillade and the machine gun turned them into bloody pulp.

Without pausing to release the trigger, Samuel brought the gun up and strafed the adjacent building occupied by the Helion troopers and elites. He found that he was screaming as the rounds blew apart one of the elites and several of the troopers before the belt ended and the gun clicked empty once more. Both Samuel and Ben dove for cover as they scrambled to reload their own weapons.

The marine’s bold move had been noticed by the Grotto forces, and the Reapers took the opportunity to charge the Helion position while the enemy was reeling from the surprise attack. As Samuel and Ben lent their semi-automatic fire in support of the brazen charge the marines could see that the wargir who had been in their combat speeder was with the group.

The Helion forces were routed in short order, only to be cut down by more Reaper squads moving up from within the colony, having taken the interior with vicious street to street fighting spearheaded by the Folken elites.

Mere minutes after the death of Maggie Taggart, the squad rallied at the machine gun nest and held the position as Grotto Reapers and
Folken
elites eliminated the last of the Helion defenders.

Samuel had stabilized Bianca and sent up the call for a casualty recovery when he noticed the wargir sitting on the smoking hull of the Helion battle tank that had died just at the top of a nearby hill.

The wargir waved an invitation to Samuel and the marine trudged up the dune hill to join the mercenary in surveying the battlefield. The fighting was all but finished, and for the first time that day Samuel began to feel confident about the mission.

“Well, uh,” Samuel wracked his brain for the other man’s name. Imago. “ Imago. Looks like we won,” said Samuel off handedly as he sat down next to the mercenary, “Good day for Grotto and bad day for Helion. Can’t say it feels all that victorious though, a lot of bodies out there that belong to us.”

“Hyst Samgir,” the mercenary said, “you must understand that when war is stripped of ideology, all that remains is the simple reality that it is nothing more, and nothing less, than the violent redistribution of wealth.” He cocked his head at Samuel as they sat perched upon the burned out hull of a Helion battle tank. “Anyone who says differently is just trying to lower your pay rate.”

The Errolite mercenary seemed to find humor in his own statement, and chuckled to himself behind his armored mask, which Samuel found particularly unsettling. They remained in silence for a moment, watching as the strange two headed birds of the tundra planet, which according to the fauna/flora briefing were a carrion species called kyracks, began to circle over the ravaged colony that lay smoldering in the valley below. The wargir gestured at the bloody chaos around them with a gauntleted hand.

“To anyone but those who fought and died here, this colony is just a name and a number, perhaps merely a number, in a vast accounting system that tallies inventory, personnel, property holdings, and monetary liquidity.

No matter how peaceful or neutral those who once lived here may have been, their resources were deemed worth the minimal cost for Helion forces to conquer and occupy this place.

Red Listed communities have no rights in the corporate world, and even that world is an illusion, it is the one we all fight for, the one that we, at present, ascribe to. A community with no rights cannot rely on anyone but themselves to protect it, because it exists outside of the system.

Captain Volk determined from our initial recon that the community did, at some point, have a small militia protecting it. Little evidence remains of them, just a few blasted gun nests and a half-slagged mech-warrior that looks to have been older than the colony itself. It must have been a feat of engineering for the colonists to keep it battle ready at all; much good it did them. Helion rolled over their petty militia in a matter of minutes, if our recon was accurate,” Imago said, his voice monotone thanks to the helmet’s modulator, “My point is, that someone, far away and privy to a broader scope of events in the universe than we, determined that this colony was worth taking. Then when this sector became contested space, those same people, or their successors, deemed it of continued interest to the Bottom Line that the colony remain in their possession. On our side, someone else determined that the colony, and the corresponding resources and projected revenues it represents, was worth the cost of assaulting.”

“You’re reducing this whole thing to money, like the bloody hell we just walked through was tantamount to a financial wager between two companies,” argued Samuel, suddenly offended that the strange mercenary’s callous logic reduced the life and death of Boss Maggie Taggart to the cost of doing business. “Like this whole thing is just a balance sheet on some administrator’s desk.”

The wargir’s body registered surprise. “Isn’t it? The events of today are logged, a tally taken of what was expended and what was gained,” he said, “who lived and who died.” He turned his grim visage to face Samuel.

