Salvage Marines (Necrospace Book 1) (5 page)

“That’s some knowledge that’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life, thanks, Boss,” piped up Aaron as he lifted his head weakly. Aaron’s face was covered in a fine green sheen, as if he’d dunked his face in pond water and come away with a patina of scum.

“At least you’re still alive to be haunted,” said Patrick as he did his best to smile reassuringly, then to Mag he said, “We’re two flights up, one more flight to go then maybe twenty meters and we’ll be there.”

Progress was slow going, as each marine checked and re-checked their corners, all of them now keenly aware that the creatures could be anywhere, and that someone, somehow, could possibly still be alive inside the hab.

In answer to their silent questions an ear-splitting shriek erupted in the darkness, but it was impossible to tell from what direction it came. It was answered by the staccato pounding of a combat rifle. Suddenly, more inhuman voices rang out of the dark and the sounds of running feet and scrabbling claws could be heard all around them.

“Get up the stairs! I want that security station!
Go! Go!
” bellowed Mag as the squad hustled to follow her orders.

Samuel sprinted up the stairs as fast as his battle armor would allow him. He did not want to get caught in the middle of a firefight exposed on the stairwell, not that the gangplank was much better. The moment he stepped into the open a spinning blade that looked as if it had once been part of a stone-thresher came hurtling out of the darkness toward him. He threw himself to the floor as the blade ricocheted off of the metal girder, throwing out sparks, and clattered over the side of the gangplank.

Samuel rose into a crouch and fired three shots in the direction from which the blade had come, though if he hit anything he couldn’t tell. Ben came pounding up the stairs behind him. As he passed Samuel, the gunner thumbed off the safety switch of his weapon.

Running footsteps scraped against the metal of the gangplank as one of the creatures rushed the marines. Combined shots from both Samuel and Ben pitched its body over the rail.

The bestial screams and gunfire continued elsewhere in the compound and soon Mag, Patrick, and a barely conscious Aaron joined the others on the gangplank. They ran as fast as they could across it, with Samuel in the front sweeping his gun in all directions as he looked for possible threats.

As more projectiles, drill bits, nails, and other random bits of twisted metal pelted the area around the squad, frequently pinging off of the marine’s battle armor, Mag dropped to a knee and reached for her flares. The veteran started igniting them and throwing them in every direction. Some sailed through the air before falling down to land one or two flights below them while others bounced off of units and landed on gangplanks on their level. One even landed on a gangplank above them. As the boss was throwing flares, the rest of the squad was able to see in the resulting red glow, that the hab bloc was swarming with the creatures.

It would only be in the debriefing, many hours later, that some of the marines of Tango Platoon would recall seeing the creatures actually fighting and killing each other, though in the heat of the moment, all any of the marines could see were swarms of hostiles bearing down on them from all directions.

Samuel raised his rifle and fired several rounds through the back and neck of a creature that was crawling towards them while upside down on the bottom of the gangplank above them. Ben swept his heavy machine gun in a wide one hundred and eighty degree arc as he squeezed the trigger and spit hundreds of rounds at the enemy.

Mag pushed Samuel ahead of her, gesturing to what he could see was the security unit as the rest of the squad rushed for the promise of safety while Ben covered their movements with a withering hail of fire. As Samuel ran, his path was blocked for a tense moment by one of the creatures as it dropped down and landed in front of him. Not breaking stride, he put round after round into the creature. By the time he stepped over its body, the hostile was riddled with holes.

Now that they could see the enemy more clearly, Samuel was convinced that these creatures had once been the mining crew. Nearly all of the creatures wore remnants of either environmental suits or Grotto civilian clothing.

Patrick shouted and pointed, revealing Squad Marsters as it fought its way up the stairs from the East. As he did, one of the hostile hurled a spinning blade that slammed into his back. Patrick’s battle armor protected him from being wounded by the blade, but the impact knocked him to the ground. Aaron was too weak to stand and had been using Patrick as support. Robbed of that, the wounded marine collapsed in a heap on top of his comrade.

Aaron rolled onto his back. Even though he was completely blind he clicked off the safety of his combat rifle and started firing single shots down the gangplank in the general direction of the enemy. The hostile wasn’t hit by Aaron’s rounds, but the marine’s sporadic fire distracted it long enough for Mag to put a well-placed round through its skull.

