Salvage Marines (Necrospace Book 1) Read online

  As Samuel swept his rifle through the gloom of the corridor he found himself wondering if it might have been better to be a legionnaire. At least then he would have bio-implants to make him faster and stronger, an armored dropsuit, and access to the most impressive and deadly of armaments. However, he told himself, instead of prowling the dark corridors of mysteriously abandoned mining facilities in the middle of necrospace he would be in the middle of a firefight with enemy soldiers who were just as powerful as he was. Samuel was a pragmatic young man, and had been raised Grotto from birth, so as the seconds ticked by he considered that his pay-per-minute as a marine was the better choice for a family man.

  A sharp scream that could not have been human filled the corridors, and Samuel’s blood felt like it had turned to ice. Suddenly the unknown of an alien threat seemed much more intimidating than fighting other humans.

  Samuel had always heard stories and rumors of inhuman creatures that stalked the forgotten corners of space, and there were always tales of ancient aliens who ruled the frontiers of necrospace. Like most people, he had ignored them, though in that moment, there was no doubt in his mind that monsters were real and that one was inside the dark compound with them.

  “Tighten up people, this is what you’ve been training for,” muttered Mag as she held a fist up for the squad to stop, “This is a big place, sounds like that could carry serious distance, whatever it is could be on the other side of the compound for all we know. Aaron what’s our position?”

  “The rig says we’re only about two hundred meters from the central quarters, Boss,” said Aaron as he checked the data-deck affixed to his forearm which contained all of their mission specifics, including maps of the facility and last known inventory lists. “Could be that whatever it is came in through the tunnels on the far side of the compound.”

  “Squad Ulanti entered on that side. With all the atmospheric interference we aren’t going to hear anything from them until we’re face to face,” grumbled Mag as she lifted her rifle and continued forward, “Keep it together, people, let’s breach the compound and get out of these freaking tunnels.”

  The squad began to move forward again and Samuel, who was bringing up the rear, could not help but turn to peer down the corridor behind them. He was astounded that the three other marines, raw recruits just like him, seemed so unshaken by the scream. Mag, as a Reaper veteran of at least ten years, he could understand, but the certain knowledge that something was in here with them, something not human, had rattled him to the core.

  Suddenly, the combat rifle in his hands provided less assurance than it had moments before and checking the ammunition read out did little to steady his mind. He stood there, looking into the darkness and could almost swear that he could see shapes moving in the black. The illumination from his mounted light seemed to be swallowed by the pitch darkness of the corridors and just beyond the edges of his sight he felt a menacing presence.

  “Hyst, snap out of it, man,” said Ben, as he gently shoulder checked Samuel with his own, “Let’s get top side.”

  Samuel shook his head and turned to face Ben, “Just getting a little tight in here, first time jitters maybe.”

  “You and me both, brother,” grunted Ben as he hefted his heavy machine gun and turned to follow the rest of the squad, “I don’t know what I expected after signing up, but it certainly wasn’t this.”

  The squad kept moving forward, though their progress was much slower than before, as everyone, including Mag, were on edge and keenly aware that they were not alone. Everyone was exacting in their corner awareness, and Samuel observed from his vantage point at the rear of the group that the effects of their training were beginning to take shape.

  During basic, it was very difficult to maintain muzzle discipline, and recruits often would find themselves in the hot box for accidentally pointing their weapons at each other during maneuvers. Here, in the dark mine shafts, with an unknown enemy lurking, the recruits had locked in.

  The squad had pushed through another uneventful hundred meters when the hair on the back of Samuel’s neck stood up and his heart suddenly began inexplicably pounding in his chest. For the first time in his life, Samuel understood what it was like to be in real danger.

  His mouth tasted like he’d gargled with aluminum shavings, and even though the air he was breathing was being cycled through his helmet’s respirator, it smelled suddenly sour. He reacted to the sensation by spinning on his heels, dropping to one knee and slamming his rifle to his shoulder.

  For a split second his mounted light shone upon the pallid skin of a nightmare.