“Eventually that log is turned into a report, which is sent through various chains of command, all the way to the unseen few who manage the Bottom Line. To them, the faceless masters of the universe, the deeds of our lives, be they glorious or vile, are merely data points on a balance sheet.”

“Good people died down there today! Some of them were my friends!” Samuel snapped through gritted teeth. “Your unit didn’t make it through unscathed either! I saw the man with the horns get blown to pieces!” He wasn’t sure why he said it. It felt like retaliation for the mercenaries’ previous remarks.

The Errolite mercenary considered Samuel for a moment from behind his wicked mask. The salvage marine held his gaze, not wanting to back down regardless of how fearsome the man was.

Something in the mercenary’s posture changed and he nodded his head. Reaching up, he unfastened the pressure seals on his dropsuit helmet. After the airflow balanced out he lifted it from his head. For the first time since meeting the strange warrior that morning Samuel saw his actual human face.

Imago had dark brown eyes that matched his skin, though the entire left side of his face was a patchwork of tiny scars, while the right had a serrated looking spiral tattoo that started at his tear duct and curled down his cheek to end at his chin. The mercenary smiled to reveal canines filed to points.

“You misunderstand my meaning, Hyst Samgir, but you are a man of Grotto, so I understand that my words are strange. I show you my face so that you may know me as friend.” His expression softened and he looked once more out over the colony as the birds squawked and descended to feast upon the dead for as long as they could before the salvage marines shooed them away, “When the
Folken
go to war it is because we have accepted a contract and are being paid to fight. There is no ideology at work in our hearts or minds, but a simple contract to be executed.

Those who live and die by the sword, those like you and I, Hyst Samgir, would die of heartbreak sooner than violence were we to attempt to place value judgments on the righteousness of one war over another. The
Folken
have seen this truth, and it armors us against the decay of mind, body, and spirit that plagues all men and women who go to war. We sleep very well at night, my friend, because there is no cause upon which we judge ourselves, only that we were paid and the contract fulfilled.

We rise to make ourselves equals to those who watch the Bottom Line by creating our own and fighting like devils for it.” Imago growled with obvious pride. “This is a hard universe, and the grim tide of war ever rises and ebbs upon the shores of everyone’s life. Even those who never see a battlefield are forever affected by it. Those balance sheets, the Bottom Line, is part of everyone’s life, and has been since humanity first took up sticks and stones.”

Samuel studied the peaceful face before him, no anger, guilt or loss was reflected upon the placid visage.

“When you speak of it like that, there is a poetry to it all, Imago, and thanks for sharing. I mean no offense when I say this,” Samuel nodded to the mercenary in acknowledgement, “But I still do not see the blood and dirt and individual life in your philosophy. I don’t see the man in the horned helmet, or my friends. It all sounds pretty textbook, like you’ve memorized this speech in front of a mirror over and over until you got it perfect.”

Imago nodded his head. He reached into his satchel to produce a slagged piece of helmet that that bore the unmistakable base of one of the horns from the helmet worn by the elite Samuel had seen cut down. Imago stood, and turned the piece over and over in his hands. He looked back at Samuel.

“The men and women who ride with the
Folken
are from many worlds, many cultures, but we when we fight we do so as one people, one tribe. The money is what determines when and where we fight, but once battle is joined, it is our comrades and our families that keep us striving for victory and survival.” Imago’s eyes suddenly moistened with emotion. “When the armor comes off, we are all just human beings. This is why I show you my face to speak with you thusly.”

Samuel watched without comment as Imago turned his attention back to the helmet fragment.

“His name was Costa Sagge. He was a veteran of many campaigns, the father of three children, the husband of two. He lived on a ship that perpetually sailed the oceans of Abzu,” Imago’s voice was solemn and grave, as if reciting an epitaph. He lifted the jagged remnant to his lips and kissed the top of it gently. “His tithe is paid.”

Imago placed the helmet fragment back into his satchel with a degree of finality and turned to face Samuel.

“As you know, the Merchants Militant maintain strict confidentiality when negotiating and executing contracts so that there is little to no direct contact between mercenary operators and corporate employers,” said Imago as he reached into a compartment in his armor withdraw two small data-coins with a symbol embossed on the surface that looked like a skull with a rifle and sword on either side of it.