Samuel turned and rushed back to help Patrick to his feet. The two men dragged Aaron behind them as Ben covered the rear and Mag took point. The veteran tried the door and found it locked. Instead of trying in vain to shoot through the security glass, she turned to Patrick.

“We’ll hold here until you cut through the door. Might take a moment, but once we’re inside we can set up a real fighting position.” She raised her rifle to fire on a hostile that looked like it was taking aim with some kind of modified power tool. “Standard issue habs all have the manual emergency generator stored inside the security unit, so if somebody turned it off on purpose we can turn it back on. I’m tired of fighting these guys in the dark!”

Samuel noticed that the flares Mag had thrown were beginning to dim, so he took a moment to hurl two of his own before shouldering his rifle and continuing to fire once more. Ben’s heavy gun clicked dry and he dropped it to the floor, drawing his sidearm even as the red-hot barrels of his gun sizzled against the blood and dust that covered the gangplank.

Squad Marsters finally emerged from the far stairwell and began fighting their way towards Squad Taggart. Harold Marr’s machine gun must also have been out of ammunition, since he had slung it in favor of his sidearm. Other than that, the squad was at full fighting capacity and seemed to have sustained zero casualties.

With the added fire support, the marines were able to drive back the onslaught of the creatures. Patrick gave a shout and backed away from the door as the now molten metal of what had once been the lock slid to the floor. Mag nodded at Samuel and the young man rushed forward to stomp kick the door open as he held his rifle pointed upwards.

Jada Sek, the new recruit from Squad Marsters, rushed into the unit with her combat rifle in a tight grip. As soon as she passed him, Samuel lowered his rifle and rushed inside after her, allowing the two marines to breach the room while having almost all of the angles of fire covered. The maneuver saved their lives, as they were immediately rushed by a hostile that had apparently been waiting inside the unit.

The hostile’s appendage lashed out and jerked the combat rifle from Samuel’s grip even as it body slammed Jada into the far wall. The creature rammed its muzzle into Jada’s chest and began tearing through her armor with its teeth.

Without thinking, Samuel slid his salvage tool from its strap, roaring as he shoved it into the hostile’s body. His momentum was totally concentrated at the tip of his salvage tool and he hit the creature hard enough that despite the blunt edge, he was able to savagely impale it. Samuel held his grip on the tool and stepped to the side, pulling as hard as he could, wrenching the hostile away from Jada and sending it crashing to the floor. Jada stepped forward and screamed as she fired several rounds into the beast.

Samuel and Jada both stood over the body of the creature, breathing hard, captivated by the stained, but unmistakable, Grotto environmental suit that clung to the creature’s warped body. It wasn’t until Mag shouted over the gunfire that the two marines snapped out of it and returned to the fight.

“Hey Prybar! Quit standing around with your mouth open and get the damn power turned back on!” yelled Boss Taggart as she stormed into the small compartment while slotting in a fresh magazine. “We’re running out of ammo out here, so we gotta make our shots count for a hell of a lot more than they are now! Move it, soldier!”

Samuel yanked his salvage tool from the creature’s body and crept further into the security compartment. Jada had loaded her last magazine and covered his advance from a few paces behind him. They were met with no additional hostiles and after a painstaking search through the darkness, illuminated only by the half-light of a flare that Jada had thrown ahead of them, Samuel finally found the manual generator.

In the tiny room someone had written the words, “In Everyone”, using what appeared to be a mixture of blood and feces. Samuel was able to find the primary breaker and worked quickly to activate the generator. His father had shown him a trick or two as a young boy, and thanks to cheap Grotto inventory controls, the old generators that were used in the forges were rotated out into the deep space mining compounds.

No doubt the various engines and generators used by the fabricators and engineers in Assemblage 23, where Samuel’s father had worked until his death the year before, were much newer than this. His father had worked on such machines in his youth, and for all Samuel knew, this very piece could have come from Baen 6.

After several tense minutes of tinkering, Samuel managed to reconnect all of the appropriate valves and cables that had been haphazardly disconnected by whomever had shut down the power all those years ago. The generator coughed several times, stiff from disuse, finally growling to life. The grid indicators began to switch from red to green. The complex began to light up one level at a time, beginning with the first.