  It was humanoid and stood upright, but he couldn’t tell if it had arms, legs or tentacles for appendages. The head was an awful oblong shape that made him want to retch. The eyes burned yellow and by the time it opened its mouth to reveal a sickening maw, Samuel had opened fire.

  The marine screamed in a mixture of fear and survivalist rage as he thumbed off his safety and began pounding rounds into the corridor. The creature was blindingly fast, melting into the darkness before Samuel could confirm he’d hit it at all.

  “Check your fire and confirm target, marine!” bellowed Mag through the com-bead as the rest of the squad swept their mounted lights across the multiple passages, the standard defensive posture for unknown assailants.

  Samuel released the trigger and took a shaky step backwards, only to bump into Ben’s shoulder. The gunner was standing perfectly still, facing the corridor down which Samuel had been firing.

  Even through the dull red glow of his helmet’s internal lighting system Ben’s face was noticeably pallid. Both men continued to look down the corridor, but their lights revealed little beyond the crude metal walls and the fresh bullet holes where some of Samuel’s rounds impacted.

  “Confirm target!” Mag demanded once more from the head of the column, having stopped at a t-section as she briefly looked over her shoulder at the marines filling the corridor behind her.

  “Humanoid hostile,” uttered Ben in a shaky voice, his machine gun tracking back and forth, as if he expected the creature to leap out of the darkness at any moment, “Humanoid hostile.”

  Samuel fought to control his breathing. After several deep and steady breaths he was able to stop his body from shaking in the adrenaline aftermath of the encounter.

  No longer paralyzed by his own fear, the young man checked his safety and read his ammo count to see that he’d expended eleven high velocity shells. As much as he wanted to swap out for a fresh magazine he could not bear the thought of having an empty weapon even for the few seconds it would take to change the mags.

  “I didn’t get a good look at it, sir,” said Samuel as he found his voice, “Yellow eyes, lots of teeth, possibly multiple appendages.”

  “Copy that,” said Mag as she turned back to the t-section and hefted her combat rifle, “Lock it up, people, this is what we’re paid to do. A multi-million credit mining compound doesn’t go dark on its own. You see anything that’s not a Reaper, you frag it.”

  When Mag stepped into the open passageway of the t-section a hostile burst from a panel in the ceiling and lashed out at her with an undulating limb as it descended to the floor.

  The only person to see it happen in full light was Aaron Baen, who stood behind Mags in the formation. To him, the extremity looked like a barbed whip that bit into the shoulder plating of the boss’s armor.

  Mag went down as the blow sheared off several pieces of body armor and sent a spray of blood across both Aaron and the wall adjacent. The creature landed, effortlessly absorbing the impact, then sprang forward to pounce upon Aaron even as he brought his combat rifle upwards to meet the threat. The creature’s jaws widened and it drove its muzzle toward Aaron’s face, smashing through the faceplate of the helmet while the whip-like appendage raked the marine’s chest and thigh.

  Aaron’s vision blurred instantly as his helmet depressurized and the caustic micro-particles that filled the air of M5597 assaulted his eyes. Rele
asing its jaw’s vice-like grip on the helmet it shoved closer in an attempt to clamp down on the meat of Aaron’s face.

  Before the hostile could find purchase, Aaron squeezed the trigger of his combat rifle and blew out much of the thing’s torso at point blank range. When it reared back from the blast, Patrick smashed his boot into the side of the creature’s head to force it off of Aaron’s ravaged body. The wounded marine dropped his gun and collapsed as Patrick took a step forward to check on Mags.

  More screams erupted from multiple passageways, and the marines knew they were surrounded.

  “Takeda, hold rear guard position! Patrick on me! Hyst go medic!” shouted Mag as she scampered backwards until her shoulders touched the far wall of the t-section, then she gathered her legs underneath her to rise into a crouched firing position.

  No sooner had Patrick leapt over Aaron and joined Mag, than more hostiles began to appear.

  The first of them launched itself from the darkness with an inhuman scream as it sprinted down the left corridor of the t-section towards Mag and Patrick, a second one closed in from the opposite direction.