“Makes sense, given that you sell your services to whoever can afford your rates,” Samuel replied. “I could see it being easy to make enemies out there. Grotto, at least, provides us with some sense of place, an idea of whose side we’re on.” Samuel’s voice was flat, devoid of the confidence in his words he might have felt just a few years ago. “Without the shelter of the corporate umbrella, we’re on our own and no better than the Red List.”

“This is the purpose of the Merchants Militant; it provides us with shelter, of a sort. Though we belong to no corporation or even hail from similar cultures, all registered mercenaries have a reasonable expectation of privacy,” Imago replied. “We arrive, we fight, we get paid, and we leave. There is a simplicity to that which is a shelter all its own.”

The mercenary then returned his helmet to his head and stood up. He tapped a locator beacon on his forearm and almost immediately one of the combat speeders approached the hill.

“Most of us live in the more remote places of the universe,” Imago said, “where we can use our wealth as a shield against corporate interests, to keep our homes wild, our hearts free and our families healthy,” The speeder pulled up near the hill and a hatch opened, revealing several other elites and an empty seat within.

“You don’t worry about being on the frontier? Even Abzu is on the edge of a pretty wild tract of unmapped space,” questioned Samuel as he stood politely to see Imago off.

The mercenary considered Samuel’s comment for a moment, then nodded towards the battlefield below them as he said,

“A philosopher and an economist might speak in agreement that they see the view below to represent both the best and the worst aspects of capitalism. What I see is truth. Two great houses competing for resources, their economic struggle expressed as a military conflict, and crushed between them are the Red Listed colonists.

They probably thought they were lucky to have discovered such a valuable resource, that is, before the tanks and the soldiers. To exist outside the system, but still be subject to its power, is a desperate sort of freedom. The
Folken
are still part of the system, though we live upon its fringes.”

Samuel frowned. “So you’re saying the only difference between your people and the Red Listed is the fact that you still fight for the system, even if you loathe it and keep yourself and your families apart from it,” he snorted. “It doesn’t seem like you hold civilization in much high regard.”

“There is time enough for civilization when we are at war,” replied Imago. ”As long as we are willing to pay the tithe when our times comes, it is a good life.” Imago offered Samuel the data-coins. “Hyst Samgir, each day as a soldier you risk your life. The wise man gets paid as much as he can, as fast as he can, so that he may retire before the tithe takes him.

Your deeds on the field were noticed by the
Folken
and we agree that you and your comrade Takeda Bengir have earned these. A coin for each of you, and once a second is earned, upon any field and by the hand of any wargir, you will be able to seek membership to the Merchants Militant. I hope that one day soon there will be a place for you among us.” He gave Samuel a firm warrior’s handshake. “Until that day.”

The mercenary nodded once to Samuel, then boarded the vehicle without another word. As the speeder rocketed out of sight Samuel could see that many other speeders and various planetside ships were leaving the area en masse.

Now that the hardest of the fighting was done the elite troopers were pulling out. It was the duty of the Reapers to mop up the last pockets of resistance, strip the dead, and begin the clean up and salvage operation. It was the battlefield clean up phase of the process that seemed to tug at Samuel’s resolve the hardest. It was one thing to fight and survive in the furious chaos of battle, but once the combat was over, Samuel found that the violence did not stop. There were corpses, both enemy and comrade, to be looted, cataloged, and incinerated. There would be a multitude of fires to extinguish and untold chemical spills, fuel leaks, and containment breaches.

The Reaper environmental suit was of a very old make and model. Though they were ugly to behold, they were indeed robust in their effectiveness. Over the last four years Samuel had endured a broad range of hazardous materials during the clean up phase of the salvage operation. This colony operation did have its differences however, as this was the first battle in which the salvage marines had been part of a front line action.

Reapers were much like the kyracks, Samuel mused as he watched the flights of birds dart in and out of the battlefield while marines moved through the area. The salvage marines were deployed to the abandoned places of the universe, the decommissioned, the derelict, and the forgotten, to pick over the bones of the remains in the aftermath of battle. It was somewhat out of their scope to be placed on the front line of a trade war. While Reapers were indeed soldiers, they were predominantly salvage workers who had military training and hardware. Their combat effectiveness on the front line paled in comparison to the likes of Imago and his comrades.