Samuel and Jada rushed back to the front of the security compartment to find that the entire complex was now lit up. Track lights and work lamps bathed the entire compound in a dull yellow glow. From his vantage point Samuel could see dozens of the creatures, some on the walkways, others clinging to the walls and ceiling, many of them carrying old mining equipment that had been retro-fitted to function as projectile weapons.

At first the sight of so many of the enemy was intimidating until Squad Marsters and Squad Taggart opened up with renewed vigor at an enemy they could finally see clear as day. Samuel recovered his combat rifle and stepped out onto the walkway to add his fire to the rest of the marines.

As he tracked and eliminated his targets Samuel could see that Squad Ulanti was moving down from the top of the complex, driving the enemy towards them. What had begun as a desperate running battle for survival became a slaughter as the marines mercilessly shot down the creatures.

After a re-supply mission delivered fresh ammunition and with the addition of Magna Platoon as reinforcements, the Reapers were able to rapidly clear and secure the compound.

Bravo Platoon joined them shortly afterwards. While Tango Platoon nursed its wounds, the new platoons spent an entire second standard day cycle sweeping the mining tunnels and eliminating the remaining hostiles. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, they continued to fight back with a primal tenacity and cunning that cost several more marine lives.

The after-action report and final debriefing postulated that the M5597 compound encountered a rare bacterial infection, amplified by the unknown affects of an environment filled with both mordite gas and biridium that directly affected the DNA of the mining staff.

Samuel had thought it was an awfully callous way of describing the transformation of the Grotto employees into rampaging monsters. Judging from the evidence they found in the compound and the tunnels, the welded locks, the lack of power and the various signs of armed struggle, the transformation had not affected everyone at the same time. It was clear that the staff had mutated at different rates, with the entire complex becoming a battleground between the transformed hostiles and the staff, only for the staff to eventually transform and turn on one another after they’d sealed themselves in.

It was unclear how many survivors had escaped the compound aboard the starship. No staff were present in the crew manifests of the Red Listed ship that had been recovered. Their fate would remain unknown.

It appeared Grotto was going to chalk up the complex as a loss and have the entire facility scrapped instead of attempting to re-open mining operations. Samuel left the debriefing having been told that the Reaper fleet would remain in orbit for an estimated two months as the marines switched over from combat duties to salvage operations.

Samuel was perfectly fine with that, having no desire at that moment, to ever take up a firearm again.

It wasn’t until he was back in the compound, after the rush of battle had faded, that Samuel realized he’d left Aaron unattended and leaning up against a wall.

Apparently, at some point during the violent chaos, Aaron had bled out through a deep puncture in his side. Samuel could not recall if he’d had the wound before or after the marine had set him against the wall and that not knowing troubled him deeply. Casualties were to be expected, according to the debriefing administrator, and this was the first hot mission for the Baen 6 Reaper fleet.

Regardless, Samuel could not shake the sick feeling in his stomach.

The marines were housed near the aft of the ship in a series of suites, commonly referred to as “racks” by the people who lived in them. Each suite consisted of two rooms, each room housing a pair of roommates and each block of ten suites shared a single shower and bathroom facility.

Samuel was still feeling shaky and nauseous from the ascent shipside, and though he’d already been to the mission debriefing and had plenty of time to readjust to the artificial gravity of the ship, he couldn’t quite feel at ease.

Twice in one mission he had come close to dying and although he had faced a number of industrial accidents without injury, the prospect of immediate death by violence was new to him. He wasn’t sure how he expected to feel after his first hot mission, but the tightness in his chest and the knots in his belly seemed at once too much and too little. It was as if a pressure was building up inside him that demanded release. Samuel entered his room just as Oliver was leaving, and the marine grabbed Samuel by the shoulder.

“Oh no, you don’t, marine! Nobody just showers and goes to bed their first night shipside after a mission,” Oliver informed him jovially, as he spun Samuel around and pulled the young man along with him back down the hallway, “Especially after your first mission! Time to get a load on!”