  Mag held her rifle steady as best she could despite the deep gash in her shoulder and began firing. The first several rounds went wide until the creature came close enough to strike her again with its barbed appendage. The veteran was able to adjust her aim to compensate for her wound, punching eight rounds neatly into the creature’s chest. The first few rounds slowed its momentum and the rest knocked it backwards until it fell to the ground.

  Patrick panicked and toggled his rifle to full-auto, pouring firepower down the corridor into the oncoming assailant. His salvo shredded the creature, but as his rifle clicked empty the fallen creature collapsed to reveal a second that had been shadowing it. Patrick took a step back in horror as he fumbled to reload.

  “Boss, I’m out!” he shouted as he ejected his spent magazine and rushed to slot another.

  Mag groaned with pain as she swept her rifle in a wide arc to point it at the oncoming creature. She kept the gun high so the muzzle didn’t cross Patrick, though it cost her dearly in pain, so much so, that her vision blurred. The veteran squeezed the trigger and fired her last three rounds, not knowing if she’d hit the hostile or not as she passed out.

  Samuel had rushed to Aaron’s side and opened his med-kit. Samuel had earned enough marks during basic to qualify for Reaper duty, though his combat scores were on the bottom tier. With his industrial background it had been decided that he was best suited to being the platoon’s medic.

  Samuel knelt by Aaron’s head and began his process by administering a general booster hypo containing a cocktail of hormones and stimulants that aided in the body’s resistance to shock. Salvage marines were exposed to many unknown environments in addition to combat damage, and though each marine represented a minimal investment on the part of Grotto, the cocktail did prevent unnecessary loss of life from shock or infection.

  Elite troopers had dropsuits that were, in addition to being high-end body armor, self-contained medical bays.

  Each elite dropsuit contained enough food and water for the soldier to survive for several days, on top of containing a full battery of medical hypos, regenerative tissue baths, and, according to the wilder rumors, even stem cells for organ and tissue cloning in the field.

  Samuel didn’t believe most of the things he heard about how good the elites had it compared to the lowly salvage marines, but after his time in the forges of Baen 6, his experience with medical attention made the salvage marines a definite step up.

  Back on Baen 6 a man with the kinds of grievous wounds that Aaron possessed would have been quietly euthanized, either by the foreman or the family, as the kind of medical debts that would be required to save his life would have been beyond the credit lines of most citizens. Samuel could not help but be in awe of the quality of the med-kit he was able to employ upon Aaron’s prone body.

  Elite troopers were like mythic space warriors, but for Samuel, the Reapers were real, he already had seen more value placed on the lives of these salvage marines than any forge worker.

  After the hypo he removed a small sealer pistol, typically used for burn victims, spraying it across Aaron’s eyes, hoping that he was able to save them in time for the man to recover his sight. Samuel heard a shout from Patrick and saw the man backing up as he tried to reload his rifle. With Mag passed out, the marine knew he had to get back into the fight.

  Samuel dropped his med-kit and launched himself into the t-section, unslinging his rifle. He raised it and began firing on the humanoid hostile. It wasn’t until his magazine ran dry that he realized he’d put so many holes in the creature that it was little more than a heap of torn flesh. Patrick stood watch as Samuel reloaded, then the marine returned to Aaron’s body.

  As Samuel worked on Aaron he could see dozens of spent shell casings and at least one bloody heap lying on the floor of the corridor Ben was guarding. Samuel realized that he must have been so focused on the fight at hand that he’d not even noticed the heavy machine gunner cutting loose with his large weapon.

  Using a sealer paste he managed to stop the bleeding and place emergency sutures on the larger gash points in the marine’s body, and though he would need major medical attention, at least the man was stabilized.

  “Hyst, patch me up and let’s get moving,” muttered Mag, as she regained consciousness and Patrick helped her to her feet.