“I’m not much of a drinker, Oli,” argued Samuel meekly as he let himself be dragged alongside Oliver. The two men turned the corner and walked down the gangplank towards the mess hall, which doubled as a cantina during the evening cycle. “I’m still kind of twitchy from the fight, you know?”

“Look kid, a few cocktails and you’ll even out, that’s kind of the point,” chuckled Oliver as they entered the cantina.

The room was packed tighter than Samuel had ever seen it during mess hall hours, but he immediately saw his squad mates as they offered up hearty cheer. What they said he couldn’t make out through the din of the other sixty odd voices. Ben saw them coming and waved Samuel and Oliver over to the handful of tables they’d pushed together.

All of the surviving members of Tango Platoon were present, other than Mag, who was no doubt still in the med-bay. Before Samuel could say a word, Jada shoved a shot glass in his hand and playfully pushed his hand to his mouth so he would be forced to swallow it.

The drink was semi-sweet, as if it was distilled from a fruit of some kind, but it burned like fire on the way down his throat.

“To the face!” shouted Jada as she picked up a bottle and poured another round, which she then handed to Samuel and Oliver, keeping one for herself. “We were waiting to toast the fallen until you guys got here.”

Wynn Marsters and Lucinda Ulanti, were sitting next to Jada. Wynn nodded at Lucinda and the veteran stood up as she addressed the cantina.

“Salvage Marines! Form up!”
she bellowed across the room, instantly silencing the other voices.

Samuel watched the bosses of the other platoons and their squad leaders leap to their feet, quickly followed by the rest of the recruits in the room.

“I speak for Tango Platoon,” Boss Ulanti said, raising her glass. “Tonight we drink to the early retirement of Yvonne White and Aaron Baen. They stood by our sides and paid the price so we didn’t have to.” Boss Ulanti swept her gaze across the room and back down to her platoon, “This is the job.”

With that Lucinda and the rest of the marines in Tango Platoon knocked back their shots and again Samuel’s throat burned, though this time not quite so fiercely as it had before. He was still blinking back tears from the stoutness of the alcohol when another boss stood up, one who he did not recognize.

“I speak for Bravo Platoon. Tonight we drink to the early retirement of Max Baen, James Horlick, and Mitchell Sanders. They stood by our sides and paid the price so we didn’t have to.” The unknown boss held up his glass, “This is the job.”

It continued like that until all of the platoons had named their dead, and by the time it was over the shots were going to Samuel’s head and he was thankful for the opportunity to sit down.

The rest of the evening seemed to go by increasingly fast, and as he drank and joked with his platoon mates he found that the tightness in his chest had abated. The knot in his stomach seemed to lessen with each drink he knocked back. Soon he was caught up in the fervor of celebration alongside his fellow marines, and he found he recalled less and less of the horrors of the mission they had completed.

At some point in the night he realized that Jada was kissing him. Though he’d been intensely attracted to her since basic training, not once had he imagined actually touching her. Samuel thought of himself as an honorable man and he’d made a vow to Sura when they’d been married.

However, with his passion inflamed by combat and the fact that he had survived, not to mention heavy drink, the planet of Baen 6 seemed terribly far away. There was a beautiful woman kissing him and she was right there, she was real. Eventually Jada led Samuel by the hand to her suite, and in the darkness of her bunk they made desperate and life-affirming love.

As the morning cycle transitioned into the day cycle Samuel shuffled into the mess hall still shaking the cobwebs from his brain and feeling as if his mouth had been stuffed with cotton. He had awoken in Jada’s bed extremely hung over. His companion from the night before was polite enough, she had made it clear she intended to sleep off her equally powerful hangover and had little interest in conversation.

Samuel entered the food line and the server piled his plate high with powdered eggs, fried protein paste, and several of the strange citrus fruits that smelled as if they’d been the same fruit the booze was distilled from.

He took a seat in an empty corner of the mess hall. At that hour it was not overly crowded. Most of the ship’s crew were already on shift and the majority of the marines were likely still sleeping off the prior evening’s revelry.

Typically, marines were not allowed such luxuries as sleeping in since training regiments were part of daily life, even when in transition between missions. Samuel dimly recalled being told the night before, that the first night shipside after a mission, the combat troops were given a day’s rest to recover, both from their mission and resulting celebrations.

Samuel did his best to fight the nausea as he tucked into his meal, though the more bites he took the better he began to feel. He was in the process of quaffing his third mug of water and his second plate of food when Mag sat down at his table. She too had a plate piled high with processed food, though Samuel could not help but to notice that her left arm was no longer entirely normal.

Mag looked at him and followed his gaze, then grunted and revealed her hand. The entire arm had been amputated at the shoulder and replaced with a crude robotic arm. The quality of the prosthetic limb was appalling, considering the technology of the age, and Samuel’s mouth was agape.

“Yeah, it’s a hunk of junk, isn’t it?” said Mag, understanding Samuel’s look of shock. “The doctors gave me the choice between a model covered by the universal marine triage plan or one of the high end models that I’d have to borrow on my credit line for.”

“No offense, Boss, but I’ve seen better arms on labor droids,” admitted Samuel as he did his best to return to his meal and not stare at the claw-like fingers that clumsily grasped Mag’s water mug. “Is our health plan that bad?”

“Well, this is Grotto kid,” grumbled Mag as she shoveled down a mouthful of eggs, “They don’t get all that imaginative with naming things, so if a plan has the word ‘triage’ in front of it, you can assume it isn’t going to be designed with your best interest in mind.” She shrugged. “This happens all the time. A marine gets some serious combat damage and the choice is a crappy triage treatment or a chance to have the cutting edge stuff. If I’d been willing to take on a ton more debt, I could have an arm that looked identical to my old one, tattoos and all. Or I could have opted for a servo arm that I could mount tools on. The possibilities are as big as your credit line, and a veteran who has been around as long as I have has a big damn credit line.”

Samuel frowned. “I get not wanting more debt, but-” he began before Mag cut him off.

“But, nothing. I’ve paid off the life-bonds of my son and both my grand kids. Paying off mine is just a few pay cycles away,” Mag explained, pausing to take a bit of fried protein paste. “So, as long as I can avoid any more of Grotto’s sneaky little debt traps, I’ll be able to retire in a year or two with enough credits to die in relative comfort.”

“I wish I had things figured out like that. It seems like the longer I do this the more confusing things get, and I’ve only been doing this for a few months,” Samuel muttered as he toyed with the last scraps of his meal. “Everything is upside down.”

“Keeping things confusing is good for the bottom line, that’s part of Grotto’s game, hell, that’s part of it for every corporation, company, and cartel from here to the other side of the universe.” Mag set her fork down and looked directly at Samuel. “Just do your job, don’t sustain any major wounds, and don’t forget for a second that you are completely on your own. To the company you’re just a resource, no different from bullets, trucks, or raw minerals. Keep your head on straight and maybe you’ll walk away from the game with more than you came with.”

Mag got up from the table and put her tray in the receptacle before turning to Samuel.

“Don’t beat yourself up about Jada,” said Mag as she awkwardly clutched his shoulder with her clawed robotic arm, “Everybody knows about it, you two weren’t all that smooth about making your exit.”

“I feel like an idiot and a philanderer,” admitted Samuel, rubbing his temples with his fingers, as if trying to clear the memory of her, however sweet it might have been.

“You are a philanderer, that’s true, but you’re also a soldier, and soldiers fight and die a long way from home. When you’re that close to death, sometimes you need to get it on with someone who knows what you’re going through, just to prove you’re still alive. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, I’m just saying that it happens, and just like a stout drink, it keeps you steady.” Mag began walking out of the mess hall. “I’m sure Jada needed it as much as you did, hell, most of you new recruits probably bunked up last night. It’s just how things are.”

Samuel finished his meal and returned to his suite, his mind swimming with memories of the evening’s recklessness. His roommate, Oliver, was still snoring when Samuel climbed back into his own bunk. With his pen light and a data pad he began to write a letter to his wife, to tell her of his first mission and to express his doubts about joining the marines. However, after nearly an hour of struggling with what to say, he deleted the letter and shut down the data pad. Mag seemed to be correct. Even in his attempts to write down what happened, he found the boundaries of language too limiting to communicate clearly what he was feeling or what he had seen.

Silence, it seemed for now, was the only honest choice.