  Samuel could see that she had lost a tremendous amount of blood. It was a testament to her force of will that she was standing at all. Ben and Patrick did their best to cover all the passageways as Samuel sealed and sutured Mag’s shoulder, then he took her combat rifle and reloaded it for her.

  “Patrick, take point, you’ll need Aaron’s rig,” Mag ordered as she slung her combat rifle in favor of her officer’s pistol. “Samuel, get Aaron on his feet. Takeda, rear guard.”

  “Sir, all due respect, but I don’t think Aaron should be moved,” disagreed Samuel as he removed the data rig and handed it to Patrick. “I’d have to pump him full of stims just to get him standing, could have long term adverse effects. I’ve seen that sort of thing in the forges, when people try pulling triple shifts.”

  “This is no forge shift, marine. We’re at the bottom of a mine in the middle of necrospace,” spat Mag as she racked the slide of her pistol to chamber a round and emphasize her point, “We get him moving or we leave him. Profit and loss. Copy?”

  “Copy, Sir,” said Samuel as he begrudgingly dosed Aaron with three stim hypos and held the wounded man down as his body began to seize briefly while the chemicals did their work. After a few moments Aaron groaned and meekly allowed Samuel to help him to his feet. The burn seals that covered his eyes made him blind, so Samuel had to hold Aaron up and wrap the man’s arm around his shoulder. It was awkward, but they managed to fall into formation and begin following Patrick down the dark corridors.

  Patrick swept his rifle left and right, up and down, in search of threats. After another fifteen grueling minutes, they reached the main hab doors without further incident.

  Ben could have sworn that he’d seen shapes moving in the darkness just at the edge of his mounted light. After the battle in the corridors he was positive that there were, in fact, hostiles pacing them.

  As Patrick removed his hand welder, Mag and Ben pulled security after illuminating the area with a flare, slowly sweeping their guns back and forth to cover the three passageways that converged on the gate.

  Samuel double-checked the sutures on Aaron’s chest and legs, alarmed to see that much of the flesh near the wounds had turned very pallid and a faint green tinge had appeared on the edges. Before he could investigate further, Patrick’s welder cut through the lock mechanism.

  Samuel gently eased Aaron into a sitting position against the wall, and then helped Patrick push open the hab doors. Ben continued to cover the passages while Mag stood a few steps back from the door as it swung open, prepared to fire upon any hostiles that mi
ght lie in wait.

  “Hyst, you’re with me. Patrick and Takeda hold his position until we give the all clear,” Mag ordered as she boldly moved into the hab. “If they want to hit us from the tunnels, now is the best time, so stay sharp.”

  Mag and Samuel moved into the atrium of the hab and found it to be obscured in just as much darkness as the tunnels had been.

  “Talk to me, Hyst, let’s see what you can put together,” ordered Mag while her mounted light pierced the gloom to reveal that they were in the labor staging area.

  Aside from engaging any hostiles encountered during a salvage, it was part of Reaper procedure to investigate the decline of any particular find. In this case, the mining facility had gone dark with little explanation or warning, and though the primary mission was to salvage the station, protocol demanded the establishment of a narrative. Not only did this aid management in their reporting of the haul, but also informed the marines on mission with any additional and perhaps critical details of what they might encounter.

  Samuel had trained for this element of the job and had outscored many of the other recruits. It seemed that his time in the quality control division of the forges had given him an eye for minutiae. As Samuel followed his light he took in as much detail as he could see, and began to piece together a possible scenario.

  The room had a small catwalk above them that provided access to the various panels and ducts above, presumably for repairs to the hab itself. All around the walls were empty racks where there usually would have been a plethora of mining tools, environmental suits, helmets, and safety cables. There were a few pieces of discarded equipment strewn about the floor, but the majority of the hardware that would be present in a functioning mining compound was nowhere to be seen.

  “This is strange. I understand the tunnels being cut off from central power, but most of these hab units have internal generators and backup generators,” Samuel observed as he and Mag moved deeper into the building, “Circumstance can knock out the internals, like an earthquake or explosion, whatever, but those backup generators are on a self-contained grid, the only way to shut them down would be manually.”